Trevor King: 3b/P Kemp HS

By, Matt Alkire

The Lone Star State is generally identified by outsiders of its borders by one major thing and that thing is football. As far as we know, male offspring are handed footballs upon birth and by the age of four, they are expected to fully understand the following sequence of nonsense – “Flip left, double-X jet, 36 counter, naked waggle, X-8, X-quarter, panda red.” You see, it’s Texas and they love their football.

The problem is – Kemp High School’s Trevor King is a baseball player – and he’s a fine one at that. While he may not understand the above play call, he understands how to put an aluminum bat to a ball coming at him at over 80 miles per hour. Last season the 3^rd baseman batted .405 in the five-spot, knocking in 24 base runners along the way and helped his team dramatically improve over the previous season. For his efforts, he was named First-Team All-District at 3^rd, awarded Rookie of the Year honors, given Honorable Mention by the Athens Review and put on the watch list by 3A Baseball.com.

Right now King is training with his teammates for what is shaping up to be his breakout year, a year everything finally clicks. He’ll move from 5^th to 3^rd in the line-up, a vote of confidence that he’s most likely the best contact hitter on the team. Also, he’ll also be the team’s No.2 pitcher. That’s right, King can also throw the ball and do it well. He thrusts the pill toward the plate in the low to mid 80s on his fastball with his best pitch being a two-seamer. He also boasts a nice 12-6 curve as his second and will switch it up between two and four stitch curves as his third and fourth pitches. For his fifth, he mixes in a nasty circle change-up for good measure.

King was a well-rounded player as a junior. Not only can recruiters see a prospect who will give them consistent constant, but he also brings a pitcher to work with. His baseball IQ is outstanding and he handles the hot corner extremely well. His arm strength is there, although a move to 2^nd or 1^st base might be more realistic depending on what level he plays at in college. Obviously his lack of home runs stands out a bit, however he was a doubles machine as a junior for Kemp and not many players in his district were hitting dingers last year. All schools jumped to the new BBCOR bats and it seemed to really limit the flight on balls. However, King is just fine with getting on base and driving in runs any way he can.

 

Kemp High School played in one of the best AAA districts in Texas last year. After a season where they only won a few games the previous term, they went out last year and not only got better, but sported a winning record. The 6-foot-1, 215-pounder talked about why he thought he and his teammates were able to get to a new level and that was a new coach.

“Coach Hankins did a lot for our entire team this year,” King stated. “Honestly, he turned the whole program around very quickly. He has a very serious approach to the game and is hands on and technical with each player. We were in a very, very good district last year with two teams that went deep in the playoffs and still ended up with a 13-9 record playing a nasty schedule. I think the year before he was here we won maybe four or five games at the most.”

It wasn’t just the team that was changed, King’s game stepped up a few notches as well.

“He (Coach Hankins) has taught me a lot about the game in such a short amount of time,” King explained. “The first thing he did was really broke down my batting stance and had me focus on spreading my feet apart and adjusting my hand placement on the bat so I was making more contact and focusing less on power all the time. That right there made a huge difference in my results immediately. I can remember going right out to batting practice the next day and starting to hit with a ton of consistency, so my confidence started to fly up.”

 “After that he really grilled me on my fielding to take me from being good to great,” King added. “It was just drill after drill after drill. Coach Hankins really stresses doing things the right way and repetition. He played baseball and football at Oklahoma and then was in the minor leagues, so he’s one heck of a coach. I learned to come up and attack the ball rather than let it come to me and also just got a lot quicker in my exchange so that ball gets to first so much better. I only had two errors all season as a matter of fact.”

Kemp will actually drop down to Class AA this season which King admitted, “will give us an easier schedule and should give us better results.” He also was excited that Hankins has now been with the team for a full year and expected that things would “keep getting better for us as a unit on the field.”

While King is more of a composed young man who doesn’t have much to say – especially when you probe him about his own accomplishments – he was quick to talk about his love of baseball.

“To tell you the truth my life is just at its calmest moment when I step out onto that diamond,” King said. “You get that whiff of a new glove, sit in the dugout with the guys and just have the excitement in your gut to be in a pressure situation. I love when the game is on the line and you’re either up to bat or fielding that ground ball to get the last out of the game. That feeling when you swing through the ball and hit it perfectly so you can barely feel it come off your bat because you know you caught it right in that sweet spot, that’s perfect right there. To be honest with you, I love everything about baseball. Taking batting practice is just as much fun for me as playing the actual game. Like I said, it’s just where I want to be all the time.”

 

The third baseman also likes to spend his time out hunting which seems to be his second love. This also ties into what he wants to do in college and he took some time explaining his thoughts on wildlife.

“I want to be a game warden, so I’d like to major in Wildlife Management. Whichever school I do choose is going to need to have an area of study available where I can approach that. I love animals and really just being outdoors hunting.”

For anyone who doesn’t hunt or isn’t familiar with what a game warden does, that statement may sound a bit hypocritical. Trevor was quick to clarify.

“When I go hunting it’s either for me to eat what I bring home or to give to people who need to eat,” King offered. “I don’t hunt for sport. People who abuse the rules and go into nature with the intent of doing so are what I’m against, so I want to catch those people hurting animals for no reason and bring them to justice. I’m just very passionate about it. Game regulation is something that is very serious.”

Speaking of the hunt, it sounds like that’s what Kemp will be doing next year in AA. With a new coach and an improved team, he and his teammates are poised to make a big run. King just finished up football season being named Team Captain and to the “Dream Team” for his county at center.  King’s focus now solely shifts to the diamond.

With all the hard work he’s putting in, it looks like a run into the playoffs this season and the next level is what he has to look forward to.