Future Games Connects Coulter With Kentucky

WEST BLOOMFIELD - Heading to the Future Games, Jake Coulter understood what was a stake.

“I’d heard some crazy stories,” the Brother Rice junior related. “If you play well schools will jump on you. I knew if I played as good as I can they’d jump on me and I knew If I didn’t play well schools wouldn’t.”

Not long after pitching in the PBR event in Pennsylvania the seventh-rated 2022 right-handed pitcher in Michigan was a Kentucky commit.

“They saw me at the Future Games and thought I pitched well,” Coulter said. “I talked to their coaches that night, the pitching coach for an hour. I talked to the recruiting coordinator the next day and then the head coach on a zoom call with my parents the day after. So it was all over a three-day span.”

Admittedly, Coulter was surprised that it all happened.

“I’d heard nothing from Kentucky before the Future Games,” Coulter pointed out. “I was shocked. SEC baseball is one of the top conferences in the country. I’ve had bigger offers before, but once it was on the plate from Kentucky I was sold. I liked everything they had and could feel they liked me.”

At 6-6 and 180 pounds, Kentucky sees a prospect with major promise.

“They like my height and my projectability,” Coulter noted. “They like my competitiveness on the mound and that I love winning. I bring that type of attitude into the dugout.”

His performance at the Future Games was memorable.

“I got the attention of coaches by locating the fastball and locating my offspeed,” Coulter said. “I had a three-pitch mix and the velocity at my height with the projections … they think if they put weight on me I’ll, hopefully, be a hard-throwing guy.”

Nerves before pitching at the Future Games were actually beneficial in the eyes of the 16th-ranked junior in the state.

“I just went out there and pitched,” Coulter related. “The feeling that a lot of coaches were watching helped. Everyone watching was almost preparing you for later. The pressure is on and you can show you’re able to pitch in big-pressure situations.”

Coulter credited Bob Riker and Joe Neal with helping him improve.

“He helped show me how to pitch and how to locate … the basics of pitching,” Coulter said of Riker, a 1985 Brother Rice graduate who returned to his alma mater to coach after a stint in the pros with the Tigers’ organization..”Joe Neal and the 2SP training staff helped get me velocity. I went from 78-80 to 85-88 after one season.”

Interest in Coulter began in February of his sophomore year.

“My first calls were with Michigan and Michigan State,” Coulter said. “Then I was talking to Wake Forest soon after. I liked their coaches. Then I went to a camp at Ohio State. Those were the main four schools. But then I started talking to East Carolina and got an offer after the Future Games. A lot of schools at the Future Games talked to me out of the blue, I just liked Kentucky best so I went with them.”

Similarities with Boston pitcher Chris Sale inspired Coulter to follow a comparable path.

“Their pitching coach (Dan Roszel) developed Chris Sale and he’s got the same body as me,” Coulter said of the 6-6 180-pound southpaw with the Red Sox. “He coached and developed him to get to the next level.”

Coulter is hoping for similar results at Kentucky.

“I need to get my velocity up,” Coulter admitted. “I hope next offseason I get the same jump I did this year. I want to sit 90-91 and get up to 94. I also want to keep learning how to pitch, hit the corners and mix in the offspeed not just overpower guys.”

The desire to play baseball in college has been there for a long time.

“Since I was a little kid I’ve wanted to do this,” Coulter said. “I’ve been playing three sports since I was around three and put in the work traveling around the country since I was eight. I knew I wanted to play college baseball, I just didn’t know what level.”

That realization came more recently.

“I did a camp in the winter and hit 85-86 a couple of times,” Coulter reflected. “My velocity had jumped five or six miles an hour in a year. I started thinking about the MAC after that. But once I was pitching in-game and my velocity was up, I was thinking of even bigger schools.”

Now it is actuality for the Brother Rice 17-year-old.

“This year was really weird with covid,” explained Coulter, who praised his parents for all they have done for him when it comes to time and money in his baseball journey. “I couldn’t go to camps and see coaches and they couldn’t come watch me in person with no high school games. But talking to coaches over the phone was super cool learning what the process was all about and building relationships.

“To have it all over is relieving. Sometimes I really liked talking to them and learning about them but there were other times I talked to eight coaches in a week. It’s kind of relieving to have that over.”