Following a promising freshman year of baseball at North Carolina State, J.J. Picollo underwent elbow surgery. Then he endured a sophomore funk that left him believing his prospects were dwindling with the Wolfpack.
Seeking to regain his form and reset his direction, Picollo decided to transfer. Then he spent his summer playing for the Little Falls Diamonds of the New York Collegiate Baseball League. Alas ...
"I was terrible," he said, laughing.
A season in which he recalled producing two RBIs was epitomized by a slapstick scene:
After popping out with the bases loaded, an incensed Picollo picked up a folding chair and slung it against a dugout wall ... with such force, it turned out, that it broke the spigot off a fountain on the wall.
That sent water gushing out so powerfully that the game had to be delayed 45 minutes while city workers were summoned to fix it ... and while Picollo was told to use his fingers to plug it in the meantime.
That typically self-deprecating tale is a vivid example, he figures now, of why it's important not to snap.
But it's also part of a story about the trajectory of his life and what it says about him. Because even in that summer of doubt and flux, Picollo left a vital impression on teammates like Kenny Munoz, then a shortstop at George Mason.
That relationship reverberated a year later — and ever since, actually, including a series of improbable early steps that proved essential towards being named general manager of the Royals in September.
That early sequence of his journey and other career milestones, including a key role in reviving the Royals farm system twice, help explain why Picollo was a terrific choice for this job when Dayton Moore was promoted to president.
His path also speaks to why he's well-equipped to contend with a contentious lockout hovering over baseball in his first spring in a revamped role — a role that gives him more responsibility and voice but still calls for collaboration with a handful of deeply trusted colleagues and with Moore remaining the ultimate authority.
Speaking by phone from Surprise, Arizona, Picollo suggested everyone in the organization is preparing as best they can to pounce into instant action as soon as the lockout ends. Whether in terms of cranking up camp itself or readiness to promptly explore free agency and trades, he said, "We'll be ready."
To be sure, this isn't the first time Picollo has dealt with vagueness and setbacks and seen the chance to emerge better off for it all.
From realizing what he still needed to learn when Houston hired Jeff Luhnow over him in 2011 after Picollo's first GM interview, to the sudden mystery of the rest of his life he faced in 1991, Picollo has thrived by learning to embrace the moment.
Not coincidentally, he's long been sustained by his faith in the words of Abraham Lincoln on a plaque his mother, Marge, gave him years ago.
"'Whatever you are,'" it reads, "'be a good one.'"
To him, the words he's kept on every work desk he's had since. and often dispenses as advice, mean this:
"It's a great reminder that the most important thing you can do is be good at what you're doing right now," said Picollo, 51, who interviewed for several GM jobs before this promotion.
He added, "That's how people notice good work being done. Be exceptional at what you're doing right now and better opportunities will come along the way."
He still was learning about that after the unsettling summer in New York. Even after committing to transferring from N.C. State, he had no idea where he was going to go ... in part because N.C. State limited his options.
So he went on with classes in Raleigh that fall before heading home to Cherry Hill, N.J., where he had been drafted in the 16th round out of high school by the Cincinnati Reds in 1989 before choosing to attend college.
Pondering his next move while in a certain state of limbo, he spent that spring semester largely focused on being a volunteer assistant coach at his high school alma mater.
Bolstered by the support of his ever-encouraging educator parents and his brother, Picollo took solace amid his uncertainties with the further help of his coach at Cherry Hill West, Tom Trotman (whom Picollo helped eulogize and whose Mass Card he still keeps in his wallet).
"'Life's going to throw you a bunch of curveballs,'" Trotman stressed to Picollo. "'You've just got to be ready to adjust.'"
As it happens, life might throw you some pitches in your wheelhouse, too. At least if you're fortunate and alert and can keep plowing forward.
In this case, virtually his entire future soon would present itself to Picollo because of both the struggles he'd encountered and his inclination to keep seeking the right fit.
Starting with Munoz calling him that spring to say George Mason needed a catcher since Chris Widger had been drafted by the Mariners.
So Picollo got in his hand-me-down Oldsmobile Cutlass the next day and drove 150-plus miles to the campus in Fairfax, Virginia.
He met with Bill Brown, today still the head coach there after 40-plus years on the job. And it's where he met Moore, then an assistant coach with whom Picollo had an immediate deep connection.
They spent some two hours talking that day, most of the time standing on a track that overlooked the field. If it happened that the woman who would become Picollo's wife, Nicole, a heptathlete, was practicing nearby, he was temporarily too caught up in Moore's spell to notice.
"'What do you want out of your career? Where do you want to go as a player?'" he remembered Moore asking. "'What do you need from us that will allow you to get to where you want to go?'"
The short answer was to be offered a scholarship and sign that day.
Next thing you know, he's getting an apartment and embarking on an ever-since adventure with Moore and then-second baseman Lonnie Goldberg (an assistant Royals GM).
The George Mason ties that bind had long-term ramifications in many ways beyond what might meet the eye: Munoz is a longtime Royals scout, and Widger is in his first year as manager of the Royals' Class AA Northwest Arkansas after being named Baseball America's minor league manager of the year at Quad Cities last season. Moreover, Phil Falco, who pitched in that era, is the Royals' assistant minor league strength and conditioning coach.
But the most profound connection would be with Nicole, whom he met in the training room when each had back issues. By his estimation, he tried to speak with her four or five times before "she would even say hello" but ...
"Eventually we got together and we've been married 23 years (with three children)," Picollo said. "So a lot changed in a simple phone call from Kenny Munoz that came off a summer that I would like to have forgotten because I was so bad as a player."
With a laugh, he added, "It's strange how life works."
Following his playing career at Mason, which included two conference championships and NCAA Tournament berths, Picollo was an assistant coach at George Mason and George Washington.
He was on the verge of another job at East Carolina before Moore, by then with Atlanta, appealed to his imagination again: With scouting jobs open, he persuaded Picollo to attend a 10-day scout school program sponsored by the Braves in Orlando.
Within two days, Picollo felt called to scouting.
Nevermind that it would initially pay much less than he would have earned in continuing collegiate coaching. And that it would call for Picollo to have a life more on the road just weeks before Nicole was to have their first child. The couple talked through a seven-year plan for him to follow his gut feeling.
Safe to say the plan and the work took, with Picollo rising through the ranks with the Braves and becoming one of Moore's first hires with the Royals when he took over as GM in 2006.
"The money that we passed up on at that time is a distant memory," he said. "It's just a good reminder that if you follow your heart and know what your passions are, you'll be a lot happier in the long run and probably a lot more successful."
Beyond Picollo's aptitude for discerning talent, Moore recognized in him the intelligence, integrity, caring and personability that he sees as fundamental to leadership traits — traits he also cherishes in other longtime Royals' front office forces such as Scott Sharp, Rene Francisco, Gene Watson, Goldberg and others.
Perhaps reflective of his broader story, Picollo enhanced his capacity for this job over the last few years when he embraced a role he wasn't immediately sure about: being asked to get back in uniform two years ago to help reboot a then-sagging minor-league system that had been depleted after providing the foundation for the back-to-back World Series appearances in 2014 and 2015.
The aftershock led to back-to-back 100-loss seasons in 2018 and 2019, compelling the Royals to at once reorganize and reinvest in departments across the operation.
Picollo was Moore's choice to help integrate everything from a renewed emphasis on analytics to biomechanics to behavioral sciences with traditional fundamentals, part of a process that has restored the Royals' farm system to a top-five ranking by Baseball America for the first offseason in a decade.
Why did wearing the uniform matter? Because of his development background, Moore remembered telling Picollo, people around the organization would appreciate him "getting in the trenches with them" and setting the path forward together.
Citing the late, great Bill Fischer, the longtime Royals coach, Picollo noted how stowing the front-office khaki look tends to promote more natural and relaxed conversations with coaching staff and players. (Worth noting here: Picollo is a charismatic, great communicator to begin with.)
While many were crucial in the revitalization, spearheading that operation helped distinguish Picollo for this opportunity now.
An opportunity that likely may never have come if not for all that seemed to be going awry back in the day ... and the strange way life sometimes might work even as you're having to plug leaks.
"People like to say things happen for a reason," he said, laughing and adding, "I don't like to say hitting .220 (at N.C. State) happened for a reason. But that's what happened."
