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Today's Little Leaguers, and there are millions of them each year, pick up how to hit and throw and field just by watching games on TV. By the time they're out of high school, the good ones are almost ready to play professional ball.

I think sometimes you just need to play in this league. As a rookie coming out of college, you don't understand the real significance of being a pro unless you're playing other pros. It doesn't help you to play sporadically here or there.

I think you always have, you know, new players. Every year you see new faces, juniors coming into the seniors. I was one of them at the time long time ago now.

But I was so wrapped up in sports growing up as a kid, that I think I was going to grow to be a pro ball player. But I found out real quick that was not going to happen.

The guy who enters pro sports hasn't run scared from the 7th grade on. Until he enters the pros, it's been nothing but roses.

By that time I was thinking a little about pro ball and hopeful that someone would draft me.

I was tempted my junior year to go out of college and forgo my eligibility. I had broken several world records. I did have a lot of people telling me that I should go pro.

My message to a lot of guys is, if you like school and you like education, baseball is gonna be there, and you can get some of the same great competition in college that you do in the low minor leagues.

These kids are the future of the National Football League. They're the next generation that will be playing high school football, NCAA football, and some even to the pros.

Sometimes it's forgotten that players are coming to college to get a degree.