Southern Cook-ing

Esparto, California star headed to Division I Southern University on baseball scholarship

Sometimes, finding a Division I baseball scholarship can be a long, arduous process. Other times, it can be as lucky as stumbling upon an ESPN broadcast. Possessing a left arm that throws in the high 80's also helps. In late April, Suavae Cook signed a National Letter of Intent to play baseball at Southern University, but months earlier it hardly seemed possible.

On Feb. 29, a Friday night, Esparto High School baseball coach Dennis Huitt was watching ESPN's telecast of the Urban Invitational at Jackie Robinson Stadium in Los Angeles. During the broadcast of UCLA's game against Southern University - a historically black school in Baton Rouge, La. - analyst Tim Kurjian mused about the lack of African American baseball players at the Major League level.

During the next night's telecast, when Southern played USC, the broadcasters were talking up Southern coach Roger Cador, who has won 13 SWAC Coach of the Year awards, and how in his 23 years as the Jaguars coach they had won 13 Southwestern Athletic Conference titles, when it struck a chord with Huitt.

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