(07-13-2017 11:46 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Recruiting is part of the battle but equally important is player development. Van Hook was at Rice for six seasons and I'm not sure he was making a huge difference in that latter area (he was considered the hitting, fielding and base-running coach I guess?). In fact, I'm pretty sure many of us could name a list of past assistant coaches under Graham and most would put him pretty much at the bottom of the list (well Eat More Vole might put him ahead of Hallmark but maybe that's the only coach he'd be ahead of).

Let's see who the replacement is before getting too far ahead of ourselves over a recruit who just finished his sophomore season of high school. Speaking of which, UH has lost two high profile assistant coaches this baseball offseason but they did a pretty good job of quickly replacing them with solid replacements. Hopefully we'll make an equally solid and quick hire as well.

Fort Bend Owl makes my point on player development ((really student development) because not every player pans out but they all learn life lessons) much more succinctly. Rice recruits character, and our coaches, especially the original OG, then molds these students into even better citizens, whether they have one varsity at bat or a post Rice 20 year MLB career!