Cooper Stiles first donned a University of Oregon baseball uniform six years before he played an inning. The team’s batboy in junior high, he watched games from the dugout with the players and dreamt of one day stepping into the batter’s box for the Ducks.
Stiles hasn’t had the opportunity to fulfill that dream. Instead, he’s embraced the prominent role of “innings-eater” in the Oregon bullpen.
A first team All-State shortstop in high school, Stiles didn’t plan to pitch in college. But when he broke his foot weeks before his freshman season, Stiles reinvented himself to save his spot on the roster.
Born with a solitary kidney, Stiles could not play high-contact sports growing up. He specialized in baseball, following in the footsteps of his brother, Taylor Stiles, and father, Dean, who played for Oregon in 1981.
Cooper was in seventh grade when his family moved to Eugene. Dean was an administrative assistant for the Oregon baseball program and spent much of his time at the field helping with camps and clinics. Endearingly called a “baseball rat,” Cooper tagged along frequently. He hung around the batting cages so often he became manager George Horton’s batboy and got his first taste of Division I baseball.
As batboy, Cooper learned the intricacies of Horton’s system. Horton, who has won an NCAA Championship and managed more than 1,100 Division 1 games, helped further Cooper’s strategic and tactical understanding of baseball. Cooper embraced Horton’s background, family-oriented personality and ideology.
“It’s about baseball, but there’s just so much more detail behind it,” Cooper said of Horton’s system. “It’s more about learning things in life and developing as a person, as well as a player.”
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Cooper attended Sheldon High School, where he was a four-year starter on the baseball team. As a senior team captain, he led Sheldon to an Oregon state championship and was named the 2013 Class 6A Baseball Player of the Year.
Cooper garnered attention from numerous college baseball programs. Oregon offered him a chance to walk-on.
“He visited a few smaller schools,” said Cooper’s sister, Chloe, who walked onto the Oregon basketball team. “But in his mind he wanted to go to Oregon, whether he had to walk on or not.”
Cooper turned down multiple attractive offers to walk onto the Ducks roster. The challenge of competing in the Pac-12 enticed him.
“He’s the type of guy who’d rather play for a good team and not play as much than be the star on a not very good team,” Chloe said.
“I knew in my heart this was the place I wanted to be,” Cooper said.
The weekend prior to his first week of classes at UO in 2013, Cooper attended the Oregon versus Cal football game. That day, a rainstorm hit Autzen Stadium, almost on cue as the first quarter began. The storm cut power to more than 26,500 customers in Oregon and caused eight fumbles in the first half alone.
De’Anthony Thomas wasn’t the only Duck who suffered an injury from wet conditions. As Cooper left the stadium, his foot slipped off a curb and snapped. He wore a cast for the next six weeks. The break took place in his foot that had poor circulation, delaying the healing process. Cooper wore a walking boot another 12 weeks after the cast was removed.
As a walk-on with an ailing foot, beating Divison 1 recruits on a depth chart was unrealistic. Cooper understood if he couldn’t contribute to the team as a position player, he’d have to find another way. He lacked proper mechanics, but had a handful of mound appearances in high school and could hit 92 mph on a radar gun. Cooper decided pitching was his best shot.
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Cooper pitched in seven games as a freshman, but they didn’t go as he’d hoped. He tossed 8.2 innings and allowed seven earned runs on eight hits and five walks. His role was undefined after a year on the team. The coaching staff made it clear if Cooper couldn’t find a way to contribute, he wouldn’t keep his spot on the roster.
During the offseason, Cooper went all-in on an unconventional approach to create his own niche. He dropped his arm angle down to a sidearm release, emulating the slinging motion he’d grown accustomed to making on throws to first from shortstop. He lifted weights and practiced the technique all summer.
By the time next baseball season came around, Cooper could sling a low-80s fastball with slicing downward movement, two changeups and a slider from the 9 o’clock arm slot. He’s thrown 51.2 innings in 23 relief appearances (both third-highest on the team) and established himself as Horton’s “innings-eater” for his reliability to span long middle relief outings. Despite the awkward delivery, he maintains a team best ratio of 29 strikeouts to seven walks.
Horton named Cooper the “brightest star of our team” when he allowed just four hits across 5.2 shutout relief innings versus Oregon State on April 11.
“He’s done a phenomenal job for us this year,” second baseman Mitchell Tolman said of Cooper. “He’s a guy that throws strikes, keeps the ball down in the zone and gets ground balls. Coming in he really worked hard; give a lot of credit to Cooper.”
Cooper and Dean work daily to develop the finer aspects of Cooper’s game. Although his statistics suggest otherwise, Dean said his son is still in the infant stages of pitching and still must learn how to leverage counts, vary looks and pick-offs and “bury” pitches out of the strike zone.
Having head coached four high school baseball programs and every one of Cooper’s teams until high school, Dean can push his kids like players. When they were little, he made them do 2,000 jump ropes before bed for extra self-improvement. Now, their motivation is intrinsic and Dean’s encouragement is more lenient. He and Cooper practice together daily and complications rarely disturb their coach-player dynamic.
“When it’s your son, you want to be careful that you don’t push too hard because sometimes coaches who are fathers will go too hard on their sons to show they’re trying to be fair. On the other side, you don’t want to be too easy,” Dean said. “There’s a balance, but he’s really easy to deal with.”
Follow Kenny Jacoby on Twitter @KennyJacoby