(Editor’s Note: Mike is a 2019 graduate of Half Hollow Hills West HS in Dix Hills. He is a very talented C/3B that recently committed to NYIT following a strong season for the co-League 4 Champs. The following words are his own…)
From the first time I had stepped foot on campus, met the coaching staff and heard the opportunities within the program, I knew it was a dream to play for the Bears at New York Institute of Technology.
Over the summer, I had reached out to my high school coach for Half Hollow Hills West, Coach Tom Migliozzi, saying that I needed more connections with colleges that he was close to. I told him NYIT was somewhere I would love to play, especially because they has just hired Long Island baseball legend Frank Catalanotto. I met him when I was only ten years old–we had done team lessons together for the former organization Long Island Inferno. I always looked up to him for making it out of the island, and modeled myself after his high-character as a former big leaguer.
When interest started growing, I visited the campus where Coach Jim Goelz walked me around the campus. The first thing we went to see was the field, which I immediately fell in love with. Coach Goelz was extremely easy to talk to as a Coach, and told me the goals of what him and the staff wanted to do with the program in the future and I knew this was exactly the type of baseball I would want to be a part of. He talked about what it was like to be there as a player when it was a Division-I school that played independently. Now they are a Division-II school that is looking to compete in the highly-competitive East Coast Conference.
The coaches wanted to see more from me to get a concrete idea of the player I am and skills they can work with. Unfortunately, at one of the games in August that Coach Frank Battaglia attended, I fractured the tip portion of my finger and was sidelined for about a month.
Recently, Coach Catalanotto reached back out to me saying he wanted to talk a little now that I was healed. In this call, he proposed to me the offer that pushed me even further to decision that I came to. The call was extremely exciting for me, it showed me that all the hard work put in to get to that point was all worth it. This provides more motivation for me to work harder and get better day by day.
The staff at NYIT pushed me greatly in making this decision. All of the coaches are extremely personable people, they made me feel at home when I visited and that it was one family that all wants to win. I am ecstatic to be joining the Bears next fall, and would like to express my gratitude to everyone who helped me get to the point I am at today. My family, friends, teammates and coaches have all been a major part of this journey that is only beginning from here, and I would personally like to thank everyone who made it possible.
