Andrew Mundy On The Impact Of The NCAA’s Decision On His Career

Andrew Mundy is a RHP for Hofstra University and a 2015 graduate of St. John the Baptist. He, like thousands of other college players across the country had their season cut short. While the NCAA has announced they will grant them another year – that decision is not that easy for a fifth year senior. The following words are his own.)

First and foremost, I would like to thank everyone at Axcess Baseball and Vinny Messana for granting me the opportunity to write this piece. With everything that has happened within the last week, it is a tremendous opportunity for me to gain some closure with my playing career unexpectedly ending early. 

My baseball journey is much like any other baseball player out there. You wake up one morning and your parents hand you a ball and glove and take you outside to teach you how to play catch, not knowing what the impact that one moment would have on the rest of your life. Like most kids, I played little league and started travel ball as soon as I was old enough. It was pure fun. That’s all that it was and was the purest form of baseball I believe anyone will ever get to experience during their careers. Once I got to high school at St. John the Baptist my journey started to change, but the fun was never lost. Baseball became an avenue for me to gain opportunities I may not have had otherwise, and I began to realize just how good I actually was. Through the help of coaches there like John Habyan, Ralph Dalton, Ralph Carusillo, and JP Connors, I evolved as a player and a plan was put in place to get me to the next step. Throughout high school, I was lucky enough to play between the Long Island Titans and Next Level Titans during summer ball and had the opportunity to travel across the country playing the best teams in the nation at national tournaments. Coaches like Bobby DeMichael, Shaun Manning, Gregg Sarra, Steve Cashman, Tom Downey, and many others taught me how important the little things were on and off the field and what it meant to truly be a competitor. 

Coming out of high school, I decided to attend Hofstra University on scholarship and play for Coach Russo. One of the main reasons why is because I needed to play for a coach I believed I could trust, and immediately I knew I could put my faith in Coach Russo and that he would always be a straight up guy with me. I was right and I am so grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to play for him over the last five years. Coach Habyan had accepted the pitching coach job at Hofstra during the summer prior to my freshman year so I was lucky enough to continue working with someone who I was comfortable with and who knew me and knew what I needed to improve on as a freshman. Coach Nation came in last year and further helped me progress, trusting me in high stress situations to take the ball and get the job done. Coach Wessinger changed my whole mental approach not just in baseball but for how I viewed life in general. The coaches I was able to play for during my time at Hofstra got the best out of me and changed me as a person which is something I will hold dear to me for the rest of my life.

Regarding my teammates, they are and forever will be my family. Coming in as a freshman, you think you know it all as you have had success your whole life with baseball. The guys I played with quickly taught me how little I actually knew. Watching the upper classmen like Brendan Mulligan and Matt Weissheier go about their business and how they were as teammates showed me how to handle my business and eventually be a leader when it was my time to do so. I had the pleasure of playing with some incredible ball players like John Rooney, Teddy Cillis, Vito Friscia, Chris Weiss, Steven Foster, and so many more during my time there. Most importantly, my teammates were such great people. They taught me more about myself than I could have ever known if I had not been granted the opportunity to meet them at Hofstra. I was able to make lifelong relationships that I will never take for granted. The worst part about the decision being made to cancel the season is not that I cannot play. The worst part is losing out on the interactions with my teammates on and off the field and on bus trips or flights. That is what I will miss the most. 

As a freshman at Hofstra, I made 23 appearances out of the bullpen and was absolutely terrible. It was a very humbling experience for me, and I realized I had a lot of work to do if I was ever going to be able to help Hofstra win ballgames.

When my sophomore year rolled around, things were different. I started off the season extremely hot. My velocity was up, stuff had improved drastically, and I was a prominent piece of the pitching staff out of the bullpen. On March 4, 2017 against Charleston Southern, I tore my UCL and needed to get Tommy John surgery, missing the remainder of my sophomore season and most of my junior season. Words cannot describe the mental and emotional toll that the process placed upon me over the next year or so. Rehabbing four days a week and having to deal with multiple setbacks with my throwing program for months while having to watch your team play without you was something I had a hard time dealing with. When my junior year came around, I was still rehabbing, and things had changed within me for the worse. I was making mistakes left and right on the field as a teammate and off the field as well. Digging myself out from the ditch I had dug myself into was a long process and it took me a long time to get back to who I was. I would not have been able to do so without the understanding of my coaches and teammates at Hofstra, especially Coach Russo and guys like Kevin O’Connor and Rob Weissheier, who stuck by me and did not give up on me throughout the process. I officially came back 13 months later toward the end of my junior year, pitched well throughout my senior year, and decided to come back to Hofstra for my 5th year and begin my graduate studies. Unfortunately, I did not get to finish due to the decisions that have been made over the last several days.

It all seemed to happen so fast over the course of 2 or 3 days. First, with the cancellation of the Ivy League, our weekend series against Dartmouth had been cancelled. The next day, every 5 minutes it seemed like some new development was being reported regarding the sports world and the coronavirus. One by one, conferences throughout the country at all levels started cancelling or suspending their seasons, and we were just watching it happen and spread like wildfire. There was nothing any of us could do but wait and see. Ultimately, the CAA decided to cancel our season and it was heartbreaking. The feeling is hard to describe, but there is just this immense hollowness felt learning that this might be it. I’m sure all seniors throughout the country felt the same thing. Having a few days to reflect upon it, I understand the decision, but I still believe there were other alternatives that could have been kept in place first. Specifically, keeping the season suspended and reevaluating in a few weeks or a month or however long is deemed necessary. We all work so hard all year to have 4 months to try to win as many games as possible and make a Regional. It is hard to swallow that all that hard work, with the mindset that this is our last go around, has gone to waste. Luckily, the NCAA has done the right thing and has agreed to offer an extra year of eligibility to all seniors who lost their last season due to the decision to cancel this year. This at least provides hope and a slight form of relief to not only the seniors on my team, but throughout the entire country as we all try to cope with not being able to play at the moment. 

Even with the NCAA making this decision and giving me the opportunity to play another year, at this moment in time I do not know what my decision will be, making the decision to cancel this season much more difficult to deal with. I told myself going into this season that it was the last go around no matter the circumstances and was putting every ounce of mental and physical strength that I had left into this year. However, as all I have left to do now is think, who knows where I will be in reference to this decision in a few weeks. 

No matter what happens, to all my teammates, coaches, and anyone who has supported me that I have encountered throughout my many years of playing baseball, all I have to say is thank you. I would not be who I am without having met all of you. Most importantly, I must thank my parents, as they provided me with the means to play this game for as long as I have. I am forever grateful to this game, as it has changed me and made me a better person and provided me with a lifelong family of teammates and coaches.