San Francisco Giants reliever George Kontos was nominated as the team’s representative for the 2016 Coaching Corps Game Changer Awards, which honors coaches that had an impact on the lives of professional Bay Area athletes and coaches.
Kontos nominated his Niles West High School freshman baseball coach Chris Schwarz for the award, and both joined Ted Ramey in studio on Friday to discuss the impact they had on each other. Kontos credits Schwarz for being the first to make him believe he could play baseball past high school, and credits a conversation they had when he was a freshman as a turning point in his life.
“The first thing that came to mind always was, I’ve never really had a conversation with a coach prior to pro ball, and even in pro ball I don’t think, as meaningful as coach (Schwarz) and I had,” Kontos said. “It was the end of my freshman year. I had pitched a lot of innings that year, and my elbow was a little bit sore, and I made my last start. He said ‘if you don’t feel great, if your arm isn’t feeling up to it, by all means don’t pitch.’ But I was one of those kids where unless I couldn’t throw the ball, I was going back out to the mound.”
“So I went out and I pitched the game, and we ended up winning against one of our rival high schools 2-1. I went a complete game. As we were walking back to the bus, coach and I walked back together and he said, ‘this summer, you need to do some arm exercises, rest your arm, because with your talent, and your work ethic, and the things you do right, you really should be pitching through college.”
“That was really the first time that I thought this baseball thing could really pan out. That was when I thought ‘wow, if one of my coaches thinks he sees this in my future, maybe it’s something I really need to get disciplined with, and keep working hard at, because if that’s a possibility, I definitely don’t want to waste it.”
Schwarz didn’t know the conversation had that much of an impact on his young pitcher until three years later, when Kontos publicly thanked him at an MVP ceremony.
“Honestly I didn’t,” Schwarz said when asked if he knew what his comments meant to Kontos. “As I recall, and this just kind’ve shows you the kid George was, his senior year when he won the MVP award at the team banquet, he came up and received the plaque, and he told the story that he just told you. I hadn’t thought about it in three years plus since I had had him.”
“It was just very nice, I thought, of him to remember that, and make a point of publicly thanking me for that…It’s just a reflection of the maturity that he had and just the way he conducted himself. It struck me that this was the kind of kid, with the ability that he had, and he had a mature outlook in terms what you need to do to get better. I just thought he was gonna be a college pitcher. I really did.”
Kontos and Schwarz will be joined by Warriors forward Draymond Green, A’s pitcher Kendall Graveman, 49ers linebacker NaVorro Bowman and Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio, as well as their chosen representatives, during the ceremony on January, 27 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.
Listen to the full interview below.