Even if he couldn’t play a lick, Alex O’Brien is the kind of kid a coach would want on his baseball team.
For one thing, he’s brimming with energy. “Since he was little, he was always the instigator,” said his mother, Jackie. “Always on the move.”
For another, he takes care of his teammates. “If you don’t have a ride, he’ll go out of his way to pick you up,” said his baseball coach at Everett Community College, Levi Lacey. “If you’re down, he’s like, ‘Hey, let’s go, you’ll be all right, let’s work through it.’ He’s not just about himself. He’s a team guy.”
Out-of-town teammates know where they can go for a taste of home. “Alex brings them over,” said his father, Mike, “and Jackie makes dinner for them.”
As for the teammate who doesn’t fit in? “Alex is always the kid to look out for the underdog,” his mother said. “After the game he’ll say, ‘Come with us to Denny’s.’ “
Then there’s his leadership. “Not by yelling and screaming,” said his former coach at Everett High School, Ron Burdett. “Just by example. Every time he came to practice, he worked his tail off, and the kids bought into that.”
If a coach went on work ethic alone, he’d recruit O’Brien in a New York second.
“Best worker I ever had,” said Larry Walker, the athletic director and longtime men’s basketball coach at EvCC. “He greets you at the door, sells tickets, works at the concession stand and cheers for the home team.”
O’Brien started mowing lawns when he was 9 years old. By the time he got to high school, he was tending to 20 lawns a summer. Many’s the day he would get up, cut grass, go play a baseball game, then go mow another lawn.
So how many lawns has he mowed in his life? “See that mega-millions sign out there,” he joked, referring to an advertisement on the fence at Everett Memorial Stadium. Maybe not that many, he said, but easily in the thousands.
In his best year, he estimates he made between $8,000 and $12,000. And saved a lot of it.
“I had my property,” he said. “I wanted to get ahead of the game.”
As a junior in high school, he purchased a 120 x 170-foot lot in a gated community on Camano Island from his uncle.
“Never missed a payment,” he said.
And never blinked when he had to pay the full bluebook price for his first vehicle, a Ford Ranger his parents sold him.
It’s all about accountability.
An only child, Alex learned the word and the meaning of it from his parents.
Work hard. Save. Be wise with your spending. And pay your bills on time.
The 20-year-old O’Brien learned his lessons well.
And he learned to invest even better. He made $40,000 in the stock market. “I made a couple of bad investments,” Mike said with a laugh, “and he made some good ones.”
Now Alex is investing his time and effort in his studies and in baseball at Everett Community College. And, as in his financial life, he’s doing very nicely.
He came out of high school with 25 college credits and a 3.7 grade point average and he has maintained a 3-plus GPA as he nears the end of his sophomore year.
On the baseball side, he’s the starting shortstop for the Trojans, and was among the team leaders in batting average (.338), runs batted in (16), doubles (7) and home runs (2) going into a doubleheader against Shoreline CC on Sunday.
Not even halfway through the Trojans’ spring schedule, he has already been offered a scholarship amounting to $18,000 at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., but wants to wait and see who makes him the best offer so he can save his parents money.
Is this a respectful young man or what? A lot of kids wouldn’t give cost a second thought, figuring they were entitled to have Dad and Mom pick up the tab. And it’s not as if Mike and Jackie O’Brien, both retired from the Washington State Patrol, can’t afford to help their son out.
“Some of these guys we get, I wish we were a four-year school so we could keep them for two more years,” Lacey said. “Alex is the best teammate that you could have. He’s one of the best guys we’ve had in this program since we’ve been here, and that’s not just physical. He’s great in the classroom, too. He’s a special kid.”
It wasn’t necessarily his bat or his glove that initially attracted the Trojan coaching staff to O’Brien when he was playing high school ball. It was his energy. “He had a lot of it,” Lacey said.
He also had the kind of size college teams like in a shortstop – he stood 6-foot-2 and weighed 195 pounds.
Oh yes, and he had talent.
The Trojan coaches felt that O’Brien had the makings of a very good college shortstop. Strong arm. Plus range. Good head.
The one thing they thought he might have to tone down a bit – the trait that attracted them to him – was the energy.
“You have to have some poise at that position,” Lacey said, “and when we watched him early, it was all physical, no mental. It was just run, catch and throw, and making ill-advised throws and just trying to do too much, pressing too much. We just felt if we could calm him down he could be a very good player because physically he is good.
“Last year he took some lumps and learned how to play… and he slowed himself down and realized he doesn’t have to rush things.”
The shortstop has to be smart because he runs the infield defense. “Every sign and every play we put in either goes through the catcher or Alex,” Lacey said, “so he basically has to be the one to make sure that we know what bunt defense we’re doing. Everything works off him and he didn’t know any of that two years ago. He just knew (how to) catch it, throw it and hit it and at this level, if that’s all you do, you’re not going to be successful.”
Another area where O’Brien has improved is fielding ground balls. “He’d want to receive balls too deep into his body so he’d tie himself up,” the coach said. “We tried to get him to get his hands out in front. He’s got really good hands now that he can actually use them.”
Offensively, the right-handed O’Brien is a line-drive, mostly pull hitter with some power.
Patient? “That,” Lacey said with a wry smile, “is what we’re working on with Alex.”
O’Brien is working on understanding that imperfection is part of baseball. “I’m definitely a perfectionist,” he said. “I never want to make an error or an out.”
Especially in a key situation. “I want that last ground ball of the game,” he said. “I want to be up in a clutch situation.”
Third game of the season. He comes to bat with the score tied. The opponent is Olympic College, a team he hit his first collegiate home run against last year. He’s confident he can do it again. He does, slugging a three-run shot. “It’s refreshing to know you can do it,” he said.
He also knows that he can make the sensational play with his glove. In a game last fall, he dove and snared a one-hop line drive up the middle and threw the man out. “That set the standard for the year,” he said. “I can make the routine play and the highlight reel play.”
He embraces the leadership role of the shortstop, and his idol is one of the best leaders in all of baseball: Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter. He admires his consistency, respects him for his humility.
“Clutch player,” he said of the Yankee captain, “for sure.”
And, like the shortstop at EvCC, a good teammate.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
