Kyle Parker: The dual threat

Parker establishes himself as a star at Clemson — just not at the sport everyone expected him to star in

By PAUL STRELOW - pstrelow@thestate.com

Photo provided by Chris Ard/TigerIllustrated.com

Kyle Parker

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Kyle Parker bio

YEAR: Freshman

POS.: Infield/outfield

HT.: 6 feet

WT.: 190 pounds

2008 STATS: .303 avg., 11 HRs, 43 RBIs

MAJOR: Communication studies

HIGH SCHOOL: Bartram Trail (Jacksonville, Fla.)

DUAL SPORT: Parker is a scholarship quarterback for the football team. He lettered four times and baseball and football at Bartram Trail.

DID YOU KNOW: He is the son of former NFL receiver Carl Parker, who played for the Bengals in 1988 and ’89.

CLEMSON — Kyle Parker would be attending his senior prom Saturday, but something came up on his schedule a few months ago.

He has a college baseball game to play — the finale of Clemson’s three-game series at Central Florida.

Had the game begun at about noon, Parker would have considered driving from Orlando to Jacksonville, Fla., where he would be a senior at Bartram Trail High School if he had not enrolled at Clemson early.

But the contest starts at 6:30 p.m. Parker contends his absence is no big deal; he did the standard tuxedo-and-limo affair as a junior last year.

“It’s just not going to happen,” Parker said.

Stranger things have.

No one would have figured the Tigers would be relying on a freshman as the No. 3 or No. 4 hitter in their lineup at this stage of the season.

Especially when that freshman was recruited to Clemson as a scholarship football quarterback, with the offer to try baseball as part of the lure.

Such arrangements typically flame out for a variety of reasons, which makes Parker’s case both unique and increasingly worth monitoring.

On May 3, Parker hit a three-run homer in the 10th inning of a televised near-comeback against fifth-ranked Florida State.

Moments later, Parker’s dad, Carl, received a phone call at home from Clemson receivers coach Dabo Swinney.

Swinney, Parker’s primary recruiter, had been watching the game with his three sons and exclaimed disbelief at what Parker was accomplishing.

Whether Parker can maintain his two-sport status figures to be a big issue for seasons to come.

“It’s one of those things where obviously there aren’t many Bo Jacksons in the world,” Carl Parker said. “You get to a point where things kind of play themselves out, and that’s kind of what’s happening.”

TO EVERYTHING, THERE IS A SEASON

Parker needed to look no further than his father for an account of the pratfalls he might have signed up for.

Carl, who would go on to have a brief NFL career as a receiver, played one year of both football and baseball at Vanderbilt before hanging up the bat and glove.

He said his football coaches signed off on the baseball venture yet insinuated his football development was being retarded by missing meetings and spring workouts.

“A lot of times what wasn’t said was the difficult thing,” Carl said. “You just feel guilty for not being there.

“When Kyle got to the college level, we had people tell us he needed to focus on one (sport). But I’m not a big believer that more is necessarily better.”

So far, Parker has been granted the freedom to test that theory.

When football coach Tommy Bowden and baseball coach Jack Leggett met with the Parkers to make their recruiting pitch, Carl booted Kyle from the room and told Clemson’s coaches if the two-sport trek was not an option, let him know.

Bowden told Carl that if Parker could contribute in another sport, Bowden would be all for it.

If Parker could not contribute, though, that was another story.

To that end, Parker said Bowden offered to let him focus solely on baseball this spring during a meeting to hash out his practice schedules. Parker declined.

That would lead to a tug-of-war between the two teams, Parker surmised, and he figured it needed to be a compromise from the get-go because it would have to be a compromise in subsequent years.

“I didn’t want to really get too far behind in football,” Parker said. “It also helped because it gave me experience trying to juggle both so I would be more used to that when future springs come around.”

Parker is expected to redshirt with the football team this fall because the Tigers have Cullen Harper and Willy Korn at quarterback.

Without the urgency of being pressed into immediate football service, Parker had luxuries this spring that might not be afforded in future baseball seasons.

In February, he was required to attend the football team’s dreaded 5:45 a.m. mat drills but did not always have to participate.

Baseball forced him to miss the majority of his position meetings during spring football practice, which limited him to mostly individual drills.

On one occasion, he was escorted by golf cart from the football fields across a parking lot and to Doug Kingsmore Stadium to get dressed and be available late in a baseball game.

Parker said he realizes as his role on the football team becomes more relevant, his flexible schedule probably will change, too.

“You have to give Clemson’s football staff a lot of credit because they’re really sticking to what they said they would do,” Parker said. “It makes me feel good that I made the right choice. As of right now, it seems to be working out the way I wanted it.”

Parker said his biggest adjustment in his first collegiate semester had to do with managing time, not sustaining the energy to meet his two-sport obligations.

He had to learn when to take breaks in order to recharge his batteries mentally.

“I really didn’t know what to expect,” Parker said. “I heard a lot about how it’s going to be busy and you’re going to burn out. But I still like doing both.”

WATCH AND LEARN

Perhaps complicating matters, Parker has proved a pro career in the sport that is not paying his scholarship might be more likely.

Parker set the bar high for someone who enrolled in college in January and then picked up a bat for the first time in six months.

He ranks second on the team with 43 RBIs and is hitting .303.

The 6-foot, 190-pounder has also curbed the Tigers’ expected power shortage by churning out 11 home runs, four shy of the program’s freshman record (Matthew LeCroy, 1995). Ten of those homers have come in Clemson’s 29 ACC games.

As the Tigers have tried to break out of a offensive slump down the stretch, Parker has gone 17-for-44 (.386) with 22 RBIs the past 12 games.

“He has really good presence and really good poise for someone that age,” Leggett said. “He’s made good adjustments and is a good visual learner.”

All traits that his swing coach thought would translate quickly at the college level.

Since age 11, Parker has worked with former Florida State catcher Jeremiah Klosterman on his hitting.

Klosterman, who gives lessons and serves as an area prep assistant coach, said Parker’s power was immediately evident in recreational league play.

But what has made his transition to college pitching seamless is his ability to discern how pitchers are attacking him and build his plate approach around that knowledge.

Leggett said Parker seldom chases bad pitches or gets behind in counts, which Klosterman attributes to Parker’s work ethic.

Whereas many kids Klosterman tutors will focus on a technique only at that day’s lesson, Parker would go to the batting cage for several days thereafter so he could build on the lesson the for their next meeting.

“Guys I played with like J.D. Drew, they had that something special,” Klosterman said. “(Parker) just has that ‘it’ factor. And he takes that and works his butt off.”

As steady as his hitting has been, defense has been an adventure for Parker, who got looks at first, second and third base before shifting to right field in late April on a week’s notice.

Parker believes he has found a home there — football teammates suggest he has the strongest arm among the quarterbacks — but his opportunities to improve through experience before next season are coming to a close.

Whereas his baseball brethren will depart for the summer league circuits at season’s end, Parker will remain at Clemson to take a summer school course while participating in voluntary “skills and drills” football workouts.

Barring an unlikely surge by the Tigers into the NCAA tournament, Parker will walk in Bartram Trail’s graduation June 6 and join most football teammates in reporting to campus in July for the second session of summer school.

The only baseball practice Parker expects to have in the fall will be visits to the batting cage.

But the Parkers contend that might not be all bad.

After all, as Carl said, if Parker had wanted to narrow his sights on a pro baseball career, he could have stayed in high school this spring and waited for the June draft. Scouts told Parker he could have been picked within the first seven rounds, generally guaranteeing a six-figure signing bonus.

Carl recalled Parker attending a University of Florida baseball camp after his freshman season.

Parker drilled two homers, and Carl — offensive coordinator for the high school football team — was worried his quarterback would want to spend the rest of the summer playing baseball.

But when Parker got home, he stashed his gear in the attic and pronounced himself ready for football.

They are getting ready to find out if a similar approach can succeed at the next level.

“I’m getting an idea about how to balance and juggle everything,” Parker said. “I think I can keep it up and handle it for the next couple of years.”