![]() Benetti was everywhere, ready to accommodate every request.īut that wasn’t quite enough. He’s probably smarter than all of us.”īenetti got a dose of exposure when Washington phenoms Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper passed through Syracuse and national media descended on Alliance Bank Stadium to chart their progress. “Other than his disability, he’s not any different than any of us. He’s driven,” said John Simone, the team’s former general manager. “Here’s this guy that has a physical disability, but he’s working harder than anybody in the whole place. When Chiefs play-by-play announcer Bob McElligott departed the next year, Benetti replaced him. “That’s when I found that I had some interest in doing that,” he said.īenetti began doing sports updates, a sports talk show, and some play-by-play on Homewood-Floosmoor High School’s 1,500-watt radio station in suburban Chicago.Īfter finishing college in 2005, Benetti quickly landed the job with the Chiefs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals. Benetti grabbed a microphone and started announcing what the band was playing. The band director had a better idea – play-by-play announcer for the band. At football games, the school band tried to perform with Benetti stationary with his tuba on a stand while everyone else rotated around him. Playing tuba in the high school band helped Benetti find his niche. “It wasn’t necessarily the coolest thing ever to be around a guy who did radio or band or walked with a limp – I happened to do all three.” “When you’re the guy that’s walking around with a limp, it’s not easy to be cool and people don’t necessarily gravitate toward you like they would, say, the quarterback of the football team,” he said. Things got tougher in high school, where kids want to be cool and don’t always react well to people with physical disabilities. He had to have surgeries on both legs and was in a wheelchair at the beginning of second grade. He contracted a virus and lung disorder that required the aid of an oxygen machine, and his parents, Rob and Sue Benetti, didn’t know if they’d be able to bring him home from the hospital. His accomplishments have come as he’s managed cerebral palsy throughout his life, giving him a pronounced limp and a lazy eye.īenetti was born 10 weeks premature. He joins the White Sox as Ken Harrelson winds down his long career. Now, at age 32, he has his dream job as the new member of the television broadcast crew for the Chicago White Sox – his favorite team. He worked for the Syracuse Chiefs minor league baseball team, and called baseball, football, lacrosse, hockey, and basketball for Time Warner, ESPN, Westwood One and Fox Sports. “I admired the heck out of him.”īenetti developed that passion in college into his career. He stood up for himself,” said the director of the university’s Newhouse Sports Media Center. With Coats now in the White Sox organization, I project TCU will have between 18 and 19 former players playing professional baseball in 2013.SYRACUSE > It happened more than a decade ago, but journalism professor John Nicholson vividly remembers criticizing verb tenses used by the sports department of Syracuse University’s radio station and the intense stare he got from Jason Benetti in return. The injury in question was a knee injury, which severely limited Coats through the end of the 2012 season. He completed his degree in accounting in May of 2012. All 227 career starts have come in left field. 334 hitter, Coats finished his career with 304 hits, 69 doubles, 12 triples, 33 home runs, 201 RBIs and 191 runs scored. He is the all-time leader in at-bats (909) and doubles (69). His career was cut short by a season-ending injury on May 20 against San Diego State.Ĭoats left an indelible mark on the TCU record book becoming just the second Horned Frog to tally 300 career hits and 200 career RBIs. ![]() A three-time first-team all-Mountain West performer, he was an integral part of four conference championships, four NCAA Regionals, three NCAA Super Regionals and the Frogs' first ever trip to Omaha. The White Sox aren't just getting a great player, they are getting a very special young man."Ĭoats was a four-year member of the TCU baseball team from 2009-12. "After a tough injury at the worst possible time, he has really rebounded and worked hard to resume his career. "We are all so excited for Jason," said head coach Jim Schlossnagle. Former TCU baseball player Jason Coats has officially signed with the Chicago White Sox, the team that drafted him in the 29th round of the 2012 Major League Baseball draft.
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