Mitch Gaspard knew this day was coming.
Schedules aligned for a while, but with his Alabama baseball team hitting the road for the next few weekends, they’re going to be without outfielder Keith Holcombe. He’s got a linebacker job to win.
The two-sport juggle will take a break in the final three weeks of Alabama’s spring football practice. The Tide baseball team will play Auburn at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Montgomery on Tuesday night before heading straight to Athens, Ga., for a Thursday-Saturday series with Georgia. They head to Lexington the following weekend for three with Kentucky.
Football practice is Monday, Wednesday, Friday with a scrimmage on Saturday for the next two weeks.
“We knew from the get go, these are those three weeks that … Keith is competing to be the (middle) linebacker,” Gaspard said. “I think, both sides want to keep him in the best position to have success on both sides. For him to really compete on that side right now, he’s got to put his time in.”
Holcombe is on a football scholarship and was a single-sport athlete until this spring. The former late-round baseball draft pick joined the Alabama team before the season. He played a considerable role early in the year, starting 12 of the 15 games in which he appeared. In those games, Holcombe has a .293 batting average with a triple.
He was able to balance things better when the Tide was playing home series two of the last three weekends.
“I get concerned about a guy playing two sports when he’s got to miss four days of school,” Saban said. “We want him to play baseball. He wants to play baseball. But, you know, football players don’t have to miss a lot of school because we play on Saturdays. So seldom do we miss hardly anything. It takes a little getting used to for me for guys to do that.”
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Alabama spring football practice ends April 16 with the A-Day game. Gaspard is aware of that date.
“We want him to play,” Saban said. “It make it more difficult for him to balance what he needs to do in football and he has a chance to be a great contributor next year on the football team. By not being there in the spring and doing some of the things in the role that he fits into, it could affect his development to some degree. But whatever he misses, we’ll make every effort to make up so that he gets those reps and can get where he needs to be.”
Gaspard knows it’ll take a little patience before his new left fielder is back.
“Turning the page, for the last seven weeks of the season, we’re going to have Keith every day,” Gaspard said. “I’ll know (Tuesday) exactly where we are with him, but we’re not anticipating having Keith right now and I think his focus is on spring ball for the next 12-14 days.
“He still comes and gets his work in with us. He’s competing to play over there. So that’s really important to him and football and we want that for him too. The beauty with Keith is a lot of playing time early and I think when we get him back every day, he’ll be able to jump right in and get back to having success with us again.”
