As sports programs fold, some Broward College players are struggling to find new schools
J.D. Johnstone was just trying to make the most of his quarantine.
The pitcher was driving up the coast last month to watch SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Demo-2 launch from the Space Coast when he got a text message he assumed was some sort of bad prank.
Broward College was folding its entire athletic program, a friend told him. It seemed like such a massive decision Johnston assumed it couldn’t be true, until he read one article about the news and then got another text from another friend.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is reality,’” said Johnstone, who was in the abbreviated 2020 season after a standout career at Fort Lauderdale Westminster Academy. “I was comfortable there. I loved Broward, I loved my teammates and you know with COVID-19 — since that actually ended up happening this season and it unfortunately canceled our season — I didn’t get to play a full season with my teammates.”
Johnstone went numb, not knowing what was coming next. The SpaceX launch didn’t even go off because of bad weather. The Johnstone family turned around and the right-handed pitcher had two hours to think about what was next after his career with the Seahawks abruptly ended.
As soon as he got home, he sent a blind email to the coach at Palm Beach State College, a junior college program in Lake Worth. He was fortunate: Palm Beach State coach Kyle Forbes emailed him back and offered him a spot on the team for the 2021 season. Not everyone has had the same sort of luck, though.
It has been nearly three weeks since Broward proposed the elimination of all sports as a measure to combat the economic fallout of the coronavirus. The Board of Trustees at the Fort Lauderdale school, a four-year college with eight teams competing in the JUCO ranks, will vote June 30 to approve the proposed budget changes. Coach Gregg Bennis expects it to pass even as coaches and players take different measures to plead their case.
The day he found out, Bennis told his players to act as if the decision was final. The cliche was true: They could hope for the best, but they should prepare for the worst. He and his staff started to reach out to coaches all across the country to sell their players, and players tried to share highlight reels as widely as they could.
“We will find homes for most of them,” Bennis said. “South Florida baseball is kind of a hotbed for junior college baseball and we should be able to find guys a proper home. If not, at least a place to play. It might not be an ideal situation, but it’s going to be a chance for them to play.”
As decision day approaches for the Seahawks, Bennis’ optimistic prediction hasn’t been entirely true yet. About 80 to 85 percent of the roster, Bennis said, has committed to a new school for the 2021 season, but it still leaves a handful of players in limbo as they try to find homes in a world with dwindling scholarship availability and an entire inability to take visits.
A saturated market
Trace Moore has spent the last few weeks searching for a next step.
On paper, the sort of prospect who shouldn’t have trouble finding a home at some level. As a high school junior, Moore led Nova to the state championship for the first time since 2005 and was the Miami Herald’s Broward County Pitcher of the Year for Classes 9A-7A.
In the abbreviated 2020 season, Moore led the Seahawks with 34 1/3 innings pitched and 27 strikeouts, and led their starters with a 3.41 ERA. He’s a left-handed pitcher — always in demand — and he’ll have three years of eligibility left after spring athletes across the country were granted an extra year because of the coronavirus.
Right now, he falls in the 15 to 20 percent who still don’t know where they’ll be playing next year.
“It’s hard to find the next step because right now is a dead period,” Moore said. “We can’t see anybody face to face, we can’t visit campuses. All we can do is talk over the phone. ... I’ve texted back and forth with a couple of coaches, but it’s pretty hard to get something serious going.”
High school players opted for college rather than signing for $20,000 as an undrafted free agent. Sophomores and juniors —and even seniors — decided to come back for an extra year, hoping the 2021 MLB draft looks more normal. The JUCO ranks could become especially crowded as positional logjams build up at the Division I level and scholarship money is forced to be spread out among more players than anticipated.
There’s also the distinct possibility the 2020 MLB season won’t happen and the minor-league seasons almost definitely won’t, potentially leading to massive long-term financial ramifications. A lost season could permanently reshape the draft, the minors and simply the financial appeal of trying to become a professional baseball player.
The entire sport is in a precarious position. There are fewer baseball teams than ever right now and more amateur players than ever looking for homes.
“It’s not a good time to be a free agent in this sport,” said Gary Moore, the pitcher’s father, “and these kids weren’t free agents until a few days ago.”
A legacy ends
Broward’s players weren’t naive to the financial struggles buffeting nearly every industry because of the coronavirus. Schools were cutting sports, smaller sports leagues were folding and even the biggest programs in the biggest leagues were having employees take paycuts.
Still, the history of the program and the importance of JUCO baseball in Florida, the Seahawks hoped, would keep them safe.
Broward, formerly Broward Community College, has long been an ideal destination for a player like Moore. The Seahawks began playing baseball in 1962 and have produced one of the longest list of future pros of any JUCO, with more than 100 reaching some level of professional baseball, according to Baseball-Reference.com. Eighty-six Broward alumni have been taken in the MLB draft. Ten former Seahawks eventually reached the Majors, including Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Mike Fiers and former Miami Marlins starting pitcher Mat Latos.
Broward reliably produces Division I talent like right-handed pitcher Brian Van Belle, who signed a contract with the Boston Red Sox as an undrafted free agent Monday after a brief, brilliant season as the Miami Hurricanes’ ace in 2020.
JUCOs like Broward serve as a springboard for players who may not have had the financial means to play in high-profile summer showcases or perhaps were late bloomers. Moore, who had an 83-mph fastball at a public high school and didn’t play in many of the of those name-brand summer tournaments, fit the JUCO model to a tee.
“Kids fall through the D-I cracks,” Moore’s father said, “because they just don’t get seen or promoted.”
Colbe Crim did spend some time at the D-I level, but only briefly. The left-handed pitcher spent the fall semester with the Eastern Illinois Panthers, then put his name in the transfer portal over winter break. A scholarship opened up with the Seahawks around the same time and Bennis invited Crim to come to Broward.
It was even a struggle for him to find a next destination, although he did finally commit to JUCO Pasco-Hernando State College in New Port Richey earlier this week. For two weeks, though, he stressed. It wasn’t hard to find schools interested in his skill set and resume, but it was hard to find a school with scholarship money available.
At Broward, Crim had a full ride and even some of his housing was paid. With the school’s decision coming less than three months before most schools began their fall semesters, viable destinations were hard to come by. Scholarship money was already mostly allocated and there wasn’t much time for coaches to tinker with their rosters to find extra money lying around.
The Seahawks athletic programs, according to the school’s new budget proposal, encompass 147 students with an annual cost of $11,009 per athlete — a total of more than $1.6 million. The school will also be able to terminate 20 part-time athletics employees and four full-time employees could be subject to a reduction in force. Athletic director Michael Goodrich will stay on through next school year to help athletes find new homes. Athletes’ scholarships will also be honored through next year should they decide to stay at the school and not pursue an athletic career else as Broward, one of the largest schools in the entire country, moves on from sports completely.
Some of the money saved by dropping athletics will be reinvested in hiring additional academic advisors and tutors, and establishing food pantries after 28 percent of students in a 2020 survey said they were sometimes worried food would run out in their household.
“I know that we will come through this prioritization process focused on ensuring the greatest impacts and outcomes,” college president Gregory Adam Haile said in a statement. “Though difficult, these decisions reflect a focus on maximizing our capacity to transform lives and enhance our community. It is not enough just to know that our minority students and low-income students underperform compared to their counterparts or just to know that we do not have enough advisors to maximize the outcomes for our students. We must make material investments to close the gaps.”
The decision can’t become official until the end of the month, but everyone around the program is operating as if it’s over. Bennis and a group of other Seahawks coaches plan to plead their case at the board meeting June 30 and the athletes have circulated a Change.org petition with more than 3,000 signatures.
Most of their time, still, has been occupied with figuring out next steps. Bennis and his staff have worked their connections. Players, like Johnstone, have made some successful cold calls. Teammates try to amplify one another on social media or through their own scant connections.
“This shouldn’t be, for any of them, a career-ending decision,” Bennis said, “but they already had their plans in place and everything to play here this year.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 12:43 PM.
