18
Lifter's Elbow: The Cause & The Cure
Author: Dr. John S. Rusin, PT, DPT, CSCS & T-Nation
18
ators, however, were the idea of attending UF and playing baseball for one of the elite programs in the country.
“Florida has been a dream school of mine since I was a little,” Liput said. “The second Florida offered me, there was no turning it down.”
Liput batted .473 with 33 runs, 16 RBI, 13 doubles, four homers and two triples in his final prep season as Oviedo High School captured its first state title. The 2015 Class 7A Player of the Year, the Orlando Sentinel Player of the Year and the Class 7A Florida Dairy Farmers Player of the Year, he isn’t the only new Gator and Florida native who had dreams of playing under the lights with McKethan Stadium as his home field.
“I’ve been a Gator fan my entire life,” Maldonado said. “I thought it would be pretty exciting to come to my dream school and to do something that I love doing. This was my only official visit because I was determined to come here.”
Maldonado was selected to the Class 6A All-State Team last season, when he hit .458 with 22 RBI, 12 stolen bases, 11 doubles and three homers for Jefferson High School in Tampa. He earned the 2015 Wade Boggs Athletic Achievement Award, presented to a Hillsborough County baseball player who combines athletic, academic and community achievements and is the first person in his family to attend college.
The opportunity to play at the University of Florida is uniquely special to six-foot infielder India because he is receiving an education from the same institution that his father did in the 1980s. A standout at American Heritage, India rated as the No. 1 middle infielder nationally by Perfect Game and batted .405 as a senior, with team-high 23 RBI, 21 runs, 12 walks and 11 doubles and he was 25-of-27 on stolen bases.
India and the majority of his fellow recruits arrived on campus during the summer to start a workout plan and to grow accustomed to life as a student-athlete.
“Workouts were intense over the summer and much different than high school,” Maldonado said. “They challenged us and made us work really hard.”
Junior outfielder Ryan Larson, who was a part of Collegiate Baseball’s No. 1 recruiting class that arrived during the summer of 2013, recalls getting acclimated to the regimen during his first semester.
“I think it starts with weights and conditioning from Coach Paul (Chandler),” Larson said. “They have to learn the way we do things around here, and that’s exactly what they do with us every day -- they work hard.”
As a newcomer from Charlotte, N.C., who was unable to join the other freshmen last June after compiling a 10-1 mark with a school-record 0.20 ERA and 118 strikeouts in 71 innings for Charlotte Christian, Kowar didn’t know what to expect coming into the fall semester.
“It was a tough week or two in the beginning, trying to figure everything out, but the older
19