Richmond Promise Scholar Rodney Green Jr. is representing his hometown while making a name as one of the country’s most highly regarded baseball prospects.

On a mid-January afternoon inside Cal’s Haas Pavilion, Rodney Green Jr. is getting ready for life after college by participating in a time-honored workplace tradition.

He’s stuck in a meeting.

Preparation for what comes after college can show up in many forms, but at least in this case, Green’s lesson plan might look a little different than most Richmond Promise Scholars.

On this particular day, meetings with Major League Baseball scouts are running a bit over, which is exactly why he’s cramming them in before the spring semester gets underway. As he enters his draft-eligible junior season, Green is one of the nation’s most highly regarded college baseball prospects, and meeting with inquisitive clubs is part of the job description.

It’s the best kind of balancing act.

Come early July, Green will find out exactly where life after college will take him. At 6-foot-3, 190 pounds and with a skill set that evaluators laud as “exciting” and “considerable”, the El Cerrito High grad ranks among the top 100 draft prospects in the country according to MLB.com.

The skills are only one small part of the story for a Richmond Promise Scholar that has nothing but opportunity ahead of him.

GROWING UP IN RICHMOND

A product of Richmond’s Washington Elementary School, Green grew up playing baseball as part of the Richmond Police Activities League (RPAL). Ask about those early days and he cracks a smile when admitting that trying to hit a ball off a tee as far as he could was probably the most fun part of the experience.

While those around him saw the obvious talent, Green actually gravitated to another sport — basketball. It remains one of his favorite ways to spend time, so much so that he keeps a basketball in his locker at Cal. But, by the time he got to El Cerrito, baseball began to take hold as a possible path into college.

Enter the barber shop.

As the tale goes, Cal associate head baseball coach Noah Jackson has long been a frequent customer at D-Boy’s Barber Shop on San Pablo Ave. in Richmond. His barber, Danny Smith, gave him a tip that he might try looking close to campus for his next big recruit.

“He said ‘we have this kid who goes to El Cerrito who’s a baseball player and thinks he’s a basketball player. And he’s going to tell you that he’s really a basketball player,’” Jackson said. “‘But, he is one of the better baseball players that have come out of this area in the last five to seven years. He just doesn’t know it yet.’”

Although he would ultimately earn a scholarship offer from the Golden Bears, that didn’t mean Green’s path to college was suddenly set in stone. Because a college baseball team of 35-40 players gets only 11.7 total scholarships to distribute amongst the entire team, coaches have to get creative in filling the funding gaps when it comes to paying for their athletes to come to school.

That’s where Richmond Promise joins the story. 

With an older cousin who was already a Richmond Promise Scholar, Green knew that RP might be one piece to his college puzzle. Teachers at El Cerrito, along with Green’s mother, Sharee Taylor, helped provide further details, and made sure he got connected with the program.

“Being a student athlete here is not very easy, so being able to have that balance and trying to seek support (is important),” Green said. “Richmond Promise also helps. It helps me financially to be able to be here at Cal. I really appreciate that.”

STAYING CLOSE TO HOME

Playing at Cal has provided benefits for both Green and the community he represents. Because he plays in Berkeley, kids from Richmond (often organized by Taylor) have been able to come see Green develop into one of the nation’s top players.

“I think he’s probably got the most fans of anybody from the area just because he’s local and he’s a success story,” Cal head coach Mike Neu said. “And he does spend time in the community and knows a lot of people. So I think it’s beneficial for our program, just to have a guy like that where you know where he comes from and see kind of how he’s progressed. It’s been a really great story just to see it. And there’s a lot more to be written this year, which is cool.”

That support isn’t lost on Green, who in addition to welcoming Richmond students to games at Cal, has also begun to establish his own mark in the community. In partnership with former major leaguer Tyson Ross and his Loyal to My Soil nonprofit, he helped to host a recent kids clinic at Contra Costa College.

“That’s what it’s about, for me, just remembering to let them know they have support from here,” Green said. “Having them be able to see that, they feel like ‘we’re capable of going to the next level.’ I really enjoy that.”

Those clinics are only one part of the story for Green when it comes to giving back. In mid-February, he was named to the inaugural Lou Gehrig Community Impact Team by the Phi Delta Theta International Fraternity and Live Like Lou Foundation. Members of the team are honored in recognition of the giving character and community impact of college baseball players.

According to the award announcement, Green has helped with various RPAL events, including backpack giveaways, turkey drives, toy drives, and has served as an umpire for Richmond Little League. As part of the nonprofit The Black Neighborhood, he has participated in food and clothing drives for the homeless and facilitated youth empowerment programs.

“He’s just matured a lot because now he understands how to deal in an environment with people from different backgrounds and that there’s more to life than just the city blocks that he grew up on,” Jackson said. “So he’s really matured and seen a lot. He came in as a shy, quiet kid and he’s kind of developed his own personality and developed into a leader. I see what the sport of baseball has done for him. It’s given him that opportunity to kind of become his own person.”

BRIGHT FUTURE

On the field, Green is fast becoming a household name. In the summer of 2023, he played for the United States Collegiate National Team, representing his country as one of the nation’s top young players. 

And, with the college season now underway, he’s serving as a veteran leader for a Cal team with big aspirations. In the Golden Bears’ home opener against BYU, he put the exclamation point on an 8-0 win with a late home run that delighted fans in attendance. A few days later, he provided the game-winning hit in a 5-4 victory over Connecticut.

Green is also thriving in the classroom, making sure to get to know his professors and taking advantage of the opportunities that come with being a student at the top public university in the country. 

In that way, his experience mirrors that of so many Richmond Promise Scholars, even if his first career path will involve cleats, a bat and a glove.

“It’s one thing to be a student-athlete, but it’s a whole other thing to explore the resources and the ways you can become a better person here and he’s done that,” Neu said. “It’s just cool to kind of see his progression from freshman year to now and go ‘this guy is ready for the next step in his life when he’s done here.’”

Wherever the next step happens, Green will take Richmond with him.