Jake Kelzer isn’t ready to leave Bloomington just yet. He isn’t ready to leave the only place he’s ever called home and a chance to play in the College World Series.
Kelzer turned down a contract offer from the Cubs on Tuesday and announced his intentions to return to the mound at Bart Kaufman Field for at least one more season.
The decision was made Monday night at his family home in Bloomington with his parents, at the same dinner table Kelzer grew up eating at, eventually growing into his current 6-foot-8 frame.
“Being from here and coming back with such a great program on the rise to do something great,” Kelzer said. “It’s just an amazing feeling having a town behind you and having this great university to go to.”
The decision-making process was long. From the moment he was drafted to Monday night, Kelzer was debating the benefits of signing versus returning. He talked to a variety of people, from current and former teammates, to the Cubs and IU.
This exhaustive process included a talk with Scott Effross, the former IU pitcher who signed with the Cubs on June 27 after being drafted in the 15th round, a round after Kelzer.
“We talked about playing together all the time, we‘ve been texting back and forth,” Kelzer said. “Being a Cub with Scott would have been amazing, but he knows also that I have to do what is right and he has to do what is right.”
After being drafted in 2014, Kelzer possessed a better understanding of the process. He said he had a better grasp on the leverage he holds, knowing if the offer isn’t to his standards he can return for another season, if not two.
This leverage made his decision easier in many ways.
“Being technically a junior next year lifts a weight off my shoulders in a way,” ?Kelzer said.
Kelzer said he was 50-50 on his decision throughout much of the process. The Cubs offer was good, but not exactly what he was looking for. So he returned.
Kelzer also hasn’t reached his goals yet. He wants to pitch in the College World Series, something he missed in 2013 when he was redshirting and competing for the Hoosiers in the pool as a ?swimmer.
He also said, like most kids who play baseball, he has long dreamed of playing professionally. But he wants to be drafted in the first 10 rounds, he said.
Both of these dreams he still has potentially two more opportunities to turn into ?reality.
The three who played most in Kelzer’s decision to stay home were those closest to him — his parents and IU Coach Chris Lemonis.
These three also help explain Kelzer’s biggest motivation to stay. His journey in Bloomington, the place he has spent his first 22 years, is not complete. The two who raised Kelzer in Bloomington and led him to IU, and the coach who can lead him to Omaha and the top 10 rounds of the draft.
He’s not done trying to make his hometown proud. He wants to be part of the team that proves, not only to Bloomington, but the Big Ten conference and college baseball as a whole, IU is more than a one-year story.
That the program is more than the 2013 team who went to Omaha, that the current collection of players has the ability to make a return-trip.
“We’ve got some unfinished business to do,” Kelzer said. “We have to prove to this town and this conference that we’re contenders and it wasn’t a fluke. We’re actually on the rise to prove something.”
