FORT MYERS, Fla. – Fleet of foot and in possession of an extremely strong throwing arm, Xzavion Curry is capable of performing some remarkable feats on the baseball field. He put those two tools front-and-center at this weekend’s Perfect Game World Showcase, throwing 91 mph across the infield (second-best effort at the event) and 94 mph from the outfield (tied for second-best) while running a 6.90-second 60-yard dash (top-20).
“I feel like my strengths are that I’m a good teammate and I’m a good team player,” Curry said after Saturday’s World workout session. “Physically, I think my strengths are my arm and my quickness.”
The workout performances were all documented for prosperity, but watching live from a front-row seat was Xzavion’s father, Reginald Curry. Reginald is a proud dad and he appreciates his son’s considerable baseball talents, but there is a caveat. Reginald Curry’s athletic background is in football, a sport his athletic, 6-foot, 180-pound son left behind a couple of years ago.
“One day I just woke up and I realized that I really love this sport and it’s something that I want to do for a while,” Xzavion said while at Terry Park. “That’s the reason why I chose baseball.”
And judging by their interaction at the PG World Showcase, Reginald is just fine with that. Xzavion, a standout shortstop and right-handed pitcher from Atlanta, is a veteran of 25 Perfect Game events – 22 PG tournaments with East Cobb Baseball – and has risen to No. 194 in PG’s class of 2016 national prospect rankings; he has signed with his hometown school, Georgia Tech.
“I feel like it’s still important to get out to an event like this, just to show people that you still have the talent and things haven’t fallen off since last year,” Xzavion said. “I’m good friends with a lot of these guys and I’ve seen most of them around, and it’s good seeing them out on the baseball field where I’m used to seeing them at.”
His dad feels exactly the same way:
“I thought it was important for him to come down and just kind of see where he was at,” Reginald said. “It’s been a while since he’s been on the field and leading up to the (high school) baseball season we’ve been doing a lot of working out. This is actually his first chance to get back into throwing again and I thought this was a good event just to get him prepared for the upcoming season.”
Xzavion Curry first became involved with East Cobb Baseball when he was 13 years old and has been with the storied organization ever since. The experience has been a beneficial one for the now 17-year-old Xzavion, with the ECB coaches teaching him not only the proper fundamentals and techniques but also how to play the game the right way in front of the important eyes of college coaches and the MLB scouting community.
The results have been impressive, particularly during the last half of the 2014 summer/fall season and during entire 2015 campaign when Curry was regularly honored with all-tournament recognition. (He was also named to all-tournament teams at 13u and 14u events in 2012 and was the Most Valuable Player at the 2013 14u/15u PG East Cobb Invitational).
Curry was named to the all-tournament team at the final four events he played in with the East Cobb Astros 16u in 2014, including the PG Underclass World Championship. He kept the string alive with two more all-tournament selections with the Astros 16u early in 2015 and then moved on to the East Cobb Yankees where he was a three-time all-tournament selection late in the '15 season. In between, he made the Top Prospect List at the 2014 PG National Underclass Showcase-Main Event.
That’s a lot of baseball played over the last three or four years, but Curry said he is a long way from experiencing any burnout.
“I’ve got close to that feeling before, so sometimes I just take a little break,” he said. “But I don’t really ever get tired of playing baseball so I haven’t really approached that burnout feeling yet. During the winter, I don’t do much throwing but I try to do some training every day. I might hit three times a week but I don’t do much throwing.”
The level of play in Georgia high school baseball is considered among the best in the country, rivaling even that in recognized hotbeds such as California, Texas and Florida. Curry is a senior at Mays High School, a Georgia Class AAAAAA school in the Atlanta Public School District with a fairly prominent baseball program.
“Georgia has come of the most competitive high school baseball in the country,” he said. “Being around all that competition and talent just makes you want to play better.”
The competition Curry encounters during a typical Georgia high school spring season makes it all the more obvious that he is in his element at a nationally acclaimed event like the PG World Showcase. Just being around the other top prospects brings out the best in him. “It makes it fun to know that you have the same dreams and aspirations as the people around you. It helps you play better because the level of competition is amazing,” he said.
Georgia Tech recruited Curry to campus as a two-way player which should come as no surprise considering the power he possesses in his explosive right arm. He was delivering fastballs in the mid-80s as a high school sophomore and posted a 91 mph heater at a 16u PG Super25 tournament in 2014.
He now sits consistently in the upper-80s but showed 92 mph at both the 2015 PG WWBA Southeast Qualifier #2 and at the PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., pitching for the EC Yankees.
“Right now I really don’t know; it’s just kind of whatever it leans towards,” Xzavion said when asked which position he considers his primary one. “I’m comfortable doing both and if things keep going like they are I’ll just have to wait and see how it goes in the future.”
Reginald Curry played college football first at Clemson University and then at South Carolina State University. After earning his degree, he got into education administration and is currently the athletic director at Jackson High School, a Georgia Class AAAAA school in the Atlanta public school district.
“I’m around high school athletes all the time and it’s a pleasure just to watch the kids grow and compete, and prepare themselves for college,” he said.
Based on his own experiences, when Reginald sits down to talk to Xzavion about the future, his main message is to never become complacent. He wants his son to realize while he might be one of the top players at his high school, once he moves onto college he’s going to be surrounded by a group of young men who were also the top players at their high schools.
“You always have to compete, you always have to stay humble and you always have to continue to work no matter what level you make it to, and you have to strive to be the best player you can be,” Reginald said. “I just try to teach him how to be a good person first and be respectful of the game. … He’s done that and I’m very proud of that.”
“Without him I wouldn’t be able to do the things that I do because he’s the one whose keeps me training every day,” Xzavion said of his dad. “He’s always the one that if I’m slacking, he’ll tell me, and he’s one that always tells me just how it is.”
Both father and son cited Georgia Tech’s reputation for excellence academically and within the baseball program as reasons why the school is such a good fit for Xzavion – along with the fact it is close to home. If the young player’s stock continues to rise this spring, he might also have to consider any opportunities presented by June’s MLB First-Year Player Draft.
“If that does happen, we’ll deal with it,” Reginald said. “I think he’s excited about the possibility of even being mentioned for the draft; that’s humbling within itself. If that point comes, we’ll sit down and discuss it. Baseball is a different sport so we’re excited to see what the future holds. If he keeps on doing what he does pitching-wise, shortstop-wise, you never know what’s going to happen.”
It may not be exactly the decision the future father expected his oldest son might have to make back when Reginald Curry was playing college football, but regardless of the venue – the gridiron or the diamond – Reginald will continue to be there front-and-center.
“From the days he used to play football – I’m a football guy but baseball just kind of took over for him – anytime he had the opportunity to get out on the field I enjoyed sitting down and watching him,” Reginald said. “I’ve kind of been amazed with some of the things he’s accomplished so far (in baseball) and moving forward just to see what the future holds; that’s the exciting part for me.”