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Jeff Blackinton
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Location: Blogs . |
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| Posted by: Content Administrator |
1/29/2007 |
The College World Series, 2003: I never expected to be there. After all, I was the kid who showed up his freshman year without even a catcher’s glove, let alone the rest of the “tools of ignorance” that would be my uniform for the next four years. Call it youthful stupidity, ignorance, or forgetfulness, but the crazy part is I got lucky and it worked. How I got to the pinnacle of college baseball is testament to the program’s ability to both develop talent and develop men.
After a look of shock that made me smaller than I think I’ve ever felt, Coach Graham gave me a blue catcher’s glove and sent me out to the bullpen. They must’ve seen something in me because I wasn’t asked to leave. Some of you may laugh at that, but as a kid from a small high school outside Seattle, I fully expected to be quickly denied when I showed up at such a college baseball power and asked to play.
I spent the better part of my first year out in the pen, preparing pitchers and finding endless entertainment. Part of me was still shocked at even being in uniform. Being a walk-on is hard to explain. You don’t quite feel like you should be there, since you weren’t asked to show up. And all of a sudden you’ve gone from playing with your buddies in a small town to trying to hit and catch future first round draft picks. It’s pretty daunting. But as time passed, and it was definitely a gradual process, I started to turn on fastballs and consistently block curveballs in the dirt. My “walk-on insecurities” faded, and I started to think, with a lot of hard work, I could be good at this. The coaches’ faith in me (or at least their passiveness in telling me to get lost) helped me develop the dedication I needed.
I did work very hard, and improved to the point I was a useful player. I was never a top notch talent, but I worked hard and played smart (or at least tried to, some of you know better). I was also lucky enough to be around a great group of guys and fantastically talented baseball players. These qualities were clearly recruited, as every teammate I had at Rice was both a great person and a great baseball player, but they were also developed in us every day. Sure, we refined our baseball talents, took lots of BP, and did endless fielding drills; but we also chased perfection, and we learned to will success even at long odds and in pressure-filled situations. It was this character and determination that separated us at Omaha, and why we achieved our goal. These are traits that are not innate, they are developed. On the Rice University baseball team is where I developed these traits. For that, I will always be grateful to the coaching staff and all of my teammates through my four years (2000-2003).
As for my life post-baseball: during my senior year, I applied for and was accepted to a joint graduate student program at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD and Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. I knew my future was not in professional baseball, so I accepted the offer and have now been splitting my time between DC and Sweden for the better part of four years. I am working on my Ph.D. focusing on the genetic aspects of Parkinson’s disease. So far, things are going well, and I hope that I will be able to finish in December of 2007. I definitely owe my ability to keep to this timeline, stay focused, and set goals to my time at Rice. A year and a half ago, I married my college girlfriend Theresa, joining the ranks of the many Rice grads who marry other Rice grads. So I guess I owe my marriage to Rice as well. Theresa works as an editor at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and we live just outside of DC in Bethesda, MD.
Even though my athletic prowess is now limited to softball and pick-up basketball, I know my future successes in life, professionally and personally, will in large part be due to the traits and abilities I developed at Reckling Park.
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