34 JULY 2019 • BASEBALLAMERICA.COMEXPECTATIONS MET
Bobby Witt Jr. set his sights on winning a
Texas 5A state championship—then he made it happenby CARLOS COLLAZOC
olleyville Heritage High head
coach Alan McDougal remem-
bers feeling disappointed. And
tired.
It was around 4:30 in the morning late
in May 2018. The baseball team had just
gotten back to school after losing a one-
run game to Amarillo High in the Texas
regional semifinals. The charter bus was
a disaster, filled with trash strewn by
players still thinking about the heart-
breaking end to their season.
McDougal got off the bus and went to
clean up his things. He returned to the
bus to clean, only to see junior short-
stop Bobby Witt Jr.—soon to be the
top-ranked high school prospect in the
country—and his teammate Mason Greer
quietly tidying up. No one asked them to
do that. But they did it anyway.
It’s one of the memories of Witt that
McDougal said he will never forget.
“That just spoke volumes to what
those kids are, as humans,” said
McDougal, who has spent 11 seasons as
head coach at Colleyville, a suburb of
Dallas. “(Witt) is the definition of a self-
less kid. And in today’s generation, when
you have a kid with that kind of talent
and those expectations, you would think
he would be all into ‘me’ and that’s just
not the way he operates.”
Witt has shouldered high expectations
for a long time. Scouts knew his name
and talked about his five-tool talent
before he was even draft-eligible. Back
when he was a rising junior he patrolled
the dirt of USA Baseball’s fields at the
Tournament of Stars, competing against
players who would go on to be drafted in
the first round just months later.
Back before he even got a chance to
play high school ball, Witt put high
expectations on himself. Around 10COLLEGE
& HIGH
SCHOOL
AWARDSHIGH SCHOOL PLAYER OF THE YEARyears old, he remembers wanting to win
a Texas state championship. Wanting
to get drafted. Wanting to follow in his
father’s footsteps and play pro ball and
someday reach the majors.
“I just knew that this is what I wanted
to do,” Witt Jr. said. “And it was going to
take a lot of steps and a lot of hard work.
I just kind of instilled that in my brain,
and ever since then it has always been
just a grind.”
Steadily, the grind has been paying off.
Witt has been checking off the boxes he
laid out for himself as a preteen.
This spring, in the Texas 5A state
championship Witt and his Colleyville
teammates were determined to end their
season on a high note after three years
of falling short—not by picking up trash
into the morning hours and stewing
about defeat.
“It hit home for me (that this was our
last shot),” Witt said. “It made me want
to work more and work harder—try
to get to the best spot at the end, just
getting called the state champions. I’ve
always put that in the back of my mind,
whenever I’m working out or hitting or
whatever, just have that in the back of
my head.”
During the quarterfinals, Colleyville
won the first of a three-game series
against Mansfield Legacy High before
dropping the second game and forcing a
win-or-go-home third game. McDougal
remembers waking up to a message from
his star shortstop.
“I got a text from Bobby first thing the
next morning that said, ‘Sun’s up today.
This is going to be good. Our road doesn’t
end today.’”
Colleyville went on to beat Mansfield
before sweeping Amarillo in a region-
al semifinal rematch. Witt sparked theoffense with a 2-for-5 game including
a home run, two runs and four RBIs in
the first game against Amarillo. Over the
team’s final six games, he went 5-for-17
with a home run, a triple, six walks, six
runs and six RBIs en route to a 5A state
championship against Georgetown High.
“It’s mind-boggling what he’s able to
do,” McDougal said. “And to be honest, it
amazed me that some people continued
to pitch to him—but they did.”
Witt led the team with a .500 average
while hitting 15 home runs, 15 doubles,
eight triples and 19 stolen bases. He also
pitched in 11 games, recorded five saves
and posted a 1.35 ERA with 21 strikeouts
in 10.1 innings.
He did all of that with intense scrutiny
every game. The Royals—who wound up
selecting Witt with the No. 2 overall pick
of the draft—had scouts bearing down on
him for every inning he played and every
swing he took in the batter’s box.
“It has been kind of surreal watching
him go through this whole process,”
McDougal said, “especially with the draft
being such a big deal, as far as talent
evaluators coming in...“But he is an extraordinary kid with
even more talent.”
Witt won’t just be leaving behind
a state championship and a pristine
résumé, but a legacy to guide future
Colleyville players. He modeled not just
how to be a great player, but how to be a
better teammate.
McDougal sees the same Witt today
as he saw when he first met him as an
8-year-old.
“He just loves to play the game of
baseball and has been blessed to have
some skills where he can do it at a pretty
high level,” the coach said
Witt says that his father Bobby Sr., a
righthander who was drafted third over-
all in 1985 and went on to spend 16 years
in the majors, provided him a “cheat
sheet” thanks to his major league expe-
rience and knowledge of the game. Now,
Witt Jr. can do the same for others.
“That’s the mold that Bobby has set
for us,” McDougal said. “If you want to
see how it’s done, just watch that cat...
just open your eyes and watch how to
conduct yourself as an athlete and per-
son—it’s just right there in front of you. BILL MITCHELL