Season Interrupted: JSerra’s Colby Canales finds inspiration at home
Throughout the spring, The Times will interview high school seniors whose athletic careers were cut short by the coronavirus outbreak.
Name: Colby Canales
School: San Juan Capistrano JSerra
Sport: Baseball, third base
Key stats: Was batting .333 for the No. 2-ranked baseball team in the Southland
Summer plans: Hopes to play in a collegiate league
Fall plans: Will attend Pacific
Orange Lutheran ace Max Rajcic, projected to be a high MLB draft pick, says he didn’t realize how important sports were until the coronavirus shutdown.
On learning the season was canceled:
“It was definitely emotional on all levels. Seniors, juniors, even sophomores felt it. Everyone here uses the term family and it was real. We’re all upset about it but there’s bigger problems out there besides baseball.”
On the car caravan that was organized to honor coach Brett Kay:
“All our parents set up a drive-by to go to coach Kay’s house. The players met up. It was good to see everyone in their cars. We hadn’t seen each other in almost a month. We drove to his house. All the neighbors come out, ‘What the heck is going on?’ He comes out and is super excited. He asks how all the players are doing. It shows how good he is. He cares more about the families than baseball.”
On the new things he’s learning with free time:
“I’ll ask my mom, ‘Hey, how do I do laundry?’”
On how he’s changed:
“As an athlete, it’s made me work on things myself. As a person, my mom is a breast cancer survivor. She goes and works every day. It’s getting up every day and doing what you have to do.”
La Mirada’s Jared Jones said not playing during the coronavirus outbreak ‘is tearing me up,’ but he’s using the time to develop a breaking ball.
On the lessons he’s learned:
“Any game could be your last game. Any day of school could be your last day of school. Our last game against Santa Margarita I never thought my last at-bat would be that. It was a double to tie the game in the last inning. If I could, I’d go back and relive that moment knowing it was going to be my last at-bat.”
Where he sees himself in 10 years:
“I want to study business law and as much as I can continue baseball.”
Video interviews of each athlete can be found at latimes.com/sports/highschool.
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