Faith, Twitter, and Backflips—An Interview with 2012 Draft Prospect Courtney Hawkins

Faith, Twitter, and Backflips—An Interview with 2012 Draft Prospect Courtney Hawkins

Stephen Guilbert: Thanks for agreeing to speak with us here at Mack’s Mets, Courtney. You’ve had quite a season so far, can you tell us a bit about it? What has been the highlight thus far?

Courtney Hawkins: Yes, I have had a pretty good season and I'm still playing so the main highlight isn't here yet (state title). I haven't really gotten pitched to much this year and I'm batting leadoff so this year’s a little different than others.

SG: Given the focus on leading off and playing center, is it safe to say your energy will be directed towards being an outfielder instead of a pitcher as your career moves forward?

CH: Yes. As my career moves forward, I would love to just play outfield and hit but still know I have pitching as a backup plan.

You’re well known across the twittersphere (I think I just made that word up...we'll go with it). Be honest...ever tweeted in the middle of a class? Any crazy fans yet? Do you have a favorite tweet?

(laughing)Yes I do tweet during class and yes lately it's been getting a lot crazier. My favorite quotations in general that I tweet would be:

-  "I love my enemies more than friends that's why I treat'em so friendly 'cause they let you know they hate you, but a friend hides his envy".

-  1st Corinthians 15: “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."

-  And, last one: "I'm living life like I'm blessed but I’m praying like I'm a sinner!”

Do you find that your faith has had an impact on your success on the field? 

Definitely. Definitely. I give all my credit to the Lord and everything that I’ve done is through him. What I have is what he’s blessed me with and without having faith in the Lord, I’d be nowhere right now. He’s gotten me through the hard times and still gets me through.

In the past, you have stated you are not thinking much about the draft. Has that changed?

Yea, it’s getting down to crunch time now. It’s on my mind, definitely, but I’m still in playoffs right now and I’ve still got to go out and finish up high school on a good note.

Between the draft, school, practice, and playoffs, how are you doing balancing everything at this point?

I’m doing pretty well. I’m kind of used to it now. I pretty much finished up schoolwork months ago and now I just go to school and just chill basically so I pretty much have time to do what I need to do. I go to school and I go to practice and when I go to practice I play ball and everything else I put to the side until after I’m done.

How’d you do in school this year?

Good—I made Bs all year. All four years A/B. Last day of school is Friday and I’m done with high school.

When’s graduation?

June 2^nd.

So you’ll be graduating June 2^nd and the 4^th is the draft?

Exactly (laughter).

That’s going be a crazy few days for you, I’m sure.

It definitely is. It’s going be wild.

There have been a number of rumors floating around that the Mets are serious about drafting you if you’re still on the board by pick #12. Being a Texas kid, what would you think about being drafted by an East Coast team?

I’ll be happy no matter who I go with. As far as being on the East Coast, West Coast, that doesn’t bother me. As long as I get to play ball I’m going to be happy regardless.

What do you think of the New York Mets as a landing spot for you? 

That’d be fine. That’d be fine, definitely. It’s fun looking at Twitter and all the fans the Mets fans and stuff like that. The Mets have a big, a very big, wide fan base and that’s good to have.

In other interviews and on Twitter you’ve said you model your swing off of Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. Outside of those two players, is there a major leaguer you have heard yourself compared to?

I’d say Justin Upton. He’s a power hitter, he plays the field well, he can run and he’s balls to the wall.

As far Ken Griffey and Barry Bonds, I say I like to base my swing off of theirs because Ken Griffey has one of the best swings anybody’s ever seen. If you ask anybody who has the best swing, I’m pretty sure Ken Griffey’s name will come up. I would love to get my swing as smooth as his so that’s why I try to model it off of him.

As far as Barry Bonds, he’s that power guy that when he went up to the plate, people were scared to pitch to him. They were just like “If I make a mistake he’s going to mess me up”. And that’s kinda how I want to be especially with Ken Griffey on the defensive side. Ken Griffey was hurt most of the time but it was always because of him playing hard. And I just want to go out there and play balls to the wall like Ken Griffey did and hit just like Bonds did. And that’s how I want to be.

You’ve been vocal about how much your brother has helped you get to where you are today. Can you talk a bit his influence?

My brother…I give him so much credit because when I was in 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade I was up to 270 pounds. Summer before high school, I lost a little bit and got down to about 250 and my brother said “look man before you get to high school I’m going to get you down—you’re going to lose weight we going to get you in shape”. That was his promise to me and by the time he left for college, I was down to about 210-215. I kept working and I think I got down to as low as 185. Beginning of my sophomore year, I was about 185-190. Gained it back got to about 210-215 and I’m just now getting my weight back to where I want it to be at about 220. I give a lot of credit to my brother, definitely, for putting that work ethic in me and helping me get that weight off. That really helped me.

That impresses me because one of the first things I saw of you when I started my draft research was a YouTube video of you doing a backflip… and pretty easily at that. I was going to ask if you had a gymnastics background but I’m going to guess “no” considering you were 50 pounds heavier just a few years ago.

(laughing) Yea. I actually just learned how to do that this year. I was actually doing a cheerleading thing for our school. It was this senior pep rally and there was a basketball hoop outside of the cheerleading thing and I’d be jumping up dunking the basketball and one of the trainers came up to me and was like “I’m going to teach you how to do a backflip”. Ninety minutes later he had me doing layouts and backflips and stuff and ever since then I’ve just been doing it.

Transitioning a bit here, this question comes from Mack: This season just 8 percent of major league baseball players are African American—the lowest number since the early years of the sport’s integration. Do you see this declining number turning around in the near future? 

I really couldn’t tell you on that one. Growing up especially in Corpus Christi I was always the only one. In all of Texas there are a few of us but not many. Playing around the nation this year I’ve seen more… I’d love to see more African Americans and Hispanics and a lot of the minorities get back into playing ball. Baseball is a very expensive sport and especially with all of the showcases and traveling…it’s expensive. If you don’t have someone to help you out or someone to take you under your wing and help you out, it’s kind of hard to get there.

Baseball Prospect Nation, among others, considers you one of the most improved players in the nation this year. What went into your preparation this year that has made the difference?

My whole mindset was to get into the immediate first round and try to be one of the best players to ever come out of where I’m from—if not be one of the best players in the draft. I read a lot. I like reading the bloggers and stuff and everybody knew I had power but they always said I couldn’t hit through a breaking ball. So my whole thing this fall before going to the Jupiter tournament was that I was going to work on nothing but curveballs and be able to hit the breaking ball. That’s something that really helped me to keep my weight back.

And basically just every time I step into that batter’s box, I got to do my best to get where I want to be and I can’t stop working until I get there. Just seeing myself climb up the ladder a little bit… it feels good to know that my hard work’s paying off but like I said—I still got a long way to go.

This is something that fascinates me about you, Courtney. A lot of players at this point of the season become reclusive and stop giving out interviews. You, however, have been, and still are, quite accessible. Why are you different from your other draftmates in this regard?

A lot of people ask me this question, actually. Like I said, I’m from Corpus Christi, Texas. It’s a tourist city down at the beach; some people know about it, some people don’t. Just because I’m where I am now, I’m not going to shut out people who are trying to make a living. Just as, if I wasn’t in this position, I would be trying to work somewhere hoping someone would cooperate with me so I could get where I want to be, you know?

Just because I’m in this position now, I don’t see why you can’t just help them out when they’re doing their job just by talking to them. I mean you don’t have to give personal information. If they ask you a question you don’t want to answer, there’s no reason to be rude and ignore the question or say “I don’t do interviews”. I mean… help people out. They just want to know a little about where you come from and your background. Shouldn’t be a big deal to let them know. 

At this point in your progression as a ballplayer, I’m sure everyone is giving you their opinion about what you are doing wrong or what you lack as an athlete. When you read critiques on your game, how do you react? Do you tune it out? Can you walk us through your thought process a bit?

I like reading stuff like that. I don’t knock people like that—I thank people like that. When I read stuff like that it makes me want to go out and work harder. By reading that, it just puts more stuff in my head that I know I need to work on. Even if I think it’s wrong or not, obviously someone has an opinion and somebody’s is talking about stuff I’m doing wrong so obviously I had to do it at one point. So why not work on it to the point where you either decrease the chance of you doing it or you stop doing it period.

So there’s no point in getting mad about something that I’m pretty sure everyone does every once in a while. Just work on it and fix it to the point that when you get older and mature and start playing more ball and seeing more pitching, you don’t do it anymore or don’t do it as much.

A lot of us who follow the draft can look at a scouting report or a box score and get a very basic sense of who you are but that obviously tells so little of the story. Is there anything that you want people to know about Courtney Hawkins?

Just…I came a long way from when I was younger. A lot of people didn’t think I’d be in this position right now. I’m not the type that just based on just talent alone got to where I’m at. I had to work to where I’m at right now and I’m still working non-stop.

Whether I go to the draft or college or whatever happens, I’m not going to stop working. I’m going to work as hard as I can to get where I want to be. And if it means having somebody telling me something every day on hitting or work with somebody or whatever it has to be I’m going to do it to get to where I need to be and get to where I want to be. And I have no problem with that.

I have one more question for you, Courtney: Will “C-Hawk” be catching on as a nickname or do you want to nix that one right now?

Everybody just calls me “Hawk” most the time. A lot of people in the city and on the news and people just growing up, my family… everyone just called me “Hawk” or “C-Hawk” so I mean I just went with that for a while. And basically what I keep it as—people ask me: “what do your friends call you?” I say, “Everyone call me ‘Hawk’”.

Courtney, thanks so much for taking the time out of your evening to chat. Hopefully we’ll hear the Mets call your name on the 4^th and, if not, we look forward to seeing you in the opposing dugout before long.
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Most recent mocks project Courtney will be taken between the 8^th and 15^th picks in the amateur draft this June. We thank him for the interview and sincerely wish him the best.