Owen Stevenson is a former Division I baseball player for Arizona State University. Owen started his college baseball career at the University of San Fransisco until he transferred to ASU. Over this summer, Owen was the 573 pick in the 2023 MLB Draft by the Tampa Bay Rays. I got the chance to speak with him about how the process works and what it is like to be a transfer college athlete.

1. Why did you originally end up choosing the University of San Francisco over your other options for schools? 

Stevenson explained USF was one of his two DI offers, and stood out because when he visited the school, he really liked the coaches. The coach had been around for 22 years, was established with the program, and turned the University of San Francisco baseball into a competitive team.

2. How did you decide you wanted to transfer and why did you end up choosing ASU? 

In the fall of this year, Owen's coaches were involved in an investigation for scandalous events that had occurred within the program. This led to multiple coaches being fired and one even being fired in the middle of the game. This shed light on the fact that the USF administration had its own problems as they were unable to handle the situation with professionalism. He said once he entered the transfer portal, the main influence on his decision was setting himself up to be drafted, making ASU a great fit.

3. What was your experience with the transfer portal? Was the process of transferring easy or difficult to navigate? 

According to Owen, the transfer portal as a baseball player is really not that fun. Once you enter, there's a long process of talking to coaches and answering many phone calls. He said that he had some friends enter the portal with much less interest than he had, making their experience with the portal not as good since they did not receive many offers. Luckily for Owen, USF was very understanding of his decision to transfer along with 13 other players that were on his team.

4. What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to a student-athlete who wants to transfer schools? 

He said it was important to put together some good highlight videos. Make sure that you have everything easily accessible on your social media accounts. On top of showing off your talents, you need to make sure any school that you are interested in transferring to aligns with your academic goals and GPA.

5. What is the biggest piece of advice that you would give to a high school baseball player trying to get recruited by teams around the nation? What worked for you in order to get noticed by different programs? 

One thing Owen said definitely regrets is going to some of the bigger showcases. This is just because it is much harder to get noticed with so many other prospective athletes around you. He said the way that he got his offer with USF was by going to their individual camps where he was able to work one on one with some of the coaches. Owen said a good way of contacting coaches is asking old coaches and friends that know him to reach out for you first.

6. How have you been able to manage the grueling schedule of being a D1 athlete?

Owen said he always tried to schedule his classes in the morning so that he could get everything else done with plenty of time. This was especially important while he played for USF because 6 days a week he had 4 hour long practices. Luckily for Owen, USF is not too academically rigorous and his coaches provided him with plenty of time management skills and exercises. He said it is important to understand the commitment of playing college sports because there will be a sacrifice to your social life that is inevitable.

Image Credit: University of San Francisco Athletics