“I would just say I love him. I love him dearly…” – Mr. Ferrell
“Evan, as a person, is a great teammate and a great friend of mine.” – Matt Reed
“It’s kind of like teaching a Beethoven or something…” – Mr. Ferrell
These are the types of commendations one associates with senior Evan Skoug, baseball player extraordinaire. To coaches, teachers and teammates, Skoug is more than just a gifted catcher — he’s a personality deserving of the interest he has been receiving from college and professional scouts. Though he signed a National Letter of Intent to play at Texas Christian University (“I felt like it was the best fit for me academically, athletically, with money, with coaches, and I felt like I was at home when I was on campus, so, you know, it was a no brainer, and I haven’t looked back, so I think it’s been a really good decision for myself”), Skoug is up for the June professional draft, an opportunity that will require decisions, but will ultimately come down to his devotion to academics and to baseball.
Looking to his future as it stands now at TCU, Skoug plans to major in Entrepreneurial Management (“I’m going to give that a try and see how that goes”), but hopes to return after his four years to study architecture (“I just see a cool house, or a cool building, or car, and it’s just fascinating… I liked to play with Legos and stuff like that when I was a kid, so … I just, I think design is cool”).
His LST Q-Z Team Director, friend and mentor, Mr. Sean Ferrell believes that education is important enough to Skoug that despite perhaps unconventional circumstances, he will pursue some form of academic structure. “Obviously he wants to go to school, he wants to get a college degree, but that’s something that might be [put on hold with] the demands of Major League Baseball; he wouldn’t do it in a traditional manner, where kids go off to school. It’s something he would have to put by the wayside a little bit and go back to it later, or maybe attend school through night school, or do [it] some different ways because it wouldn’t be the traditional route that kids go, you know, four or five years of undergraduate,” Mr. Ferrell related.
If Skoug chooses to go the more “traditional” route and play for TCU, he will forfeit the opportunity to be drafted professionally until after his junior season playing for the university in accordance with MLB draft rules. This will, of course, be a consideration, but whether or not he ends up in the big leagues, his contacts all believe he can make any of his hopes tangible. His best friend and teammate, senior Matt Reed, noted, “After high school, I think that he can go as far in the game as he wants to. He’s that talented and has the right mindset.”
Whatever his choice, he will do some good with his fortune. Mr. Ferrell recounts, “It was me and him and my son, and we were talking at dinner – we were at Baker’s Square, and then we took my son out to the batting facility – we were all spending some time together, and he said, ‘Mr. Ferrell, if I sign a pro contract, I’m going to donate $10,000 to Katie, because I want to give more to her.’”
Katie Mitchell (the nemaline-myopathy-afflicted girl to whom Skoug dedicated his Home Runs That Help showcase fundraising, ultimately collecting $8,214) is just one of the recipients of his good works. A regular at Feed My Starving Children, Skoug has adopted as his own the Home Runs That Help credo in more-or-less his own way: “I feel that I have a lot of things going right for me that other people don’t, so I give back…”
That feeling of duty is what endears him to coaches and teachers. His work ethic reportedly unparalleled, Skoug commits himself fully to whatever he has set his mind. Whether making the most of a least favorite school subject, or resisting temptation and remaining on a healthy new diet (Mr. Ferrell remembered one particular instance to that end: “… he’s on a strict diet, and my son was offering him some corn dogs, and then some pie with ice cream, and then he’s like, ‘No, I can’t do that, because, you know, I’m on this diet,’ and he loves ice cream. I know it’s like his thing; we talked about that as his one thing that he really loves, but he sat there and ate his salad, no dressing, his Caesar salad.”), Skoug maintains a careful discipline.
Discipline is what got him where he is in sports, and his decided direction has been dictated by organizations like ACE, where he was first mentored by Libertyville graduate Luke Matthewson during Skoug’s freshman year. Beginning his sophomore year, he became an ACE leader, making the same type of connections with freshmen that Matthewson had made with him. This search for connections defines him, something not lost on his teachers. When he was taking American Literature his junior year, his teacher, Mrs. Mary Kate Schoenbeck noted that “He is respectful, and he’s someone who looks for connections with everybody around him, his peers, his teachers, his coaches, …”
This admirable quality is one of the many that has garnered Skoug the veneration with which he is now so associated. His prospects are many and regardless of his ultimate choices, most are assured of his success no matter what his path.
