 I'm your host, Cheryl Crozier-Garcia, inviting you to join us live here in the studio. You can do that by calling area code 808-374-2014 with your questions or comments, or tweet us at thinktechhi. Today we're going to do something a little bit different. We are going to celebrate the boys of summer, specifically our Hawaii Little League team that won this past weekend the World Series for Little League Baseball. Our Hawaii boys did really, really well and the final game versus Japan was phenomenal. So what's next for these elite athletes in the bodies of young men? Joining us today to talk about the opportunities that are part of winning these kinds of very prestigious games is coach Darren Vorderberg from Hawaii Pacific University. Coach V is the head basketball coach and he is well experienced in college recruiting for scholar athletes and he's going to tell us today how our Hawaii boys can position themselves to take advantage of the opportunities that are going to come to them as a result of winning the Little League World Series. Welcome coach. Well, good. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. It's always good to talk to you. Appreciate that. So our Hawaii boys have endeared themselves within the sporting community because they won the Little League World Series and I watched the semifinals and finals of those games and to be honest they are as good as professional players I think. No errors. They may not pitch as fast or hit as hard as adult players but in terms of the skills that are necessary I think to play in the big leagues our boys have it and it's always nice to see Hawaii people do well in these kinds of national and international competitions. Tell us about some of the Hawaii people that have differentiated themselves from the pack by doing well in sports. Who do we have? And use as examples. You know, we've lived here for about 13 years now and my whole life has been connected with sports so it's been a joy for me to study the history of sports in Hawaii and what a great sports community this is. It was a good weekend, UH won their first football game and Hawaii won the Little League World Series. A friend of mine was sending that out over social media that with the impending hurricane it was kind of nice to get a couple pieces of great news but congratulations to the Little League team. You know what a way to represent your family, your community, you know there's been some talk that a lot of those guys prior to the two previous teams that have won the Little League World Series this was a lot of the more central Oahu kids that came from the area that we're not too far from right now. So and Hawaii has tremendous baseball tradition. I don't know a lot of people know it but there's a guy named Cartwright who's buried up New Iwanu near the New Iwanu Judd intersection who's credited with inventing baseball. There's a big debate over whether double day or Cartwright invented it and most people think that Cartwright really invented it and then came here and was a fireman. But you know Hawaii's just a baseball state. There's so many things that contribute to it. We've got the culture. It's an outdoor state. You can be outdoors playing all the time. As you've mentioned other tradition we have I was the athletic director at HPU in 2010 when the our women's softball team won the national championship for NCAA Division II and again it's that baseball softball culture that Hawaii has excelled at exceptionally. Colton Wong is playing professionally the fly in Hawaiian played for Philadelphia. We just had so much success in that area and these guys I think this young team that just had success can credit to those people you know you hear that a lot but I think people really do need to take a deep breath and remember the way has been paved for us. There's a tradition of people that have gone before us so that we can do the things that we're capable of doing now. And I certainly remember going back back back back to the old school days of course Shane Victorino from Maui with the Phillies and also going even further back Sid Fernandez with the Mets. Kaiser grad. That's right and Derek Tatsuno a pro city high school grad who went on to greater fame playing playing professional ball in Japan. So it isn't only by any from HPU that's right and then also had a successful Japanese career. So our boys that won this weekend are following a legacy a path that was paved for them by guys like Shane Victorino Derek Tatsuno all those folks and it isn't only I think in baseball that we have a history of really phenomenal world-class athletes certainly in football Rich Miano Russ Francis Marcus Marriota Marcos Marriota DeForest Buckner's playing with the 49ers right now I just saw his I think I was in Jack in the box the other day and there's a life-sized poster of him in there. And we have dominated Sumo for the last what 50 years I mean Jesse Kuhalua wrestling under the name Sekiwaki was the first non-Japanese to ever win a sumo tournament and then of course we have a Kebono and Konishi and Musashi Maru and some of the other big big big sumo names and when I say big in sumo I don't necessarily mean in size I mean in terms of reputation fan base and winning championships so what he really has in a lot of ways not only created a legacy for athletes going forward but I think there's also kind of a idea in Hawaii that in some ways we may not be good enough to compete on the world stage I don't know where that came from but it does sometimes seem to be like well we cannot we cannot play at that league or at that level etc so what do you think about that and how do we how do we get people to to realistically understand that they can be just as good from Hawaii as they can be from other places I think there's a couple things that play there one is I think culturally in Hawaii compared to many other states that I've been to there is a humbleness there's a humility that I've sensed that that kind of lends itself to not being arrogant and you have to be careful because I believe humility is a positive thing and coaches always teach that but you know we always say that humility is not thinking less of yourself it's thinking of yourself less not being so self-centered but to be humble doesn't mean that oh well I'm no good but I think sometimes you have to be careful because you can be humble but also be confident right I think another thing at play is that in Hawaii we don't always get the experience in competition that other people get a little league team from Kansas can drive down and play Oklahoma teams or take a bus trip and play Colorado or maybe a team from Missouri will come there we don't get that in Hawaii our little league team you know unless it saved up and washed a lot of cars and sold some candy bars and was able to get a sponsor and maybe go make one weekend or week trip they don't get that same experience so I think sometimes that internalizes we haven't played as many people we're not sure how we would do against outside competition so it's always so valuable when these teams achieve at the level that this team just achieved from and like I said the people that have gone before that that was mentioned to these guys hey we've won the world's little league world series before these guys knew going into it we can do that you know we don't need to be scared of anybody or anything yeah and these guys have done that now for a team in the future that we'll refer back to hey the 2018 team did this we can do it in 2020 I hope so I'd like to see us win five six years undefeated with with little league as well as with other sports right you know certainly hpu has a history not only with the women's softball team but basketball we have done a number of division championships but you're right it is a lot of portuguese sausage and car washes and raffle tickets and carnivals and all this kind of thing in order to raise enough money and it costs big money doesn't it to send 15 or 16 athletes plus whatever chaperones are necessary plus the equipment plus the coaching staff etc we could be talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars yeah it's expensive and then you know it's a different dynamic when when the hawaii team goes over to california for a tournament they're also on vacation uh you know i know a lot of times they'll they'll go to disneyland because hey we're over here which is great they'll go visit colleges i know a lot of coaches will say hey well we're over there let's go visit two or three universities so so while we're here you can get that experience so even sometimes when the teams are over there it's not completely a business trip and the california teams that are there well they live there so they they are more focused so that's just an additional challenge that hawaii teams have when they're on the road and they're not staying in their own beds and they're playing local teams in the california area or wherever they've gone sure not to mention things like jet lag right um if they're playing in colorado issues with altitude sickness and different events like that weather issues i remember looking at high school bands in the macy's thanksgiving day parade and they literally i don't know why they have this but they have girls dressed in semi hula kind of attire and they have to wear body stockings and long things underneath their uniforms because it's so steep and cold for us it's cold that's right now the new york people are running around like woohoo whatever but our hawaii kids are shivering yeah so so these the weather issues the jet lag and all of that that has to be overcome too how do you train for something like that i think part of it is preparing ahead of time that this is the mission of our trip and i got the sense from watching the guys uh the little league team that they had done a good job you know we're going here to be successful in baseball you know when we get a chance we might do some fun stuff along the way maybe it's community service maybe it's visit a uh a university maybe it's go to the hotel swimming pool but if you do your work ahead of time and the guys have traveled previously they know that hey if we've raised this money or if people are investing in us to go over here to play baseball that needs to be our primary focus it's not a vacation and then coaches do a good job of we need to eat similar to how we've been eating we need to get to bed at a similar time and you know coaches can overthink that at times i've got myself doing that you know well i want to get in this routine every little thing matters but it is important to be aware of the details you know i was speaking of coaches i was uh as you know the little league world series championship game took place this past weekend at the same time the rest of us were hunkering down and waiting for the storm to come right and i was especially impressed they did a press conference as the hawaii team had been named to go into the finals and the coach actually got teary eyed about how you know we're we're really playing for the folks back home who are trying to overcome the storm etc so how does that also play into how well the kids do because they were worried about their families just the same as everybody else was yeah and you know being an older guy having lived in many different places and several states and then come to hawaii for these last few years of my life um you know hawaii's a unique place um you know and i don't know i i've always sensed i don't know if this is the right word if we don't we got a little chip on our shoulder i i've almost since to develop that myself sometimes you feel a little slighted you feel you know people on the mainland will say hey when are you coming back to the states well we're in the states okay um and you just you feel like you get overlooked sometimes um and i think that can be used as a positive as we talked about a minute ago you know as long as you don't take that as well we're inferior but you know we've seen different cultures all through history that hey if i got to overcome something that's going to be a good motivational tool i think hawaii has some of that i've tried to internalize that myself so when you when i saw the people on tv talking about hey we're playing for the people back home and the storm you know the storm was an added um impetus and and it did add some emotion to it but even without that hawaii more than other states you play for your state when you're on the road yeah i just there's something about it i i didn't experience that till i moved here i've lived in cancass and missouri and traveled all over the the country in the world playing basketball or coaching basketball and it was only until i got here and went to california i've gone to alaska you know origan and you've got hawaii pacific university you've got hawaii on your chest there's a different level of pride it's like hey we're the we're the unique state we're the ones out in the ocean that sometimes you overlook and sometimes you don't think about i think the storm was just an additional something to that mm-hmm you know we this time is really just flying and we need to go to break already all right so uh everyone stay tuned uh we're gonna take a look now at some of the other great programming here on think tech hawaii i'm charol kerja garcia this is working together and we will be back in 60 seconds are you tired of sleep walking through life are you dreaming of a healthier wealthier happier you you're not alone and that's why thousands of people tune in each week to watch rb kelly on out of the comfort zone tuesdays at one p.m make a change get the help you need and stop sucking at life the army we're going to go live oh hello it's one p.m on a tuesday afternoon and i'm your host rb kelly welcome to out of the comfort zone when i was growing up i was among the one in six american kids who struggle with hunger and hungry mornings make tired days grumpy days kind of days but with the power of breakfast the kids in your neighborhood can think big and be more when we're not hungry for breakfast we're hungry for more more ideas more dreams more fun when kids aren't hungry for breakfast they can be hungry for more go to hungarees.org and lend your time or your voice to make breakfast happen for kids in your neighborhood welcome back to working together on think tecawaii i'm charol kerja garcia and we are talking baseball with uh coach darin verter brugge at huaipa civic university so coach uh we have these world champion little league athletes um they have kind of differentiated themselves from the rest of little league players because they won the world series and now i'm guessing that they will be on the receiving end of a lot of attention from college scouts and coaches who are looking to build baseball teams uh for their respective universities in the future right how can these boys position themselves to be uh seen as the kinds of players that these coaches and the scouts want to recruit for their universities i think that's a great question uh and having spent my life around student athletes the last 30 years on the high school side and then the last 20 so on the on the college side i've been fortunate to see both sides of that uh and and i even my son was a collegiate student athlete so i got to go through it as a parent and that can be daunting for for student athletes and for parents uh you know they may go through that one time in their life when their student you know maybe they went to college maybe they didn't maybe you're not they were a student athlete as a parent and oftentimes not so they have no experience so i think it can be overwhelming because you're dealing with coaches and schools that do this all day every day so there's a business to them and they're recruiting uh the little league world series championship is great resume material um and those guys can put that on there and and hopefully build on that and part of the again we talked earlier about the the humility of hawaii and the you have to be careful with that people people obviously want people who aren't bragging and and full of themselves and not going to be team players but you have to sell yourself if you want to play college athletics it's it's not like hollywood where now everyone's going to coaches are going to be lined up knocking on your door and when you open your mailbox it's going to be full of letters you know that happens to the top handful of baseball and basketball of football and basketball players uh it does not happen to 99 percent of the athletes in in the world i think one one bit of advice i could give that i've seen i think students and parents need to talk do i want to play college athletics um so many players don't maintain or don't don't have the retention and get through four years it's it's rare um but it's their identity they've been playing since they were five they played throughout school and they enjoyed it more than they enjoyed class and they've had success and that's their friend group and that's how they've gotten attention and it's hard for them to picture i'm not going to be an athlete i mean we see michael jordan and mohammed ali have trouble picturing what am i going to do you know keep hitting me and let me play let me keep boxing longer than i should because i don't know what to do next so i would really encourage parents and students to have that conversation and for parents to be able to support students if they say i just want to get my degree and and move on to my next phase of life maybe four years earlier than you thought i was going to and i'm not trying to discourage people from being college athletes but it's a different level of commitment at the collegiate level and i think that deserves at least a conversation before you move on a baseball is is unique too in that more than other sports they draft out of high school and and there's this track which is much similar much more similar to soccer in europe where hey if you want to go play professionally you focus on that now and then get your degree later and you and i as educators kind of bristle at that sometimes and think oh but the education is so important but that's the nature and the design of baseball in america so it's very common that students have to make a decision okay i've been drafted three hundred and sixteenth by the st louis cardinals or i'm being offered a scholarship that'll pay me um five thousand dollars towards my tuition at at uc davis you know which do i want to do and again that takes a lot of consideration i think you you've got to think about that and okay what's the best route for me and will i be able to come back and get my degree if this doesn't work out and so a lot goes into baseball it's a unique uh it's a unique animal yeah that's true um and i think it's important to note especially for our championship players that it isn't only athletic prowess that's going to get you on the team and keep you on the team at the university level uh the term scholar athlete notice scholar comes first it's not athletes scholar it's the other way around so what kinds of um scholarly achievement are you looking for uh when you are drafting potential players so much is dependent on academic success there are there is criteria that you have to meet by the nc double a to be eligible you know that varies a little bit you know 2.3 at this with this act score or this act sat so there's a little scale there but the the nc double a has standards but then each school has standards it's i every year have to explain to young man yes you're eligible the nc double a has made you you're eligible i don't know any place you can get into school though i mean you might have to go to a junior college you might have to go to you might have to really beat the doors down because every school then has additional standards that it's trying to recruit students to also you can make yourself more attractive to coaches it's very important that the people realize most student athletes do not get a full scholarship that's that's a myth most a lot of people think that but most student athletes are getting a couple thousand dollars towards their 25 thousand dollar tuition maybe they're getting ten thousand dollars and then with that they'll put some academic money maybe some Pell Grant and partner things so the better you've done academically the more attractive you are to a coach because you say hey i'll give you ten thousand and athletic money but you're also getting fifteen thousand and academic money so i can package you to get you to where it will cover your tuition right so there's so there's no negatives and only positives to being a high achieving student the the third component you know the coaches are gonna initially have their eye caught by your athletic achievement then it becomes grades and then the third thing that every coach i know just puts a primary focus on is what kind of person are you how are you gonna fit with a team and watching this little league team and some of the videos they made and and the fun they were having but how tight they were you can tell that they're loaded i think with what you would just call good teammates because even if you're a great player and and you've got great grades the coaches do not want to bring someone on that's going to be a distraction somebody that's uncoachable somebody that doesn't get along with others that is selfish that's negative or backstabbing for their players i think in in general it's just a rule of thumb for young people as they're preparing for hey what's the team i want to be on next you know hey where am i at as a player as a student and as a person how important is it for say kids that have set a goal to play professional ball in any sport how important is it for them to to finish college but a very sport by sport i mean you know baseball is a different track than other sports tennis is rarely do collegiate players go from tennis on uh golf is kind of 50 50 a lot of golfers basketball it's it's important that students go you know they hear the one and done rule uh so it varies across the map i think the the important thing for student athletes that that have that dream to play professional is to realize okay that's that's a long-term goal that's down there and then to back away from that okay right before i would play professional what where would i be and before there where would i be you know would i be in college what would my height what would my weight be what would my strength and my speed be and you have to dial that all the way back to where you are now and say okay how do i just get to that next step right and and instead of thinking how do i get to the Lakers it's okay how do i get to the point where i'm highly recruitable to to the NCAA schools right and and do those next steps and with baseball doesn't that sometimes mean that perhaps instead of taking a straight to university route you're thinking farm team like you're thinking AAA ball or you're thinking one of the one of the teams within a particular major league teams so instead say of going right to the twins you're going to play for two years with the st cloud river bats right and that's very common that you'll be in a single a a double a AAA team and what i would encourage my son if he were a baseball player is don't rely on that give yourself the option as we were talking about earlier if i've been drafted and i've got that opportunity as a senior in high school and i have the opportunity to to be a student athlete in college i'd like to have the power i'd like to have the choice to make that rather than i really can't go to college my grades aren't good enough coaches aren't looking at me my only hope is this route and it'd be nice to forever a student or a young person to be empowered to make that decision of okay i i want to try to play professionally but i'm doing it by my choice and i'm looking at it you know and maybe a year of college and then it even happens you can be drafted after your freshman sophomore year of college i think the every year older you get your chance for being success on the road around young men and and being away from home in that professional sport environment goes up you know i i'd rather my son went at 20 than 19 i'd rather he'd go at 19 than 18 and every year of of college you get to you just grow so much at least everybody i'm around you know they're they're opening their mind they're they're learning new things about society and and how to think and think for themselves and have original thoughts that you're not going to get with the same cloud mud dogs or it's the riverbats the riverbats that's it excuse me so i i think that the more you can get to that collegiate level and have some experience the more that will carry with you throughout your life right and i think it's important to note too that it's for in my mind it's important to have a degree even if you do decide to play pro ball because what happens if you get too hurt to play before your career is really over age wise uh and then you have nothing to fall back on exactly i mean you've got to you've got to support a family whether you have knee injuries or not and that's where i would you know if i had a child and and they were looking at okay i've got an opportunity to play professionally um and we even see that some at the division two level in basketball there'll be a contract in italy pops up or a contract and to go play basketball in japan and my counsel with those kids and those young people is always are you in a position that you you will get back and finish your degree are you are you gonna give up a scholarship now that you in a couple years it's like well now that i don't have that scholarship i won't get it back right but if it's like hey take this opportunity go for it but make sure that you can get that degree you you've put in some time you're you're too close to give up on it right you know that's a good place to end so uh to all of you out there who were part of the world series world championship team from hawaii congratulations guys you are bomb and you did a fantastic job representing the state uh but don't think your career is over you still got many many years ahead of you and we will look forward to seeing great things from you in the future uh on behalf of all the citizen journalists here at think tech hawaii i'm charl crozier garcia and we will be back in two weeks till then take care