Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — In the small town where I grew up, there might have been one guy every five years or so that would get drafted into the minors. Maybe one or two guys out of that group would ever play in the big leagues, and none of them was ever anything more than a blip on the professional sports record books. How crazy is it that two elite athletes grew up in the same Texas town at the same time?
But that is exactly what happened in Highland Park Texas in the nineties and early 2000’s. Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw and new Rams QB Matthew Stafford grew up side by side in that town of Highland Park Texas. And since they both graduated from Highland Park High School in 2006, both athlete’s careers have taken off, to say the least. Kershaw “won the draft lottery” and got selected by the Dodgers right out of high school. Under the tutelage of a quality organization, he thrived, becoming a top-five pitcher of his generation.
Stafford wasn’t quite so lucky. After starring at the University of Georgia, Stafford was selected by the perennially crummy Detroit Lions, and has languished near the bottom of the NFC Central standings ever since. However, the trade to the Rams has given Stafford a shot at a late career resurgence, and his performance in Sunday’s NFL opener has given Rams fans great hopes for a future with Stafford running a Sean McVeigh offense.
But regardless of their divergent career paths, it’s wild to think of them playing side by side in Highland Park. In fact, for a time, Kershaw was actually snapping the football to Stafford on their team’s offensive line. “I was short and chunky,” Kershaw recalled in an LA Times article earlier this year.
On the other hand, Stafford developed physically very quickly and dominated at quarterback. On undefeated eight-grade middle school and high school freshman teams, Kershaw was the starting center, snapping the ball to Stafford.
“Clayton had great feet, but ultimately a super-smart kid and he could really connect the dots,” said Reagan Dailey, who started coaching Stafford and Kershaw as seventh graders and was the offensive line coach for the high school freshman team. Kershaw was “scrappy” and “loved being in the dogpiles,” Olson said.
However, being a center on a high school football team was not a fate that Kershaw embraced. After freshman year, he quit the team to concentrate on baseball, much to the dismay of his teammates and coaches. In football crazy Texas, abandoning football simply wasn’t done.
However, three Cy Youngs and a World Series ring later, I imagine Kershaw is at peace with that decision. Anyway, it was wonderful to see old friends reunited (sort of) as Kershaw took the mound on Monday night. And though JT, Corey Knebel, and Corey Seager were all spotted at the Rams game on Sunday, Kershaw took a pass, preferring to focus his energy on Monday’s return to the mound.
However, Kersh appreciated seeing his old buddy in the stands. “For him to come out and show his support the day after is really cool,” he said in a post-game interview on Monday. “We’ve known each other for a long time and we played a lot of sports together growing up, it’s always fun to have someone to cheer for in another sport, and Matthew is that guy for me. Now that we’re both in LA, it’s full circle and it’s pretty cool.”
Pretty cool indeed.
