North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: Brackman follows brighter light
10/12/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
BY TIM PEELER
“If I look down two tunnels and basketball is one and baseball is the other, the light at the end of the baseball tunnel is much brighter,” said
That doesn’t mean that the 6-foot-10 pitcher/forward’s decision to forego basketball and play baseball only this year was simple to consider or easy to make. He’s been struggling over it for more than two months, ever since he proved to scouts and baseball executives during a dominant summer of pitching in the Cape Cod League and for Team
“It is such a hard decision to make that I kind of held on to it as long as I could,” said Brackman, who will pitch in the second game of NC State’s Fall Intrasquad World Series at 6 p.m. at Doak Stadium. “In a perfect world, I’d be playing both. If I had the time and I had the energy, I would be playing both.”
But there were times over the last two years that his body couldn’t take the pounding of playing two major-college sports with conflicting schedules. Brackman doesn’t know which sport caused the stress fracture in his hip last spring, but he knows that the pounding running of basketball made it worse.
“During baseball season, I had pain on every pitch,” said Brackman, who made only seven appearances on the mound last year, going 1-3 with a 6.35 earned run average, before the hip injury ended his season in mid-April. “I probably should have said something sooner, but I didn’t want to quit. I didn’t want to go home. I thought maybe when I got sick [with mononucleosis in February], I would be able to heal. But once I came back and it was still unbearable, I thought maybe something was really wrong.”
And the son of two high school teachers knew when he started dozing off night after night in study hall that he his divided attention was not a productive situation, athletically, academically, physically or mentally.
“If you are going to do two sports in college, then you can’t fully focus all to one sport at one time,” Brackman said. “During basketball season, you have to do some baseball stuff, and during baseball season, you have to do some basketball stuff. And throughout both you have to do school stuff.
“I don’t know how good I can be at baseball and I don’t know how good I can be at basketball. I am choosing this one right now to see how good I can be. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll come back and play basketball.”
Brackman knows he could be a top pick in next year’s Major League Draft of First-Year players. But to do so, he has to show teams willing to make a multi-million dollar investment in him that he can pitch productively for an entire season. Brackman has never thrown more than 43 innings in a high school or college season, and a typical professional pitcher throws in excess of 200 innings.
“My mind is solely, 100 percent about working out hard and doing everything I can to get ready for next baseball season," Brackman said. "I have no idea about the draft it is too early to tell. The only thing I can do now is focus on getting better as a baseball player.”
He’s been working on a change-up to go with his 100 mile-an-hour fastball, his slider and his curveball. He’s looking to get stronger in his legs and his upper body. legs and a little more upper-body strength.
Brackman admits its going to kill him to watch his basketball teammates play without him. He plans to be at every game he can when the season starts.
“It will definitely be hard to sit there and watch and not be able to go out and help, when I know I could help the team and compete,” Brackman said. “I am pulling for them 100 percent. I love those guys, I love the coaches, I love the trainers and the managers. We had 12, 13 guys on the team this year. They are all so close. Everyone gets along. The guys understand the decision I have to make. I am still best friends with all of them.”
He also wants to make it clear that his decision has nothing to do with last spring’s coaching change in basketball, in which Herb Sendek was replaced by former NC State basketball player Sidney Lowe. If anything, it made his decision harder and more prolonged.
“It’s a whole new ball game and a whole new staff,” Brackman said. “I loved Coach Sendek and I loved playing for him. But if he would have been here, I would have made the same decision earlier. With the new staff coming in, I wasn’t sure what this year would be like for basketball. The thing that kept getting stuck in my mind was, Hey, what if I did play. It might be different this year.’ That made me think about playing basketball again.”
Brackman certainly got the message that Lowe sent on Tuesday, when the coach said the door was always open for his return to the hardwoods.
“I know if I have a bad year in baseball or if the draft doesn’t go the way I want, Coach Lowe has still left the door open for me to come back,” Brackman said. “He made it perfectly clear that at any point in time that I could come back, whether it be in the middle of this year or next year after the draft.
“This is basically a redshirt year in basketball so I can just focus on baseball.”
But even the solid justification of preparing himself for the future doesn’t make anything easier for Brackman.
“I do feel like I am letting down my [basketball] teammates a little bit, but I am also happy that they understand,” he said. “They know and I know I would help them out. I am not trying to say that I would be a team-saver or anything, because I know I don’t have that kind of ability.
“But this is what I have to do for my future.”
Avent sympathizes with Brackman’s plight. The veteran coach stayed away from his star pitcher for much of the summer, to let Brackman make his own decision, based on the input he got from the basketball staff, his parents, his high school coaches and his unpaid professional advisor.
“He has gone through a lot,” Avent said. “I think it’s been obvious to Drew what he had to do. It’s not always about what you want to do. He’s not really doing what he wants to do. He is doing what he feels like he needs to do. Nobody understands that better than people who have been around people who have a chance to play professional sports.
“I think the day of the two-sport guy who plays both sports all four years is long gone, unless that person may not have the ability to play professionally and make a lot of money in either of sports. You take Tim Stoddard of 30 years ago. Would he have had to make a decision today? Probably, and it probably would have been baseball. You take Terry Harvey. Would he have had to make a decision 10 years ago? Probably so.”
Avent understands the reason Brackman was so conflicted he’s having to make a decision about his future and it is having a big impact on teammates and friends.
“Drew is probably as unselfish an athlete that I have ever been around in sports,” Avent said. “That is what made this so tough for him. I hope all fans of NC State sports understand that. There are going to be people saying Gosh, I wish he was out there [playing basketball].’ So does he. So do I.
“This isn’t a selfish act it is what he has to do for his future.”
In the end, learning to make hard choices and preparing for the future is what every student even talented two-sport, high-level athletes come to college for in the first place.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
