Recently Henrico's JC Poma accpeted a recruited walk-on position with the University of Virginia baseball program. The Henrico catcher had previously indicated he would continue his athletic career as quarterback on the football field at Davidson College. What led up to this change for Poma? The signs point to his baseball coach, Ken Schrad, who not only changed this young prospect's outlook on his future athletic career, but has changed the outlook for the entire Henrico baseball program.

Poma told VirginiaPreps.com: "It was actually a difficult decision to make. Throughout my high school career, I was focused on football and put most of my time and energy into football. Part of the reason I became focused on football was that my high school did not have a strong baseball program until half way through my high school career when our head coach, Ken Schrad, accepted the coaching position. Although Henrico baseball was not competitive during my early years at Henrico, we are now very competitive.

Henrico, behind Schrad's leadership and the gutsy play of JC Poma and standout pitching from junior Seth Cutler-Voltz, has improved to the point that they will now be playing for the district tournament title game in hopes of advancing to the Central Region playoffs.

When we asked Henrico baseball coach Ken Schrad to talk about JC Poma, and his decision to accept a recruited walk-on position with the UVA baseball team, he was more than eager to share his thoughts - which are reprinted below:

"JC is the "rock" upon which I have attempted to rebuild the Henrico baseball program. You could not ask for a more solid foundation. There is no one happier than I that he is now experiencing the rewards of all the hard work the team has put in to improve itself.

He is a leader, a competitor, and a motivator. Not only that, he can flat out play the game. Despite his personal success, he is always striving to improve his game. He is a honor student, ranked 15th in his senior class, and carries an impressive 4.48 grade point average.

The year before I arrived as coach, his freshman season, the team won one game and lost all of its other 18 games by the 10-run rule. The experience almost chased him away from baseball, forever. He decided to stick with it at least one more year since a new coach was hired. Even so, he figured there was no chance of playing baseball at the college level if Henrico's baseball program did not dramatically improve. So, he concentrated his efforts on football, attending dozens of camps to improve his recruiting status as a quarterback. I told JC on numerous occasions that he had the tools to play Division I college baseball and that, in my opinion, he was chasing the wrong sport.

Knowing that he was going to apply and that his grades gave him an excellent chance to be admitted to UVA, I mentioned to UVA assistant coach Kevin McMullan at the Baseball Bash in January that he really ought to take a look at JC as a recruited walk-on catcher. McMullen said that was one area of potential need and to keep him advised of JC's college plans.

McMullan came to watch Seth Cutler-Voltz and JC at the Lee Davis game on April 4. He was impressed with both. JC was invited to meet with UVA head coach Brian O'Connor and JC made the decision to go to UVA and (as I understand it) will be the Cavalier's only recruited walk-on for baseball this year.

I'm confident JC is going to be one of those rare-found "diamonds in the rough"."