When you can throw the baseball, they find you.
How else can Connor Nolan's tale be explained?
Nolan, a 2007 Salem High graduate, committed recently to what he said was a two-year, three-quarter baseball scholarship to pitch for Florida State.
Just over a year ago, Nolan came to grips with the idea that he'd never pitch again. The folks at the University of Florida Medical Center changed all that in September 2008.
"I guess the Salem Police Department will have to wait," joked Nolan, who red-shirted last spring as he rehabbed at St. John's River Community College in Jacksonville. "Seriously, I had to deal with the thought that it could be over. I actually thought about coming back home and finding a school to study criminal justice because I want to go into law enforcement. "
After earning Eagle-Tribune All-Star accolades as a senior at Salem High (6-2, 1.54 ERA, 75 strikeouts in 50 innings), Nolan found himself at a crossroads.
"The only real offer I got was from UMass Lowell, but I just wasn't ready," said Windham's Nolan, who only had a 1-3 career record at Salem prior to his senior year. "I went to Northern Essex and baseball just wasn't for me there, so I didn't play."
Nolan felt the urge to pitch, though. He e-mailed various community college coaches around the Sunshine State, eventually landing at St. John's River.
Only 10 games into the 2008 season, Nolan felt that dreaded pain in the elbow and knew something was wrong.
A couple of months later, he underwent Tommy John surgery on the elbow, with no guarantees he would ever throw again.
A rigorous rehab followed, and the early returns weren't pretty.
"At six months, I was way behind," said Nolan. "I couldn't even throw a ball."
This fall, though, all that work paid off. The elbow worked into shape and Nolan's baseball life has been rekindled.
"Right now I'm throwing better than I ever have," said the southpaw, whose injury was a torn ulnar collateral ligament. "I feel great, and I'm not worried about the elbow at all."
Ross Jones, a former University of Florida assistant, stepped in at St. John's River and was stunned by the progress Nolan made. That was, until he got to know him.
"He's got the size, strength and stuff to be a big-time pitcher," said Jones. "Having all those things come together with the kind of drive he has comes around once in a great while."
Nolan, now 20, has filled out his 6-foot-5, 195-pound frame. The fastball from the port side now sits at 90. After an impressive showcase performance this fall, he was a secret no more.
"I got calls on him from Tennessee, Alabama, Ole Miss," said Jones. "But I had some connections with the pitching coach (Jamey Shouppe) at FSU. I called him and told him I had one for him. He came to see Connor pitch once down in Winter Haven, and then (head coach) Mike Martin came here to see him and offered."
Jones says that Nolan's ceiling is sky-high.
"He's going to pitch for us this spring, and then he'll probably have another big decision coming up in June between FSU and signing in pro ball," he said. "In my eyes, he's a year from being a top 2 or 3-round draft prospect."
Nolan, who went 6-5 with a 5.22 ERA and 61 strikeouts in 69 innings for St. John's River in 2008, can hardly wait to get to Tallahassee.
"FSU is the best of the very best," Nolan said of a Seminole program which fell one run shy of making the College World Series (top eight teams) last spring. "The facilities and the money that they put into the baseball program are ridiculous. It's definitely the place to be."
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