Three hits, including a home run in his final at-bat.

That’s the performance Diamond Dog’s freshman shortstop Chance Veazey delivered in his final scrimmage last fall, the last time the speedy, 175-pound shortstop would ever round the bases.

KANN

Two days later, Veazey was paralyzed from the waist down. His spinal cord was severely damaged when his motor scooter collided with a car as he left a study session at the Miller Learning Center.

Unfortunately, tragedies of this sort are not uncommon in the realm of sports. However, neither is the powerful emotional drive that often fuels a team playing for a fallen teammate. In sports, there is little more dangerous.  

We saw it in 2007, when a Washington Redskins team avenged the senseless shooting death of Pro-Bowl safety Sean Taylor by winning the team’s final four games to become just the fourth team in the Super Bowl era to make the playoffs after starting the season 5-7.

I can’t predict the future and I’m not willing to place any bets on it, but after spending time with the Georgia baseball players and coaches over the last month, we might see something similar from the Diamond Dogs as the season kicks into high gear.

Don’t believe me? Just ask Georgia head coach David Perno.

“There was one kid on this team in the fall that gave you everything he had every day, every minute, and that was [Chance],” said Perno. “They’re gonna play hard, they’re gonna play together and they’re gonna play the right way because that’s what Chance would do.”

Like he has been for nearly every Diamond Dogs’ home game this season, Veazey will be in the Georgia dugout tonight, traveling nearly 200 miles north from his home in Tifton to be with his Bulldog teammates.

And though he won’t be snagging ground balls at shortstop, Veazey will be on the field for the Bulldogs. Tonight, and all season long, a little bit of Veazey will be in every swing, every fastball fired towards home plate. There’s a lot going on in Athens this evening: parties, no doubt, and the usual downtown revelry.

But when 7 p.m. rolls around and that first pitch is thrown, nothing would mean more to this team and one kid, coping with unimaginable hardship, than to see the stands behind home plate and that ivy hill in right field smothered in red and black like never before.

Let’s make it happen. 

— Drew Kann is a senior from Atlanta majoring in magazines. He is a sportswriter for The Red & Black