Blair Havens Baseball Instruction Athlete Home Page

Via: PureAthleteInc

This baseball player went to Death Row (on purpose).

And what he saw behind bars changed him forever 👇

Willie Calhoun lost his D1 scholarship after one season at Arizona.

He considered quitting baseball and started believing the doubters:

• Too small
• Too slow
• No power

"I thought I let everyone down."

Feeling like he was out of options, he went to his father, who worked as a corrections officer at San Quentin State Prison.

"I was getting ready to fill out job applications," Willie said.

So he figured, why not follow in Dad's footsteps?

Maybe a career in law enforcement was his best bet.

"I'm done with baseball," he thought to himself.

"I just got cut by a college, there's no way I'm gonna go play. Where else am I gonna play?"

His father agreed to take him on a tour of the prison, where he spoke with death row inmates and lifelong criminals.

"There are m*rderers in there, there are r*pists in there, there's child m*lesters, k*dnappers...there's everything you can think of in there," Willie said.

"I got to talk to about 10 of 'em face-to-face. They're just wired differently in there."

Willie and his dad spent a full day touring the maximum security prison, from the early morning until the late afternoon.

“I wanted him to see the uglier side of life and what that had to offer,” his dad said.

“I wanted him to hear what they’d do for another chance. I wanted him to keep pushing. You can always get a job, but I didn’t want him to give up on his dream.”

From behind bars, a convicted killer urged Willie to always do the right thing. Another told him to hug his parents and never come back there.

Willie called it "the most eye-opening experience" of his life.

"From that day on, I said, 'Alright, I need to work as hard as I can to try to get drafted and make it to the big leagues.'"

That winter, he transferred to Yavapai College.

Then he put together one of the most dominant seasons in JUCO baseball history, leading the nation with 31 homers in 63 games.

The Dodgers took him in the 4th round later that summer.

He ripped through the minors and made his MLB debut at 22 years old.

Now, after 8 years in the majors, he's still putting up numbers with Charros de Jalisco in the Mexican League.

"I hear stuff that I supposedly can’t do and inside my head, I’m laughing. I want to prove people shouldn’t look over me.”