HBCU Baseball Experiences Growth, but Still Needs More Resources, Exposure

(WIB) – When talking about how HBCU baseball teams sometimes have to field a roster, Prairie View coach Auntwan Riggins brought it back to the cult classic movie Friday and one of the funniest quips by Chris Tucker’s fictional character Smokey.“I always tell my coaches, we never have two things that match,” Riggins said. “Either you’ve got a guy who can hit but can’t run or is average on defense. Or he is a good defensive guy and doesn’t swing the bat as well as he plays defense. But we have to make that work. From that standpoint, we have to utilize their God-given abilities to help them because they don’t know.”To Riggins’ point, HBCU baseball may not always come perfectly packaged. Still, these baseball programs continue to thrive and make strides while allowing student-athletes to develop their games and receive a college education. There have been no bigger proponents of growing HBCU baseball than long-time Texas Southern coach Mike Robertson and Riggins.“The place where you want to be is (at an) HBCU because a lot of other programs you may be a part of it because you are going in for the gleam and glitter, but you actually have...