Eddie Vanderdoes lives for the moment, the bigger, the better.
Placer High School's national recruit defensive lineman was shadowed Thursday on the Auburn campus by USC assistant coach Clay Helton who studied his every move in the weight room. The entire weight room session was captured, with a lot of wide-angle work considering Vanderdoes fills a door frame at 6-foot-4 and 295 pounds.
In a Pioneer Valley League baseball game against rival Colfax later in the afternoon, Helton and camera were in tow. He filmed every at bat, every at bat, every hustle around the bases, every defensive play. Vanderdoes had three hits and crushed another titanic home run. For the season, the junior is batting .405 with 15 RBI and three home runs, two of which still have people in Auburn buzzing, specifically, "did you ever find that poor ball?"
He also struck out 16 in a six-inning outing against a team from Nevada.
As for the documentary-like filming and the poise of his son, Vanderdoes' father who goes by the same name said, simply, "How's that for handling pressure?"
Not to be outdone, UCLA will come for a peek at Placer next week. That would be the UCLA baseball team. UCLA in football has already offered Vanderdoes a football scholarship, as has an army of others, including: Cal, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and a host of others. USC has not offered, but the sense is it's only a matter of hours before that becomes reality.
Vanderdoes will attend the Cal spring game on Saturday in Berkeley and he will attend the Oregon spring game later in the month.
- By Joe Davidson
jdavidson@sacbee.com
Follow on Twitter: @sb_joedavidson, Facebook: Sacramento Bee High School Sports and on www.surewestsports.com
Bee photo by José Luis Villegas
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.