OKLAHOMA CITY _ At the lowest point in Willie Calhoun's 22 years, he ended up in San Quentin.
Yes, that San Quentin.
It was December of 2014. Calhoun had just been academically dismissed from the University of Arizona and its baseball team. He had stopped going to classes regularly after struggling to deal with the death of his grandmother, to whom he was close. He thought maybe all the disparaging comments he'd heard about himself as a player _ that he was too small, too slow and without a position _ were perhaps accurate. He thought there weren't a lot of attractive options for him. It was one of life's tipping-point moments.
This is how the prospect that highlighted the Texas Rangers' return for Yu Darvish ended up in one of the country's most notorious penitentiaries. As a visitor.
Calhoun's father, Willie Sr., a corrections officer at the prison, agreed to take his son on a tour. Willie had long been interested in the place. He thought maybe a career in law enforcement was his best option. His father agreed to the tour, but with other unspoken intentions.
"I wanted him to see the uglier side of life and what that had to offer," Willie Calhoun Sr. said this week. "I wanted him to hear what they'd do for another chance. I wanted him to keep pushing. You can always get a job, but I didn't want him to give up on his dream."
Said Willie Jr.: "It was the most eye-opening experience of my life."
