By: Ricky Babcock
The staff here at The College Baseball Blog has asked me to write a weekly blog giving you the reader’s insight into life at a mid major program. I’m Ricky Babcock, a current student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the only D1 baseball program in the state, I was a catcher for the last two seasons but now I’m a student assistant for baseball operations. This position allows me to practice the skills I’m learning in the classroom while I gain experience at a D1 athletic department.
My duties for the program include the administrative tasks of statistics analysis, travel planning, video/film coordination, practice scheduling, game management, as well as player relations. This is a general overview of the things I do, but it’s definitely an exciting but hectic position. I hope to provide some information about Horizon League contests to the website, as well as our weekly recaps from our travels all around the country.
Right now the players are working individually within their position groups. We unfortunately are such a small program within our athletic department we share facilities with all of the other sports (volleyball, basketball, track/field) so getting work done is usually squeezed into small blocks of time. The players get plenty of swings and cage work but fielding drills and defensive work has been minimal during the “winter individual” workouts.
We have a great opportunity to open our season at Arizona State which we are all looking forward to. It should be a good time getting out of the cold Wisconsin weather and to a sunny and warm destination to play against some of the best competition in the country. You can look for this posting on either Monday or Tuesday each week after we return from our weekend adventure.
