With another outstanding season, Matt den Dekker could be on his way to a professional baseball future.
A career in the majors seems like his destiny now, but just three years ago, the center fielder's future in college baseball appeared bleak.
No big programs ever looked at him, but with the help of his talented cousin and a recruiter who saw something in him that not many else saw, he had a shot with a top-level team.
It wasn't until Ross Jones, UF's former recruiting coordinator, came to watch den Dekker's cousin, Kevin Chapman, at a practice in 2005 that den Dekker's fate changed courses.
"He was such a good outfielder, and he didn't have anyone (recruiting) him, which was amazing to me," Jones said. "I really felt he could be an asset to us."
Two years after finally getting that scholarship offer, den Dekker has made teams look foolish for not going after him in high school.
Under the Radar
As UF's football team routed FSU in 2005 in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, den Dekker sat in the crowd unsure where he would attend college.
He was coming off a junior campaign where he hit .350 with four home runs and pitched for Fort Lauderdale's Westminster Academy.
The attention he felt he deserved never came, even with scouts dropping by to watch Westminster Academy's ace - Chapman.
And the small schools that did talk to him wanted him as a pitcher. The soft-spoken den Dekker disagreed with those scouts.
"I wanted to play outfield, because I saw myself with more of a future as an outfielder," den Dekker said. "I wanted to play somewhere, whether it's a junior college or D-1, that I could play outfield."
As the end of high school neared, he was resigned to the fact that he might have to settle on a smaller school, most likely Santa Fe College or Broward Community College. To keep his spirits up, his mom, Lou Ann, reminded him that attending a smaller college would allow him to play sooner.
The most attention he got his junior year was when Jones came to a game to watch Chapman and noticed den Dekker out in center, but it was only enough to put him on the back burner.
"I really liked Matt a lot as a center fielder, but we already had an outfielder committed," said Jones, now head coach at St. Johns River Community College. "I just kept Matt in the back of (my) mind."
Chapman tried to sell Jones on his cousin with a simple but effective message.
"I told them he is (the) best center fielder I've ever seen play, and he's a hard worker," Chapman said.
The second time Jones saw den Dekker play - at that practice in the fall of 2005 - he was convinced den Dekker could play at the next level. Jones invited him to visit UF with Chapman for the FSU-UF game.
Instead of offering den Dekker a scholarship on the visit, Jones told him to attend the Gators' winter baseball camp. There, den Dekker shined and confirmed Jones' feelings.
Jones still wasn't sure how to get him into a crowded recruiting class, so he began to call occasionally to let den Dekker know UF was interested - a process known as "soft recruiting."
During the 2006 season, the Gators coaches realized they had needs they had not filled with the incoming class.
"As things progress and we realized we needed more power in the lineup and more speed, I felt very strongly that (den Dekker) was a guy that could help us," Jones said.
With that, den Dekker was offered a spot in a Division I program thanks to a coach who was willing to take a risk on him.
"I thought for sure he was a guy somebody would have swept up, but nobody took a chance," Jones said. "I felt he was being overlooked, and we took the chance."
Summer of Baseball
Jerry den Dekker made sure to instill a good work ethic in his son when he first started coaching him at age 4.
He drilled into his son the tendencies to run out pop-ups, to never give up on balls hit in his direction and to never give up on balls not hit directly to him.
When den Dekker was 11, he went after a ball, collided with his teammate in left field and got hit in the eye with the ball. Although he came out of the game, he was back to work the next day.
That work ethic won the 6-foot-1, 205-pound den Dekker the starting job in center field his freshman year at UF.
He flashed his glove more than his bat that year, as he held on to the starting job for most of the season despite hitting only .234 - the lowest average of the regular players.
After the season, he headed north to New Hampshire to spend the summer playing for the Keene Swamp Bats in the New England Collegiate Baseball League.
With nothing else but baseball going on in Keene, den Dekker was able to focus on his game and improve his hitting.
"My freshman year I struggled trying to do too much, but I could play with speed and had some power, and I worked on trying to stay within that and not try to outdo myself," den Dekker said.
In Keene, he found his comfort level and played well enough to be named to the All-Star Game roster.
With his confidence regained, he returned to Gainesville for his sophomore season ready to show the new coaching staff led by Kevin O'Sullivan that he had improved.
"I gained a lot of confidence over that summer, seeing the ball real well and finding an approach that worked," den Dekker said.
National Praise
The batting cages at the baseball field are rarely quiet, mainly because of den Dekker, who can be found working on his swing most hours of the day.
"He's hitting here 24/7," O'Sullivan said. "You leave here at night and you hear him banging away in the cages, you come here two hours before practice you can hear the cages banging away."
With the lessons he learned in New Hampshire, his hard work in the cages and his natural ability, den Dekker put together a sophomore season that granted him accolades for more than just his fielding and helped the Gators surprise many critics by finishing third in the Southeastern Conference.
His batting average ballooned to .333, and he also belted eight homers and was a perfect 20 for 20 in stolen-base attempts. Those numbers and his continued stellar defensive play earned him an All-SEC first-team spot.
"He has always been tremendous (in center) and has had a lot of potential at the plate, and he's really come into his own and his role on the team," UF left fielder Avery Barnes said.
His tremendous year and his solid play at the trials landed him a spot on the USA National Collegiate team this past summer, when he started in the USA's gold-medal victory over Japan in the World University Baseball Championship in the Czech Republic.
Den Dekker's success last season also gave him a new swagger against opponents who never gave him a chance out of high school.
"When we play in-state teams that didn't recruit me, it's fun to show them that they missed their chance to recruit me," he said.
Whiteboard Dreams
"We swear we will be Major League players."
Before entering high school, den Dekker and a friend wrote that promise on a whiteboard on his refrigerator and signed it.
That message got pushed to the back of his mind in high school because of his desire just to get a spot on a Division I roster.
Now, that declaration has begun to creep toward the front again.
Even with how close he is, he is still concentrated on this year and the Gators' success, but another good statistical year could land him as a top draft selection.
He enters this season on multiple All-American teams, the second teams of Baseball America and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and on watch lists for national awards given to the best player in college baseball, the Brooks Wallace Award and Golden Spikes Award.
The preseason attention is sure to entice many MLB scouts to come watch him play, and when they begin to compare him to current major leaguers, den Dekker hopes that one name comes to mind as they watch him cover most the outfield.
"Grady Sizemore (of the Cleveland Indians) is a guy I try and model my game after," den Dekker said. "He's got speed, can hit the ball, plays great center field and will go after anything and doesn't care if he has to run into a wall to catch a ball."
Den Dekker has demonstrated many of those skills in his time at UF and before college, so much that his dad is barely surprised anymore when he makes an outstanding catch.
But the two plays that stuck out most to Jerry were the time he sprinted and dove head first to catch a ball in the SEC Tournament versus Vanderbilt and when he made a catch at the wall against FSU.
"Matt has always gone at everything full speed, so seeing the plays he makes in college is nothing new," Jerry said. "We've seen him make them growing up."
The Gators center fielder knows his hard work and aggressive style have gotten him this far and isn't about to stop that.
But that doesn't mean he can't dream about what it will be like. After all, this has been his dream since he started throwing a ball off a wall in his house when he was 2.
"I go to a bunch of Marlins games when I'm home, and every time I go out there I picture myself out there," den Dekker said. "With all the time and effort I put in, I know how close I am to reaching my dream to make it to the major leagues."
