Pirates catcher Kevin Stallings could get flashback to high school days with father going to coach Pitt men's basketball

BRADENTON -- It was impossible to miss Kevin Stallings behind the plate on this particular late March day in Tallahassee. Tennessee's Brentwood Academy was in Florida for one of those spring-break baseball tournaments and the Vanderbilt head coach made sure to be there if even for just one day.

Decked out in Commodore apparel, Stallings was there to see his son, Jacob Stallings, a catcher and pitcher for Brentwood. When the game ended, he was off to the airport for a red eye to East Rutherford, N.J.

Vanderbilt had a Sweet 16 game two days later.

"It was kind of weird," said Buddy Alexander, the Eagles' head coach. "He's in uniform behind the plate all night. The next morning, you wake up and see him on TV."

It was never easy for Stallings, who has been a Division I men's basketball head coach since 1993, to get to all of his son's games, but he always made as much of an effort as possible. He frequented his minor-league games during summers in Bradenton or Altoona and tried to make his schedule work in concert Jacob's high school or college games, Alexander recalls.

This summer, the elder Stallings' trips could be shorter. Kevin was hired as the 15th head coach in Pittsburgh history Sunday after 17 years in Nashville.

Jacob will likely begin the 2016 season with Triple-A Indianapolis as either the third or fourth catcher on the Pirates' organizational depth chart.

An injury or two during the regular season could mean a call to PNC Park for the first time and a chance to share a city with his father for the first time since high school.

"I wouldn't put it past him to adjust practice," Alexander said with a laugh. "Obviously, he can control his own practice schedule."

Shortly after 1 a.m. on Sunday, the first reports linking Kevin Stallings to Pitt began to surface on Twitter.

The Panther fans who were still awake in the middle of the night met the initial buzz with near unanimous disdain across the internet. By the morning, when more and more reporters were tying the former Commodores coach with the vacancy, the negativity bubbled even more.

Pitt officially announced the hire a bit before 2 p.m. on Sunday, while his son was wearing a Pirates jersey. He was behind the plate at Pirate City for a minor-league game in Bradenton.

"The city of Pittsburgh is outstanding," Kevin said in a statement via the Panthers' official athletic website on Sunday, "and I have a great deal of respect for the people that make it such a special place."

Jacob's rise through the ranks of the organization has accelerated since a slow start, beginning with two seasons he spent with Class-A Advanced Bradenton.

After spending four years at North Carolina and getting picked in the seventh round, Stallings batted only .219 during his first season with the Marauders in 2013 and elevated that to .241 the next year in Bradenton to earn a spot with Double-A Altoona last year. With the Curve, he finally broke through.

Stallings batted .275 for Altoona and is one of six catchers left in the Pirates' major league camp, where he's put up a .785 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 13 Grapefruit League at-bats. The 6-foot-5 catcher's hallmark, though, is his defense. He had a reputation coming out of UNC for his tools behind the plate and the sort of mind that comes with being a coach's son.

"He definitely thinks like a coach's son," Alexander said. "He saw through situations, he thinks like a coach because he's been around his dad his whole life. He's definitely held that moniker well."

The elder Stallings even saw enough of Brentwood to diagnose some of the Eagles' issues during a slump one year.

Behind the scenes, Brentwood had some chemistry issues and there were subtle cases of it showing up on the field.

Not enough, Alexander said, for a casual observer to pick up on it, but Stallings, of course wasn't the typical high-school baseball fan.

"He said everything I wanted to but couldn't because I was the one coaching them," Alexander said. "He kind of spoke the truth at them. ... He's a quality guy."

Jacob Stallings caught a game at Pirate City on Sunday and when he came off the field his father had officially been named the Panthers' head coach. He was supposed to return to McKechnie Field later in the afternoon.

Jacob never made it back to McKechnie on Sunday. He had to take his father to the airport. Kevin had been in Bradenton watching his son play.

This story was originally published March 27, 2016 at 11:03 PM with the headline "Pirates catcher Kevin Stallings could get flashback to high school days with father going to coach Pitt men's basketball ."