Will Venable grew up around Major League clubhouses, but the White Sox manager once saw a different postseason path for himself: a basketball court in March, chasing the NCAA Final Four rather than guiding Chicago through October.
Instead, Venable has the White Sox in the 2026 postseason after taking over a club that lost 121 games in 2024. Chicago’s young roster has brought power, confidence and an unexpected October run, including the franchise’s first postseason series victory since 2005. The White Sox now have an American League Division Series Game 5 scheduled for Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, with TBS, truTV, UniMas and HBO Max carrying the game.
| Venable athletic line | Figure |
|---|---|
| Height as Princeton guard | 6-foot-3 |
| 2004 NCAA Tournament vs. Texas | 16 points, 8 rebounds |
| Senior-year game at Duke | 21 points |
| San Diego Draft selection | Seventh round, 2005 |
| Major League debut | 2008 |
| MLB playing career | 9 seasons, about 13 WAR |
A basketball player first
Venable’s father, Max, spent 12 seasons in the Major Leagues, so baseball was never far away. Still, Will Venable said basketball had his heart from childhood. He remembers being in kindergarten, imagining a life without the NBA and becoming upset by the thought.
At Princeton, he initially arrived as a basketball recruit and did not plan to play baseball. The 2004 Tigers entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 14 seed and were eliminated by Texas in the opening round, despite Venable’s 16-point, eight-rebound performance.
Mike Chernoff, now the Guardians’ general manager and once Venable’s Princeton baseball teammate, remembered a guard with a complete game. Venable could handle the ball, score, move without it and operate smoothly across the floor.
His father had a feeling baseball would eventually pull him in. Scott Bradley, Princeton’s baseball coach at the time, recalled Max Venable telling him that his son would someday want to give the sport a try.
Five misses, five popups, then line drives
Venable averaged 16 minutes a game as a freshman basketball player in 2001-02. Once that season ended, he felt settled academically and visited Bradley’s office to ask about joining the baseball program.
The first cage session was not much of an audition. Venable swung through five pitches, then popped up five more. Before long, however, he began hitting line drives with enough authority to change Bradley’s mind. The coach quickly told an assistant that Venable might become a very good player.
Basketball remained his first sport. He became a starter during his sophomore season, and when Princeton’s NIT run finished, Bradley offered him a break before he joined the baseball club at North Carolina. Venable chose to report immediately. He struck out in his first collegiate baseball plate appearance, then lined a single to left-center in the next one.
As a senior, Venable scored 21 points against Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. He was more of a driver and finisher than a perimeter specialist, however, and an NBA future never materialized. By the end of his Princeton career, he and future Padres teammate Chris Young were the only two athletes in Ivy League history to earn first-team All-Ivy recognition in both basketball and baseball.
Scouts considered Venable inexperienced in baseball, but Bradley believed the instincts were already there. Venable reached the Majors with San Diego in 2008 after playing fewer than 600 games between college and the Minor Leagues.
The competitive thread
Venable said basketball was his escape, the place where he could relax and feel happy. Baseball did not replace it; it gave him another arena for competition. He sees that competitive edge as the common ground between two very different games.
That edge followed him into coaching. Venable worked with the Cubs, Red Sox and the 2023 World Series champion Rangers before accepting the White Sox job. Now 43, he has helped turn a rebuilding club into a postseason threat and could be in the running for American League Manager of the Year next month.
He no longer joins pickup basketball games, knowing the body has stopped matching the confidence in his mind. But the former Princeton slasher has found another way to keep moving: from the bench, with Chicago playing meaningful October baseball.
