Baseball’s loss is UVic’s gain
Injury forces Hegadoren out of NCAA and into hoops, rowing
Eric Hegadoren, too busy throwing baseballs at 95 miles per hour, has not picked up a basketball in a game situation since Grade 9.
But it took University of Victoria Vikes hoops coach Craig Beaucamp “all of 10 minutes” to decide to sign the six-foot-11, 250-pound athlete after putting Hegadoren through a workout this week.
The towering Lambrick Park Secondary graduate had several NCAA Div. 1 offers to pitch, but shoulder surgery Dec. 1 on a torn labrum ended Hegadoren’s dream of pro baseball.
Yet, another door has opened. Two, actually. Aware this has been a path to the Olympics for so many previous athletes, Hegadoren is also on the UVic Vikes rowing team. He could turn out to be a sports cross-over coup on a number of platforms.
Hegadoren came out of Anthony Pluta’s 2013 B.C. Premier Baseball League-champion Victoria Eagles, played for the Victoria Harbour Cats of the West Coast League in 2014 and 2015, and won the U.S. junior college championship last season with Yavapai College in Arizona.
“All the players from that Yavapai team were freshmen or sophomores and all, but two, were offered NCAA Div. 1 scholarships,” added Hegadoren.
“So to hear I needed surgery was tough to take. I lost 20 miles per hour in pitching velocity. It took some time to get over it [emotionally], but I sucked it up and moved on.”
Did he ever, feet first both into Vikes rowing and now basketball, after enrolling in UVic in January.
Hegadoren said his range of motion is still compromised by the surgery but it should be full speed for basketball and rowing in six months. It is pitching that is the problem and that he must give up. So he just picked up an oar and basketball, instead.
“It’s hard to do both basketball and rowing, but I’ll give it a try,” he said. “I’ll find my way.”
The 21-year-old is back where he grew up, in the shadow of UVic in Gordon Head. The beauty of his situation is that he has a full five years of U Sports eligibility because U.S. junior college baseball doesn’t count against it.
“When I was a kid, I used to go with my parents to the old McKinnon Gym to watch Vikes basketball,” recalled Hegadoren.
A future with this guy in the post on Ken and Kathy Shields Court in the CARSA gym has Beaucamp’s heart racing just a little faster.
“This is a gift from somewhere,” said a near-disbelieving Beaucamp.
The coach got a call from Hegadoren on Monday, worked him out Tuesday, and signed him on the spot.
It was a bolt literally out of the blue for a Vikes team, eliminated from the first round of the Canada West playoffs last weekend, and desperately in need of size up front. There was no way Hegadoren was leaving that gym without his name on the line committing to next season.
“This was absolutely a no-brainer,” said Beaucamp. “He’s an athlete and he can move. There was no way I was letting him go.”