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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > May > 28 > Entry
COLUMN: Twede proves he’s a keeper
As it turns out, Rob Cooper did make a mistake — just not the one he thought he’d made.
Last spring the Wright State baseball coach called back-up infielder Kory Twede into his office for an end-of-the-season review and promptly delivered a withering assessment.
“I told him, ‘Kory, I love ya’ and you’re gonna have your scholarship here, but if you want to play a lot, you’re probably going to need to transfer,’” Cooper admitted. “Basically I was saying, ‘Look man, you’re not gonna play next year.’”
A couple of days later, Twede said he got a call from Raiders’ assistant coach Greg Lovelady who delivered the same news.
Cooper and his staff figured they had rolled the dice on Twede and come up snake eyes.
Before last season they needed a shortstop and, it being late to recruit someone, they called around and heard about a kid playing for Big Bend Community College in central Washington.
Big Bend’s season was over by then, so Cooper flew out, watched Twede take batting practice and field ground balls and from that — and other’s recommendations — offered a scholarship.
But once at Wright State, Twede struggled, other players passed him by and he had a forgettable season. He played in about half the games, started only three, hit .250 and admits, by the end, “I didn’t feel like I belonged.”
Still, the pack-your-bags suggestion stunned him and he told Cooper he needed time to think.
“My first thought was, ‘Do I even want to try to come back?’” he said. “It was an emotional time. I prayed and I especially talked to my dad. He’s everything in the world to me.”
Kory said when he was just eight months old his parents split up and his dad has raised him as a single parent ever since:
“He did it all — instant milk, changing diapers, PTA meetings. Right from the start, he told me he was gonna love me for two parents and through thick and thin, he did just that. Now we talk or text message every single day. He’s my best friend. One day he’ll be the best man in my wedding. He’s just a special guy.”
When he is home, he plays the drums and his dad plays rhythm guitar and sings in a little band they have. They go camping. They confide in each other.
“At a very young age my dad taught me about goals and dreams and the necessary steps you gotta take to get them,” Twede said.. “He taught me about having a positive attitude and working through hardships in life.”
Coming out of high school in Kent, Wash. — where he was captain of his baseball team — Twede said he was recruited by only one junior college and it wasn’t Big Bend: “I had to go through an open tryout for them.”
After two successful junior college seasons, he had only one NCAA Division I school — Wright State — show real interest.
He’d always done enough to keep his baseball dream alive — his dad reminded him of that after the Cooper meeting — and so he said he told the WSU coaches he was staying for his senior season:
“I said ‘What you’ve seen so far isn’t the way I play. I’m going to prove you wrong and, if nothing else, I’ll be a good leader on the bench.’”
Whether it was missing his dad back in Washington, his girlfriend, Lindsey Freeman, who lives in Alabama or just losing confidence on the field — probably a little of each said his dad, Shane Twede — Kory had to regroup.
“l’d lost track of what baseball meant to me,” he said.
Following the old absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder bromide, he stayed away from baseball during the summer, working with a lawn maintenance crew in Alabama, then for his dad in Washington.
When he returned to Wright State in the fall, he was a different player. “He had one of the best fall seasons I’ve ever seen a guy have,” Cooper said. “He carried himself differently. He had more confidence.”
And when he struggled again early this spring, Kory was able to right himself — especially after his dad made a quick trip here — and ended up having “just a great season” Cooper said.
Playing right field, he has appeared in 56 games this season, started 52 and is hitting .332. The guy who had no home runs last year is now second on the team with eight.
In the Horizon League Tournament, he led the Raiders with 12 hits in 22 at bats — including two doubles and two home runs — for a team-best .545 batting average and a .909 slugging percentage.
And with two outs in the ninth inning of the title game Sunday, May 24 — and a berth in the NCAA Tournament on the line — Twede delivered the game-tying RBI against the University of Illinois-Chicago. WSU won in 12 innings — he was named the MVP of the tournament — and now the Raiders play 14th-ranked Texas Christian Friday night in Fort Worth.
“He is THE reason we’re in the NCAA Tournament and I couldn’t be prouder of him,” Cooper said. “There’s nothing I like better than a player who overcomes challenges. Deep down he knew he was good enough to play and once he let himself show it, everybody else could see it, too. I love it when guys prove me wrong.
“I kid around now and say. ‘Man, he showed me just how good of a coach I am. I suggested he leave — that he wasn’t gonna play — and instead he’s the MVP of the Tournament.”
And so, compared to last year, how’s this season winding down between he and his coach?
“He’s giving me lots of hugs these days,” Twede laughed. “Lots of hugs.”
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