STARKVILLE — It’s the most important decision you will make.
That is what parents, counselors, and many adults normally tell a high school senior about choosing the right college.
For Cord Sandberg, the decision to attend Mississippi State University was the first step. The 18-year-old high school senior at Manatee (Fla.) High School, who describes himself as “a pretty boring kid”, decided June 11 to make a verbal commitment to MSU football coach Dan Mullen with the hope he would be the program’s next standout quarterback.
For most student-athletes, a verbal commitment is the last step before they sign the National Letter of Intent in February. For Sandberg, the proclamation started the debate.
“If I end up getting to MSU, I want to be able to play football and baseball,” Sandberg said. “It’s something I’ve done my whole life, and I want to make this work in college.”
In the new era of college football where spring football is a highly coveted training period and summer workouts with the strength coaches are all but required leaving little to no offseason for the student-athlete, Sandberg is interested in the old-school approach of being a multi-sport athlete at MSU.
“Now I’ll be on a football scholarship so that’ll be the priority but I keep being told by everybody at Mississippi State that I will be allowed to play both,” Sandberg said.
Sandberg could also be a highly-touted baseball prospect for the 2013 Major League Baseball Draft as he bats and throws left-handed, shows some power at the plate and covers a lot of ground in center field with above-average speed. If he were to arrive on the MSU campus, Sandberg would be one of the nation’s top college incoming freshmen on the baseball diamond.
“He’s super athletic,” Manatee baseball coach Dwayne Strong said. “He’s one of the better guys I’ve coached in 25 years of coaching. He’s got a pretty good toolset.”
Scouting services have Sandberg projected to be picked in the first three rounds of the 2013 MLB Draft in June – less than two months before he would be required to arrive for football practice with the MSU football team.
Sandberg has performed some of those athletic baseball skills by being selected and competing in a pair of national showcase workouts in Minneapolis and San Diego this summer.
“The whole experience is something I have trouble putting into words because it was one of the more awesome deals I’ve ever been a part of,” Sandberg said about the San Diego showcase. “From the hotel they put you in to the practice facility being a place where you could see the Pacific Ocean standing in the outfield, everything was beautiful.”
Sandberg’s selection to these national showcases signified not only his place among some of the best high school baseball talent in the country but also got him evaluated by professional scouts at both Target Field and Petco Park, which is home to the MLB’s Minnesota Twins and San Diego Padres.
After showing power from the left side in batting skill drills, Sandberg could see his draft stock rise to the point of at least $1 million even in the capped signing bonus era of the amateur draft.
“Just talking to different scouts there made me realize I’m going to have to schedule some home visits with professional teams this school year,” Sandberg said. “I’m in the information stage of where that stands right now and when the draft rolls around, I’ll have enough to make an informed decision on that part of the process.”
Mullen has never had to recruit a potential two-sport athlete since his arrival at MSU and never had to share time of a player with current MSU baseball coach John Cohen. The only instance of significance were Mullen dealt with a player being pulled in two sporting directions was when receiver O’Neal Wilder quit football to focus on running full-time for the Bulldogs track and field team.
Mullen has had this experience while recruiting Jeff Demps, a nationally recognized amateur sprinter and highly coveted football player during his time at the University of Florida.
The Gators program, under head coach Urban Meyer, allowed Demps to train with the United States Track and Field organization in the offseason and then compete on the football team as well. This summer Demps earned a silver medal in the 2012 Olympics on the U.S. 4×100 relay team and has accepted an invitation to training camp by the New England Patriots of the National Football League.
“You can go tell the recruit you have whatever relationships and I guess people do that (but) I think when they come and see how we interact with those sports and what a family, community the athletic department is then they see for-real it’s not just talking about it, it’s serious,” Mullen said.
In the mold of a former Mullen protégé Tim Tebow, the Bradenton, Fla., prospect is rated a four-star prospect by Rivals.com and a three-star recruit by 247sports.com and Scout.com.
Sandberg, who stands 6-foot-3, 205-pounds, passed for 2,187 yards and 19 touchdowns while rushing for another 813 yards and 10 scores in 2011 as a junior at Manatee High, where he led them to a state championship. Rivals.com ranks him as the 10th-best dual-threat quarterback in the country.
A behind-the-scenes key to finding the correct formula for Sandberg if he decides to enroll at MSU is the friendly relationship of Mullen with Cohen. Cohen, who will be entering his fifth season at his alma mater this spring, is an invited guest on the MSU sideline for every home game at Davis Wade Stadium.
“We’re very fortunate here to have a good relationship between coaches. John Cohen and I have a great relationship, so if guys want to play multiple sports here at Mississippi State it’s a very easy transition,” Mullen said. “There’s not a tug-of-war sometimes between coaches.”
Cohen agrees with Mullen’s assessment of the situation and says he can attest that this attitude is not the same on every college campus.
“One of the many things I admire about Dan is he’s a guy that’s constantly looking for something that going to make Mississippi State more attractive to the potential student-athlete,” Cohen said. “I’ve had many conversations with Dan about this subject and traditionally many football coaches are not as willing to share their athletes as Dan is here.”
Cohen used current Cincinnati Reds prospect and former Mississippi State football recruit Billy Hamilton as an example of a player that could’ve flourished in Starkville under the sharing of Mullen and Cohen. The two men were not head coaches of their respective sports at MSU in 2009 when Hamilton turned down a football scholarship to MSU and signed with the Reds after being drafted in the second round.
Hamilton is now on pace to shatter the all-time single-season stolen base record in minor league baseball.
“Dan and I would’ve made a Billy Hamilton (situation) work,” Cohen said with a laugh. “That wouldn’t even have been a debate. There’s no question about that with an outlier athlete like Billy Hamilton.”
During a visit on the MSU campus in late July, Sandberg toured not only the football facilities but also went through the tour of the Bulldogs baseball offices to ensure them he wants to be the rare dual-sport college athlete.
“I spoke to both Coach Mullen and (MSU football offensive coordinator Les) Koenning about baseball and they initially seemed fine with me trying to do this,” Sandberg said. “That’s when I went over to the baseball offices and thought ‘okay this is something I really want to commit to trying to do’.”
Sandberg has publicly repeated that if he feels like the burden of being a football and baseball player along with his academic coursework becomes too daunting of a task, he will choose the pigskin.
Without mentioning specific names due to NCAA regulations, Cohen says has a plan in place for dual-sport athlete between baseball and football in the fall to not overwhelm him with baseball activity and given him an opportunity to rejoin their fall sport for spring offseason practices if the baseball program is scheduled for just a light workout on that particular day.
“What you do is emphasize certain things throughout the week (of fall) and maybe allow that athlete to be with your players for 30 to 45 minutes per week,” Cohen said. “Baseball is not unlike golf in some athletic things so if comes in the cage and does some things off a tee, that’s not crazy. If a football player went to play a round of golf after practice, that wouldn’t be considered a crazy activity.”
Sandberg confirmed Cohen is scheduled to make a visit to the Sandberg house at the end of this month to go over out the plan for him as a Mississippi State student-athlete. The benefit of being a dual-sport athlete is the NCAA regulations for fall sports and spring sports recruiting calendars are obviously flipped so Cohen and Mullen have been able to pass along information to Sandberg during their visits even if one of the coaches is in what’s called a dead period of recruiting where the coach isn’t able to initiate contact with the prospective student-athlete.
“I understand that my wanting to do this is going to attract some attention and to be 100 percent honest, that’s completely the opposite of the intention here,” Sandberg said. “I’m really a laid-back kid that doesn’t find it necessary to seek attention. I just think not many people get the opportunity to try this in college and if I can, why not? I think it’ll be fun.”
However the decision or how many sports to play in college, which could actually be the most important in Sandberg’s athletic future, can’t be made once he arrives on the Starkville campus.
Let the waiting game continue.
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