Ever since Breland Almadova was a little boy growing up in Hawaii, his passion has been baseball. His performance in high school earned him a baseball scholarship at University of Hawaii in 2009. After playing at the collegiate level for the Hawaiian Warriors through his junior year, he decided to delay his education to pursue a career as a professional baseball player.
“In 2012, I was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks, and I kind of thought I’d never go back, but finishing college was always in the back of my mind,” Breland said. “So I was able to negotiate some scholarship money into my contract in case I ever decided to go back.”
Just four years later, Breland began looking into bachelor’s degree programs he could pursue online, so that he could balance his academic goals with his time on the field. A conversation with 2014 World Series champion Jeremy Guthrie pointed him in the direction of The University of Alabama’s New College LifeTrack (NCLT), a unique program designed for nontraditional students to transfer prior learning and life experience toward limited credits for a degree.
“I applied and then the journey took off from there. The tuition was affordable, and I could transfer in all my credits and complete the remaining requirements purely online. That was key for me because I was still pursuing baseball as a career,” Breland explained.
He began courses in Spring 2017 after the two-day required on-campus orientation for NCLT.
“At orientation, I was pretty nervous and didn’t know what to expect, but everyone was so helpful. NCLT adviser Sandra Perkins and faculty member Paavo Hanninen were always happy to help me and they made everything so easy – not the coursework, but the process! Orientation really helped me figure out what courses I needed to finish and which ones were available completely online.”
Most of Breland’s classes were asynchronous, so he was able to complete them around his own schedule as long as all the coursework was turned in by the semester’s deadline. “I just tried to do a little bit of work every day, and that really worked with my schedule. I could catch up on my own time,” he said.
Breland’s orientation was not his only visit to campus. At one point his professional and academic worlds overlapped when he met Gary Bryant, an Alabama alumnus, at a team dinner. “I saw he had a Bama hat on, so we started talking, and I told him I was an Alabama student by distance. From there, we struck up a friendship, and it turned out he had season tickets to the football games. He and his wife were unable to attend the 2019 Tennessee game, so he gave me his tickets, and I had such a great time.” Breland stayed with an old teammate who lives in Tuscaloosa and was able to experience a bit of campus life while he was in town.
He made his most recent trip to Title Town for graduation in December 2019. “To anyone who is completing a distance program, I have to say – go and walk at graduation if you can. I didn’t know anyone there, but I made a friend who was sitting next to me, and I just thought it was such a cool feeling. I felt so connected to the University, and I’m so proud of my degree.”
Graduating from UA also helped Breland feel more connected with many of his fellow Hawaiians. He said, “There’s a sense of pride when you’re from a small place like Hawaii. We may sometimes feel overlooked or passed by. So graduating from a Division I SEC school and playing professional baseball makes me feel connected to Tua and President Obama who went to high school in Hawaii, to Carissa Moore – a four-time world surfing champion who was raised in Hawaii – and to NFL star and Heisman winner Marcus Mariota. It shows that we can do great things in this world. We stand together and fight 808 strong to the end! Mana for life – mahalo.”
Breland was able to round the bases and head home, this time with a college degree in hand, and he is still pursuing his baseball career and loving it.
“It feels good to be done. I have that piece of paper, and it means a lot for me to be able to get a good job or start my own business in the future. I feel accomplished – it is so worth it, and I’m grateful for it all. I’m prepared for when this path ends to take or make a new path, and I’m armed with a college degree to help me do it.”
Published: August 30th, 2020