Plan B a good call
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Five years ago Sunday, a couple hours south of here, Texans rookie tight end Jordan Akins was chasing the dream, living the chase. On that day, the dream was in focus. Standing 6-4, with a chiseled, 250-pound frame, Akins doesn’t look up to too many baseball players, but 6-7 Dane Stone had a few inches on him, so he had to look up as he stepped into the batter’s box to face the strikeout-minded reliever, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Mighty Casey did not strike out.
Akins hit a monster shot to dead center, a towering blast for a walkoff home run to lift the Hickory Crawdads to a 4-3 victory over the Greensboro Grasshoppers. Victory for Hickory! That was one of the dreamy days. But Akins’ time in the South Atlantic League, a place where Sand Gnats, BlueClaws and RiverDogs dwell, was far from the dream he had imagined as a kid.
The sport at which he had always excelled, dominated even, wasn’t giving back to him as much as he put in.
That it is often described as a game of failure was hardly consolation for Akins, a third-round draft pick of the Texas Rangers in 2010.
His hard-earned successes were too few.
A week before the aforementioned walk-off shot at Hickory, N.C., Akins drove in what would be the deciding run with a grounder to shortstop in a win over the Kannapolis Intimidators.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t Akins’ most notable moment of that game.
In the ninth inning, Akins struck out swinging. It was his second whiff of the game and his 281st as a Crawdad, the most in franchise history.
Overall, in only two seasons with Hickory, just 215 games, Akins whiffed 291 times, with a scant 19 walks, in 815 plate appearances. At that rate, his “Bull Durham” movie would be vastly different than the original.
A gut feeling
The next spring, Akins made the difficult decision to give up baseball. After four years in the minors, the former all-state schoolboy quarterback and receiver from Georgia retired and enrolled at Central Florida, where he had originally committed to play football.
“The thought was, ‘Is this something that you’re willing to keep doing and keep fighting for, or are you willing to make a decision and veer away from it?’ ” Akins said Saturday after he had another strong day on the Texans’ practice fields at The Greenbrier.
During one baseball spring training, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson visited with the Crawdads, and Akins asked Wilson how he knew it was time to give up baseball.
Wilson told him it would be a gut feeling. Akins’ gut was right.
Akins began at wide receiver at Central Florida, before flourishing as a tight end, and he flashed those skills while working with Texans coaches at the Senior Bowl.
Early in his first NFL training camp he is running as a solid second-teamer with the Texans, along with Jordan Thomas, behind starter Ryan Griffin. The way the Texans employ their tight ends, there are plenty of reps to go around.
A phenomenal athlete, with nice hands, Akins could become a key weapon in the Texans’ offense. The attention DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller are sure to attract should leave openings for tight ends to make plays.
As for developing, the thirdround pick might be a first-year player, but he is already a pro.
Texans coach Bill O’Brien says Akins is a smart player, who has picked up the offense at a challenging position.
“It’s not easy to play that position in our offense,” O’Brien said. “There’s a lot that we ask of that position. I think he’s done a good job, and probably having some experience under his belt helps him. He knows how to approach each day and maybe a little bit different than a 20-, 21-year-old guy.”
Noticeable age gap
At 26, Akins is no youngster. He was born a month before Tyrann Mathieu, who is entering his sixth NFL season.
“I’m not a kid, I’m a grown man,” Akins said with a smile. “(Rookies and veterans) mess with me a lot, telling me that I’m old. But at the end of the day, I’m a rookie, and I’m learning and adjusting to the game.”
A rookie, yes, but with a sense of urgency that is a little different that most wide-eyed first-year players.
“You have these youngbloods coming out here with their hair on fire, and I know I have to be a step ahead,” Akins said. “I just want to make plays and give the coaches a reason to smile at me by helping the team any kind of way. Show them that they made a good decision in drafting me.”
In a way, that is easier to do on the football field than a baseball diamond. There are so many more plays in football.
Strike out in baseball, and you might have to wait three innings for an opportunity to make up for it.
“In football, you can actually go out and make plays … control more of what you do,” Akins said. “Baseball, man, you know you either put the bat on the ball, walk or strike out. When it goes bad, you can find yourself in a hole, and it’s hard to climb out of it.
“My boys and everybody used to tell me, ‘You know you belong on that gridiron,’ ” Akins said. “I would just tell them that I was following my dream.”
Akins has a new dream now. Those bus rides, those strikeouts, those Crawdads and Grasshoppers all seem so far away.