May 20, 2005 – a date that will forever be imprinted in the mind of LSU sophomore third baseman J.T. Wise. On that day he lost his childhood best friend Adam Stratton in a fatal car accident. “He was crossing over the Suwannee River [Bridge], hit a puddle and his car locked up,” Wise said. “He lost control, and he hit a tree going about 70 mph. His girlfriend lived, and when I heard the news, I didn’t know what to do. He was a year in front of me, so he was in college, and to this day it feels like he’s just off at college, and he’s still here. But in reality he’s not.” Stratton’s sudden death affected Wise’s entire family. Wise’s father Sonny Wise said the wreck is brought up every time they pass the site on I-10. “Adam was just a good kid and was the type of kid you just don’t want that to happen to,” Sonny Wise said. “He was the type of kid that cared about people, and he’d go out of his way to help people. In fact, he passed on a scholarship to Florida State [University] and came back to play baseball his senior year.” J.T. Wise said his father helped him tremendously after Stratton’s death and also credits his baseball success to his dad. “My family brought me to the baseball field just a couple days after I was born,” Wise said. “When I would get out of elementary school, I would go to the field, and my dad would practice with me after his practice was over. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today. He basically developed me into who I am now, and I can’t thank him enough for that.” The practice time he and his father spent together translated into a career batting average of .390, 24 home runs, three years of All-State, All-Metro and All-Central Florida honors and four district championships while at Apopka High School in Florida. With his father as his high school baseball coach, Wise said individuals mistakenly believed he received preferential treatment. “He sat me,” Wise said. “He sat me when I wasn’t hitting. Whenever I wasn’t doing good, he let me know.” Wise transferred his high school success to his freshman season with the Tigers. Wise batted .299 (66-221) while belting 11 home runs, 12 doubles, driving in 40 runs and scoring another 34 during his freshman campaign. He also hit .354 (23-65) with runners in scoring position. Although he enjoyed tremendous success as a freshman, the 2006 Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American has struggled at the plate this season, batting .245 (24-102) with just one home run, 22 RBIs and 14 runs. Wise said this has been a rough season and admits he needs to do more to help the team. “Last year I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t know what to get caught up in, so I think that helped a lot,” Wise said. “I was swinging the bat and hitting the ball, and I’m not hitting it this year. Sometimes you go through streaks where you either hit the ball, or you don’t, and I’m not hitting it right now.” Sonny Wise – who makes the 10-hour trip from Apopka, Fla., with his wife Mary Wise to all of their son’s weekend games – said he believes his son is missing the one thing that has helped him in the past. “His confidence is not where it needs to be right now,” he said. J.T. Wise may have lost his confidence at the end of the 2006 season. In the final 15 games of this past season, Wise batted .161 (9-56), struck out 17 times, drove in just five runs and scored four times. LSU coach Paul Mainieri said that even though Wise’s struggles began this past season, if he continues to dedicate himself, he may break out of his season-long slump. “It would have been nice for him and the team if he’d been a little more consistent with the bat, but it wasn’t because of a lack of effort,” Mainieri said. “It’s what every player goes through at some point in his career, and the truly great ones find a way to overcome it.” Along with the struggles Wise has experienced this year, he said there is one product of his offensive woes he cannot overcome. “I hate the attention brought on myself since I’ve been struggling,” Wise said. “I can’t talk in front of people because I get so nervous. Some guy stopped and talked to me in Target the other day. I had no idea who he was, but he talked to me for like 45 minutes. I was listening to people, and they kept saying the back of my shirt was stuck to me because I was sweating so bad. I get so nervous, and I hate the attention brought onto myself.” Whether or not the attention is on Wise, he said it is time for LSU to bear down and finish the season on the right foot. With only one Tiger – freshman designated hitter Blake Dean – batting over .300 this season, Wise is not the only one on the team that will have to step up his game if the Tigers hope to finish the season higher than fifth in the Southeastern Conference Western Division. “We’re not a bad team,” Wise said. “We’ve lost a couple games by one or two runs, but if one call, one hit or one pitch would have gone the other way, we would have won these games. If we just keep battling in the next couple of series, we can finish out the year strong.”
—–Contact Jay St. Pierre at [email protected]