Thanks to former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett, talented high school football players now have to decide between attending college or jumping straight to the NFL.
For high school baseball players, the choice has always been there. Before coming to LSU, right fielder Jon Zeringue was faced with that very decision.
The Chicago White Sox thought Zeringue had enough potential fresh out of high school to make him their third-round draft choice in 2001. Despite the lure of the major leagues, Zeringue turned down Chicago’s contract offer to play for the Tigers.
“It’s been my goal since I was a child,” said Zeringue, a native of Thibodaux, La.
After hitting .245 in 2002, his freshman year for the Tigers, high hopes for the 2003 campaign were pinned on the former Louisiana High School Player of the Year.
However, Zeringue struggled out of the gate, hitting in the low .200s for much of the first half of the season.
“Every time I look back if things are going bad, it was never that bad,” Zeringue said. “That was the lowest point of my life pretty much.”
Once the Tigers entered their Southeastern Conference schedule, Zeringue began to emerge from his slump. He finished out the 2003 season hitting .375 against SEC opponents, and ended up leading the Tigers in hitting during the second half of the year.
“Just struggling so much last year, getting down to batting below .200, and picking it back up, and at the end of the year leading the team in hitting, that was huge,” Zeringue said.
Zeringue finished his sophomore year batting .339 with 13 home runs and 45 RBIs. During the Tigers’ College World Series appearance he batted .500 (4-8) with a double and two runs scored.
This year, Zeringue has shown no signs of another early-season slump. The junior right fielder currently leads the Tigers with a .444 average and is first on the team with nine extra-base hits, including two home runs.
Zeringue dominated the three-game series with Texas State over the weekend, going 7-for-9 (.778) with three doubles, a home run and five RBIs.
Zeringue said this year’s early success is a result of a much more calm approach to the game.
“Whenever I was younger and immature I would just go crazy,” Zeringue said. “I’d strike out, throw stuff, swing the bat at the garbage can. Now I just take it as it comes, put my helmet down quietly, just knowing that something better is going to happen my next at-bat.
“Now I’m more relaxed, more experienced. I just learned how to deal with failure, and learned how to deal whenever you don’t fail.”
Zeringue said he also has learned to cope with playing under the watchful eyes and expectations of major league scouts.
“It used to affect me in high school,” Zeringue said. “Now it really doesn’t bother me. I kind of leave that in the back of my head. I don’t know who’s here watching, I just play my game.”
LSU coach Smoke Laval said the players with major-league potential have not let the pressure get to them.
“The guys just really play and have fun,” Laval said “Those are the expectations that other people put on them.”
The Tigers (9-1) will need Zeringue to play at his best when they take their seven-game winning streak to Metairie today to take on No. 9 Tulane (8-1) at 7 p.m. at Zephyr Field.
Laval said the Tigers’ first contest against a top-10 caliber team is an important step in the team’s development.
“Tulane is a good buffer to see where you are,” Laval said. “Then you have two weeks to get ready for the SEC.”