By Mark Gregory | @Hear_The_Beard
As a junior, Joliet West’s Alex Tibble led the Joliet West football team to the school’s first-ever IHSA playoff berth.
As a senior, however, his football season and career were cut short after suffering a fourth concussion.
Not willing to end his high school athletic career on the sidelines, Tibble traded in his shoulder pads and helmet for a bat and glove and returned to the Tigers’ baseball team after not playing the last two seasons.
“When I got hurt playing football, I was devastated because I love playing football,” Tibble said. “When I first started it freshman year, it just clicked with me and that is why I gave up baseball for it. Personally now looking back, I wish I had played baseball the last two years, but you can’t change the past. I am just lucky I have this last year of baseball and I am making the most of it.
“Baseball is a whole different game. When you are playing football, each week you are preparing for 11 really big guys trying to hurt you. In baseball, you are just preparing to hit pitches and chasing down fly balls in the outfield. I just come out here and play my heart out.”
Now that he is back patrolling centerfield, Tibble is looking to make it a home for a little longer.
“Obviously after the fourth concussion, football is out of the question,” he said. “This year is going well so far and I am just going to keep working at baseball and if it goes well I will play maybe at (Joliet Junior College). That is what I am hoping.”
Tibble’s return to baseball wasn’t only good for him – it gave the rebuilding Tiger team another senior leader in the dugout.
“Alex has been a nice addition to the team,” coach John Karczewski said. “If you can take off two years and come back and start on varsity in our program, that is a testament. We are young and it would have been nice to have him the last couple years. He missed a few things being away from the game for two years, but he will get them back. He is fast, he has a good arm and the way he is hitting the ball has really impressed me this year. We have guys who hit all year long the past two years and aren’t hitting as good as he is.”
Tibble’s return is one of the few bright spots West (6-12-1) has had during a rebuilding season with a team that features 13 juniors.
“The game is so much faster at the varsity level than it is at the sophomore level, especially in our conference,” Karczewski said. “I look at the offseason preparation. We aren’t very big, we aren’t very strong and we haven’t done as much as we have needed to do in the offseason and it is really showing. We have to sew some things up. We need to play better defense, we need to hit in a more timely manner. I just want them playing hard. Hopefully it is an eye opener for next season because we start only one to two seniors and the rest are juniors and our sophomore group is doing well so at any time, jobs could be in jeopardy.”