Entry #55 - 1/6/06

Happy New Year! I hope everyone has had a nice holiday season and is eager to make their 2006 the best year ever. It is hard to believe but "Opening Day" is only 26 days away. Our players will return to campus next week and once they arrive we will have 21 days to prepare to play our first game. Wow! Not a lot of time but I am optimistic that most of them will return to campus in similar condition compared to when they left for Christmas break.

It has been a very productive winter for our baseball program. Our fall season ended on a very high note as I felt like we improved in many areas. Our overall depth should be much better this season as we have a lot of players competing for playing time. This is a nice problem for a coach to have. There will be some intense competition during our 21 days of preseason practice.

Our momentum from the fall carried over into our winter strength and conditioning program as our players, once again really got after it in the weight room. Every one of our players left campus for Christmas break stronger than they have ever been in their life. This is the strongest and most physical team I have ever coached. It is tough to get these guys tired. They ate up our team conditioning this winter.

I am extremely proud of our player's work in the classroom this semester. Once again our team posted a team grade point average of 3.0. We had the highest GPA of all the men's athletic teams in our department. Eighteen of our 28 players had a GPA of over 2.9. The five players with the highest GPA's were Josiah Glafenhein, Troy Mendez, Scott Deans, Darren Caldwell and Caleb Glafenhein.

During the winter we also completed a recruiting period for the 2007 season. These recruits are players who are currently seniors in high school or sophomores in junior college. We had ten players sign scholarships to play for us in 2007. It remains to be seen but this recruiting class could be the best in the history of ETSU. The members of this recruiting class are Todd Caldwell, LHP/OF, Johnson City, TN, Brandon Langston, RHP, Ringold, GA, Tanner Moore, INF, Chattanooga, TN, Danny Petro, C/OF, Atlanta, GA, Bart Roark, INF, Mountain City, TN, Ryan Self, INF/C, Mt. Juliet, TN, Trey Sheffield, LHP, Alpharetta, GA, Drew Story, RHP, Jefferson City, TN, Justin Tramble, Marietta, GA, and Craig Wojciechowski, LHP, Knoxville, TN. All of these players have bright futures and we were very fortunate to have them choose ETSU over many other fine programs. I can't say enough about the fine job Coach Greene and Coach McClarrinon did with this class. These two coaches love to recruit and get after it. This class is a great indicator that our program is heading in the right direction. I am very excited to get this group on campus.

During the winter we also had another alumni get together. I want to thank Ryan McKinney for organizing the event and putting everything together. This is becoming a yearly tradition and it gets better and better every year. It is always nice when former players return to campus. These guys return every year because of the love they have for their teammates and because their baseball program remains very important to them. The stories these guys tell from their playing days are quite entertaining and as always they get on me about not being as tough on our current players as I was on them. I disagreed with them at first, but when I thought about it for a while I saw that they were definitely right about this. When we first took over at ETSU, there were some bad habits running deep in our program. In order to change these habits we had to do many things and most of them involved instilling discipline and toughness. As these guys came through the program they changed and as time went on their transformation rubbed off on the new players. Each year the transition has been easier and easier for our new players because of the foundation that was laid by the players who have been here before them. So now when our new recruits arrive on campus very rarely do I have to get on them about discipline and toughness. Yes we do still talk quite often with the team about these topics, but motivating them in these areas is not very difficult. I will always be in debt to all the players who have helped laid the foundation to our program and as a coach seeing your former players happy, successful and heading down the right path is as good as it gets.

Before I sign off I want to wish my brother Mike a happy 50th birthday. There is almost thirteen years difference between us, so as I was growing up Mike was like a second father for me. When Mike was finishing high school and going to college I was between the ages of 6 and 10 years old. I tagged along with him everywhere. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood were the times I spent with my brothers and sister during my pre-teenage years. My older siblings never shooed me away, I was always with them and their friends. I am very proud of Mike. He has a wonderful family with a loving wife and three great boys. He has a very successful business and is very active in his son's lives. Mike has coached all of them at some time or another and this past year he was named Coach of the Year in the East Cobb Summer Baseball Program. This is quite an honor when you consider the quality of that program and all the great coaches involved. So Happy Birthday Big Brother. Congratulations on reaching the half century mark, and now when we play golf you may have a chance now that you will be hitting from the senior tees:-). Until Next Time.....

COACH SKOLE