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Sports

Ivy League Baseball Recruiters Call on Local Prospects

High school ballplayers from nine states and Canada spent three days in New Lenox working on their game and learning about prestigious academic universities.

Former Major Leaguer Toby Harrah once said the following about a couple of summer pastimes, "They both (bikinis and statistics) show a lot, but not everything."

With summer coming to a close and thus signaling the end of bikini season--and even though football practice was under way at the adjacent football stadium--baseball was still on the minds of 45 student-athletes at Lincoln-Way West in New Lenox, Aug. 8-10.

While hitters are generally concerned about their batting average, runs and RBI totals, and a pitcher judges his success by his ERA, and now the WHIP as well, these athletes could just as well have been comparing their IQs and grade point averages as they were participating in the Midwest Academic Prospect Camp.

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For the second straight year, Prep Baseball Report (PBR) and Grades Plus Athletics (GPA) Baseball offered this special camp at Lincoln-Way West, which was led by coaches from seven prestigious academic schools.

Brown University head coach Marek Drabinski, Cornell University head coach Bill Walkenbach, University of Penn head coach John Cole and Yale University head coach John Stuper (also a 1982 World Series hero) gave the camp a strong Ivy League flavor. Georgetown University head coach Pete Wilk represented the Big East, Temple University's new head coach Ryan Wheeler also appeared for the Atlantic 10, as did Wake Forest University assistant coach Bill Cilento for the ACC.

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"It was a great opportunity for high-level academic kids to get in front of high-level universities," said Sean Duncan, owner and publisher of PBR. "So many kids get wrapped in playing for a better baseball program and the statistics show that 99.9 percent won't collect a check playing baseball once they're 24 (years old), so it's smart to get into the best academic school."

In addition to local participants from Illinois attending, talent from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, North Carolina, Missouri, Texas, California and Canada made the journey to New Lenox where having seven talented, understanding and experienced instructors for 45 campers made for an excellent staffing ratio and plenty of personal attention.

"It made for a great ratio of coach-to-player, which was great for the kids," Duncan said. "A lot of hands-on training."

The goal of GPA is to provide camps for quality students and high caliber ballplayers in order to increase interest in the various institutions where the instructors coach as well as for the participants and their families to experience each university's program. Similarly, PBR promotes high school baseball and aims to help ballplayers achieve their dream of playing at the next level.

The camp included several hours of evaluation, instruction and skills drills and wrapped up with games in the afternoon on Wednesday and again on Thursday morning. The program also featured a recruiting seminar, which was ideal since most participants were from the class of 2012 and 2013.

While it's tough to get into Ivy League schools, they're also very stringent on the timeframe of getting in, something that many might not be aware of, especially when it often takes a while for one to finally commit to a university.

"One of the more interesting things they said was you have to be admitted into a school by Jan. 1 before your senior year," Duncan said. "It's sped up exponentially, so if you're a junior who grows several inches and adds 10 miles per hour to your fastball in April, then you're out of luck."

The Midwest version of the camp has landed at Lincoln-Way West the past two years thanks to Duncan's relationship with Warriors' athletic director Ted Robbins.

"Ted was my athletic trainer at Deerfield (High School) and we stayed in contact," Duncan said. "We just seemed to bump into each other randomly and then he took the job at West. So, we asked if we could use the field, because it's a beautiful place with a great layout. He rolled out the red carpet for us. It's a first-class place and Ted is one of the best human beings I know."

GPA has its fifth and final camp for 2011 scheduled for Oct. 29-30 in Clearwater, Fla. While plans have not been finalized for 2012, Duncan said that he'd love to see the camp return to New Lenox again next year.

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