The Olympic Camp in Surprise, which sees a group of twenty Italian prospects at work, in particular pitchers and catchers, together with an extended technical staff, guests of the Kansas City Royals, is also an opportunity to seal, after the one with the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club Foundation, a very important partnership for the inclusion of Italian athletes in the US school and university world.
In fact, the collaboration between the Italian Baseball and Softball Federation has been made official MyNextPlaya nonprofit organization dedicated to helping high school students achieve their goal of playing baseball or softball in college. The mission is to connect high school students with grant and recruitment opportunities that can support them on their path to college.
The founder, Brian Greya successful career in Information Technology in the San Francisco area and a passion for baseball, created MyNextPlay.org to help high school student-athletes more easily access the college planning and recruiting process . Having spent many years in leadership roles in digital media and sports technology, Brian brings diverse experience to help address the primary challenge facing youth sports today: ensuring every kid has the opportunity to play sport he loves for as long as possible.
Greywho used the Olympic Camp opportunity for a first contact with the players of Club Italia LA28, explained: “As a great enthusiast and also as a developer of technologies for collecting and archiving information for recruitment, I realized how difficult it is for so many talented kids to be considered, to enter the college pipeline. The reasons are often the lack of resources, family experience, opportunities to access recruiters in general and I have worked hard to build a system that can partially remove them. If these obstacles exist for many in the United States, even more so are those who come from abroad, from completely different school systems, faced with them. MyNextPlay was created precisely to help them, providing different types of support. This structured collaborative relationship with the Italian Federation is the first of its kind and I trust it will yield interesting results in the medium term.”
How does the system work?
“First of all, I would like to point out that the fundamental part always remains the direct relationship with the kids: there is certainly a format, but each case, each person has their own peculiarities and I and those who collaborate with me always keep this in mind. The main elements through which the MyNextPlay tutors, the MNP Advisors, operate are first of all the kids themselves; we provide them with specific and personalized advice that starts from high school and we walk with them in the process of being chosen by colleges for baseball and softball, we help them build their profile, present themselves in the best way to recruiting coaches, choose the options best suited to them, to never give up, because failures are to be put on the agenda, but at the same time for a door that closes, there are many others that can be opened, if we really believe in ourselves. We also explain our program to parents and we want them to always be involved, aware that the opportunities to grow as athletes and people are many and at various levels, that access to a simpler school program may still be the best choice at a certain moment and then become the springboard for the kids. We also provide coaches from different organizations with information on student/athletes and, obviously, we are continually looking for donors to fuel our scholarships and give concrete help to families along the way.”
Specifically for Italy, how is the project structured?
“Here at Surprise – Gray replies – we are getting to know and collecting information on athletes who are already permanently in the Club Italia programme, several with important experiences. This type of player is obviously not excluded from the MyNextPlay/FIBS collaboration. The main model, however, is focused on male and female athletes in their first years of high school, who have a strong will to travel this path with us. The Italian system, with a five-year high, integrates perfectly with the American system, which has four. In fact, it is possible to aim for a fourth year in the USA, to learn the English language well and graduate, then being able to return to Italy and attend the last year, with the final high school diploma and during this to better prepare and realize a college career in the United States. United.
This is the path in which we want to support those who want to commit to following it.”
In signing the collaboration agreement, the Federal President Andrea Marcon
wanted to thank Brian Gray for the opportunity: “I am very pleased and grateful to Brian for choosing us as a pilot country. For us it is a responsibility that, I am sure, our boys will not disappoint. As a Federation, it was clear from the first contacts in August that having at our side an organization that shares in synergy with us every step of the various training paths and fully understands the problems that a student/athlete finds himself facing when he wants to try to fulfilling his dream overseas is a very important added value. The transparent cultural approach proposed by MyNextPlay, which follows children and families from the beginning, from the first idea of trying, and follows them step by step even in the small daily things is fundamental for the final success, but also for understanding as soon as possible whether is actually the right way. It will be a great growth experience for our talents and I am sure that very incisive ‘technical’ fruits will arrive for the Italian affairs, but also for the entire movement.”
Brian Gray will be present at CON-X 2025 to explain in detail to athletes, their families and coaches the various steps of the FIBS College Pipeline and the support work made available by MyNextPlay.
In the cover photo: Brian Gray with Matteo Bocchi in the Surprise Stadium (gcpfilms)
Marco Landi
