The state of Wyoming is known for its wide-open, natural beauty, characterized by its mountainous terrain, vast plains and of course, the famous Yellowstone National Park. Wyoming is a large state in square mileage, but has a current population of just over 500,000 people.

JD Hamby

Your first – or maybe even second – thought of Wyoming likely isn’t, “Wyoming is the hotbed of baseball.” Football reigns supreme across the state of Wyoming, drawing everyone’s attention to the gridiron.

Not the case for Cora, Wyoming native, JD Hamby, who took a liking to baseball from a very early age, with the goal of playing collegiate baseball. His dedication and dreams of playing at the next level were very real, so much so that he put it all down on a thing he calls a “vision board”. More on that later.

JD played on successful youth teams, showing promise, combining talent with an excellent work ethic inherited from his parents.

Shawn and Billie Hamby, both served in the Air Force for over 20 years, and later, retired from their positions in 2013, moving the family from Utah to a very rural area in western Wyoming.

“We literally live in the least populated county, of the least populated state,” Shawn said.

Situated in such a remote area of the country, aspiring to play baseball at the next level and receive opportunity to do so don’t mix. According to Shawn, Wyoming is one of three states without a sanctioned high school baseball program available to public school students as a varsity sport. While JD does attend a public high school at Pinedale, he does not have a high school team to play on.

JD began to look for ways to continue pursuing his dream of playing at the next level, joining an American Legion squad – the Archie Hay Post 24 team – where practices and games consisted of traveling 127-miles one-way from their home in Cora to Rock Springs, Wyoming. In total, the Hamby’s faced a 250+ mile drive and a six hour commitment each time JD participated in baseball activities.

“It’s difficult to get noticed here,” Billie said. “After my husband and I retired, we moved here from Utah and our older son had played high school ball there. JD was a freshman when we moved here, so it was really hard to adjust to American Legion versus high school, so we just knew that we had to get him seen at showcases in order for people to see him play.”

The Hamby’s also found ways around the grueling weather that plagues the area: they built a batting cage in the loft of their garage. And with more than three feet of snow on the ground at the time of this writing, the cage at the house was and continues to be vital in his development. The cage, according to JD, has evolved over time.

“It started out as blankets hanging up and I would hit whiffle balls into it. Then from there, we pieced it together, we ordered a net and pieces of turf and strung it up.”

Luckily enough in the loft of the Hamby’s garage, fit just enough space for the cage, and Shawn and JD mounted netting and set up an L-screen. It’s a sense of pride for them but also a necessity.

“We knew we needed to do something year round,” Shawn said. “It’s not 60-foot length to throw bullpens or anything like that, but you can get your hitting in.”

It’s a cozy spot, filled with mementos like the signed posters of JD’s idol, Cubs superstar, Kris Bryant. The guys added an old stadium sign to the entrance to give it a certain feel and when the lighting wasn’t sufficient, Shawn put LED lights up. For the times it’s too cold, JD would heat up the room with their propane tank a half hour before hitting.

“If its too dangerous to drive, that’s what he’ll do to get his work in,” Shawn said.

JD also began working out at the Wyoming Athlete Development Gym to increase his strength, speed and agility while picking up a part-time job there to earn his membership keep.

“I started working out there last winter, and in the summer, I wanted to make some money, so I offered to start cleaning the place once a week for $20. Now, I go in there first period every day and I clean and work out before I go to school.”

The gym work proved critical in JD’s development, showing improvement in his measurable numbers as he continued to progress through Under Armour Baseball Factory events. In July of 2015, JD was invited to attend the Tryout in Gillette, WY, and initially, the family was skeptical and not sure what to expect, having never heard about what the Factory offered. That quickly changed.

“We didn’t know about the Baseball Factory and learned that the Tryout was six hours from us, but, we had been to other showcases in Utah with our older son in the past and my husband and I were most impressed with the Factory’s organization, efficiency, and it seemed like the Factory coaches and instructors could teach more in an hour than most others could accomplish in a whole day,” Billie said.

JD performed well that day and was selected to participate in the Under Armour Recruiting Classic, an event Shawn said was the catalyst for what was to come, where JD, “received excellent coaching, constructive feedback, and more importantly, a measuring stick to gauge his progress against competition that he rarely sees in the area that we live.”

Once JD came back to Wyoming following the Recruiting Classic – where scouts noted his athletic actions and strong arm behind the plate, calling him a “gamer” – he put his skills to work, and the first baseman/catcher put together an excellent 2016 season, hitting .406 (after leading all of Wyoming in hitting in 2015 with a .458 average) and improving his eye at the plate (only four strikeouts in 46 games after eight in 38 games in 2015).

The experience stuck with him as he saw results bore out on the field and in the classroom.

“I had a lot of fun while I was down there playing games and meeting new people from across the country,” said JD. “I learned a lot about how to go to college and what it takes to get out there to be seen and to make sure to keep up with your grades.”

He’s stuck to that, accumulating a laundry list of academic accomplishments: Student Council Officer, National Honor Society member and High Honor roll at Pinedale High School.

And about that vision board that would quickly come into play….it was a simple, straight-forward approach to the colleges he had on his radar and what he did and didn’t like about them.

“It’s a chart of pros and cons of all the different colleges that I wanted to go to and what I was going to be able to do there and what set them apart from each other,” JD said.

JD’s vision left quite an impression on his Player Development Coordinator, Patrick Wuebben.

“Shortly after meeting JD, he told me that he had a vision board in his room,” Wuebben said. “The board had life goals on it as well as colleges that he was interested in. During that conversation, I felt like I was speaking with a young man 10 years his senior.”

After another successful Tryout in July 2016, JD continued to make improvements in all aspects of his game, reducing his pop time and lowering his 60 yard time, while increasing his overall hitting and blocking ratings. During the event, JD felt even more of that specialized, individual focus.

“There were less people there at this event which made it feel more selective and that I felt like I had earned to be there. The individual focus given to each player is something that you do not get anywhere else.”

In late October of 2016, JD attended the Under Armour SoCal Classic at the University of La Verne – a great exposure event for prospective players – developing a special relationship with his coach that set the course for the path to the next level.

He describes meeting Jack Lind in Southern California as one of the “biggest thrills of my baseball life so far”, and for good reason. Lind, who was JD’s coach at the SoCal Classic, is a former teammate of the great Hank Aaron and the person that turned the Hamby family onto Arizona Christian.

“Patrick had told us in one of his recruiting talks that it just takes one person to change your life and you never know when that’s going to happen,” Billie said. “When Coach Lind approached him in California and asked him to go see Arizona Christian (where Coach Lind is the assistant head coach), JD and I visited and we fell in love with it.”

“JD had been mulling over his other options, but we agreed that we’d visit the campus and see if ACU was a good fit for JD,” Shawn mentions. “Suffice to say, Coach Lind changed JD’s life that day, and we feel that the combination of JD’s opportunity within the program to develop, and the educational match for his desired degree program were the perfect fit.”

“The coaches are so awesome and it was amazing to see them give him an offer that he wanted to accept and a place he wanted to play and it’s just a culmination of all the hard work for the last 15 years. To see it all work out the way it did, that’s why we do it,” Billie said.

JD has a few goals in mind once he gets to Arizona Christian: Hit over .300 in his first season and be a defensive asset to the team at catcher and first base. Off the field, his academics are just as important. His planned major is to study Sports Management with the hope of one day becoming a general manager in baseball or working in sports marketing and recruiting.

“Since we’ve started with Baseball Factory and have been to several recruiting seminars, JD has actually mentioned the possibility of working with an organization like Baseball Factory,” Billie mentions. “He loved hearing Patrick’s story and commented to us how cool it would be to have that job.”

The Hamby Family at JD’s commitment signing.

On that same trip to Southern California that changed his life, the Hamby’s also met Wuebben for the first time, fortifying the relationship even further.

“We’ve called Patrick with some of the craziest and silliest questions you could think of and he never hesitates to make us seem like JD is very important to him and has his best interests at heart,” Billie said. “Always a great guy and answers our questions and that’s been very important.”

After quickly traversing through the college recruiting process, JD can now focus on what lies ahead.

“It was a big weight lifted off my shoulders because I was really worried if I would be playing in college or not, so the meeting with Coach Lind really was so important to me and without meeting him, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Now its just stress-free where I can go to Pre-Season and play ball.”

Before Arizona Christian beckons his game, JD will be in Mesa, Arizona later this month for the 2017 All-America Pre-Season Tournament, a special time for the entire family as they are huge fans of the newly crowned World Series Champion Chicago Cubs. For JD, another goal of his was scratched off the list and became reality when he was told he was going to be a Pre-Season All-American.

“That was crazy… I did not expect that. I was at school and my mom called me out of class and told me I was going to be an All-American and I was just so happy. A kid from Wyoming, where they don’t even have high school baseball, I never thought I’d be an All-American.”

The connection between JD and Patrick helped to pave the way for JD’s success, the power of the Player Development aspect never more apparent once the wheels began to turn.

“From JD’s first tryout in Gillette through now, he had a goal of wanting to be a Pre-Season All-American,” Billie said. “And from the jump, Patrick said to him “ok, here’s what you have to do, you have to improve these four or five numbers…“ and JD worked his butt off and went out there and improved every single category that he needed to and it gave him something to strive towards and work for and that’s priceless.”

After he attended the most recent National Tryout to update his measurables, Patrick’s advice of improving three key measurables in 90 days were crucial to JD’s development.

“He got in the cage, got in the gym, got on the track, and worked tirelessly to find ways to improve,” Shawn said. “When the dust settled after the evaluations in California, JD had not only improved in the categories he targeted, but had shown improved numbers in all measurable categories, and I cannot tell you how excited he was when he got your call letting him know that he’d be recognized as an All-American in January because he met his specific goal to grade out as a recruit worthy of an invite to the Under Armour All-America Pre-Season Tournament.”

With the experience the Hamby’s received from JD’s time with the Factory, they are prepared to give back in a big way to help other families who are and will be going through the same process.

“We’ve got a couple kids from our teams who are getting to experience the Baseball Factory for the first time, one kid at the Recruiting Classic and another who will be out there in January,” Billie said. “My husband is on the Legion board so we’re going to hold a ‘Parents Talk’ this year to explain to everybody how the recruiting process works. A lot of people don’t want to pay anything to have their kid be seen and think because they play high school sports, they’ll be recruited, so my husband and I want people to understand that it’s an investment in the future of not just your child playing baseball, but, your child’s education. It’s so worthwhile.”

One day late in 2016, Wuebben received a photo from Billie of the cold, snowy Wyoming surrounding them. The photo was of JD playing long toss in the snow.

“Where I lived on that same day, it was 85 degrees,” Wuebben said. “The picture gave me some perspective as to how difficult it is for a cold climate player to stay in shape and compete against warm-climate players. I can’t imagine how good JD can get by playing in Phoenix for the next four years. The Arizona Christian baseball program locked a gem.”

The Hamby’s story all began with that six hour trip a year and a half ago, a journey they didn’t expect, and one they’ll never forget.

“It was the best way that he could put himself in front of someone who could change his life,” Shawn said. “That’s what we heard from everyone at Baseball Factory from the beginning, and it was 100% spot on.”

Billie mentioned that this journey is a reflection of the individual that her son is becoming.

“I’m proud of a lot of things he’s done, but I am most proud of the fact that he never gave up or let up, no matter how hard it got, or how tired he was, he still got straight A’s and still worked at his job, still worked out, played other high school sports and kept his arm in shape at same time… his tenacity and the ability to never give up, no matter how hard it was, got him through.”