As I told you in the earlier Red Sox News & Notes post, Terry Francona was in Charlottesville, VA last night for the Virginia Cavaliers baseball team’s Step Up to the Plate banquet. The event was sold-out as over 925 people crammed Virginia’s Memorial Coliseum to see Francona speak.
Francona went down to Charlottesville on Friday and took a tour of the stadium and the campus with pitching coach John Farrell and his son, Jeremy. Jeremy is a freshman first baseman for the Cavaliers.
Francona talked about the value of an education to the crowd.
“If you can take another step baseball-wise, great, but in the meantime if you get your education, then nobody will ever have the chance to tell you, No,” Francona said. “And that’s exciting to me.”
“I am probably a prime example. If I was drafted out of high school, I wouldn’t have made it. I wouldn’t have lasted two years. I wasn’t strong enough mentally, physically. Now you go through these college programs and these kids are not only prepared for baseball, but for how to deal with real-life situations, too.”
Current Red Sox reliever and former UVA player Javier Lopez was on hand for the event as well. Washington Nationals 3B Ryan Zimmerman was another former Cavalier in attendance at the event.
Francona praises Cavs’ program [DailyProgress.com]
