Another new thread: Great athletes who never succeeded for a variety of reasons. Seems like every town has at least one of those.
Greatest not famous athlete you ever saw
- Thread starter terrynever
- Start date
My friend, a lefty hitter, got to bat against Bill Travers (LHP, Angels and Brewers) when he pitched for Norwood High.
He got two hits off him! Why? Because Travers saw a lefty up there and kept throwing him curveballs, which my friend's bat speed was fast enough to handle. Had he thrown him the high school version of what became his major league fastball, he'd have struck him out easily. My friend barely hit over the Mendoza Line for the year.
Tommy Garrick played for URI and for the Clippers for a little while. There was a very good outdoor summer basketball league in my town growing up and Garrick would come back and play in it and draw big crowds. I saw him play a few times and he was ridiculous, and the quality of the competition was quite good.
I went to high school in Plymouth, and my Freshman year was the last year of the two schools playing as a combined team. That team won the Old Colony League and went to the Super Bowl to play against New Bedford on the Boston University field. I did not play on that team, but my dad took me to all of the games.
New Bedford was one of our non-division opponents during the regular season, and we beat them 6-0 and our defense just smothered them, so I was pretty excited about the Super Bowl. As it turned out, their best player, JoJo Goodine, was hust when we played them in the regular season, and he was a player on a different level than any high school running back and corner back, that I had seen. He absolutely demolished us in the Super Bowl. Really the whole team did, but the show that JoJo put on was absolutely awesome.
New Bedford was one of our non-division opponents during the regular season, and we beat them 6-0 and our defense just smothered them, so I was pretty excited about the Super Bowl. As it turned out, their best player, JoJo Goodine, was hust when we played them in the regular season, and he was a player on a different level than any high school running back and corner back, that I had seen. He absolutely demolished us in the Super Bowl. Really the whole team did, but the show that JoJo put on was absolutely awesome.
Actually the Score of the 79 Sugar Bowl was Bama-14 PSU-7. Not sure I would say they were better but I do remember they had Ist and goal at the one or two yard line and ran the ball 4 straight times using the Running Backs Matt Suhey and Mike Guman and no TD. That probably cost them the game.
Anybody remember Bullpen Coach Mark Bomback? I saw him in the late sixties as a kicker and was a backup QB for Durfee High in Fall River. He also pitched for the Brewers, Mets and Blue Jays. He was drafted by the Red Sox in 1971.
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A few years ago, after 3 seasons of riding the pine at tOSU, I would've predicted my answer to this would be Joe Burrow. Now you all know why.
So instead, my answer is his high school teammate, Trae Williams.
Check out these high school numbers:
Trae Williams
in 3 Seasons:
6,089 Yards from scrimmage (165 per game)
9.9 yards per carry
20.4 yards per reception
One of the saddest things I've ever seen was an opponent dropping an N-bomb at him while getting absolutely demolished by the Athens High School Bulldogs. The opposing coach apologized, and hugged him. Unfortunately, the offending shithead got pulled from the game. I say "unfortunately" because that entire fucking team was going to be on a mission to destroy that fuck. Any of them would've run through a brick wall for Trae.
Great kid, ended up with an injury-plagued career as a DB at Northwestern.
Edit: just for fun, Joe's High School stats. Goddamn, that team was fun.
Also for fun...some Trae highlights and some Joe highlights.
So instead, my answer is his high school teammate, Trae Williams.
Check out these high school numbers:
Trae Williams
in 3 Seasons:
6,089 Yards from scrimmage (165 per game)
9.9 yards per carry
20.4 yards per reception
One of the saddest things I've ever seen was an opponent dropping an N-bomb at him while getting absolutely demolished by the Athens High School Bulldogs. The opposing coach apologized, and hugged him. Unfortunately, the offending shithead got pulled from the game. I say "unfortunately" because that entire fucking team was going to be on a mission to destroy that fuck. Any of them would've run through a brick wall for Trae.
Great kid, ended up with an injury-plagued career as a DB at Northwestern.
Edit: just for fun, Joe's High School stats. Goddamn, that team was fun.
Also for fun...some Trae highlights and some Joe highlights.
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Pawtucket’s Shea High had a triple jumper named Robert Howard who hit 51 feet and ruled New England in the early 1990s. Earned a full ride to Arkansas where he won nine NCAA titles in the long and triple jumps. Made the 1996 and 2000 Olympic teams. A smart young man whose parents emigrated from Liberia, Robert was studying to be a doctor but when he got hurt and failed to make the 2004 Olympics, something snapped. He killed his wife, a doctor, and then jumped out of a window from the 10th floor. He died although not right away. I interviewed him a few times. Pleasant, smart, and distant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Howard_(athlete)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Howard_(athlete)
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Wayne Turner. Played 4 years at Kentucky (retired having played the most games in NCAA history -- it's been broken since, but he retired with 151 games played), one season with the Celtics. Went to my high school, was 3 or 4 years ahead of me.
His games were so electric. He was so much better than everyone else.
His games were so electric. He was so much better than everyone else.
Turner was a really physical player, right? Imagine when a guy like him gets to UK and loses the advantage he held over high school opponents.
I grew up in Medfield and for some reason there was a slew of outstanding hockey players in my age bracket for such a small town (I am not including myself here). Most went on to play college hockey, some I think on teams that advanced to the Frozen Four. Great squirt and peewee teams, but only a few I think played for MHS. Others scattered to Nobles, Xaverian, RL.
In high school I played in a summer league over in Franklin- we had some goalie that came up from Connecticut for games. I think his name was Rob Chancio or something. Guy was just fucking lights out.
I also remember when I was a Mite in the early-mid 1980s there was some kid on the South Boston team that we played who basically scored at will. He was one of the first people I remember to wear the old Cooperalls. I thought they were snow pants when I first saw them. Again, this was Mite level, but this kid was so good I gotta wonder if he ended up being someone notable.
In high school I played in a summer league over in Franklin- we had some goalie that came up from Connecticut for games. I think his name was Rob Chancio or something. Guy was just fucking lights out.
I also remember when I was a Mite in the early-mid 1980s there was some kid on the South Boston team that we played who basically scored at will. He was one of the first people I remember to wear the old Cooperalls. I thought they were snow pants when I first saw them. Again, this was Mite level, but this kid was so good I gotta wonder if he ended up being someone notable.
His wife was a doctor. It was more mental illness and possessive behavior on Robert’s part, according to friends.
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Growing up and playing football in south Jersey, I think Joe Henderson from Freehold was the best athlete I ever saw up close. Not close enough to tackle him though. Joe "the Jet" Henderson was fast. He ran all over our Pop Warner team for a few years and then a little more in HS.
Edit: He went on to play at Clemson, though I don't think he was anything special there.
Edit: He went on to play at Clemson, though I don't think he was anything special there.
A kid I played ball with in high scgool with. Zack Sawyer. Zack was an all state tackle his junior year, and then didn't play football his senior year because of baseball.
In one game zack hit four home runs and a triple. In another zack stuck out 20 out of 21 batters. He threw low 90's with a slider that was terrifying. He also screwed around with a kunckleball.
Got drafted by the A's and blew out his elbow.
In one game zack hit four home runs and a triple. In another zack stuck out 20 out of 21 batters. He threw low 90's with a slider that was terrifying. He also screwed around with a kunckleball.
Got drafted by the A's and blew out his elbow.
Jerry Auzmah. I competed against him in track in high school. He was insanely fast, built like a pro when he was in HS. His team, Saint Peter-Marian, was horrendous, he was the only person who placed in the top 3 in any event for SPM at the meet, winning the 100 (he had a bad start on my schools crappy dirt track, but by the end it wasn't even a close finish) and placing third in the long or triple jump. His explosion was just off the charts. As a scrawny freshman distance runner he looked like a full grown man to me. Everyone knew he was a big deal and he was super polite to everyone. After he went got drafted and started his career with the Bears (making the Pro Bowl as a returner) he set up a scholarship fund for low income kids to go to SPM, because his family were immigrants, he got a scholarship there and he credits SPM with giving him the opportunities that led to the NFL.
The other encounter I had with great, but not famous athletes was in at the MIAA Indoor track and field Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center in 1999, when Franklin Sanchez and Andy Powell ran 8:49 and 8:50 indoor 2 mile, destroying Alberto Salazaar's state record. Distance running is fairly boring for spectators, but those two absolutely flew down the track during that race. An 8:50 two mile requires you to average a 1:06-ish quarter mile. That is damn hard for most in shape people to do one time, outdoors. But 8x, indoors, is insane. I had never seen so many people screaming and excited about a 2 mile race in my life and I spent 10 years competing in and attending track meets at high levels. Those two were the best high school distance runners in the country for a couple of years, and it wasn't even close.
Sanchez set a few American Junior records ran at the World Cross country championships, finished 6th in NCAA XC championships as a freshman, went pro for a bit and then quit running. Powell spent most of his collegiate career injured, but was on several NCAA champion teams, then got into coaching.
Watching the London Olympics, Matt Centrowitz became the first American win gold in the 1500m and they're interviewing HIS coach, Andy Powell. It put things into perspective for 31 year old me, to know that a guy who as a high school kid who was so much better than me and almost everyone else, in in the country, was toast before he was 30 and the closest he came to Olympic glory was coaching someone else to gold. The strata of the top athletes is insane. You can be great in HS and not even make the team in college, you can be good in college and shit in the pros, you can be good in the pros, but not be great. These people are the .0001 % of top 1%.
The other encounter I had with great, but not famous athletes was in at the MIAA Indoor track and field Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center in 1999, when Franklin Sanchez and Andy Powell ran 8:49 and 8:50 indoor 2 mile, destroying Alberto Salazaar's state record. Distance running is fairly boring for spectators, but those two absolutely flew down the track during that race. An 8:50 two mile requires you to average a 1:06-ish quarter mile. That is damn hard for most in shape people to do one time, outdoors. But 8x, indoors, is insane. I had never seen so many people screaming and excited about a 2 mile race in my life and I spent 10 years competing in and attending track meets at high levels. Those two were the best high school distance runners in the country for a couple of years, and it wasn't even close.
Sanchez set a few American Junior records ran at the World Cross country championships, finished 6th in NCAA XC championships as a freshman, went pro for a bit and then quit running. Powell spent most of his collegiate career injured, but was on several NCAA champion teams, then got into coaching.
Watching the London Olympics, Matt Centrowitz became the first American win gold in the 1500m and they're interviewing HIS coach, Andy Powell. It put things into perspective for 31 year old me, to know that a guy who as a high school kid who was so much better than me and almost everyone else, in in the country, was toast before he was 30 and the closest he came to Olympic glory was coaching someone else to gold. The strata of the top athletes is insane. You can be great in HS and not even make the team in college, you can be good in college and shit in the pros, you can be good in the pros, but not be great. These people are the .0001 % of top 1%.
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Great post, especially near the end, describing the strata of elite athletes. It is hard to put into words what the eyes tell us. You did well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Azumah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Azumah
Tommy is from my hometown. I grew up and was very close with his nephew, Stace. Stace actually broke all of Tommy's records in high school for basketball. Scoring 1722 points to Tommy's 1519.
I remember in our class olympics, one part of the relay race was a freshman, sophmore, junior, senior, and teacher all had to spin in a circle to make themselves dizzy then try to score a layup. Stace spun, took the ball and thew an alley oop to himself off the backboard. Everyone in the gym went insane. I don't remember much from high school but I'll always remember that.
Rusty Larue is probably the best all around athlete I've seen from this area. He was the starting QB and PG at Wake Forest - he also pitched a few innings one season there as well. He ended up playing in the NBA for 5 years as an end of the bench guy mostly. His claim to fame was that he won a championship with the '98 Bulls as a rookie. Guy was a local legend who was already in the NBA by the time I graduated high school. I'll never forget him coming to an open gym night at my church when I was in high school. He came in wearing street clothes, didn't warm up and just drained shot after shot from 30+ feet. It's ridiculous to realize how good he was and then also realize that he was one of the worst players in the NBA. He still lives in the area and runs a small chain of fast food restaurants. He's also been spotted wearing his Bulls warmup jacket around town...
I played pickup basketball with a 6-7 guy on the stanford volleyball team--he could dunk all over the place, had a nice touch, one of the best basketball players I've ever been on the same court with (I suck by the way.) Athletic enough to be on a scholarship of some kind for one of the best volleyball teams in the country. He said he had essentially zero interest from d-1 basketball programs, even at the ivy league level.
Anyone in the DCL in the early 90s might remember cy butler -- he was a star receiver at URI in the mid 90s but he was 5-8 or 5-9 and had some off field issues and didn't quite make the NFL. He was unbelievably good as an option QB in high school, globe player of the year, etc. I swear that he was pretty close to the athlete he was in 12th grade by the end of 7th grade--he had a something like a 21 foot long jump in middle school for example.
https://www.wsulancers.com/sports/fball/coaches/Cy_Butler?view=bio
Just to focus on your last sentence, Kids from my junior high class won the Little League World Series in 1960 but by the time they reached high school, they did not dominate as they did at age 12. In those days, you could say something like “Italian kids mature faster” and get away with it. The star player stood 5-4 in LL and 5-7 as a high school player. We had five Black kids in our class of 725 and one just dominated football in 7th grade. But again, he only grew a couple inches in the next five years. A good high school player but not the legend he was in 7th grade.
One of the neat things about college football and the NFL is how being 5-6 is almost an advantage for a running back because short people are hard to find among the sequoias.
Curious if you guys would consider Butch Wynegar "famous?" He had a nice MLB career (13 years beginning in 1976 - MIN, NYY and CAL, a few All-Star games early in his career) but I wonder how many people would even recognize his name. Thoughts? I have a pretty good story about him.
I had his baseball card (I think it had a label like “future star”) so yes, he’s “famous“. Buy what’s the story?
It was “Topps All Star Rookie”
It was “Topps All Star Rookie”
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Yes, we like stories with a personal connection to athletes way beyond our talent level. That is a subtopic of this thread.
Wynegar had retired from baseball in early '88 and was named the baseball coach at D-II Rollins College in 1991. Rollins is a small and pricey private liberal arts school in Winter Park, a neighbor suburb of Orlando. At the time I was playing in a men's baseball league in Orlando. I think we had about ten teams.
The league was actually pretty well organized and each Spring any new players had to show up at a pre-season Saturday morning 'tryout' where they were worked out hitting, fielding, etc. They always had trouble getting existing league players to show up to fill out the positions and participate in the tryout. There were generally only 8-10 players trying out. My manager asked me to go. I was a 2B and had been in the league a while. Wynegar wanted to play and came to the tryout. I played 2B throughout the 90 minute or so workout. I remembered the guy of course, mostly due to his time with NYY.
If you've played baseball as an IF or watched a defensive workout, picture the typical old school infield work. Ball is thrown around, catchers throw to the different bags, different defensive plays are called out, double plays, ground balls hit to each position, etc. After he hit (and he blasted the crap out of the ball in both of his ABs), Wynegar got behind the plate for the infield drills. He was still in great physical condition.
My role was to cover 2B of course as the catcher workout plays were executed. Wynegar would take pitches and throw to the different bases and he probably threw the ball to me 20 plus times down at 2B.
I would get over to the bag and position slightly to the SS side, straddle the bag and put down a target maybe a foot or so off the ground a couple of feet to the 1B side of 2B. Wynegar hit the target 100% of the time within six inches, every time, throwing an absolute laser right to my glove just as it was positioned. No high throws, no offline throws, everything right there. I'd never seen anything like it. He made it look routine and effortless.
I had considered Wynegar a decent but not particularly great catcher who had bounced around a bit. Looking back at his numbers for this comment, I can see he had some pretty good years. I had never had a catcher throw with such accuracy so consistently before or since. I left with a lot of respect for his skills even 3-4 years removed from the tail end of his time in MLB. It was really eye opening.
The league was actually pretty well organized and each Spring any new players had to show up at a pre-season Saturday morning 'tryout' where they were worked out hitting, fielding, etc. They always had trouble getting existing league players to show up to fill out the positions and participate in the tryout. There were generally only 8-10 players trying out. My manager asked me to go. I was a 2B and had been in the league a while. Wynegar wanted to play and came to the tryout. I played 2B throughout the 90 minute or so workout. I remembered the guy of course, mostly due to his time with NYY.
If you've played baseball as an IF or watched a defensive workout, picture the typical old school infield work. Ball is thrown around, catchers throw to the different bags, different defensive plays are called out, double plays, ground balls hit to each position, etc. After he hit (and he blasted the crap out of the ball in both of his ABs), Wynegar got behind the plate for the infield drills. He was still in great physical condition.
My role was to cover 2B of course as the catcher workout plays were executed. Wynegar would take pitches and throw to the different bases and he probably threw the ball to me 20 plus times down at 2B.
I would get over to the bag and position slightly to the SS side, straddle the bag and put down a target maybe a foot or so off the ground a couple of feet to the 1B side of 2B. Wynegar hit the target 100% of the time within six inches, every time, throwing an absolute laser right to my glove just as it was positioned. No high throws, no offline throws, everything right there. I'd never seen anything like it. He made it look routine and effortless.
I had considered Wynegar a decent but not particularly great catcher who had bounced around a bit. Looking back at his numbers for this comment, I can see he had some pretty good years. I had never had a catcher throw with such accuracy so consistently before or since. I left with a lot of respect for his skills even 3-4 years removed from the tail end of his time in MLB. It was really eye opening.
Before I was in college I attended a lot of Tufts sporting events. There was this guy 5’9” Daryl Brown, who was an incredible defensive back and kickoff returner. First time I saw him he returned the opening kickoff 100 yards vs Williams. Ended up drafted 240th by the Browns. Also won the Bob Cousy award as the best New England point guard under 6’ tall.
It was just that everything I went to he was by far the most talented and athletic guy out there. He was a blast to watch.
There are obviously a ton of those types of athletes: super-talented and ridiculously quick and coordinated and skilled and smart but a little small and end up at Division III when they could easily play at a higher level so they just blow away their bewildered competition. He’s the one I remember.
It was just that everything I went to he was by far the most talented and athletic guy out there. He was a blast to watch.
There are obviously a ton of those types of athletes: super-talented and ridiculously quick and coordinated and skilled and smart but a little small and end up at Division III when they could easily play at a higher level so they just blow away their bewildered competition. He’s the one I remember.
Great post. I would suggest that throwing the baseball is the widest disparity between the professionals and even good amateur players. Your post says as much.
A young sports writer who worked for me in Pawtucket illustrates my point. Jim Salisbury played second base for Providence College in the mid-1980s. By the early 2000s, he was covering the Phillies. Jim does not lack for confidence so one day he suggested to Billy Wagner, the lefty reliever, that he could catch his slider. They were in spring training. Next day, Wagner helps dress Jim in catcher’s gear. They go down to the bullpen. Billy warms up and then summons Jim, who gets a glove on a couple of fast balls but totally whiffs on the slider, which he said just disappeared in the last five feet.
I had a kid my first year as a teacher who played every sport as well as anyone I'd seen at the high school level. Kid was a freshman that looked like he'd have d1 offers coming in in a few years for football. Ran for 250-300 every game. Played baseball and seemed to hit doubles and homers every time he was at bat, cracking the lineup as a freshman of a team that won like 100 straight games. Starting power forward in basketball as a freshman. I was convinced he'd at the very least have a D1 career.
Got into heroin between soph and junior year. Never played anything beyond 10th grade.
Got into heroin between soph and junior year. Never played anything beyond 10th grade.
Painful story to read. For every one kid who makes it, there are probably 10 who don’t. We generally only read about the ones who succeed. So thanks for the grim reminder.
Are you a Weymouth guy? I was about 12 years old when Stanton was lighting it up for Weymouth and him and his crew often partied at my friends house two doors down from me (friends sister was dating struzzeiri). This meant getting to tag along some, see their drunken antics etc. As a 12 year old sport crazed kid, the hard partying star of the football team who was getting letters from schools across the country, was basically a god to us.
I'm not, but my dad is, and he dragged me to pretty much every game for years, probably between 5-10 years old for me. That's a neat, albeit sorta sad story as it sounds like he was such a wasted talent.