College Sports

By SHANE STARK
Staff Writer

In hardly-contested fashion, one of Brodie Greene’s fondest sports memories growing up was watching Huston Street pitch at the College World Series. It was an event Greene was fortunate enough to see from the stands at Rosenblatt Stadium, a place he and his father have visited many times.

That a Texas Longhorns game provided a story to tell for years to come is perhaps, in many ways, ironic. Greene, a Bullard High School graduate and devout childhood Orangeblood, is only two victories away from reaching his own CWS — as a Texas A&M Aggie.

On Saturday afternoon, A&M (46-17) will meet sixth-seeded Rice (45-13) in Game 1 of a best-of-three Houston Super Regional at Reckling Park.

There, Greene and the Aggies will attempt to defeat an Owls team that eliminated them in the very same round last year.

“I was a big Texas fan growing up, but coming down and playing at Texas A&M — it’s good to see us in the running,” said Greene, who hopes to help the Aggies return to Omaha for the first time since 1999. “It’s good to be a part of it...to see us have our chance this year.”

The super regional follows a whirlwind opening round of the NCAAs for Greene, a sophomore utility player. While last weekend’s College Station Regional was being held, he could’ve been spotted everywhere from College Station to Bullard — and even to ESPN’s SportsCenter.

Aggies skipper Rob Childress, a Harmony High School graduate, was OK with Greene leaving the team and attending the graduation.

“He told me just to take my time and be careful,” said Greene, whose stepsister, Whitney Lust, will attend Brookhaven College next fall to play volleyball. “I guess it was a good deed...that was my gift to her.”

Although witnessing his stepsister graduate was excitement enough, Greene fulfilled a longtime goal while watching the Sunday night SportsCenter.

“That’s been one of my dreams; it’s always good to be on there,” Greene said. “We were just counting down the numbers. I was hoping to crack the top five. Luckily, we got No. 5.”

On the season, Greene is batting .283 with 39 hits, four home runs, 26 home runs and 31 runs in 138 plate appearances. As a freshman last season, he appeared in 53 games, had two five-game hitting streaks and batted .333 in five postseason contests.

Enroute to the Big 12 regular-season title this year, the Aggies made headlines in a variety of manners — positive headlines, for their record 16-game winning; and negative headlines, for their eight-game collapse.

Then the Aggies dropped their first two games of the conference tournament. But they rebounded to beat Missouri in the tournament finale and enter the NCAAs on a winning note. Of course, the streaks affected Greene in far different ways.

“For the 16 games in a row that we won in our conference, we were getting everything to go our way,” Greene said. “We had been playing great defense and pitching well.

“(The losing streak) was tough; it was king of shocking. That last win in the tournament against Missouri...it was really important going in; we got our confidence back.”

Though A&M’s home campaign at noisy Olsen Field is complete for the season, Greene has already built enough memories there to match those summer days when Street put Texas on his right arm at Rosenblatt.

“It’s been great,” Greene said of his A&M experience. “You go to a lot of stadiums and there’s really not a lot of people that will give you heck. When you come here, there’s a student section that are all yelling...When opposing pitchers throws four straight balls (and another to the next batter), they start chanting “Ball five!”. That’s one of my favorites.”

Notes: Greene is an agriculture leadership and development major. ... As a high school senior, he was named All-East Texas and Class 3A Player of the Year in basketball. In baseball, he was first-team All-ET his senior year. A&M teammate Carson Middleton of Lindale was the Most Valuable Player.

Brodie Greene
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