Coming Home

When Kit Fowler approached the baseball field at Lely High School with athletic director Bill Mottola, he saw everything he needed to see. He immediately told Mottola he’d accept the job as Lely’s new head coach.

"When I heard about the Lely job being open,” Kit Fowler said, "I thought, 'That’s my school. Let’s go check it out.’ The athletic director told me, ‘Kit, I don’t know what kind of players you’ve got. I don’t know how many you’ve got. But all I can tell you is there’s guys who want to play. If you want to come back out at two o’clock, they’ll be out there practicing. You can meet ‘em, then you can decide.’"

Fowler arrived at his old high school at two p.m. He and Mottola walk out to the field together. As they round the familiar water tower, the baseball field comes into view. Fowler sees something that stops him in his tracks.

“We round the corner and there are 18 guys in baseball pants, with no head coach,” Fowler said. "They’re out there practicing on their own. Before we even stepped out on the field I said, ‘You know what?  I’ll take the job.’”

He said Mottola was taken aback.

"He said, ‘Are you sure? You haven’t even met ‘em,’” Fowler said. "I told him, ‘These guys are out here in baseball pants, they don’t even have a head coach. These guys are still out there wanting to play.”

Fowler said when he was a player at Lely from 2009-2012, if the players knew the head coach was going to be absent, many of them were likely to show up to practice in shorts. 

"They’re dressing like they’re ready to go,” Fowler said. "Like they have a coach there telling them to do it. They’re doing it on their own. If they’re doing that on their own, they want something. They want to play baseball. When I saw them, it was completely different from what I had heard around the area. I’ve been gone for a while. I’ve been playing college baseball and minor league baseball. Now that I’m back in the area, all I’ve heard is bad stuff."

Fowler is 28 years old and can still throw the ball over 90 mph. After an outstanding college career, Fowler has continued chasing the dream of playing major league baseball. He pitched two years for the Schaumburg Boomers and an additional year with the Joliet Slammers.

But for now Fowler wants to make a difference at his high school alma mater. He’s learned what not to do from a couple of coaches along the way. As a player at Lely he witnessed first-hand the difference a good coach can make.

"I played all four years at Lely,” Fowler said. "The first two years weren’t so good.”

Then Lely brought in Eric Maya.

"The big thing was the coach,” Fowler said. "Eric Maya coming in. I played at two different colleges, I played minor league baseball. Maybe my favorite coach of all-time was Eric Maya. He made it fun. Our first two years, it really wasn’t that fun. In high school you never want to make a sport feel like a job. And that’s what it felt like. You felt like you were going to work. You weren’t going to have a good time. You kind of dreaded going there. Once he took over it was completely flipped. You couldn’t wait to go to baseball practice. We were excited to go out there and play for him."  

Fowler flourished under Maya.

"Just playing for him,” Fowler said, "practicing under him. His coaching style. It was just night and day the difference. We were now a bunch of guys who wanted to play - not just going through the motions. Just that one change, from one coach to the next, was completely different. It wasn’t that we got new players. We got a new coach. And that changed the whole culture of the team.  Sometimes that’s all it takes. Somebody new to come in and turn it around.”

Fowler relished playing the power programs in the county.

"I always wanted to pitch against the big guys,” Fowler said, "Naples, Barron Collier, Gulf Coast. I’m the only pitcher in Lely history to beat Naples, Barron and Gulf Coast all in the same year. I threw a two-hit shutout against Barron and a one-hit shutout against Naples. Gulf Coast was an extra innings game. I think we went 10 innings.”

Fowler plans to bring about a similar change at Lely.

"For some reason,” Fowler said, "you feel a sense of pride going to Lely. Being a Lely Trojan. If I went to those other schools, I wouldn’t feel that pride. Just going to Lely, being a Trojan. Man, that’s a powerful thing. You think of way back in the day, Trojans fought with bare knuckles, swords, face to face. To me it was like, that’s tough. The kids at Lely are always kind of viewed as an underdog. No matter how big and strong they are.” 

Fowler recalls a time when he beat a city rival when he was a pitcher at Lely. 

"I shut ‘em out,” Fowler said, "a two-hit shutout. I remember their coach on the other side of the field berating those guys.  Screaming at them. One thing that always stuck in my mind, he was saying, ‘You guys just lost to Lely.’  I’m like, ‘What’s wrong with that?  We beat you! You didn’t lose to us, we beat you. 

"That was the one thing that coach Maya told us. When we beat teams, they don’t lose to us. We beat them. If they lose to you, it means they just played bad. When we beat you, that means we’re a better team. That’s one thing I tell the guys, have that mindset.  We beat them. They didn’t lose to us. We beat them.  Carry that to every game. It’s just a mindset change for those kids.”

Fowler believes in building up his players.  

"One of the things people kept telling me was, 'Coach, they’re not very good.’ I tell them, 'You can’t do that.' Especially with high school kids. One of the things I tell the players, ‘You guys have no idea of your potential. Your potential at this point is endless. You have no idea what you can do.'”

Fowler has seen a big change in his players after just three weeks.

"I’ve already seen it with hitters on the team,” he said, "I’ve made a couple of changes and they’re crushing the ball. Huge differences already.”

Fowler wants his players to know that he wants to help them improve.

"I told them they’ve got a guy who is willing to work with them,” Fowler said. "And that’s the difference. The willingness to develop. Guys on the team have already taken full advantage of it. I tell them, ‘If you want to work after practice, text me. I’ll be here.' I’m at the field 45 minutes before we start practice, doing things to the field. If they want the work, I’m already there. So I might as well work with them. Plus after practice, I’ve got nothing to do but go home and make dinner.  If someone wants 30 minutes of batting practice, 30 minutes of ground balls - even just 10 minutes. Whatever they need, I’m there.”

"I understand my job’s to win, just like any other coach,” Fowler said. “But why would I not be willing to work with kids? That’s what high school’s about, development. When I was a freshman, I was 110 pounds. The hardest I threw was 78 miles an hour.  If I had listened to my first coach, that’s it, that’s all I had.  If I had listened to that for three years, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere. I said, ‘You know what? I think I’m better than that. I think I can get better than that.' Then coach Maya comes in and he kind of reiterates what I was telling myself.”

Fowler wants his players to understand that he’s Lely through and through.

"When I met them for the first time,” Fowler said, "I told them, ‘Guys, I wore that hat. I wore that jersey. I pitched on the mound.  I’ve slid into all those bases. I was here. To me it’s not just a stepping stone."  

That doesn’t mean he’s given up on his dreams of someday playing in the major leagues.

 "I’ve kind of stayed in baseball shape for the guys,” Fowler said. "I pitch to the guys. I’m still kind of hanging onto the dream. But like they say in Moneyball, as some point everybody has to hang ‘em up. So, if this is my time, I think I’ll be alright with it. But if an opportunity presents itself, I wouldn’t immediately say no. I’d give it the time of day.”

Some of his players asked him what he would do if he got another chance to play baseball.

“That’s the other thing I’ve got to weigh now,” Fowler said. "The guys would only have me for a year if I end up taking a baseball job. Just in these three weeks alone I’ve enjoyed it so much. It’s been so much fun."