All CVa: It’s a Long way to the top of CVa

By Jay Jenkins

Published: July 3, 2008

Kyle Long quickly noticed the enormous moving truck parked behind the fence in right field.
In a matter of moments, the muscular left-handed slugger turned batting practice into hunting season.
Clank. Bang. Ding.
Inside fastballs were no match for the St. Anne’s-Belfield star as the truck paid the ultimate price.
It just so happened on that humid day two years ago that the truck belonged to David Lourie, STAB’s newly hired headmaster.
“We were out there three or four times a week hitting and I remember when we saw them out and I was like, ‘fresh meat,’” Long said with a smile. “There hadn’t been a car there in months since Dr. [George] Conway had moved out.
“When I saw it I was fired up because coach [Eric] McGrane would throw it inside and I would try to pepper the truck. After a couple of balls, we forced them to move out and into the driveway with the moving truck.”
Lourie, entering his third year as headmaster at St. Anne’s-Belfield, learned quickly on moving day that the house that sits perched in the midst of the school’s plush athletic facilities was a prime target for Long’s batting practice sessions, something that altered more than just traffic patterns and parking scenarios.
“It was sort of like a short pop fly for Kyle to hit that truck in front of our house,” Lourie said. “If there is a baseball game going on, I had to think twice about letting my son shoot hoops in the driveway.”
Those batting practice sessions, many of which were crammed into the later hours of the night to avoid a swarm of Major League Baseball scouts, changed lives.
“If it’s late at night and the lights are on over there, we would walk over and watch him hit, and he gives my son Jake his full attention,” Lourie said. “Kyle is just a very kind person in that way. He always remains approachable and humble and he is really a remarkable young man.”
The countless hours of practice paid off — Long was named the 2008 Central Virginia baseball player of the year after dominating in two-way fashion.
At the plate, the Florida State-bound slugger hit .400 with seven doubles and two homers and swiped 24 bases. En route to All-American honors, the southpaw also went 5-2 on the mound, posting a 1.91 ERA as he fanned 95 batters in 50 innings. Long also capped that career by being drafted in the 23rd round of the MLB draft, falling largely becaue of signability issues.
“It such a great honor because there really is great baseball being played around Central Virginia,” Long said. “To get that award shows what all the work that you have done meant, and I am really excited about it.
“I have had a lot of great coaching and support from my family and friends. I owe it all to them and the coaching that I received from Eric McGrane, Alan Swanson, John Blake and Larry Mitchell. It was all about the help that they gave me.”
McGrane, an assistant at STAB during Long’s tenure and a former UVa baseball player, watched the youngster’s development — on and off the field — on a daily basis.
“We had a great time throughout the process,” McGrane said. “It was more than a player-coach relationship. He wanted to get better, I enjoyed the challenge trying to get as much out of his potential as possible and before we knew it we were really invested in each other’s personal lives.
“He became invested in my family and I became invested in every part of his life beyond baseball. It was special and for a long time, and we are just going to have a good time being friends.”
To this day, however, McGrane remains unsure how Long, the son of a Hall of Fame football player (Howie) and the brother of this year’s No. 2 pick in the NFL Draft and a former UVa standout (Chris), flourished with such consistency with countless radar guns and professional scouts tracking nearly every step that the 19-year-old made.
“The coaches have joked all year that we would have never been able to handle the pressure at his age,” McGrane said. “He would go to other fields and immediately everyone would start chattering, ‘That’s Kyle Long. That’s Kyle Long.’
“The coaches were asked to leave lineup cards that were posted in the dugouts so the teams could keep them as souvenirs. And there were a few instances after games where opposing players asked him for autographs. It was bizarre and he handled it with humility and he was modest, very polite and sincere. I could not imagine being under that much pressure and handling it the way that he did.”
With the football pedigree in his family, most outsiders debated Long’s love of baseball. It was just a matter of time, many said, before he searched for a college suitor on the gridiron and national programs from practically every inch of the country pursued.
But last summer while pitching at a national showcase in Cincinnati, Long was in the mid-90s on radar guns, a schedule-altering accomplishment for scouts on the East Coast.
Yet when STAB took the diamond en route to the state semifinals this season with Long as its ace, the words of Saints’ pitching coach Larry Mitchell were put into practice.
“Kyle showed his maturity this year and that is due in large part to Larry. Larry spent a lot of time with him on being a pitcher and not a thrower,” McGrane said. “Larry was all about, ‘sure, if you want to pump it up, go ahead and throw that hard 94-mph fastball, but pitch around 88, 89, 90, get the other off-speed pitches going, get the arm speed going and hit your spots, and get ahead early.’
“Kyle was able to do those things and perhaps his best games this season were the most important, tightest, pressure-packed games. Those are always the games that he does well.”
Offensively, Long was taught to be patient. Opposing pitchers knew he possessed light-tower power and were fearful of grooving a pitch around the plate, proven by Long’s 20 walks.
But more importantly in McGrane’s eyes, Long learned to use the entire field.
“He had a really good approach at the plate. He was well aware of the situation and the runners on and the number of outs,” the coach recounted. “If he was in a situation where he could try and pop one over the fence he took it, but if there were runners in scoring position and he had two strikes, he did what he had to do whether it was hit the ball to the right side or put the ball in play.”
It was when the games ended or during simple after-hour batting practice sessions, however, that Long left his lasting mark on STAB.
After celebrating wins or analyzing losses, Long always took time for a collection of energetic — and often dirt-covered — kids that scurried around STAB’s baseball field.
That was part of the reason that Florida State assistant coach Mike Martin, Jr. offered Long a scholarship after watching just a handful of in-person swings.
“I just think kids these days need role models, and with athletics being the main thing that they see on TV and with the Hollywood stuff going on, it’s probably refreshing for a younger kid to see that there is an older kid at their school who can be nice,” Long said. “Perhaps it tells them that you can look up to somebody.
“I just tried to step up in that fashion and hopefully they will do the same thing when they are older. There is nothing wrong with being nice and nice doesn’t stop with just your friends. You can be nice to everybody.”
Opposing batters and opposing pitchers, in Long’s case, would beg to differ.