Benet graduate Powers still swinging with power

The golf swing has a lot in common with the baseball swing. Drive with the legs, use the core to whip the hips through, throw the hands, eyes on the ball.

It's become a smooth transition for Benet graduate Connor Powers.

"Every time I swing I try to break the golf ball," Powers said Monday from Carlsbad, California, attending the World Golf Fitness Summit representing the SuperSpeed Golf Training System. "That's kind of my swing thought."

Next Tuesday, Powers will attempt rip the cover off the ball as one of the final eight in the Re/Max World Long Drive Championship at the Paiute Golf Resort in Las Vegas. The 26-year-old from Naperville, a former baseball draftee by the Dodgers and Padres out of Mississippi State, is in his first year as a golf long-driver.

In the final qualifying round Sept. 24 in Mesquite, Nevada, he whacked a ball 402 yards with his 50-inch Mutant Golf driver.

"This matches up with my skill set and makes it really fun for me," said Powers, a 6-foot-2, 245-pound right-hander.

Until March this wasn't on his radar. His mother, Patti, is a good golfer, but Connor said his golf experience was "25 rounds, maybe."

Baseball was the game. Honorary captain of the 2006 DuPage County All-Area Baseball Team at Benet, Powers finished as Mississippi State's fourth-ranked career home run hitter with 54. Drafted in the 11th round by the Dodgers in 2009, he chose to stay in college to finish an economics degree - for which he is very happy - then was drafted again the next year by the Padres.

After hitting .338 with Fort Wayne in A-ball in 2011, in 2012 Powers hit .239 with the Padres' high-A team in Lake Elsinore, California. He was released in March 2013.

"I always worked in the weight room, was getting in the (batting) cage, but I never really understood what made me perform," he said.

Powers had already connected with a Chicago-area life coach, Monica Coleman, who worked on "how to get into the zone, mentally," he said. She was doing work with Catalyst Golf Performance in Chicago, which by October 2013 was considering starting a long-drive team. Once they saw Powers in action they knew they had a candidate. He's gone on to set a competition club head speed of 152 mph, according to an online video by Catalyst's director Michael Napoleon.

"Honestly, I take the same exact swing as I do in competition," Powers said of his normal rounds. "If I'm at Naperbrook, Hole 1, I hit it around those sand traps on the left" - from the Championship tee, right around the cup 379 yards away.

At the range he's moved from Naperbrook and Springbrook to a course in Bolingbrook, a longer setup where he doesn't hit into adjacent residents' backyards.

On the long drive circuit Powers whittled his way through qualifiers in Greensboro, North Carolina, and in Decatur. He survived a field of 128 in Mesquite, Nevada, to reach the final eight who will hit live for the Golf Channel on Tuesday with a chance at $250,000. Weird, but former Mississippi State teammate Jeff Flagg is among his competitors.

"This is an international competition and a pretty small world at the same time," Powers said.

He's psyched about a crack at big bucks in a sport he's caught on to so quick. But he brings a refreshing aw-shucks attitude.

"Obviously, you can win a whole bunch of money and that'd be great," Powers said. "But for me, it's play to compete."

Years in the making

At the West Suburban Silver cross country meet awards ceremony, Hinsdale Central girls coach Mark McCabe and York assistant boys coach Charlie Kern recalled the old days. Backyard get-togethers, their little children running around.

The kids have grown - but they still run around. Kern's son, also Charlie, a freshman at York, was the sole runner to break 15 minutes at the Class 3A Lake Park regional.

Grace McCabe, also a freshman, trailed only teammate Anne Zaher at the 3A Hinsdale Central regional.

"It's been a great start for her in every way," Mark McCabe said of his daughter's results and the friends she's made.

Mark's coached Hinsdale Central track, cross country or both, for years. His wife, Sarah, coached the Oak Park girls for two decades. They discussed the sport at home, took Grace to some meets, but didn't want to push her into running. It appeared they'd succeeded.

"It just seemed like she didn't want anything to do with running growing up," Mark McCabe said. "But then all of a sudden going into middle school (Westview Hills in Willowbrook) she said, 'I might go out for cross country.'"

Like the younger Charlie Kern, Grace obviously has the genes and the coaching behind her. Along with Zaher, Alexa Haff, Reilly Revord and Sara Folliard she's in the top five for one of the state's best teams, second to Glenbard West in the latest coaches poll.

"She got to know them and got to know how things worked," Mark said.

"I guess I've been looking forward to it," he said. "But I was telling her, it's better than I even imagined it would be. I've really enjoyed it, and I hope she has as well."

Good-hands Gerts

On Sept. 25 the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame revealed 167 semifinalists for the 2014 William V. Campbell Trophy, which salutes scholar-athletes ranging from Football Bowl Subdivision to NAIA levels.

This year's list includes Lake Park graduate Ryan Gerts, a senior linebacker at Winona State. A cell and molecular biology major, Gerts is a two-time Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference all-academic selection, a three-year starting linebacker who in 2013 also earned second-team all-NSIC on the football field.

Also, on Sept. 23 Gerts joined 22 players on the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team. While 11 players from the Bowl Subdivision I make it, Gerts' selection represented Divisions I-AA, II, III and NAIA.

Regarding the Campbell Trophy, on Thursday up to 16 players will be announced as recipients of the NFF National Scholar-Athlete Award, which includes an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship. Last year York graduate and Augustana linebacker Erik Westerberg was one of them.

The overall winner will receive the Campbell Trophy Dec. 9 at the 57th NFF Annual Awards Dinner in New York City.

doberhelman@dailyherald.com

Follow Dave on Twitter @doberhelman1