New scouting job in Florida suits Bosque perfectly

Spring training begins Monday, folks.

Former Wheaton Academy baseball coach Willie Bosque is already tanned but hardly rested in his first full year working as the San Diego Padres' scouting area supervisor for Florida and Puerto Rico.

While the Padres train in Peoria, Ariz., Bosque will stay put as he scours Grapefruit League turf, from the panhandle on down, seeking the next big thing.

“My job is amateur scouting,” said Bosque, 32, who joined the Padres full-time last September, ending a three-year term as Wheaton Academy associate athletic director and varsity baseball coach.

“During that time my job is to get ready for the (June) draft, so there's really no need for me to go to spring training,” he said. “Especially in Florida, with as much as there's going on, you definitely don't want to miss any days.”

Starting last September he began identifying top high school prospects from the Class of 2011. He attended a season's end showcase in Puerto Rico and recently returned there for a kickoff showcase. Bosque's parents emigrated from Puerto Rico, but his hopscotching from prospect to prospect allows little time to see the old country, outside of an old ballpark or two. He gets a little time off in November and December, but not much.

He'll revisit Puerto Rico a couple more times this year. Right now the action is in Florida, where the high school baseball season began this week. From Tuesday through Saturday his itinerary was: Miami, West Boca Raton, Tampa, Lake Wales and Fort Myers. Each site contains a prospect or two, and he'll try to determine “if they're a fit for pro baseball.”

“I'm loving it, absolutely loving it,” said Bosque, whose Florida scouting radius is within a four-hour drive of his new home in Winter Garden, where he moved with his wife, Sarah, 4-year-old Jonathan, and 3-year-old Eliana.

“It's a lot of fun, to be able to go the ballpark every day,” he said. “It's baseball. It's different from coaching, but you're still out enjoying what you're doing on an everyday basis.”

Bosque played shortstop for the University of Miami and later became the baseball coach at Tennessee Wesleyan. In Illinois starting in 2006 he served as an associate scout for the Padres, which means he provided hot tips to San Diego's regional scout.

Bosque misses the area and the friends he made throughout the Private School League and the Suburban Christian Conference. He certainly misses Wheaton Academy and the people he worked with and coached there.

Still, there are perks to the relocation, particularly at this time of year.

“There's a lot that we miss, but at the same time we don't miss 2 feet of snow,” Bosque said. “I'm able to get to the ballpark in January and my son's able to take batting practice, and my wife doesn't miss having to bundle up the kids.”

A no-brainer

The DuPage Heritage Gallery has awarded its annual Red Grange Award to Wheaton Warrenville South quarterback Reilly O'Toole for the 2010 season.

First presented in 1974, the Grange Award salutes a District 200 football player who embodies athletics, sportsmanship and academics.

O'Toole, the Gatorade Illinois player of the year headed to play for the Illini, will receive his Grange trophy in a June ceremony in Wheaton. His marquee stats were 42 touchdown passes to just 3 interceptions, a similarly unbelievable 74 percent completion rate and, of course, a second straight Class 7A championship in a 14-0 season.

For those keeping score at home, WW South has claimed the last eight Red Grange Awards. The Tigers have won 15 awards (Jon Beutjer and Jon Schweighardt shared the honor in 1998) to 12 for Wheaton North. Wheaton Central landed 6 and Wheaton Warrenville 5.

Under the radar, on top of her game

Naperville Central junior Keeley Kmieciak is a Level 10 gymnast. She's among a legion of athletes we don't hear much about because they compete on the club level instead of representing their high school.

That approach has paid off handsomely for Kmieciak, according to Jessica Holtz, her coach at Phenom Gymnastics in Aurora.

“Her main goal for this past season was to get a scholarship, which she got in the fall,” said Holtz, a 1999 North Central College graduate. “That was a relief, and exciting, too.”

Kmieciak gave her verbal commitment to Oklahoma, which won out over Alabama, Michigan, Georgia and Utah.

“There really wasn't anyone that wasn't interested,” said Holtz, who said she also trains Waubonsie Valley gymnasts Jessica Malon, Jordan Penny and Nina Brandenburg and Neuqua Valley's Sara Cushing. Kmieciak's older sister, Lauren, did compete for Naperville Central, placing second in state in vault in 2006.

The reasons for Keeley Kmieciak's appeal are clear. In May 2009 at the USA Gymnastics Level 10 national competition she became the first to win all four events — beam, bars, vault and floor — and the all-around competition.

She won the Region 5 competition in 2009 and 2010, going undefeated at 2010 meets until nationals. Based on those results, she made the 2009 USAG Junior Olympic National Team, and earned “all-star” trips the last two years to compete in the Cayman Islands and Slovenia. Footage of her perfect-10 vault just last month is viewable on the Internet.

“She is probably the most talented gymnast I've ever worked with in 17 years,” Holtz said. “The nice thing is she has the work ethic and the attitude to come with it.”