TheWaveReport.com - Team USA gig impressive for Jones, Tulane

July 8, 2008

Scott Kushner
TheWaveReport.com Senior Editor

Rick Jones left no doubt. He is honored to be chosen as the coach for USA baseball's 2009 campaign.

Chances are if you run into Jones in the foreseeable future you can expect a hop in his step and the Star Spangled Banner on his lips. But the question Tulane fans have is: should they sing along?

The answer is unequivocally yes. And there should be no argument.

Any slight concerns over his stressful schedule, or worries about him "double-dipping" should be wiped out by the potential positives this gig has attached to it.

Not just for publicity and bragging rights, but for that all-important and intangible object known as "prestige".

You know prestige, it's that little thing recruits mention in every conversation. The word free-spending donors salivate and obsess over.

Well Jones' nomination into the USA baseball program gives it a fairly serious boost.

Just a year ago, the Tulane baseball team postseason missed the postseason, as a vagabond renting an off-campus ballpark with a coach scraping for talent anywhere he could find it.

Look at things now.

The Green Wave fields a team which found its way to the regional finals while playing in a sparkling new stadium and has enough incoming talent to send a sincere message of hope for the program's future.

Add to that Tuesday's Team USA announcement and the national perception of the Green Wave baseball program appears to be back where it was pre-Katrina. Remember back when Tulane was No. 1 in the country, fresh off a draft featuring two top 20 picks, and had a new stadium on the immediate horizon?

Those were good days for Tulane, but they didn't last long. One storm, and just like a lot of things in New Orleans, everything the Green Wave worked for was wiped away.

The College World Series didn't matter. Rick Jones didn't matter. The draft didn't matter.

That new stadium, for all anyone knew, was gone.

The reputation of Tulane baseball from the outside was one of utter disrepair ? not so much because of on-field results but circumstances out of their control. It left Green Wave fans wondering, often and aloud, 'what-if?'

A fair question, considering all the momentum that took so long to build was completely dashed in essentially a moment. In a week, Tulane went from the most dominant program (yes, better than the almighty LSU) in the most popular state for college baseball to a little-sister-of-the-poor.

Now that reputation has come full circle.

The USA collegiate team is no joke. It features the 22 best NCAA players in the country and is a legitimate feeding frenzy for Major League scouts with high draft picks to spend. That group is being led, for all intents and purposes, by Tulane.

From here on out, when Jones talks to a high school player, he can honestly say he will have coached the top draft picks in the country. He will be a part of more success than he's ever enjoyed before.

And ultimately, even though he won't win another game until March, his reputation across the college baseball landscape is about to grow like it rarely has before.

Tulane will just be along for the ride. After all, it's just getting back the prestige it rightly deserves.

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