Kubasaki graduate Brodie Romnek next heads to Michigan, where he'll play baseball for Division II Hillsdale College on full scholarship. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa – Back in April, an athletic scholarship, partial or full, wasn’t even on Brodie Romnek’s radar.
He had been looked at by college scouts during his first two years of playing high school baseball in Temecula, Calif. He had attended summer camps as well; even trained for a time under former Major League slugger Reggie Smith.
“All of that stopped” when the Romnek family transferred to Camp Foster and Brodie started playing for Kubasaki, Brodie’s mother, Stacy, said.
There were no multi-diamond complexes, no batting cages at the ready for him to sharpen his game, he said. It sometimes came down to bringing a glove to a ballfield on one of the bases where people were and just ask to play catch.
“It took a lot of effort to find the people and the places to work out,” Brodie said.
So instead of waiting for the fiduciary cavalry – which clearly wasn’t coming – Brodie and the Romneks did something about it.
They gathered his accomplishments in the classroom, starting with his 4.38 cumulative grade-point average. Then they assembled his individual and team statistics while playing for the Dragons.
Kubasaki won the DODEA-Pacific Far East Division I title in Brodie’s junior year and came in second this season, going 31-15-1 the last two seasons. In that span, he batted .432, 47-for-109, with seven home runs and 65 RBIs. On the mound this season, he went 2-1 with a 2.63 ERA.
And they sent all that – plus video of him in baseball as well as in other sports he played, golf, water polo and swimming – to 13 colleges, hoping one would even reply, let along make an offer.
Nine offers came by mid-May, seven of them for baseball, two for golf.
Hillsdale College, a private Christian liberal arts school in Michigan, offered Brodie a full scholarship, which he accepted.
Romnek is one of eight known DODEA-Pacific athletes this year who have accepted either full or partial scholarships to play sports at the next level.
“Don’t give up. Put in the work. Pursue what you love,” Brodie said of the message that his journey sends to other DODEA-Pacific students.
One key in whether one earns a scholarship is remembering priorities, the first being studies, Romnek said. “Keep academics at the forefront,” he said.
It turned out, Romnek and Hillsdale were a good match: Brodie was seeking a scholarship, while Chargers coach Tom Vessella said Brodie is a “perfect fit” for Hillsdale, academically as well as athletically.
“When you are evaluating players for your program, the first thing you need to do is ensure that the athlete will be a good fit for the institution as a whole as well as the program,” Vessella said.
Besides Romnek’s baseball talent, Vessella said he’s the type of person his school seeks in general. “He also has a large frame, intriguing arm action and a really good slider,” he said.
Romnek will play for a Chargers team that competes in the NCAA Division II Great Midwest Athletic Conference. They finished 21-28 overall and 15-17 in conference during the season, which ended May 3.
Jane Williams of Matthew C. Perry will run cross country and track at Utah State. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Nile C. Kinnick's Tre Bennett will play football for Huntingdon College of Alabama. (TeAnna Reimers/Special to Stripes)
James Kinney of Kadena will play lacrosse for Benedictine College of Atchison, Kansas. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Daegu's Dean Lentz will play soccer on partial scholarship for Sterling College of Kansas. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Jeremiah Georges of Zama will next play wide receiver for Olivet Nazarene. (Everett Lopez/Special to Stripes)
Among other DODEA-Pacific students earning athletic scholarships during the 2023-24 school year:
Jane Williams, a Matthew C. Perry cross country and track and field distance race record setter, will run in each sport for Division I Utah State, a Mountain West Conference school in Logan, Utah.
James Kinney of Kadena has earned athletic and academic scholarships at Benedictine College of Atchison, Kansas. The Panthers football, wrestling and track star will play lacrosse for the NAIA school which competes in the Heart of American Athletic Conference. Kinney played in the Okinawa Island Youth Lacrosse senior division.
Bobby Crisafulli, a former Far East wrestling tournament champion who also played football and track for Nile C. Kinnick, will wrestle for the Mavericks of Northern Oklahoma, a public community college in Tonkawa, Okla.
Another Red Devil graduate, William “Tre” Bennett, who played running back and ran track for Kinnick, is headed to Huntingdon College of Montgomery, Ala., on full scholarship. The Division III Hawks play in the NCAA Division III USA South Conference.
Jeremiah Georges, a football wide receiver for Zama’s 2022 Far East Division II champion and 2023 runner-up, has earned a full scholarship at Olivet Nazarene of Bourbonnais, Ill. The Ravens compete in the NAIA Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference.
Dean Lentz, a Daegu graduate, will remain a Warrior, this coming fall for Sterling College of Kansas, where he’ll play on partial scholarship for an NAIA team that competes in the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference.
Mackenzie Byrne of Robert D. Edgren has earned a full swimming scholarship to Virginia Military Institute of Lexington, Va. She will earn a commission into either the Marines or Air Force upon graduation. The Keydets swim in the NCAA Division I America East Conference.
Being limited by being overseas in terms of visibility to college programs does not mean it can’t be done, Georges said.
“Anything is possible,” he said. “Just put in the work and trust yourself. Believe that you can achieve anything and the sky is the limit. I hope more people at Zama and all DODEA schools see … that they can use this and be motivated to achieve their goals.”
