One year ago, a freshman Hobbs Johnson was watching the North Carolina baseball team play in the College World Series from the couch in his Chapel Hill apartment.
Thanks to poor performance in the classroom he was on his last legs with the baseball program. Coach Mike Fox had told him that he didn’t think he was the right fit.
“Coach told me I was going home,” Johnson said. “He didn’t really say that I needed to get the grades, he said pretty much you need to go on home, I don’t think you’re going to make it here. I think that’s when it clicked for me.”
Johnson turned up his studying efforts and turned in four A’s in the summer of 2011.
Since then, the Rocky Mount, N.C. native has worked his way from pitching just 3.2 innings as a freshman to a reliable starter for the Tar Heels.
Not only did he break into the weekend rotation midway through this season, now he’ll be handed the ball in the Tar Heels first game in the Chapel Hill Regional.
“It’s just a complete turnaround,” Fox said. “He was basically at the edge of the cliff and he was either going to fall off or make it all the way back. To his credit he’s done everything he’s needed to do to right the ship, both academically and all that translated on to the field.”
Johnson, who has appeared in 20 games this season including six starts, agreed that his increased effort in the classroom helped him on the baseball field too. His study habits and increased focus have resulted in a strong year on the mound. He’s 6-1 with an ERA of 1.40 in 2012 with a 63-22 strikeout to walk ratio. He’s allowed just eight earned runs.
Johnson has four pitches that, according to his battery mate Jacob Stallings, he has excellent control of and uses them effectively to keep hitters guessing.
