Walking his darkest path: Mark Rypien’s long struggle
with traumatic brain injury
Fri., March 30, 2018,
6 a.m.
By
John Blanchette Spokane
Spokesman-Review
Early on, there were
the “wait-a-minute” moments.
Like the time Mark
Rypien and his wife, Danielle, were in the car, daughters in the back seat,
pulling into a McDonald’s drive-thru. She wasn’t a McDonald’s eater. Didn’t
speak the McLanguage. And the menu board was too far ahead for her to read it
anyway, not that she’d know a Big Mac from a Quarter Pounder. So when her
husband asked her what she wanted to order, she was momentarily stumped.
“A hamburger?” she
offered.
And Mark Rypien lost
it a little.
“Mark had never said
a mean word to me the first two years we were together,” Danielle said. “Never
had an argument. And he just snapped out of the blue. There was no trigger. It
didn’t make sense. And later on, he was like, ‘What happened?’ He felt bad for
days, to where it was crushing him that he’d done that.”
But there were other
moments. Yelling at his brothers – his teammates – in rec league hockey games
that went well over the edge of jockish trash talk, once causing a rift that
lasted a month. Lapses in memory for someone who could recall trivial details
from football games played 25 years before. Mood swings over trifles, as when
Danielle would put on some music in the house.
“What are you doing
that for?” he barked.
Wait a minute.
“There were behaviors
that were just bizarre,” said Rypien, 55. “They didn’t fit anything.”
Until they went
beyond the wait-a-minute blips. Until they became reckless, dangerous,
frightening, hurtful.
Until they started to
reflect behaviors which had beset multiple generations of National Football
League alumni who had endured withering hits to the head over the course of
careers long and brief, in a sports culture that schooled them to “shake it
off” and in a professional enterprise which then ignored or dismissed the
findings of researchers and medical professionals that pointed to patterns of
serious mental illness beyond the physical toll.
In time, it took a
lawsuit with Rypien as a lead plaintiff joined by some 4,500 former NFL players
to exact reparations – but no concessions of fault – from the league, and the
2015 movie “Concussion” to crystallize public awareness about brain injury and
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
Rypien doesn’t know if
he has CTE: Diagnosis can only be made with an autopsy. But both he and
Danielle can identify the signposts.
“I remember thinking,
‘Oh my god, he’s going to end up in a home,’ ” said Danielle. “Mark knew every
guy in that movie. I thought he was going to end up like that. I didn’t want
him running around the street with a shopping cart.”
Except he’d nearly
ended up dead already.
It’s about awareness
From his days as a
record-shattering high school quarterback at Shadle Park to the pinnacle as a
Super Bowl MVP, Mark Rypien has lived – and sometimes made a living – on his
memories.
Want to talk about
that touchdown pass he made at Washington State in the Apple Cup, or the clubby
camaraderie of an NFL locker room? He’s happy to oblige.
Now he’s ready to
have another conversation. In interviews this week, he shared details of his
struggles with mental illness, suicidal thoughts and emotional control.
He’s been prompted,
he said, by a dark winter in his community. He took note of the January suicide
of WSU quarterback Tyler Hilinski, and the more recent news of Coeur d’Alene
High School principal Troy Schueller dying from an apparent self-inflicted
gunshot. He’s learned from his brother, Tim, a teacher at North Central, of “an
epidemic” of suicides among NC students, and across Spokane’s teenage
population.
“Let’s address this
now,” Rypien said. “Let me share my story so others can share theirs. Let’s get
rid of this silence that happens when you’re caught up in this cycle and you
don’t know how to find the help I’ve been afforded. There are ways to get help.
There’s great work going on in our community. But we need to team up and do
more.
“My story is
impactful because people see me in a different light. I want them to see me in
an accurate light. I’ve been down the darkest path. I’ve made some horrible,
horrible mistakes. But I’ve given myself a chance to progress forward.”
That’s occurred with
the help of a phalanx of counselors and doctors, a fine-tuning of a medication
regimen and other strategies, as he calls them, and the “relentless support” of
his family and Danielle – work, he knows, that will be forever ongoing.
The mistakes, as he
called them, cover a lurid gamut. Domestic violence, though the episode was
triggered, both Rypien and Danielle insist, by a “disastrous” change in
medication. Sex with prostitutes at local massage parlors.
An unsuccessful
suicide attempt – and a false start before that.
He’ll talk frankly
about those – to a point. When he balks, the Rypiens say it’s because they have
been advised that details could hurt the work of the Rypien Foundation that he
began 15 years ago to aid in the treatment and comfort of childhood cancer
patients, and which has seen the recent resignation of two employees, including
the executive director, Katie Doree.
The Rypiens were
accompanied to a KHQ television interview this week by Michelle Hege, a Rypien
Foundation board member and the CEO and president of Desautel Hege, a local
public relations and marketing firm.
They met with The
Spokesman-Review by themselves. A friend has put them in touch with Alan
Hilburg, a renowned crisis management specialist.
That might suggest
simply that there’s care being taken with the message or, in this era of #MeToo
revelations, there’s another shoe still to drop.
Rypien insisted there
isn’t.
“Making poor
decisions, poor choices, that kind of took over my life,” he said. “I was to a
point where I needed to make myself feel better somehow and I did things that
allowed me to do that, and then was literally more depressed and feeling even
worse than I was initially.”
A football life
Rypien remains
perhaps Spokane’s finest high school athlete – the passing records, pitching in
the state championship baseball game, MVP of the State 3A basketball tournament
Shadle won in 1981. He would become an All-Pac-10 passer at WSU, and if his NFL
career wasn’t charmed all the way from draft to retirement, there was a
two-year period when he was as good as any quarterback in the game –
culminating in that MVP turn with the Washington Redskins at Super Bowl XXVI.
But in 26 years of
organized football, he eluded few hits – beginning with “getting my bell rung
in hamburger drill or bull-in-the-ring” face-offs in junior high. He recalled
getting leveled on a spring-game Hail Mary pass in Pullman and, in the Martin
Stadium tunnel later still in uniform, asking where his next class was.
After his peak years
in the NFL, both the Redskins’ veteran offensive line and Rypien’s mobility
began to disintegrate. The hits kept on coming.
Concussion protocol?
There was no such thing in those days.
“People think you
have to be knocked out to have a concussion,” said Rypien, who said he may have
been diagnosed with three during his career. “There are hundreds of times you
shake it off and get back in there. It’s all about the cumulative hits. That’s
what cause brain damage.”
After parting with
the Redskins, he kept his career alive as a backup with several NFL teams until
his young son, Andrew, was diagnosed with brain cancer and Rypien walked away
from a deal with the Atlanta Falcons. Three years after Andrew’s death at age 3
and a divorce from his first wife, Annette, Rypien returned to back up Peyton
Manning for a season in Indianapolis – at age 39.
When he was finally
released after training camp with the Seattle Seahawks in 2002, Rypien seemed
destined to go seamlessly into retirement. He had the usual business interests,
a thriving golf game and, especially, a cause. He launched the Rypien
Foundation in memory of Andrew, and began a new chapter with Danielle.
But you don’t leave
the hits behind.
“All you have to do
is watch the hits in a football game to realize you’re watching the destruction
of people’s lives,” said Dr. Daniel Amen, the founder of Amen Clinics who has
treated Rypien. “I’ve had players who were flat-out demented, who were far
along in the process and I’ve had other players who because they were backup
quarterbacks, they really weren’t so bad. I’d say Mark’s in the middle.
Clearly, there’s evidence of trouble.”
How do hits on the
field translate into brain damage? | Read more »
Cries for help
Rypien’s shadows are
depression, anxiety, isolation. Outwardly social and comfortable in those
settings, “I can’t wait to get home and be alone,” he said. Yet there’s not
always comfort there, either.
Not quite 10 years
ago, his impulsive, even addictive behaviors began to escalate; aggressiveness
and verbal outbursts increased. So did regret and self-hatred.
According to Spokane
neurologist Dr. David Greeley, one of the doctors approved to consult with and
treat former players covered in the NFL’s $765 million lawsuit settlement in
2013, it’s a common thread.
“Their self-worth
just falls apart and they start thinking about suicide,” he said. “It’s just
kind of a cascade from there. I think they want their respect back. Almost
every player I talk to has the same story.”
One day, Rypien left
a 20-minute audio suicide message at home for Danielle to find, and
disappeared.
“I called the police,
so there’s probably a record,” she said. “I told them I didn’t know where he is
and he might already be dead because he left the note hours ago. We couldn’t
find him. I called him. I called the family and they called him. The police
called him. Eventually, he called back.”
Sometime later, it
went beyond a message. On the birthday of his younger daughter, Angie, Rypien
swallowed 150 Advil and washed them down with a bottle of Merlot.
“It was the thought
that people aren’t going to miss me,” Rypien said. “My life is as shitty as it
could ever be. I was shameful and guilty of poor decisions, shameful and guilty
of being depressed all the time. I didn’t want to be around anymore. I didn’t
look at how this would affect my kids, my grandkids, my wife, my family.”
It was Danielle who
found him and saved him – pouring hydrogen peroxide and activated charcoal down
his throat to get him to vomit up the pills and sitting up with him all night.
And who now can’t believe that she didn’t call an ambulance that night.
“It worked out – but
it was a huge mistake,” she admitted. “There was a lot of crazy going on at
that time. I’d kind of gone nuts, too, because who does that? Things have
happened like that with people I’ve known and earlier in my life, I would have
rushed them in, made sure they were taken care of. But I didn’t. I tried to
handle it myself so we wouldn’t have another …”
“Incident,” Rypien
cut in. “The hard part of being a ‘figure’ – it’s not like I can just go to the
hospital and have everyone learn I’m suicidal. This will be a story.”
And that it’s a story
now?
“Silence is the
killer,” he said. “It’s time to talk about mental health.”
But Rypien’s thoughts
didn’t stop with hurting himself.
He went through long
bouts of not sleeping, and days when he walked around with what Danielle called
“serial killer eyes.”
“He’d be like,
‘Honey, you’ve got to keep yourself safe. Call my brothers. I’ve been thinking
some really crazy, psychotic thoughts.’ He’d be himself for maybe two, three
days and just float away again. And he’d warn me that he’d been thinking about
hurting me, about killing me – and he didn’t know why. And then he’d be clear
and would never hurt me. We’d talk about it. We got his brothers involved so we
could call them, because I didn’t want to leave him alone.”
But there would be a
time that he hurt Danielle, and there’s a dismissed domestic violence case file
at the courthouse with her name on it, as she was the one arrested.
It dates to last
November, long after they say the worst of Rypien’s issues manifested
themselves during a roughly three-year period – and why they maintain this was
the result of a reaction to a change in his medications.
“They had warned us
when they put him on it,” Danielle said. “We’re not talking about an
antidepressant, we’re talking about an anti-seizure med they added to his antidepressant,
and it was the second one they had tried. The first one was also a disaster.
They had warned us … maybe he’ll adjust into the medication after a rough
patch, but expect weirdness.
“This is not a
snapshot of our relationship. This was a unique and crazy night.”
As they prepared to
go out to an event, she sensed her husband’s agitation and probed for the
reasons. Triggered by too many “why questions,” he said, a verbal altercation
ensued.
“I got angry, and I
threw her on the bed a couple of times,” he said.
This time, the police
were called. State law requires mandatory arrest in responding to domestic
violence, so at least one person has to leave in cuffs.
Said Danielle, “I had
some bruises. I wasn’t black-and-blue. And I don’t regret it, per se, but I did
not tell the police what happened. I didn’t see any good coming from that. If
they had locked Mark up, what’s that going to do? Lock up someone who’s on a
medication? If he were doing this all the time, that would be different. This
was a fluke thing.”
Even if
medication-induced, it was still a return to the scary behavior that marked
Rypien’s lowest moments, and mirror those of others with brain injuries.
Since the prevalence
of traumatic brain injury among athletes has come to light, doctors and
researchers studying the problem say it’s much broader than concussions or CTE.
| Read more »
“People with CTE have
erratic jumps and will move from perfectly normal to erratic behavior within
seconds or minutes,” Greeley said. “They know something’s wrong and they can’t
control it.”
That applies as well,
he said, to other impulsive behavior.
“It’s kind of like a
lot of teens or people with bad decision-making,” Greeley said. “They just fall
into it. Sex and food and drugs and gambling and risky behaviors become more
paramount. (And) they’re embarrassed about their behaviors.”
Such as Rypien
patronizing the spas that were shut down in a police sting back in 2012. His
name didn’t appear with the hundreds of other men listed as customers that were
published for one reason: He didn’t use a credit card to pay for the services.
“Yes, I was part of
this,” Rypien acknowledged, offering no further details. “Again, I made some
absolutely crazy mistakes. Terrible decisions. Poor judgment.”
Brain scans from
former footballer Mark Rypien. A gray mark on the scan to the left denotes an
area of low blood flow, likely the product of head trauma sustained during
Rypien’s professional sports career. The right scan shows a dark area in the
middle of Rypien’s cerebellum, suggesting decreased function. (Amen Clinic /
Courtesy of Mark Rypien)
Fighting back
In the middle of
Rypien’s deepest struggles, things got worse. His cousin, Rick Rypien, a
National Hockey League veteran who had struggled with clinical depression
throughout his career, took his life in 2011. Shaken by it then, Rypien cites
it now as part of his resolve “not to become another statistic.”
But the statistics of
brain injury are as relentless as his vast support. Danielle reported that
there is a space in Rypien’s brain – cavum septum pellucidum – “literally a
separation of the membranes.”
“By stage 2 CTE, they
see this gap in 50 percent and then more in later stages,” she said. “It’s
correlated to CTE because it’s found in the normal population very rarely. The
more brain injury you have, the more you see this.”
It’s news like this
which seems to have brought out the competitor in Rypien. The Rypiens have been
to the Cleveland Clinic’s Neurological Institute for evaluation and received
access to counseling. Amen Clinics has provided help with psychiatrists, psychologists
and nutritionists. EXOS of Phoenix has been a source for more nutrition and
exercise plans. He’s dabbled in Reiki and energy massage. He takes mega-doses
of Vitamin D, in addition to his list of mood stabilizers and antidepressants.
The bulk of this has
come out of pocket. Only the Cleveland Clinic services have been covered by the
NFL’s trust, which to date has paid out roughly half of the settlement amount –
and approved only 28 percent of 1,260 claims to the most extreme and urgent
cases.
When the settlement
was reached, Rypien was among those who applauded it, with reservations, simply
because the need for treatment was so great for many. But he despairs of the
slow processing of claims and wonders if “they’re biding their time until
people die.”
He has become just as
soured about the game which “provided me some wonderful, wonderful things.”
“Today,” he said, “I
wouldn’t put any of my kids or grandkids in a football jersey and play this
sport,” he said.
Angela Rypien
following dad Mark's lead. (Courtesy of Martine Gorrill)
But it was not that
long ago that his daughter, Angela, leaped into the game with the Lingerie
Football League, a quarterback like her father and, he said, also suffered
concussions. The two, he said, have had a falling out during the past year or
so and “it makes me sick to think that as much as my daughter wanted to play
this game, I thought it was a great idea.”
He was moved by the
message of Corey Widmer, who went from Montana State to an eight-year career at
linebacker with the New York Giants that overlapped with Rypien’s era. This
week, Widmer declined induction to the Montana Football Hall of Fame.
“I’m 49 years old,
depressed to the nth degree but have a lot of money,” Widmer told the Bozeman
Daily Chronicle this week, “and some people might say it’s still worth it. I
just tell them to watch what they wish for.”
Uncertain future
Mark Rypien’s
situation may not dissuade the most eager kids from taking up football. But he
hopes he can persuade people with mental health challenges – or living with
people who have them – to drag them into the open.
“It’s hard,” he said.
“There’s a lot of guilt and shame just to be in front of your own family in
situations like this. When I was really dark, I felt there was no hope. That’s
kind of the message I want to get out – that there is hope. I’m getting help.”
His next step:
treatment from TMS Solutions, a company specializing in transcranial magnetic
stimulation, an FDA-approved treatment for depression that’s often used when
multiple medications have failed to help.
Depression is
associated with many other brain diseases and injuries, and research is ongoing as to whether TMS can
help people with those conditions improve their memory, not just treat their
depression.
An investor in TMS
Solutions is Cowles Co. which also owns The Spokesman-Review.
The Rypiens have
reached an odd space in their struggle. They believe now they know what caused
Mark’s uncontrolled behavior and have found tools, if not solutions. They
weathered the kind of storm that often tears families apart and threatened
theirs. They have another cause and a message.
“But I might get
worse,” Rypien conceded. “I’ve got strategies to get me through the next day,
the next year, 10 years. But I don’t know.”
Said Danielle, “My
personal opinion is that he’s in stage 1 CTE. That’s what it looks like. We see
guys all the time, eight or 10 times a year, because we go to the same events
they do out of town who are sliding that way. I talk with their wives and I’m
like, ‘Ah, that’s what that was. That’s what I’m seeing.’ But he has so many
things he does to keep himself in line mentally, so he has those guidelines and
braces, so if it gets bad again, he can last until they have some kind of
treatment that’s better than what we have now.
“I do have hope. But
a little more would be nice.”
:::::::::::::
WSU BASEBALL: Justin Harrer
walks off for Cougs
Junior second baseman
homers to left for extra-innings win
By Stephan Wiebe, Moscow
Pullman Daily News staff writer Mar 30,
2018
Temperatures at
Bailey-Brayton Field were in the 40s when Washington State baseball players
doused Justin Harrer with an ice water shower in front of the Cougar dugout
after their Thursday night victory, but the junior couldn’t have been more
pleased to be soaked in the freezing liquid.
Harrer hammered a walk-off
home run in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Cougars a thrilling 8-7
win over Arizona State and his teammates were waiting for him at home plate
when he stepped in for the winning run.
“Oh man, there’s no better
feeling in baseball, (than) a walk-off homer,” Harrer said after the game,
water still dripping from his hat. “I’m just ecstatic. That’s awesome to do and
to just get that first Pac-12 home-opener win under our belts is huge.”
Harrer’s walk-off homer was
the first for a Cougar since 2012, when P.J. Jones hit a grand slam to upset
No. 20 Oregon State at Bailey-Brayton Field. Washington State coach Marty Lees
was an assistant with the Beavers at that time.
“That’s a big hit, there’s
no question about it,” Lees said. “We showed some real resilience today.”
Washington State’s win came
nine innings after a disastrous start to the game. Arizona State (12-13, 4-3
Pac-12) went up a quick 4-0 and Lees was forced to pull starting pitcher A.J.
Block after just one inning.
But the Cougars (6-14, 2-5)
bounced back quickly in the second with a three-run bomb by freshman designated
hitter Collin Montez — his first homer of the season.
“That was so awesome for
Montez,” Harrer said. “This past week he’s been working in the cages with
(coach Jim) Horner and putting that time in, so to see him reap that reward is
awesome.”
The Cougars added an RBI
double by Andres Alvarez and a two-RBI single by Dillion Plew to score six runs
in the inning and take a 6-4 lead.
Arizona State added a run
in the third and re-took the lead in the sixth on a two-run homer by freshman
Spencer Torkelson for his 12th on the season.
Not only did Torkelson’s
homer sail well past the 400-foot marker in deep center field, but he also
broke ASU’s freshman home run record of 11 set by a certain Barry Bonds — and
the season is only half over.
J.J. Hancock scored from
second base on a throwing error in the sixth inning to tie the game at 7-7 and
from there the game turned into a pitching duel.
Washington State closer
Ryan Walker pitched four scoreless innings and struck out five batters,
including three in the ninth. In the 10th, the Sun Devils had the bases loaded
on an intentional walk with two outs, and ASU’s nine-hole hitter grounded out
to Alvarez to end the inning.
“I was really dialed in
today,” Walker said. “I felt like my ball was moving real well and my slider
was hitting its spots.”
The Cougars have shown a knack
for winning close games this season with all six of their wins coming by a
single run and two of their wins at home coming in extra innings. Three of
their five Pack-12 losses were also by one run.
Washington State and
Arizona State meet again today at 5 p.m. at Baily-Brayton Field. The three-game
series concludes Saturday.
A victory on either day
would give the Cougars their first Pac-12 series win this season.
“Our wins and our losses
have been close all year,” Harrer said. “Just to really fight through it and
know we’re going to be in that situation and know we can come up with a win is
huge.
“Just to be able to know
that we have the grit and tenacity to be able to go out and get that win on a
one-run game is huge.”
Arizona State 401
002 000 0—7
13 1
Washington State 060
001 000 1—8
10 2
Romero, Stadler (2), Raish
(6), Montoya (10) and Lin. Block, Rosenkrantz (2), Mullins (6), Walker (7) and
Waterman, Teel (9).
W — Walker (2-2). L —
Montoya (3-3).
Arizona State hits — Lane 3
(2B), Canning 2 (2B), Williams 2 (2B), Lin 2, Bishop 2, Torkelson (HR),
Workman.
Washington State hits —
Clanton 2 (2B), Sinatro 2, Alvarez (2B), Plew, Harrer (HR), Hancock, Montez
(HR), Waterman.
:::::::::::::::::::::
Cougar Crew hits water in
Seattle
Club will compete in
Montlake after offseason filled with training, recruiting students to join
their team
By JACKSON GARDNER,
Evergreen
March 30, 2018
The men and women of the
Cougar Crew club will travel west to join the WSU rowing team in Seattle to
participate in the Husky Open on Saturday.
After a productive
offseason and an intersquad day race, the club delegation of rowers at WSU is
ready for some action of its own.
First-year Head Coach Peter
Brevick has his first varsity eight lineup ready, and said he believes his team
is at the right place fundamentally and physically to row with the best.
“A lot of the work in the
fall was just getting the basics to the point where we can do the thing we need
to do,” Brevick said. “It took a little while, but with where things started
at, it’s good to see the progression … We did some fitness assessments at the start
of the year, where we had less than a quarter of the team meet the standards,
and by January we had all but two or three guys.”
Brevick said they’ve been
encouraging people all offseason to join the team.
“One of our big recruiting
points in the fall when we are talking to guys on campus,” he said, “is we can
look them in the eye and say ‘If you come here and join this team and work
really hard, in nine months there is a good chance you will be lining up
against Olympians.’ ”
Cougar Crew’s first varsity
eight will face Gonzaga University, University of Washington and University of
Puget Sound for their first race of the morning. The field of competition is
familiar for the Cougars, as WSU saw Gonzaga and UW this fall in 5000-meter
races.
In total, six Cougar Crew
boats will race this weekend: the first and second varsity eights, the first
and second novice eights, a women’s club eight and a women’s club four.
With the Husky Open being
the first 2000-meter race — let alone the atmosphere of the Montlake Cut on
race day — for some of the Cougars, prerace jitters are hard to ignore, Brevick
said.
“I am sure they are feeling
some [anxiety], I think everyone does at some point,” Brevick said. “You do so
much work to be ready for it that there is a lot of investment on their end and
to each race we do.”
The first varsity eight is
scheduled to hit the water at 10:05 a.m. Saturday.
………………
BASEBALL
Freshman infielder Jack
Smith has started 14 games this season and has a .250 batting average in 56 at
bats.
By RYAN BLAKE, Evergreen
March 29, 2018
Defense wins championships
– or so the adage goes. Defensive prowess is not something innate or stumbled
upon, but something worked on tirelessly every day.
Jack Smith shows up early
and stays late for every practice, taking groundballs in the infield and
hitting in the cages. His work ethic comes from a drive to get better every day
and be able to compete at the level demanded by the Pac-12 Conference, he said.
“He’s played very, very
good defense,” said WSU head coach Marty Lees. “He’s made every play and more.”
As a freshman, Smith has
served primarily as a second baseman in a rotation of Cougar infielders, a
position he began playing over the winter. However, Lees said he is not limited
to second base.
Smith played shortstop in
high school and has experience at third base, with the possibility of moving
over to first if needed. He has the potential to be a super utility player,
Lees said.
Smith attended Mercer
Island High School where he stood out on the baseball field. He was named to
the All-State team by the Washington State Coaches Association and led his team
to a third place finish in the state tournament his senior year.
Smith’s high school
performance earned him admiration from MLB scouts. He was selected in 39th
round of the 2017 MLB Draft by his favorite team the Seattle Mariners.
Ultimately, Smith decided
to forgo the opportunity to play minor league baseball and hone his skills at
WSU.
“I think we have the best
program out there and I really believe that,” Smith said. “I want this program
to be great like it has been in the past and I know it can be. I think we’re
getting the pieces there as we continue down this journey and I think we’ll get
there.”
After being thrust into a
starting role, despite his collegiate inexperience, his confidence and hard
work caught the eye of the coaching staff.
He has started 14 of the 19
games the Cougars have played this season and figures to see even more playing
time as the season progresses. Smith said adjusting to the level of play in the
Pac-12 has been one of the biggest challenges he has faced.
The six-foot-three-inch
middle infielder is currently hitting .250 with one double in 56 at bats.
“I felt like I was facing
good competition but once you get to college baseball . . . it’s a whole
different animal,” Smith said.
Smith is still working on
adjusting to the new level offensively. Lees said there is a difference between
how high school pitchers and college pitchers approach a batter, something that
takes young hitters time to adjust to.
Smith’s defensive ability
will keep him on the field while he continues to develop offensively. He said
the confidence the coaches have shown in him has helped him grow as a player.
“Coach Lees, I think, is
the best infield coach in the nation and he’s gotten me ten times better than
what I was when I got here,” Smith said.
With WSU holding a 5-19
record, Smith said he wants the team to compete and have fun doing it in order
to turn their season around.
“Whether it’s leadership or
whether it’s plays in the field, I just want the team to win,” Smith said.
“That will always be the biggest thing for me as long as I am a Cougar.
