Yeshiva Baseball Coach Inspires Troubled Prospect

It was quite the conundrum for Blake Corosky, the sports agent who represents Jacob Steinmetz, the Arizona Diamondbacks pitching prospect and first-ever practicing Orthodox Jewish ballplayer to be drafted. In spring 2024, one of his other clients, Core Jackson, then a junior shortstop for the University of Utah to which he had transferred from the University of Nebraska, was enjoying a breakout season and starting to get on MLB teams’ radar screens ahead of the upcoming draft. As he started interviewing with big-league scouts, Jackson shared a deep dark secret with both potential employers and his agent: one evening in the midst of a drunken stupor during his freshman year at Nebraska in 2021, he drew a swastika on the dorm room door of a Jewish student.

Upon hearing the news, Corosky was so dumbfounded that he contemplated cutting ties with Jackson. Instead, the MLB-certified agent (True Gravity Baseball) called Steinmetz’s father, Elliott, who serves as the head men’s basketball coach at Yeshiva University, for advice on how to proceed with a young man who came across as very remorseful but — even years later — still didn’t quite understand the gravity of the situation. Initially very upset, Elliott Steinmetz proposed that Corosky consider trying to enlighten his client about antisemitism. A few hours later, Elliott, himself, reached out to Jackson to begin educating him about the Holocaust.

In the ensuing months, as Jackson became more aware of the horrific nature of his 2021 act — and teams passed on him in the 2024 MLB draft as they became more aware of his background — it grew apparent to the veteran Yeshiva basketball coach that Jackson, raised in a Christian household in the rural town of Wyoming, Ontario, had extremely limited knowledge of the history of Jewish persecution, or Judaism in general. Steinmetz subsequently arranged for Jackson, who was fined and ordered to perform community service in the immediate aftermath of the incident, to be tutored by Ann Squicciarini, a graduate student in Yeshiva’s Holocaust education program. Immediately, Squicciarini took the initiative to organize a five-week course consisting of video and reading assignments in conjunction with weekly check-ins.

This past summer, Jackson — still represented by Corosky who had demanded that the ballplayer inform every single team of his heinous act while following the personalized Holocaust lesson plan — was selected by the New York Yankees in the fifth round of the MLB draft, held just before the All-Star Game at Truist Park. Reportedly, Yankees amateur scouting director Damon Oppenheimer claimed the franchise’s decision followed the most thorough “due diligence” examination of a player in his 23 years on the job, and that it was approved directly by owner Hal Steinbrenner (it is quite rare for a principal owner to sign off on a selection this late in the draft). Additionally, the selection of Jackson, who also was charged with driving under the influence on Utah’s campus last September, ensued after Yankees officials met with Jackson and multiple high-ranking Jewish members of the club, including team president Randy Levine, were consulted.

When The Athletic reported last month that the Yankees, like every team, were fully aware of Jackson’s past history when they selected him, the New York Times-owned sports publication included an acknowledgment by Jackson that he was “blackout drunk” when he scribbled the swastika, and that he had zero recollection of the incident or what prompted him to do it. Jackson did, however, admit to The Athletic that he’s now aware he made a “really stupid mistake” and claimed that he is no longer “the person he was when it all happened.”

Neither Jackson nor Elliott Steinmetz was available for an interview with the Atlanta Jewish Times, however, Ari Kohen, director of the Harris Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska, did speak to the AJT about Steinmetz’s and Squicciarini’s work in teaching Jackson about the atrocities of the Holocaust.

“From everything that I’ve heard, this has sounded to me like a successful intervention,” said Kohen, who was at the Harris Center when the incident occurred but had not been made aware of it until this summer. “It has sounded to me like the kind of work that I would generally like to see when it comes to educating somebody — taking a really unfortunate situation and using it as a learning opportunity rather than simply an opportunity to punish and scold. It was designed well as a good response that seems to have hit the mark.

“I was inclined to really believe that this was a young man [Jackson] who wanted to do something that he regarded as bad and hurtful — and knew that this was a bad, hurtful symbol — but I actually was inclined to believe that he doesn’t have — or didn’t at the time — the background where he could have actually explained in some detail what this meant and to whom specifically it was bad and hurtful and exactly why.”

In his first taste of professional baseball this summer for the Yankees’ Single-A affiliate, the Hudson Valley Renegades, Jackson has scuffled, hitting well below .200 without a single homer. Amidst Jackson’s early career struggles, Elliott Steinmetz has remained an impassioned supporter of the enticing young prospect, at one point even visiting him in the Renegades’ home of Fishkill, N.Y. Judging by the social media post he cranked out afterwards, the longtime Yeshiva stalwart apparently feels that Jackson is a changed man.

“I’m proud of Core for owning a mistake and for seeking out understanding and education.

“I’m proud of True Gravity Baseball for creating an opportunity for a kid to have a pathway back.

“I’m proud of the New York Yankees for having the backbone to trust our process, and the patience to do the diligence, to give Core a chance to chase his dream.

“One of the great parts of this story is that nobody has to spin it. What you read is how it happened. A kid made a terrible and ignorant mistake — one that often, in today’s world, can end your dreams. He didn’t look for an easy way out. He did the work. He put himself at risk and financial detriment with his honesty. He prayed. He got the right people in his corner. And ultimately, he won himself a second chance.

“Now it’s in his hands completely — exactly where it’s supposed to be.

“I’ll be rooting for him — on and off the field.

“It’s your choice if you do, too.”