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People SearchFind an individual who either played a sport or was a member of a support group. Search by last name by clicking on the first letter of the person's last name.
Mr. John ""Baby John"" Coker, Jr.
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Home Phone: 405-403-5948 Baseball: Ex-Cajun baseball player hurt in combat – John Coker recovering from combat wounds Daily Advertiser, September 13, 2011 Former UL baseball player John Coker is recovering from combat wounds sustained in Afghanistan, an Oklahoma television station reported Monday. The outfielder from Muskogee, Okla., played two seasons with the Ragin� Cajuns, ending with an NCAA Regional appearance in 2005. Citing information from his mother, Stacy Coker, KOTV-Ch. 6 in Tulsa reported that Coker �was badly hurt while on duty�� with knee, leg and pelvis gunshot wounds. The one-time San Diego Padres draft choice had 29 steals during the 2004-05 school year, when he also led the Sun Belt Conference in both triples (10) and runs (82). * * * * * * * * * * John Coker: FROM CATCHING POPUPS TO PASSES Baseball player John Coker tries transition to football Dan McDonald UL Lafayette outfielder John Coker snags an out during the 2005 season at Tigue Moore Field in Lafayette. John Coker never flinched when he ran headlong into centerfield walls while on patrol for the University of Louisiana’s baseball team. The large dent in the metal panels between the “R” and the “E” on Moore Field’s outfield wall sign is testament to that. “It hurts a little, but the pain goes away,” Coker said. “You can’t take away outs. Every out you can get helps. It’s the ball first, pain second.” That’s the kind of attitude normally associated with full-contact sports such as football, so it comes as no surprise that Coker plans to return to his first love for the Ragin’ Cajuns this fall. There are still bridges to be crossed and compliance/scholarship/eligibility hoops to be jumped through, but Coker plans to be on the sidelines Sept. 3 when the Cajuns open their football season at the University of Texas. “I started thinking about it last fall when I’d watch the football team play,” said Coker, who wrapped up a standout two-year career for the UL baseball squad at the NCAA Regional in June. “I figured if I didn’t get drafted (in baseball) I wanted to give it a try. If I have another year of eligibility left, why not use it. “I went to a lot of games in the fall, wishing I was out there with them. Even when I watched football on TV, sometimes I caught myself twitching in front of the set, like I was trying to avoid a tackle.” Lest anyone thinks this is only a whim, Coker was recruited by several schools out of Muskogee, Okla., High in 2001 as both a baseball and football player. He played running back, returned kicks and also played defense for the Class 6A (Oklahoma’s highest classification) Roughers. “I never came off the field,” Coker said, “but I know this is going to be a lot different from high school. In high school everybody wasn’t as quick and I could outrun them. Here I know I’m going to have to use blockers, try to make people miss, go back to using running back skills.” He’s hoping to help Coach Rickey Bustle’s squad as a kick and punt returner, but his summer evenings have been spent working with the Cajun quarterbacks and wide receivers in impromptu drills. “I really think he can be a great addition,” said Cajun quarterback Jerry Babb, moments after launching a deep spiral that Coker ran down Wednesday evening. “There’s some similarities to tracking down a baseball in the outfield and a deep pass. You’re making adjustments on both of them, and he’s already shown he can do that.” “We know he’s got speed,” said Bustle, who watched Coker in center field several times over the past two seasons. “That’s something you can’t ever have enough of.” And apparently, Coker’s been accepted by the practice group that’s preparing for the 2005 season. “They seem pretty excited about me being there,” Coker said. “Some of the guys have said they’re glad I’m out there and trying to help them win.” “He seems to be a good leader, and he’s been working hard,” Babb said. “He’s proven himself on the baseball field.” Why Coker wasn’t picked in June’s major league baseball draft is a mystery to him and to the coaches and UL fans that watched him for the past two seasons. Even after being bypassed in the draft, Coker had tryouts with the Cincinnati Reds, the Baltimore Orioles and the Major League Scouting Bureau, the most recent of those coming last Friday. “I ran my fastest 60 ever for the Reds,” Coker said. “They told me I had all the tools to play the game, and they’d be in touch.” The phone hasn’t rung. Fortunately, Coker doesn’t have to count on an athletic career. He’s only a fall internship away from his degree in exercise science and has already been in touch with physicians back near his Muskogee home to link up in the sports medicine field. What scouts never said of his draft absence and lack of response to tryouts is their reservations over size. He’s generously listed as 5-foot-8 and 180 pounds on the 2005 baseball roster, but overcame that with his other baseball gifts. Overcoming that in football may be even more of a challenge. “I got into football because I love contact,” he said. “It was my first love. Baseball was just to stay out of the streets in the summertime, but it grew on me. I thought about giving up baseball until I started learning the game more, and I talked to a lot of coaches that said they felt I could go further in baseball.” Coker was drafted by the San Diego Padres in the 37th round of the 2001 draft after stealing 41 bases and hitting .468 as a prep senior. He played two seasons at Seminole State (Fla.) Junior College before joining the UL program for the 2004 season. “That (being drafted out of high school) helped my decision a lot,” he said. “It was time to hang up the football spikes.” Now the opportunity comes full circle, if he can get his hands to cooperate. “Four years out of football, my hands are like stone now,” he said. “I need to get them back soft.” Originally published July 7, 2005 – – – – – – – – – – – Center fielder steals home against Southern. Dan McDonald NEW ORLEANS – Somewhere, Steven Feehan was smiling Saturday afternoon. Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns used a play Saturday that gave Feehan a national moment in the sun five summers ago, and it’s with just a hint of irony that the revival came in Feehan’s Crescent City hometown. Most times, a 9-1 game doesn’t come down to one play, but the Cajuns’ victory over Southern in Saturday’s NCAA regional elimination game was all but clinched in the second inning when John Coker shocked all 3,832 fans and Southern pitcher David Bayless when he broke for home. Coker’s head-first slide put him well under the tag of Jaguar catcher Brandon Mason, with the rare steal of home providing UL with a 4-0 lead. “It’s got to be the right situation,” said Cajun coach Tony Robichaux. “It’s not something we just pull out of a hat. Most of all, you’ve gotta have a guy with the guts to call for it and a guy with the guts to do it.” The Cajuns had those in third-base coach John Szefc, who made the call while watching Bayless warm up, and Coker, who already had 26 stolen bases this season entering Saturday’s NCAA second-round game. They also had those in 2000 on college baseball’s biggest stage, when then-assistant coach Wade Simoneaux gave Feehan the green light to steal home during UL’s College World Series battle with Clemson. It worked then, with Feehan’s fifth-inning steal putting the Cajuns in front 3-0. Four innings later, the New Orleans native’s bunt and an error plated Rick Haydel with the game-winner in a 5-4 victory. UL hadn’t tried it since then … until Saturday. “Since we did do it on a national stage, we can’t use it a lot,” Robichaux said. “We’ve worked on it all year, and we said we were going to put it on as soon as it was appropriate.” The chance presented itself in the second inning Saturday, after UL got two runs on hits by Coker and Jonathan Lucroy to make it 3-0. Lucroy’s single left Coker at third, and Southern coach Roger Cador called for Bayless from the bullpen. During his warmup tosses, Szefc watched from the third-base box and put a mental stopwatch on Bayless’ full-windup delivery. “I told Coker to be ready and to get his timing down,” Szefc said. Bayless was working from the stretch with Lucroy at first and Coker at third, but promptly plunked Dallas Morris with his second pitch to load the bases and allowed him to throw from the full windup. It also allowed the Cajuns to put on one of the rarest plays in baseball. “We said that if he didn’t check (Coker) on the first pitch, we’d go on the second,” Szefc said. Szefc gave batter Jefferies Tatford the “take” sign, Tatford gave a subtle nod, and as soon as Bayless nodded yes to Mason’s pitch call, Coker took off. “We call it the ‘yes-man’ play,” Coker said. “As soon as he gave the yes, I just went hard and tried to go in hard and dirty and slide away from the catcher. I heard the crowd yelling when I started running, and I really heard them when I crossed the plate.” Mason saw him coming and heard the crowd, but couldn’t do much about it. “Out of the corner of my eye I saw him,” Mason said. “I tried to get out in front of the plate, but the pitcher slowed down.” Coker wasn’t aware that the Cajuns’ last steal of home came in the World Series five years ago, but he knew it had been even longer since he tried one. “I think I was maybe eight years old,” he said. “At that age, all the pitchers do those really big windups. It’s a little easier when you’re eight years old.” He made this one look easy, with Mason’s tag coming well after Coker ran his right hand across home plate. “I think it gave us a lot of momentum,” Coker said. “We wanted to be aggressive and take advantage when we had chances.” Originally published June 5, 2005
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