THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO
UBC consistently attracts the top recruits, and graduates the top prospects
When Terry McKaig goes into a home to try to recruit a high school baseball player for the UBC Thunderbirds, he comes armed with one sheet of paper containing the names of all the alumni who have been drafted to the majors, and another listing the doctors, financial planners and the like that the program has helped produce.
You can guess which copy the kid gravitates to — and which one the parents want to see.
“The 18-year-old, at that point, doesn’t care how many surgeons have played on our team,” says McKaig, the longtime UBC head coach who became the program’s director of baseball this season, turning over the bench boss reins to former Vancouver Canadian Chris Pritchett in the process.
“And the parents could care less about the draft list. They want to see what kind of career their son could be going on to once school is over.”
It’s a standard recruiting practice, in some fashion, for various university teams. It’s that way because it works. McKaig says the program’s donors and sponsors are more interested in the list that shows what players have gone on to do after baseball is over than the one that shows which major-league team grabbed their rights.
“Jeff Francis got to live the dream,” McKaig says of the lefthander who went on to make more than 200 starts in an 11-year MLB career.
“But we all know what the stats say. He was the one guy who got that chance.”
UBC is holding its annual alumni get-together this weekend, in conjunction with the current team’s four-game set against the College of Idaho at Thunderbird Park. (Doubleheader on Saturday starts at 1 p.m.; doubleheader Sunday starts at 11 a.m.)