His promise had been so bright, his demise had been so cruel.
At one time, college coaches beat down Stephen Cowie's door, hoping to attract the premier righthanded pitcher in North Carolina to their school. Two years later, Cowie seriously questioned whether he would ever throw another baseball.
A torn elbow ligament before the start of his senior season in high school had changed everything. The same coaches who almost wore out Cowie's phone line before couldn't back away from the now-damaged commodity fast enough. A future that once included a sparkling collegiate career and a legitimate shot at playing in the major leagues turned into a series of rehab sessions and a slew of question marks.
But one coach never stopped calling.
"I can't say that was the easiest decision to come up with [to keep recruiting Cowie]," Duke coach Steve Traylor said. "At that point, we had to make a decision as to what we wanted to do, especially if it's a situation of investing a lot of money.
"But we made the decision that players like that and people like that just don't come around every year-that kind of student, that kind of person and that kind of athlete."
With the Duke scholarship in hand, Cowie still faced a long road back before he could pitch again. But the valedictorian of his Belmont, N.C., high school had it all figured out-commitment to his rehab after sitting out his senior year would surely have his arm ready in time for his freshman season at Duke in '96.
But for the first time, Cowie's arm just couldn't respond, and he had to resort to the final and most daunting option-major elbow reconstruction surgery, i.e. Tommy John surgery.
Twenty years ago, Cowie's career would have been as good as done, but modern medicine salvaged his arm and gave Cowie a second chance-an opportunity he almost let slip away.
"I was a little too anxious to go out there and prove myself," Cowie said. "Nobody had really seen me play much, so I kind of wanted to impress people a little. That was really not a good situation to be in when I was coming back from surgery."
The same pitches that Cowie had used to blow hitters away in high school were getting hammered at the college level. And to compound the disaster, Cowie felt the pains in his elbow again. Straddled with a 7.20 ERA in five appearances, Cowie shut down for the season and wondered where that once-promising future had gone.
"It was really frustrating because I didn't know whether [my arm] was ever going to feel any better," Cowie said. "I didn't know whether I had torn it again. At that point, in the back of my mind, I thought I was never going to pitch again."
Still, Cowie pressed on doggedly. By the time his sophomore year began in '97, Cowie was ready to throw, and even more importantly, he was ready to pitch. Working with pitching coach Dave Koblentz, Cowie stopped trying to overpower hitters and began trying to out-think them.
Mixing his 88-90 mile per hour fastball with a change-up and a slider, Cowie began to find his rhythm on the mound. Working only once per week to protect his recovering arm, he settled in as the club's No. 2 starter and compiled a 6-2 record with a fine 2.80 ERA that season.
"[He didn't] try to throw the ball through the wall every time the catcher put a [fastball sign] down," Traylor said. "He spotted his pitches, stayed within himself-that was a great progression for him."
All of that set the stage for last season, when Cowie finally put it all together. No longer needed to be protected from overwork, he took the mound often and stayed remarkably consistent.
In 126 innings of work, Cowie took 11-of-13 decisions with an impressive 2.83 ERA, culminating in an unparalleled performance against No. 2 seed Georgia Tech in the ACC tournament.
With the fate of his team's season hanging in the balance, Cowie took the start for the seventh-seeded Blue Devils against the high-powered Yellow Jackets, who averaged over nine runs per game last season. In an absolute pitching masterpiece, Cowie shut out Tech on five hits, leading many observers, including his coach, to believe Cowie would be headed for the pros after the season.
"He was just dominant," Traylor said. "He had command of all of his pitches, located them, threw strikes, got ahead in the count, had the slider going and threw his change-up for strikes. He had everything going for himself against a team that had swept us in the regular season.
"As that game was going on, we were thinking, 'Well, we aren't going to have him next year.'"
Surely a team would snatch up the All-ACC performer with maturity beyond his years. Surely some scout would have raved about his composure and stuff.
Apparently not.
Twenty, 30, 40, 60 and 80 rounds passed by. No team took a chance on the All-ACC righthander, and while Cowie felt a bit disappointed, his coach was outraged.
"We were shocked," Traylor said. "His ability to pitch has never been questioned; his work ethic, none of that has ever been questioned. I'm hoping this year that he's another year removed from the surgery, and he has a second year like he did last year in terms of innings pitched, that it will benefit him come the draft, because somebody missed the boat on him last year."
Likewise, his teammates found the news hard to believe.
"I was shocked, because he dominated everyone we played," junior pitcher Chris Capuano said. "I felt he pitched well enough to deserve to go high in the draft."
But just like his battles with elbow reconstruction and rehabilitation, Cowie dealt with his disappointment the way he knew best-working harder. After all, a setback in the draft probably will not stop someone like Stephen Cowie.
"Somebody's going to get a great prospect in him if they choose to draft him," Traylor said. "He's going to pitch in the big leagues-no questions about it."
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