LOCKED IN: RAMS SLUGGER POISED TO LEAVE MARK ON VCU

Rich Witten was excited to hit the ground running. He had just been hired as VCU Baseball’s new assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, and in the summer of 2017 he made his first recruiting trip to a tournament in North Carolina.

On his first day there, a 16-year-old on a team of older teenagers stood out as a physical presence with an aggressive, but mature, approach in the batter’s box. But where the kid really drove home that first impression was when he made a diving play over the dugout wall in foul territory.

Five years later, it’s easy to look at Tyler Locklear’s statistics and see why he was a consensus All-American and the first player in the history of the Atlantic 10 Conference to win both Rookie and Player of the Year in the same season. But to truly understand why Locklear is poised to leave his mark as one of the most prolific players in VCU Baseball history, is to see the kid diving into a dugout for a foul ball.

“Watching him as a 16-year-old in a travel ball game, in the middle of nowhere North Carolina, diving over a dugout fence to make a play like that, right away showed the kind of intent that he plays with, and the type of mentality that he takes with him to the field every single day,” Witten said.

“He’s as good of a competitor as I’ve ever coached. He just loves the diving play. He loves the catch over the shoulder. He loves the throw off one leg. He loves the dirt-ball read. He loves it all. Whatever he is doing at that time, he loves being the best at it,” Head Coach Shawn Stiffler said. “He loves to play, and he has fun doing it. He’s a throwback. He’s refreshing.”

Locklear has baseball in his blood.

“I come from a baseball family. My uncle played nine years in the minors. My dad played in college,” Locklear said. “So, I really had a baseball bat in my hand ever since I have been able to walk.”

Locklear is from Abingdon, Md., and was a two-sport athlete at Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore, where he was also featured as a physical, pass-catching tight end on the football team. He had offers from the Rams, Gardner-Webb, and Towson, and after building a relationship with Witten and taking a visit to Richmond, Va., the decision to come to VCU was an easy one.

Even though he wasn’t recruited heavily, the VCU coaching staff knew he would be an impact player when he got to campus as a freshman in the fall of 2019.

“Tyler came in his freshman fall and we knew it was going to be a bat that we had to get in the lineup right away,” Stiffler said. “But I remember he broke his hand, so we had to be slow with him to start his freshman year, and I think that caused him to not really get into the rhythm.”

Even out of rhythm in the pandemic-shortened season in 2020, Locklear hit .259 with 15 runs, three doubles, a triple, a home run, and eight RBIs in just 16 games as a true freshman. With the world shut down, Locklear stayed at VCU and took advantage of one of the few opportunities to get live at-bats, playing in the Piedmont League that summer in Ruther Glen, Va.

“Once he got consistent at-bats, when he got around 100 at-bats for that year, I started to see a little bit of a jump in the consistency of what the at-bats looked like,” Stiffler said. “When he came back that fall, there was a difference. There was a very small area where you could pitch Tyler where you could get him out, and you could see that right away. Then as the spring started in 2021, he got hot pretty quickly and stayed hot through the majority of the season.”

Hot is an understatement. In 54 games in 2021, he hit 16 home runs, which is a VCU freshman record, the second-most in a single season in program history, and tied for the most in the A-10 that year. He led the conference in runs (69), RBIs (66), on-base percentage (.515), and walks (46), all marks that rank in the top 10 in VCU history for a single season. He also led the team with a .345 batting average and a .686 slugging percentage.

The offensive explosion earned him All-American honors from every organization you can imagine, among a slew of other accolades, and helped guide VCU to both the A-10 regular season and tournament championships. The Rams went on a program record 22-game win streak from April 13-June 4, culminating in a 2-seed at the Starkville Regional in the NCAA Tournament.

“I think one of the questions I got a lot last year when he had his breakout season was ‘were you surprised by this?’ And my answer was emphatically no,” Witten said. “There was no surprise when Tyler Locklear walked out in his second year in the program and put together an All-American type season. We saw that from the first fall when he walked on campus as a freshman.”

“I think Tyler didn’t know how good he could be when he first got here,” Witten added. “He had always had success, but as he continued to grow in the evolution of his game, I think he started to realize once he got to better competition and was around better competition, the better competition only elevated his own game.”

In the summer of 2021, Locklear got the opportunity to showcase his talent against the best amateur competition in the country, playing in the Cape Cod Baseball League for the Orleans Firebirds. The premier collegiate wooden bat summer league, the Cape features the nation’s top prospects, many of whom will go on to play in the major leagues.

“That was the best summer of my life I’d say, from every standpoint,” Locklear said. “Whether it was meeting new friends, getting to play in the Cape—it was a beautiful place—having the teammates I had, all of the competition, seeing all the scouts, it was just an unreal experience.”

Locklear and teammate Chase DeLauter, a highly touted draft prospect from James Madison, became friends as they competed for the league’s home run crown, eventually sharing the title with nine apiece.

“When you go up and face that type of competition day in and day out, you’re going to get better, that’s no question,” Stiffler said. “I think the piece that a lot of people don’t see is you end up being a reflection of the people you surround yourself with. So, if you spend a summer with other players who are of that caliber, who are planning on and working towards playing in the big leagues, you just kind of rub off on each other.”

Already an elite bat, Stiffler challenged Locklear to work to improve his defense while in the Cape, which the infielder took to heart. Splitting time between third and first base this season, Locklear’s fielding percentage is up to .966 this season after a .942 mark in the 2021 campaign.

2022 has seen Locklear continue to put up monster numbers, with an uptick in both batting average (.365) and slugging percentage (.714). Always an extra-base threat, through 52 games, he’s accumulated 21 doubles and 14 home runs. He’s also steadily charging up the VCU record books and is currently third in program history with 31 career home runs.

Much of Locklear’s home-run-hitting prowess comes from his physicality. Listed at 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds, Locklear looks like he was genetically engineered to send baseballs into orbit. Combine that with a simple, short swing, and you have an incredibly dynamic hitter.

“My favorite part about coaching Tyler Locklear’s swing is the simplicity behind it,” Witten, who coaches VCU’s hitters, said. “He doesn’t have a lot of moving parts. He doesn’t need a lot of timing mechanisms. He doesn’t need a ton of rhythm in the moving parts of his swing.”

“From the moment he’s walked on campus, he’s been in the top 5-10 guys in the NCAA for exit velocity,” Stiffler said. “That’s the one thing about Tyler, is he pops up at 100 miles per hour. He’s very anchored into the ground. He’s very consistent with his swing. One of the reasons I do believe he’ll play in the big leagues is when he slumps, or whatever a slump is for him, his adjustments are very small.”

While his natural talent is one piece of the puzzle, a lot of his strength and consistency comes from an undeniable work ethic. 

“Coming in, I wasn’t really the best defender, I’d say, or best hitter in that sake. Just taking the time one-on-one with me and Coach Witten, or me and Coach Stiff, whoever it was, building my swing, getting better, getting reps in every day. Getting stronger in the weight room as well with Coach [Tim] Kontos and Coach Mike [McCaughtry]. It’s just been a growing process I’d say, over these last three years,” Locklear said. “That’s the culture that VCU is; we’re grinders. We have grit. That’s how it is when I came in and that’s what I have learned to grow into honestly.”

“He never stops working,” Stiffler said. “He hits every day. He’s religious to his routine. He’s religious to how he eats. He’s religious to his weights. He’s religious to his academics as well.”

It’s one thing to be a great player in a sport where individual performance drives success, but if you ask Stiffler to describe Locklear, the first thing he’ll say is that he’s a great teammate.

“For example, he gets more excited when other people get home runs than when he does,” Stiffler said. “I think that’s huge when young people say ‘well here’s the best guy on our team, one of the better players to ever play in this program, and he’s first out of the dugout when we score, he’s first out of the dugout to shake somebody’s hand, he’s first out of the dugout to put his arm around somebody.’ And I think that leads and only strengthens your culture.”

Whenever the Rams hit a home run, the go-to celebration is almost like a high-five, but with a leap in the air and a slamming together of biceps instead of hands. If Locklear isn’t the one rounding the bases, it’s guaranteed that he’s the one leading the celebration at home plate.

“I kind of like it more, honestly, than hitting them myself because you get to do all the celebrations and everyone on the bench is going crazy as opposed to running around the bases all by yourself,” Locklear said.

Whether celebrating home runs or hitting them himself, Locklear will surely be doing so at the professional level in the near future. Both Perfect Game and D1Baseball have him among the top 75 collegiate draft prospects for the 2022 MLB Draft this July. VCU is no stranger to alumni playing in the major leagues, with Vimael Machin (2012-15) the most recent Ram to make the show, playing for Oakland in 2020 and 2021.

“I firmly believe that Tyler’s going to play in the big leagues. Just the way he goes about his business, just the way he goes about what he’s doing, how much he loves to play the game. The maturity of the bat, the maturity of himself to keep himself focused on what he’s doing. I would be shocked if he isn’t a big leaguer,” Stiffler said. “I don’t say that to put pressure on him. I say that because I’m proud of him.”

An inevitability of being a top draft prospect is the presence of scouts at games and practices. While it’s impossible to ignore the number of stopwatches and clipboards in the stands every time Locklear steps onto the field, that doesn’t stop him from being the kid that loves to make the diving play whenever he can, even in batting practice two hours before the game.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had scouts come to the stadium and be like, and he’ll hit balls over the scoreboard, and the first thing they say to me is ‘how about him diving in BP and stuff? His uniform is filthy already,’” Stiffler said. “That’s Ty. That’s how he plays.”

Asked what his favorite VCU memory will be, ever the competitor, Locklear immediately pointed out the 2021 A-10 championship game; a game that after a lengthy rain delay, featured Locklear scoring on a hustle play from third on a wild pitch to cap a crucial five-run inning for the Rams.

“The A-10 Championship, honestly that was the best feeling of my life. That was the best day ever,” Locklear said. “It was the longest day ever with that 4-hour delay, but it was unreal at the end.”

For the coaching staff, Locklear’s legacy at VCU will go well beyond his accomplishments on the field.

“Tyler’s the best. I couldn’t be happier for anyone to see their success, truly,” Witten said. “When you get kids like that in your program, that just have the talent that he has and bring that type of energy every single day, the positivity, the competitiveness, they’re people that you’ll always appreciate as long as you coach. You’ll always remember and try to get the next Tyler Locklear.”

“I think that he’s just the example of who we are and where you can go from here. Since the moment he’s been here, he’s bought into hard work and consistency and routine. And because of that, he has flourished, and because of him, we will flourish. I really believe that he is the example of how to go about your time here at VCU,” Stiffler said. “I will miss him a lot more than I will miss his home runs to say the least.”