By Trey LaMay ’25
In The Frederick Gunn school’s history, there have been thousands of college athletes. These athletes have shown what it means to play a sport at the Frederick Gunn School and have gone on to continue to show their athletic abilities on the field or court at the collegiate level.
Less than 2% of High School athletes go on to play Division One athletics. Around 7% of High School athletes go on to play a sport in college. There are 1,100 NCAA schools. There are 361 D1 schools, 300 D2 Schools, 436 D3 Schools, and then 525 NJCAA schools. In an extensive investigative report, the Highlander News sports desk interviewed adults from different backgrounds about college recruiting. The former Sacred Heart University baseball coach Wayne Mazzoni, a recruiting expert said: “If your goal is to play your sport in college, be prepared that it will be the hardest thing you have gone through in your young life to date. Get organized, get some guidance, and buckle up for the journey. The outcomes are worth all the effort, but it will have a lot of ups and downs.”
The HN sports desk also talked with former Gunn baseball player and now Northeastern star Mike Sirota about how he felt during the process. “It’s unnecessary added pressure, but it’s nice to feel wanted.” Major League Pitcher Joe Zanghi, who had an up-and-down college experience but still made it to pro baseball. He said, “The unknown was some of the darkest times.” He emphasized “Am I going to be able to go to the school I want, or do I have to sacrifice that to be able to keep playing baseball?” The last idea he said was “Am I going to get a scholarship?” Showing all the factors that go into picking a school. The common theme when talking about college recruiting was the amount of stress put on these players, not only in the classroom but on the field. The staff wanted to see if anything had changed since these veterans had been recruited so The Highlander reached out to recent Hostfra commit Owen Laatsch for his thoughts on the process. “It was very exciting but also stressful. It was hard for me to not pick the name-brand schools but I knew at the end of the day, Hofstra was the place for me.” Also recently committed Brandon Rovenilli had this to say about his recruiting experience “The recruiting process was very fun but a stressful time that I wanted to end as soon as possible. I chose Columbia because they’re an Ivy league school with a great winning baseball tradition allowing me to play in the NCAA tournament and win the Ivy.”
