Interview With Wisconsin Panthers' Rick Cavaiani
By Spencer Flaten, Lead writer
I recently had the chance to speak with Rick Cavaiani, the director of baseball in the Wisconsin Panthers organization. The Panthers, a travel team based out of Appleton, are a program on the rise in Wisconsin. You can find the full interview with Rick below, where you'll find out what the Panthers are all about and what sets them apart.
Spencer Flaten: Can you give me a little background on the history of the Panthers organization?
Rick Cavaiani: The Panthers started in 2009 with one team. I wasn't there yet, but the founder of the program, Korey Krueger, who is also the owner of our facility, took some kids who had gotten cut from their Babe Ruth teams and made a team. That team played in tournaments around Wisconsin and did really well, winning all but one of their tournaments and beating the team(s) they had gotten cut from. Shortly after that, others came and asked what Korey was doing and everything kind of took off from there. The next year I joined Korey in the building on a full time basis and things went from there. We went from 1 team to 5 teams, to 7 teams and have had as many as 12 teams in age groups 10U-18U.
SF: What do the Panthers offer to a player looking to take his game to the next level?
RC: We offer great opportunities for kids who want to get to the next level. We have great coaches, a great facility that they can play in all year round, as well as an outdoor facility right down the road with two fields that both have lights. We host games and tournaments all summer and have great connections to college coaches at all levels. Their opportunities are endless with us. We push our kids physically, but what separates us is our ability to push them mentally and get them to understand how to deal with failure and be able to move on and better themselves from it. We have great kids here and they're are all here for the right reasons. Most importantly, we are honest with our kids and we feel we owe that to them.
SF: How do you get your players noticed by college coaches and scouts?
RC: There are several ways we get our kids noticed by colleges. It helps that all of our kids are talented ballplayers, but there is a lot more to it than that. We've built a really solid reputation of producing quality ballplayers that work hard and play the game the right way which, in turn, attracts coaches to us. Korey played and coached college baseball for 15 years and I played Junior College and Division 1 baseball and also coached at the Division 3 level. We've developed a lot of great relationships with coaches we trust and have many old teammates that are coaching at various levels all across the country. We utilize the website Field Level, which has made things even easier for us to get our kids information out to coaches. We post videos of the kids right on there, GPA's, ACT scores, anything that helps the coaches zero in on certain kids that fit the mold of their particular school. I would say, though, that all of our success the past 3-4 years has really made coaches take notice. Five years ago we were on the phones constantly trying to get into contact with coaches, but now, they are calling us asking us who we have. We've really turned the tables and our recruiting has picked up immensely within the past year and a half.
SF: How competetive is the atmosphere in the organization? Is it tough to make a Panthers team?
RC: The atmosphere this year as far as competitiveness is at an all time high. It is difficult to make our teams because we have a different model than most of our competitors. We feel that strength is not in numbers but rather in quality. We want quality players, but more importantly, we want quality kids from quality families. We also want to get to know our kids and our families. We want to develop relationships with them and get to know them beyond the playing field. Recently, I think there has been a thought process that making our teams is too difficult so kids go try out for another organization where they are more confident they will make the team. We don't want that to detract people from trying out with us. We want people to know the main thing we look for is if the kid is coachable, respectful and a good listener. If they have those three attributes, they have a great chance to make our team(s).
SF: Wisconsin has a lot of travel teams scattered throughout the state. What do you guys bring to the table that other teams don't?
RC: I kind of mentioned it before a little and that is we look for quality over quantity. It's not about making an extra buck and putting more money in our pockets. It's about helping the kids become better ballplayers and people. Our model and past backs that up and we are very proud of it. Honesty is also a huge cornerstone that separates us. Sometimes people don't like full honesty, but we give that. We don't tell people what they want to hear, we tell them what they need to hear. Furthermore, our facility is top notch and we have an outdoor facility as well which I don't believe any of our competitors have. Our coaches are very knowledgeable, passionate and will do whatever we can to get our players where they want to go. Most recently, we struck up a partnership with our "sister program" as we like to call it, in Mesa, Arizona. We had four of our kids go down there this past week for a Super 25 tournament in Phoenix where they got to play against some of the best players and teams in Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California and New Mexico. The guy we know down there is a former big league catcher for 15+ years and has great recruiting connections all over Arizona and the southwestern United States. We have plans to expand that relationship on a yearly basis and send more and more players down there for events, tryouts and tournaments. We also run a great and inexpensive college exposure recruiting camp with this years being next Saturday, December 13th. We started doing it six years ago and had three schools here with about 20 kids. Now, we have over 40 schools with 10 Division 1 schools and pro scouts in attendance to see our kids. The camp is open to anyone in high school and we only have 15 spots left open. This year we are going to have over 100 kids with nearly 50 schools here. That has never happened in our area and we are proud to bring these schools and coaches to northeast Wisconsin.
SF: Obviously your efforts are working, because you now have 7 players committed to play college baseball on your 18U team, including 3 committed to Division 1 schools. How proud are you of those guys?
RC: I can't express how proud I am of all of these kids. Going to play college baseball at any level is a privilege and something the boys should be really proud of. We have a half a dozen more kids who will be committing in the next couple months. You're going to see guys like Jake Watzka, Mitch Ebben, Bryce Plate, Johnny Popham, and Matt DeYoung, among others, be the next wave of kids that sign with some great schools. When these signings happen, that is what makes all of this worth it for Korey and I as we see their hard work paying off and knowing we had a minor part in it. It helps remind us of why we do what we do because it is all about the kids. You're going to see even more kids commit as the younger groups we have coming up are exceptionally talented as well!
SF: Is there anything else you want readers to know about the Wisconsin Panthers?
RC: We just want people to know that if you or your son has aspirations of becoming a great ball player and wants to play in college or beyond, we have everything you need and more. This is especially for the kids right in our own backyard which is the Fox Cities to Green Bay, the Upper Peninsula and over to Stevens Point and everywhere in between. You don't need to go any further than Appleton to get what you need. We're right here and we're not going anywhere! In addition, our facility is being renovated and a new tenant is renting half our building where the volleyball and basketball courts were. It is going to be a new indoor trampoline park that is going to be great for our community #1, but #2, it has changed our workload and responsibilities solely to baseball and Panther Baseball. Our days now are solely focused on our players, families and doing whatever we can to help them in baseball, recruiting and whatever else they may need. Although we've come so far in six short years...we see it as though we're just getting started!
