Baseball returns to the USD athletic community
Soetmelk organizes club team
By Jeremy Hoeck
Published: Wednesday, March 2, 2005
For one member of the USD population, the game of baseball meant so much that he decided to take on the task of forming his own club team.
After failing to make the baseball team at Wayne State in Nebraska, sophomore Zach Soetmelk had the idea to start up a team on campus at USD.
Soetmelk was one of the members of the varsity baseball team who was cut last April because of a budget issue. He was also one of four redshirt freshmen on that team last season.
After months of preparations, the Soetmelk-led Coyote club baseball team is finally ready for competition. Their spring season gets underway March 21 against Morningside at East High School in Sioux City at 3 p.m.
"When you start out with four guys and no money, you really don't know what's going to happen," Soetmelk said. "I e-mailed Steve Mayer (USD campus recreation director) to see if we could start a club team."
From there, Soetmelk, who is the team's president, had to find a way to raise the $1,500 necessary to join a national baseball organization. And once that money was raised through player dues and fundraisers, the team had to find a perspective conference that would welcome USD. . . .
Next, the issue for the baseball team was to find uniforms. However, some of the jerseys that were left over from the team last spring had been either taken by former players or stolen. Any extras were given to women's basketball coach Chad Lavin for his adult softball league. Instead of returning the jerseys, Lavin gave Soetmelk and the team $250 out of his own pocket to buy new uniforms.
"We're still in the process of raising money," Soetmelk said. "We want to get to around $3,000, but we're only at around $2,000. We're hoping to make a thousand off the shirts we're going to be selling."
Nineteen players make up the Coyote roster. The Coyotes will compete in 23 games this season and Soetmelk hopes that number will increase in the coming seasons.
"We feel that baseball is extremely important at USD," Soetmelk said. "Baseball is usually one of the major sports on any campus, at least it should be." . . .
Now that can't be fun. Did you see the picture of the team bus at the top of this post? Is that a Saturn?
I can't say that I ever went to a baseball game at USD when they had baseball. I wasn't sad to see it go.
When I lived in Vermillion I happened to attend quite a few games and even enjoyed them. So, being a fan of baseball, not a fan of USD baseball, I was sad to see it go.
The City of Vermillion has a lot of work to do on Prentis Park, and it's too bad for USD and the City that USD could not be a part of that. I think the last time I was down there they had at least tore down the condemned bleachers and were beginning to rebuild.
Baseball is a popular sport down in your neck of the woods. I'm suprised you're not more supportive of it.
Sure I do. I felt bad for your seniors this year that they didn't get to compete for a conference title or any postseason whatsoever. When they signed at State nobody told them that they might be going DI and that they wouldn't be able to compete for anything their senior year.
I also felt bad for some of your men's players this year in games against Southwest, Morningside, etc.
So yes I do think of people other than myself.
No reason to feel bad for them, they got to play in Division I. If they didn't want to play D-I, they had ample opportunity to transfer.
Transfering to a different school after 3 or 4 years is a great option. I guess you could say the same thing about USD baseball players, if they wanted to play baseball they could transfer to a different school.
Our Jackrabbits were D-I Varsity athletes. Men's basketball remains a "real" sport on the SDSU campus. Unlike your baseball team that was cut due to your institutions lack of compliance with Title IX and subsequent law suit. So, I think, you will be hard pressed to make a comparison that will work between a NCAA D-I Men's basketball team and your "Club"/beer league Baseball team. :
Go State! ;D
P.S. I am unaware of any stories written about how former Jackrabbit Varsity Athletes tried out and failed to make other teams. I would gladly reconsider my position if you could offer up similar proff to the Volante story, that supports your position.
Our Jackrabbits were D-I Varsity athletes. Men's basketball remains a "real" sport on the SDSU campus. Unlike your baseball team that was cut due to your institutions lack of compliance with Title IX and subsequent law suit. So, I think, you will be hard pressed to make a comparison that will work between a NCAA D-I Men's basketball team and your "Club"/beer league Baseball team. :
Go State! ;D
P.S. I am unaware of any stories written about how former Jackrabbit Varsity Athletes tried out and failed to make other teams. I would gladly reconsider my position if you could offer up similar proff to the Volante story, that supports your position.
A lot of nights there wasn't much difference between your mens basketball team and a club/beer league basketball team.
I didn't say you had players that were cut by other teams, what I said was you had seniors that weren't good enough to transfer anywhere else, just like a lot of our baseball players.
While I don't miss baseball at USD at all, I do feel bad for the current players who came to USD to play baseball. Just like I feel bad for the current SDSU players who went to SDSU with no idea that they were going D-I. Now they are there, stuck in the transition period, with nothing to play for. If one doesn't feel bad for these players then I would have to ask them if they ever think of anyone but themselves. You can think SDSU made the right move in going D-I and still feel bad for the upperclassmen at SDSU who were already there when they made the move. Just like I think it was a good move that we cut baseball, but I still feel bad for the current players.
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