We sat down with Yale University Men's Baseball player, Brian Ronai, who spoke about how he got on his current coach's radar and how to prepare for college baseball mentally and physically. He also shared on how to adjust from being the best player on your high school team to being average on your college team, and how to deal with an injury during the recruiting process.
2020: Made ten appearances, registered a .308 batting average including three home runs, tallied seven RBI and scored seven runs… Went 3 for 5 against Old Dominion, hit two home runs, scored two runs and tallied two RBI in a win on March 1… Season canceled after ten games due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- HEIGHT: 6-5
- WEIGHT: 210
- CLASS: Senior
- HOMETOWN: Orange, Conn.
- HIGHSCHOOL: Amity Regional
Transcript
hey what's up guys this is Quinn – awesome and I'm here with sophomore the baseball team Brian Renee cool dude also my roommate shoutout Silliman ko1 a baby
let's go and see if he has advice for some recruits that might be interested in do the same thing so I'm just going to start off Brian by asking do you have any advice for high school kids who want to play ball at the next level to get on the coach's radar yeah
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for me and for most people that I went through the process with one of the biggest things is making a video getting in touch with someone from your high school maybe that has access video equipment and getting on the field with one of your coaches or your parent or one of your friends and Mishelle show them what kind of skills you have whether you're a pitcher you know getting some pitches from different angles from the back from the side so coaches can see your form and stuff like that same thing when taking swings different places all around and same thing in the field that way coaches can kind of see what tools you have right off of that and you know get an initial judgment as to whether they're they would be interested in you or not
awesome men um so that's a good way to like to get coaches on your radar what's a good way you think athletes should work specifically for baseball – but prepare themselves mentally and physically to play ball at the college level
yeah especially at the college level more so than high school a lot of people that go on to play at the college level are you know one of the better guys on their team in high school and when you get to college that's not always the case immediately there's definitely an adjustment process all the pictures that you're facing are the one or two guys on their high school team they all have a lot better stuff than a lot of the pictures you face in high school so if you're if you're initially discouraged right in your first you have bats that's normal that that's just a learning curve and once you see these guys day in and day out it becomes a lot easier that how it is initially so the big thing mentally is just it's just especially with baseball it's such a mental game you can't let your initial failures affect you and you just gotta trust that what you're doing and what your coaches are having you do is gonna get the job done and it usually all ends up working out
awesome man so last year you were freshman Yale set a school record for wins in the season one the I believe championship awesome season but what was it like to be on the team what give us a story like something funny there's something crazy that happened that only a guy on the team would know about
yeah so a little inside joke with me the team I was primarily a hitter last year I idh and played the feel a little bit but had some struggles defensively early on and we're playing it against Brown and we brought the infield in because it was runner on third base in a big spot and the ball could I hit right at me deal with the ball nicely and as I went to throw it at first I didn't really take into account what was going on and I threw the ball I knew like threw it away as soon as that threw it and I screamed oh no and everyone heard it and everyone thought it was hilarious we ended up winning the game so we can laugh about it now but a lot of it a lot of times the guys on the table will say oh no every once in a while on that kind of puts a smile on my face and reminds me of those struggles that that I just mentioned freshman year and how it's uh how far I've come from men because I have come a pretty long way on
say well that's good man glad you're not oh knowing all over the place you know oh it's not a and then it's real quick to finish things up we deal with a lot of recruits with a website just what was a crazy didn't happen you throughout the recruiting process that you think that a maybe could be a story that you could relate to other recruits yeah maybe it could be a good story or bad story just dealt with just
sure this is kind of kind of encouraging I'd say for a lot of people I my junior year well I started off I used to be really really small I was undersized I was a late bloomer I wasn't very mature my sophomore year I was about five seven maybe a buck fifty on a good day and then by the end of my junior year I was 6-4 and 175 pounds with room to get bigger and stronger so once I grew I to get more on coach's radar but I wasn't initially you know a college prospect going through the beginning of high school ball and I actually broke my hand that my junior summer so I was very discouraged I wasn't really in touch with too many coaches yet because I was just starting to show what kind of potential I had I was injured and I was gonna miss the entire junior recruiting summer which is which is a big big summer but I'm a local kid from Orange Connecticut which is pretty close to New Haven and I was able to went to a head first showcase which is an academic baseball showcase and the Yale coach was able to come watch a bunch of my high school games earlier that year so he had seen me and I didn't even know it and I got in touch with him there and any likely he saw it and I ended up coming here after some games he came to watch in the fall and the whole academic process so just kind of goes to show you you never know what's gonna happen of the entire process for me from when I initially started talking to the coach to when I actually committed was around 1 or 2 months it happened very quick when I went from I don't know what I'm gonna do I may even have to PG if I want to play college ball to come into a great place like Yale so just goes to show you you never know what's gonna happen that's kind of my recruiting story and hopefully that can help inspire some other guys who may be in a similar
that's awesome dude no it's incredible but it all worked out don't worry now we're boys man yeah real quick before we sign off quick prediction yoga take it all again this year
oh you know of course we all ha ha ha you heard it here first folks like I said guys I'm Quinn be sure to check out more videos like this on our website talk to you soon
Updated: by Keirsten Sires
* Originally published on June 1, 2020, by Quinn Dawson
