From Curaçao to Carbondale: The story of Kaeber Rog

Howard woodard hwoodard@dailyegyptian.com

Being one of many hopeful young kids in Curaçao, Salukis infielder Kaeber Rog just wanted to play baseball.

“The baseball environment in Curaçao is very big…there you play baseball games for fun,” Rog said.

He later compared baseball’s significance in the small Caribbean island to the global recognition soccer receives. Once he was introduced to the sport, it was normal to play it as frequently as possible in order to play at the highest level.

“My dad used to play baseball…he taught me baseball,” Rog said. “I used to go to the baseball field very close to my house. I used to go there and practice. And that’s how it was, playing baseball and having a lot of fun.”

His father also influenced him to become a switch-hitter. A natural right-hander, Rog’s coaches initially didn’t allow him to hit from the opposite side of the dish. They emphasized winning the few games the team played over Rog venturing out to explore a new aspect to his game.

“My dad told me at a young age how cool switch-hitting is,” Rog said. “I don’t know if my dad really knows how much that helped me to this day.”

Using the batting cage in his backyard every day, Rog and other kids his age began to take baseball seriously. They practiced and worked to improve and compete as young as 11 or 12 years old for their Little League teams. From there, they would aim to play at the Little League World Series in Williamsport. Rog’s team lost to the squad that represented Curaçao in the tournament.

Unlike most young people in today’s age, who may think it’s boring and slow, Rog is a huge fan of baseball.

“I have some friends that will tell you that they don’t like watching baseball. But I think it’s super cool,” Rog said. “I enjoy it…you see the pitchers…every little thing…how people go about their business.”

A true student of the game.

Some of his favorite players to watch are Curaçaoan, including MLB infielders Ozzie Albies and Didi Gregorius. He also likes Xander Bogaerts, who is from the neighboring island of Aruba. And he appreciates the playstyle of others who don’t necessarily share his background.

“Whoever I look at and see that is cool, I like them. Ronald Acuña, I see him hit and I’m like ‘oh my gosh, this guy is so freaking good.’ Francisco Lindor, switch-hitting shortstop…Mookie Betts…there are so many good baseball players,” Rog said.

At 15 years old, Rog got a new goal to shoot for: practicing to earn an international signing bonus. Baseball’s international amateur free agent market was created for players wanting to play in the MLB who weren’t born in the U.S. or Canada. It is a route that some of MLB’s premier players have taken including Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Wander Franco. But it is a risky avenue to take as there are no guarantees for your future.

“My mom didn’t really like that route for me,” Rog said. “She thought that not letting your kid not even finish middle school is not a smart move.”

Instead, Rog’s mother opted to send him to the United States when he was 16 to play high school baseball. There was an immediate adjustment period for Rog as he wasn’t accustomed to the association between school and sport.

“In Curacao, baseball isn’t connected with school,” Rog said. “You go to school; they give you a bunch of homework. They don’t even know what you do with your life after school.”

This translates to no high school teams and essentially two different worlds between the baseball field and the educational environment. Much different than what the United States is accustomed to.

Another new world Rog had to encounter was living without any family or people he knew in a new country. He was fortunate to have a good experience in his first year in the U.S., living with a host family and two other Curaçao natives who play sports.

“One swam and the other one played basketball. But it was a lot of fun…like a vacation without your parents,” Rog said.

With his roommates, Rog played basketball, baseball and rode bikes after school. It was a freedom that he enjoyed but still used accordingly. Attending Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville, Florida, the weather and improved organization allowed Rog to play baseball year-round. He played a lot more, even if the motivation or talent wasn’t the same as his native country.

“You play like 25 games a year in high school in Curaçao…here in the United States, even though you might not play the same talent, at least you’re playing,” Rog said. “You got a lot more development in the United States baseball for sure.”

Baseball is hosting its fifth World Baseball Classic this March, where many of these players will be showcased and compete for their country. Although he doesn’t remember much from that early on in his life, Rog will be rooting for the nation where he was born:

“Netherlands all the way,” Rog said.

He lived in the Netherlands for the first four years of his life but moved to Curaçao where the rest of his family resided. Sometimes he recalls some moments of his childhood, like when he sees pictures of him learning to ride a bike. But still holding that piece of his life, Rog played for Team Netherlands this past fall at the U-23 Baseball World Cup in Taiwan.

“It was an unbelievable experience. The pitching was completely different…very intense baseball,” Rog said.

Rog committed to Florida International University during his junior year of high school. Two years later, he found himself disappointed in his experience, simply not having fun. He wasn’t having success at the plate, was treated poorly by teammates, and acknowledged he wasn’t a good player at the time.

“It was very hard for me there because our team sucked, we were in last place. It was the COVID year and D1 coaches weren’t coming out,” Rog said. “Baseball is a very humiliating sport…with ups and downs. I learned a lot to try to stay the same, same attitude every day, be consistent.”

But he was conflicted as he didn’t want to leave Division I baseball. The emergence of COVID-19 made the decision for him, when Rog took his talents to junior college and had a chance to prove himself at Eastern Florida State.

Later on in 2021, he received the opportunity to play in the MLB Draft League, where top draft eligible players competed in a showcase during the summer. Rog made the most of this chance, leading the Draft League in batting average for a while, which led to multiple D1 schools vying for his services. Carbondale was the choice based on the winning Rog saw from afar.

“The main thing that drew me to SIU is seeing the 40-win season…I want to know how it feels to win. That’s the main reason why I came to SIU,” Rog said.

He excelled immediately, slashing .362/.429/.618 with 14 homers and 56

RBI in his first season. He drew more walks (33) than strikeouts (30) and also stole seven bases. This accumulated awards like 2022 Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year. Rog’s production so far at SIU has been immense but his belief in himself is unmatched.

“I want to be the best Saluki baseball player ever,” Rog said.

But after establishing himself as a premier player, Rog wants to succeed as a team. Now in his senior season, he plans for the Salukis to win as much as possible.

“I want to go to regionals…hopefully Super Regionals but we can’t look too far ahead,” Rog said. “I want to accomplish that over my personal goals…the team goals matter more.”

It exemplifies an attitude that can carry Rog to the next level, which he plans to get to. With dreams to play in the big leagues, he is working hard to accomplish that aspiration but understanding he can’t completely control it. However, Rog has a plan that still involves the game he loves if he doesn’t make it to the majors.

“I want to be a baseball head coach, it’s a fun job…teaching players how to hit. I think one of the coolest things is if you’re a dad and a head coach, and you have your son allowed to practice…and grow up in that environment. I think that’s so cool.”

Rog’s mindset on not just baseball, but life, is cool. He has overcome countless obstacles from living in a foreign country to transferring to multiple different colleges in order to fulfill his dream of playing professional baseball. The Saluki baseball team is fortunate to have Rog as their star-studded shortstop, and hopefully we will witness Rog eventually live ou t his ultimate dream.

Education

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“I think the frustration is not knowing how to plan as this issue only recently was presented to the chairs and directors,” Thompson said. “So, we are kind of in a state of paralysis and of course this causes anxiety at many different levels.”

What has confused SIU staff and students in recent weeks is the seemingly sudden lack of distance education funds from past years that many schools at SIU still considered to be spendable.

Some of the faculty members at the senate meeting Lane addressed couldn’t contain their criticism, calling SIU’s communication in this instance unacceptable.

“We all understand that we were in a budget issue and that there’s money to be repaid,” said Bethany Rader, vice president of the Faculty Senate and associate professor of microbiology. “The problem was miscommunication, because we’re told we have a certain amount of money - DE funds or indirect funds that go into a pot for our department - and then we as a faculty get to make decisions about this money. And then we thought we had a certain amount and then, all of the sudden we’re told ‘no, you have no money.’[....] and then when we approached our school director, and through him our dean, again it just seemed like people were being told completely different things.”

Lane said that he understood the issues that faculty were having, and explained that the deans and directors likely didn’t have the most accurate information. Lane said he was confused himself when he was first hired and the CFO explained the DE funds to him. He made the same mistake as the university’s staff, once believing that the DE funds were still available for him to spend, he said.

“If you have something that you have commitments on right now, I would suggest that you bring that forward if that’s something that you’re unable to pay for,” Lane said. “Because as Marc is working on now with Bob and with our CFO - they’re working on that plan between now and the end of the fiscal year. I would offer that - because we’ve got commitments already that are being covered - if you’ve got something that you were really counting on just make sure it hits the list that Mark and that group are putting together as priorities so they can take a hard look at it.”

Other faculty at the meeting also expressed that they had been confused by the university’s recent actions, with some stating that they had thought the school was on the verge of canceling DE funds completely. The faculty’s main concern was that they were only informed of the lack of DE funds in the middle of the fiscal year, rather than at the beginning of the year when they were budgeting.

Faculty members at the senate meeting said the miscommunication is a problem because it affects decisions they make on a daily basis.

According to Lane, allowing the schools to continue to spend money that only exists on paper, as if it still exists at all, will only dig the university deeper into debt. By all appearances, this year SIU administration has decided to put its foot down on the issue, preventing schools from spending the distance education money.

“Every year we’ve got a carry forward amount that essentially was just an amount on paper. That was not real revenue to the institution at all,” Lane told the senate. “I think that’s the myth that was out there - that there were some carry over dollars that actually existed for people to use. Instead, it was carried over on paper and we operated for years, back to 2015, from what we call budget-deficit spending. We set our budgets based on deficits, because we knew every year we were gonna have to plug the hole from the sustainability plan.”

According to Lane, the university would go $14 million dollars deeper into debt this year if schools were permitted to use distance education funds as they were earlier in the financial year.

Stikkers said this left Hahn and other professors, who may have planned to use distance education funds, in the awkward position of having promised students large amounts of money in scholarships, only to have the funding taken out from underneath them. Hahn was not responsive to requests for comment.

Past students of Hahn, who traveled with him, say the experience was as memorable as it was expensive, citing the scholarship he offered as the key reason they were able to go on the trip.

“A big selling point of going on trips this summer was that there was a $1,000 scholarship available to the first 10 people in each group,” said Stefanie Doty, an undergraduate student who accompanied Hahn’s Greek travel group last summer thanks to one of his scholarships. “I planned on going to Egypt with that scholarship.”

Though Doty can’t say that the scholarships were the only factor in her canceling her membership in the Egypt travel group this summer, she did cancel for financial reasons, on which the scholarship had a large impact.

“This scholarship was really important for why it went last time. I mean, it’s a really big deal. Takes a really big chunk of money off,” Doty said. “I was signed up and registered to go and then I heard the bad news. And it was kind of up in the air. I didn’t really know what happened. It seemed like it was - it seems a little odd.”

The Daily Egyptian reached out to SIU’s accounting department, as well as the university’s budget office, but both were unresponsive. In SIU’s study abroad portal the Egypt travel group is estimated to cost $3,490.00 before tuition, round trip airfare, passport costs and other optional additions to the trip. With the addition of the portal’s estimate of these other expenses for the average student, the total price was $7,873.75.

Despite the incredible expense, Doty says that her trip to Greece at a comparable cost was worth it.

“I think traveling abroad helps students stand out from the pack,” Doty said. “And I can honestly say if I had not gone, I would be on a different trajectory right now. It just opened my eyes to so much more around me and what really matters and helps me understand so much more. A lot of people view that trip, especially to Greece, they’re like, ‘Oh, I want to travel to Greece.’ This is not the Greece you see on social media. This is the history of the world. You cannot experience that from a book. You just can’t.”

However, for students heading to Egypt this summer, the situation may not be as hopeless as Doty feared.

“We will honor the commitments we made to all of our faculty this semester,” said Dean Joddy Murray of the College of Liberal Arts. “However, like other units in the university, we are currently reviewing our process for how to best allocate revenue generated by distance education and will employ the most suitable fund for travel grants. The provost’s office is considering our funding requests at this time.”

Despite disruptions to the distance education funds, Morris has indicated that Hahn’s trip is a priority for the College of Liberal Arts, confirming that the school is likely to find the funds somewhere, even if at present there is some disruption.

After her interview with the Daily Egyptian, Doty succeeded in finding a merit scholarship for her trip to Egypt and once again plans to go, but it seems possible that the situation of other students might prohibit going without as many scholarships as were once available.

SIU’s continued low enrollment problem, as well as state appropriations that only reached $101 million again this financial year, tell a story of lasting damage based on the troubled politics of the state, which were only settled when the state legislature overturned one of Rauner’s vetoes.

“If we’re thinking about doing a 2% across the board increase, if we’re thinking about funding those 21 represented unions with increases inside of the increase - that money has to come from somewhere,” Lane said. “So you have to be very careful to not let too much of the money go out of the door when the university may need it to cover additional increases to faculty and staff, because that’s exactly what the money would go towards. Unless we get an amazing state appropriation from the governor where he gives us more - and that probably won’t happen - but that’s something we keep our fingers crossed on.”