DALLAS — The first time Kumar Rocker threw a baseball was to his mother, Lalitha, as Kumar’s football-famous father, Tracy, stood nearby in the family’s front yard.
So accurate was the throw that mother and father exchanged bemused glances. Kumar, after all, was only 2. Sheer luck, right?
Or so Lalitha and Tracy thought until their toddler’s next delivery also was on the mark. As was the next …
“He’s going to be a pitcher,” Lalitha said, teasingly.
“No,” laughed 1988 Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award winner Tracy. “He’s playing football.”
Was it mother’s intuition? Or karma? Right-hander Kumar, now 22, not only became a pitcher, but a flame-throwing College World Series hero for Vanderbilt and the No. 3 pick of last month’s major league draft.
It’s all the more serendipitous, Tracy and Lalitha say, that of all franchises it was the Rangers who drafted and signed Kumar.
When then-Arkansas defensive line coach Tracy and Lalitha took 4-year-old Kumar to his first major league game, it was to Globe Life Park in Arlington — across the street from the future site of Globe Life Field, where Kumar on Thursday was feted with a welcome-to-the-Rangers news conference.
The kid who 18 years ago donned a Rangers cap and sat in wonder behind home plate with his parents, as they sipped margaritas, now stands 6-foot-5, weighs 245 pounds and has a luminous smile.
In time, he’ll eventually face the pressure of being perpetually pitching-starved Texas’ latest big hope, but as his parents and past coaches note, he’s confronted expectations all his life and almost always prevailed.
“All I can say is look how God works: It’s so incredible, how you can look back and see his hand in everything,” said Lalitha, better known as Lu to family, friends and Vanderbilt fans.
The Rangers’ drafting of Rocker occurred one year after the Mets selected him No. 10 overall, then withdrew a $6 million contract agreement. Their reported concerns about the health of his pitching arm cast a shroud of doubt and mystery around Kumar’s future.
Tracy Rocker last week became emotional during a telephone interview with The Dallas Morning News, between training camp practices and meetings in Philadelphia, where he the Eagles’ second-year defensive line coach.
“I don’t think anyone knows, except Lu and I, what he went through with the Mets, what he dealt with,” he said.
“We’re always preaching, ‘Don’t give up. Keep fighting. Stay positive.’ But there weren’t a lot of positive moments. Now all of a sudden it comes to fruition with the Texas Rangers. It was like, ‘Wow.’ "
Along with his 98-mph fastball and 70-grade slider, Rocker brings glittering credentials and a compelling backstory.
Son of a College Football Hall of Famer. Fiery, intimidating mound presence; a pitcher in a defensive end’s body.
An only child who is proud of his dual heritage, the son of a Black dad and Indian mom.
“When I had him, I said ‘You know what? We’re going to give him an Indian first name so they know my half of the culture,” Lu said.
In Hindi, Kumar means prince or young son.
“Mom, what am I?” young Kumar occasionally asked.
“You’re Blindian,” she’d respond. “Black Indian. How about that?’ "
Family valuues
Lu’s parents, George and Evelyn Samuel, immigrated to the United States in 1965. Both had converted to Christianity, which in India required dropping their Hindu names for Biblical ones.
They settled in Maryland, where George finished his college education and embarked on a long career as Amtrak’s director of capital accounting; Evelyn a 32-year stint at World Bank.
They gave their daughter and son Hindu names, Lalitha and Sunder, and instilled Indian-Christian values, stressing education and the non-individualistic importance of contributing to society.
Tall for an Indian at nearly six feet, Lalitha played basketball and softball and attended a private Christian school in Takoma Park, a Washington, D.C. suburb.
While a student at the University of Maryland in 1989, she met Washington rookie tackle Tracy, coming off one of the greatest defensive seasons in college history at Auburn.
As much as she enjoyed the thrill of competing, in a sports sense Meeting the Rockers was a culture shock for Lalitha and the Samuels. They knew nothing about football, whereas Tracy and brother David were NFL players.
Tracy’s parents, David and Mary, of course were football-knowledgeable, too.
“Tracy was funny,” Lalitha said. “And as I got to know him and his work ethic, his outlook and approach to the game, the discipline, it was amazing.
“I’m coming from my little Indian culture where it was always education, education. For me to see this side of it was very exciting and interesting.”
Injuries derailed Tracy’s playing career after just two NFL seasons, sending he and Lalitha on a winding journey of coaching jobs, ultimately 12 of them in the past two decades. Fortunately Lu’s vocation as an instructional designer enabled her to work anywhere.
When Kumar entered the world on Nov. 22, 1999 in Birmingham, Ala., Tracy was in his third season at Troy State. Following Indian custom, Evelyn Samuel came to live with the Rockers for 14 months helping to care for Kumar while Lu returned to work.
Little Kumar not only had the undivided love and attention of his parents, but two sets of grandparents, especially after the unexpected passing of his beloved Uncle Sunder, some of whose physical features the family still see in Kumar.
“My mother introduced chicken curry and rice, so Kumar’s palate always has been Indian and American,” Lu said. “There was chicken curry and rice and then his chicken tenders and French fries.”
When Kumar was 3, grandfather George packed chips and orange soda and took him fishing – for 3 hours, thus introducing Kumar to what has become a lifelong passion.
George couldn’t believe how quiet and attentive little Kumar remained that day. After Tracy became an assistant at Arkansas in 2003, head coach Houston Nutt likewise couldn’t believe how quietly Kumar sat through practices and coaches’ meetings.
Nutt’s Razorbacks played in the 2008 Cotton Bowl, and his Ole Miss team returned the following January, earning the Rocker family two straight years of the bowl’s renowned pampering.
“Kumar would always say, ‘Why don’t we move to Dallas?’ ” Tracy said. “Now, all of a sudden, he’s in Dallas. It’s kind of a dream come true.”
Legendary feats
Even as the Rocker family continued to move, with Kumar attending five schools in nine years, his burgeoning size, talent and natural discipline produced Bunyanesque tales.
During his elementary school days, Kumar would pitch and hit to Lu until Tracy returned from work. Often Tracy parked the car in the family’s Fayetteville the backyard and turned on the headlights so Kumar could practice into the night.
Tracy drew a target on a hickory tree. Other times, Tracy and Lu gathered hickory nuts and arranged them in piles for Kumar to hit.
Tracy bought catchers mitts for both he and Lu. They taped pillows to themselves for protection, but as Kumar’s velocity and variety of pitches increased, they realized he needed professional instruction.
Even so, Tracy took Kumar to major league spring camps in Florida, not just for Kumar to watch and learn, but so Tracy could educate himself about baseball training.
Competitiveness? That came naturally for Kumar, whether he was playing quarterback, tight end, defensive end, third base or pitcher.
“Because of football, he’s a very intense person,” Tracy said. “And as you play the game, it all comes out.”
The first time Tracy’s parents came to see Kumar pitch, they asked where he was. Tracy pointed to the pitching mound.
“Oh my God,” Mary Rocker exclaimed. “That’s not the little boy we see running around the house and in the yard.”
Tracy taught Kumar that, much like a quarterback, his mound demeanor often dictated the attitude and body language of teammates.
And sports, Kumar came to realize, were his most seamless way of fitting in as he moved from school-to-school. Especially for a kid who immediately stood out because of his size and skin color.
“I think he gained a lot of strength every time that we moved,” Lu said. “Knowing who he is and staying true to who he is, regardless of where he was and what situation he was in.”
Motivational ‘Teddy Bear’
Jay Lasley coached Rocker’s last three baseball seasons at Georgia’s North Oconee High. He is coming off a 39-1 state title season at North Oconee, but there is no subject he enjoys more than his years of coaching Rocker.
“As a high school coach, the 95-to-98 mile-per-hour fastball is phenomenal,” Lasley said. “But to be able to coach a young man who gets it from a team and teammate standpoint, it was just so impressive.”
Rocker stories are legend at North Oconee. His batted-ball exit velocity of 107 remains the school record. When he pitched, the sheer force of his size-16 left cleat hitting the mound’s landing area caused the clay to “explode,” usually necessitating a major repair by the third inning.
Rocker so often asked Lasley for the fieldhouse key so that he could lift weights or get in batting practice swings at night that Lasley began leaving the key in his home mailbox.
When Rocker’s deadlift max neared 500 pounds, Lasley had to caution him against overtaxing his body. Before Rocker’s senior season, another year of major league scouts flocking to practices and games, Rocker expressed concern to Lasley that he didn’t want fellow seniors to have their seasons overshadowed.
Before practices, Rocker often stopped by Lasley’s office to ask whether any teammates needed extra encouragement or motivation that day.
Lasley often teased Rocker that his menacing scowl on the mound reminded him of three-time World Series champion and former Ranger Dave Stewart. Off the field, though, “he was a big Teddy bear.” Younger kids were drawn to him.
Before Kumar’s senior year, Tracy’s boss, Mark Richt, was fired as Georgia’s coach. Rather than seek immediate re-employment, Tracy took a year off to attend all of Kumar’s games, recruiting trips and his USA Baseball U18 team’s trip to Canada, where it won the world title.
“In college, I was always helping other young men grow and get better, not just as football players, but as people,” Tracy said. “But in my mind and my heart, I want to raise my own child, and so that was a very important time for me.
“Even now, being in the NFL, yeah, it’s a long season, but it creates a little more time for me to be with my own family and my own child.”
Love of the game
Giving up football was difficult for Kumar. How hard? After making the decision the summer before his junior year of high school, he slept with his helmet near his bed until the coach asked him to turn it in several games into the season.
As much as Kumar loved football, baseball had captured his whole heart.
In 2018 he wasn’t selected until the 38th round, by Colorado, due to signability concerns. Those concerns were well-founded. Rocker already had orally committed to Vanderbilt.
And Lu was rather emphatic that he attend college.
“When we recruited them, she said, ‘My son’s going to college,’ " Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said. “You’ve heard those words come out of parents’ mouths before, but no one as determined as Lu Rocker.”
Late in the recruiting process, Vanderbilt played a series against Tennessee in Knoxville. Corbin and his wife Maggie stayed behind to have dinner with the Rockers.
An hour into the dinner, Kumar barely had said a word. The Corbins glanced at one another. Tim recalls being concerned that Kumar was detached, that he had decided to turn professional.
“He stands up just before we leave,” Corbin said. “He said, ‘Coach, I want to tell you something. I’m going to be one of the best teammates you’ve ever coached.”
Four years later, Corbin still marvels about that moment. Especially since Rocker made every word come true.
“There was no maintenance to coaching that kid,” Corbin said. “He was one of the best competitors we’ve ever had inside this culture. And he certainly was one of the best teammates we’ve ever had inside this culture.”
Corbin said Rocker was undeserving of what happened with the Mets. He said Rocker predictably used the year to fine-tune his body, to prepare himself physically and mentally for whichever organization drafted him next.
To prove the Mets wrong.
Tracy and Lu Rocker, too, are proud and grateful. During Kumar’s stint earlier this summer with the independent Frontier League’s TriCity ValleyCats, he called home after a 12-hour bus ride.
Kumar told his parents that he slept on the floor of the bus. And loved it.
“Yeah, he was the only child, and as parents, we’re fortunate that we were able to help him,” Tracy said. “But can also can say we made sure that it wasn’t pristine.
“That he had to go through some grimy. He likes the grimy part. He understands that it ain’t always going to be perfect.”
Tracy and Lu knew from the sound of Kumar’s voice during that phone call that he was going to be fine. That he’s embracing his latest challenge, no matter how grimy.
“Those are the moments,” Tracy said, “that we cherish.”
