Kyle Crooks

But it's a double-edged sword.

You know, that means players can leave here too.

And this is a competitive program that I believe has high standards.

And, you know, you've got a player that doesn't like what he's getting, you know, he can walk out the door here as well.

And that sucks.

I don't like that.

That's a loss for us.

It hurts.

It'll never not hurt me emotionally.

to lose somebody because we try to invest everything we have in our players.

And so that in and of itself, the portal, it's changed the way – I guess it's given kids an ability to kind of make a mistake on the recruiting end and make – this is my words, not everybody's, but maybe you made a decision to go somewhere for the wrong reasons and whatever those reasons are and you have an opportunity to kind of fix that and go somewhere else.

Problematically, I think you're giving them too many opportunities to make those mistakes.

So, you know, if I had a magic wand and I was the commissioner, I would say you get one and that's it.

But I'm not that guy, so I don't get to do that.

And then NIL is something different.

You know, it's made its way into the Division II landscape.

It's definitely more of a thing at the Division I level.

But it's here.

And, you know, you've just got to wrap your arms around it and, you know, what you're able to do financially at the university as an athletic department and as a baseball team specifically, you're able to do.

And that falls on me in terms of raising money and raising funds.