Referring to an article in this week’s Examiners, Rice baseball coach Wayne Graham has been able to build a a perennial national contender every year with local ballplayers. Nearly 60 percent of the players on the current roster played at high schools in the area, and almost half of this year’s signees call the Bayou City home.
I asked Graham why Houston has probably become the best spot for talent in the nation for baseball. He had a few interesting thoughts that go beyond the scope of a recent trend.
First off, he noted baseball has continued to grow in popularity in this part of the country since the sport first arrived in Texas with the Colt .45s in Houston in 1962 and the Rangers in Arlington ten years later. Since then, interest has trickled down to Texas colleges, high school and youth leagues. “It’s really so much different than it was 50 years ago,” he said.
Over time, people became feverishly passionate about the diamond. Pressure from parents and their respective communities have forced a strong commitment from local little leagues and schools. Graham said an old joke was the high school baseball skipper was the coach who lost the coin flip to coach the football team. Now, it’s not uncommon for a head coach to solely be responsible for the baseball program with coordinating offseason programs and getting players involved with fall leagues.
One of the more compelling reasons Graham had was the amount of people settling here that have such a vast knowledge of and experience with the sport. Because of cheap housing and a serious bang for the buck in quality of life, retired professional athletes find Houston quite appealing.
Some athletes get into coaching at various levels, and some even open their own training facilities. Even opening a restaurant with their name attached to it has to get kids thinking about playing some catch. Regardless of their visibility, the presence of these people permeates through all levels of the sport in the area.
That goes for athletes of any of the major sports. Shaquille O’Neal has a house down here for one. Former NBA player and coach John Lucas has had both his sons’ successes on the basketball court at Bellaire well-chronicled. The list is pretty endless.
It’s probably not a coincidence that it’s also widely considered that Houston has some of the best prospect talent in the nation these days for football and basketball.
This entry was posted
on January 2, 2008 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Baseball, Rice, Youth baseball.
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Owls’ Graham on building a kingdom from his backyard
Referring to an article in this week’s Examiners, Rice baseball coach Wayne Graham has been able to build a a perennial national contender every year with local ballplayers. Nearly 60 percent of the players on the current roster played at high schools in the area, and almost half of this year’s signees call the Bayou City home.
I asked Graham why Houston has probably become the best spot for talent in the nation for baseball. He had a few interesting thoughts that go beyond the scope of a recent trend.
First off, he noted baseball has continued to grow in popularity in this part of the country since the sport first arrived in Texas with the Colt .45s in Houston in 1962 and the Rangers in Arlington ten years later. Since then, interest has trickled down to Texas colleges, high school and youth leagues. “It’s really so much different than it was 50 years ago,” he said.
Over time, people became feverishly passionate about the diamond. Pressure from parents and their respective communities have forced a strong commitment from local little leagues and schools. Graham said an old joke was the high school baseball skipper was the coach who lost the coin flip to coach the football team. Now, it’s not uncommon for a head coach to solely be responsible for the baseball program with coordinating offseason programs and getting players involved with fall leagues.
One of the more compelling reasons Graham had was the amount of people settling here that have such a vast knowledge of and experience with the sport. Because of cheap housing and a serious bang for the buck in quality of life, retired professional athletes find Houston quite appealing.
Some athletes get into coaching at various levels, and some even open their own training facilities. Even opening a restaurant with their name attached to it has to get kids thinking about playing some catch. Regardless of their visibility, the presence of these people permeates through all levels of the sport in the area.
That goes for athletes of any of the major sports. Shaquille O’Neal has a house down here for one. Former NBA player and coach John Lucas has had both his sons’ successes on the basketball court at Bellaire well-chronicled. The list is pretty endless.
It’s probably not a coincidence that it’s also widely considered that Houston has some of the best prospect talent in the nation these days for football and basketball.
This entry was posted on January 2, 2008 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Baseball, Rice, Youth baseball. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
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