As spring break is approaching, many students, specifically seniors, are getting excited to travel with the rest of their grade to tropical resorts such as Punta Cana. For student athletes at South, spring break may look a little different, specifically for the baseball team.
Andrew DiLodovico ’25, who has been playing baseball for South for the past four years, has not been turned off by head baseball coach Dan Griesbaum’s infamous “seniors can not attend their spring break,” rule to quit his sport similar to other people previously on the team. Going into the sport, he knew he could not partake in his senior spring break, but he sees this as an opportunity and not a setback.
“Coach Griesbaum has had the rule for 42 years now where he plans a trip with the whole team, and we use it as a preseason to get ready,” DiLodovico said. “We train everyday at IMG in the Tampa Bay area, and we have five games along with a couple of practices over a span of a week.”
DiLodovico knows that even though this rule didn’t affect his personal decision to play baseball, it has influenced many other people.
“I think that if this was not a rule, more seniors would participate in baseball, but it is something I knew I was getting into with playing the sport at South,” DiLodovico said. “Personally I am looking forward to going and playing baseball with my team. It should be a great opportunity”
Assistant varsity coach Peter Loch explained how this is an opportunity that he believes will be extremely beneficial for the team. With the trip to IMG comes both bonding experience and much opportunity for the team to improve as a whole prior to the season.
“We are going down to IMG for the first time this year to be able to get ready for our season and practice outside as a team in the warm weather,” Loch said.
Loch explains how there has been talk of the players “turning their phones off” and avoiding social media so as to not get fear of missing out. However, Loch states that many of the players are viewing this as a positive trip rather than a missed opportunity.
“There is talk of many of the guys turning off their phones and notifications, but all of them knew this rule has been implemented for many years, so it is something they have been preparing for,” Loch said. “When you play baseball here at South, you understand that spring break is for baseball, so the guys have been very good about the situation.”
Students similar to Matthew Agnone ’25 knew prior to their senior season that they would want to go on senior spring break and decided to stop playing the sport before they would even have to face this challenge.
“I have thought this rule was a bit unfair since we are one of the only schools who doesn’t allow their seniors who participate in baseball to go on senior spring break,” Agnone said. “So for me, I decided it was not going to be worth it to travel to Florida to play other teams from Michigan instead of going to Punta.”
Although the baseball team will be experiencing a spring break that is different from the rest, Loch believes that the group of players he has on the team now will enjoy it because of the amount of dedication they all have for the sport.
“Although it is not the typical senior spring break, we still have fun down in Florida,” Loch said. “The team is seeing this as an opportunity to prepare for the season and grow closer to one another.”
