Vero Beach, Florida, once equated to three other words: Los Angeles Dodgers. Every spring, for six-plus weeks, the Dodgers trained and played exhibition games in a ballpark without dugouts, the most intimate fan experience major-league baseball offered.
The Dodgers moved their preseason home to Glendale, Arizona, when Kansas University football pledge Carter Stanley was in fifth grade. So ended a father-son annual outing.
“It was a tradition every year,” Stanley said. “My dad would take me to one of the spring ballgames, and it would be great.”
Stanley said he and a friend once were in position to get the autograph of retired Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda.
“It was incredible,” Stanley said. “My friend got his autograph, and he was just about to give me an autograph, and then he had to leave right then because the game was about to start. My friend ended up with the autograph, and I didn’t.”
Vero Beach misses the Dodgers, but it’s not as if the ocean-side city of 15,220 is starved for sports entertainment. Vero Beach High (enrollment of about 2,500) has drawn college football recruiters to campus regularly in recent years.
A first-year starter at quarterback as a senior this past fall, Stanley led Vero Beach to an 11-1 record. He threw for 3,070 yards with 40 touchdowns and seven interceptions. At a Penn State football camp in the summer before his junior season, Stanley was clocked electronically at 4.61 seconds in the 40-yard dash.
Stanley said he threw just 17 passes as a junior, behind senior Dalton Stokes, who had earned all-state honors as a junior. Stokes will be a red-shirt freshman at Valparaiso University next fall.
Recruited by linebackers coach Kevin Kane, Stanley remembered meeting the coach a couple of years ago when Kane was recruiting a Vero Beach player for Northern Illinois.
Stanley, offered a scholarship from Connecticut, said he won’t flip.
“I’ve told every coach who tried to talk to me that I’ve shut down all recruiting,” said Stanley, who will visit KU on Jan. 30. “That was the deal I made with the Kansas coaches. I would shut down all recruiting if they would shut down recruiting quarterbacks.”
During Kane’s visit Saturday, Stanley said the coach hooked offensive coordinator Rob Likens into the conversation from California on Facetime.
“Coach Kane asked me to draw a play on the board, and when I did, coach Likens said they ran the exact same play,” said Stanley, who had an in-home visit Tuesday from Kane and Likens.
