Despite having earned an accounting degree from Notre Dame, where he played baseball, Malvern Prep graduate Mike Rooney knew within two weeks that T-accounts, assets, and liabilities were not his thing. Kyle Bandujo covered his trade of professions in Baseball America.

“I was an accountant, for 10 working days,” said Rooney. “I had started to coach basketball and high school baseball, and I was hooked immediately.”

He pivoted and got his teacher’s certificate before returning to his alma mater in Malvern, where he began coaching high school baseball. He started by building a program in the same way his Notre Dame mentor Pat Murphy did at his university.

When he decided to try and make the leap into the college game, Murphy offered him a position as the third-base coach at Arizona State. Rooney remained there for eight years, recruiting and coaching numerous future big leaguers. He then followed that up with four years as head coach of Phoenix College.

This extensive experience provided a solid foundation for the next phase of his career: college baseball analyst at ESPN.

Read more about Mike Rooney in Baseball America.