Shaq Thompson was unique among players selected on the first night of the NFL Draft in that he already had been through the process once before.
Nearly three years ago, the Red Sox made Thompson their 18th-round pick in the MLB Draft. But it's safe to say the Panthers will get more out of Thursday night's pick (25th overall) than the Red Sox ever did.
Before turning his attention back to football full-time at the University of Washington, Thompson put together what has to be one of the worst professional baseball careers in history.
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He played 13 games for Boston's Gulf Coast League affiliate in the summer of 2012, facing mostly 18-year-old high school draftees like himself and players signed out of Latin America making their first stop in the U.S. The problem was, Thompson didn't even play baseball in high school, and his horrific statistics bore that out.
Thompson stepped to the plate 47 times for the GCL Red Sox that summer and put the ball in play twice. He walked eight times, which allowed him the few positive stats he compiled — three runs, one RBI, one stolen base. But in 39 official at-bats, the outfielder struck out a staggering 37 times.
Thompson quickly shook off that disappointment, though, and became a standout linebacker for the Huskies. He can look back on his baseball stint now and laugh, but he said he did learn from the experience.
“It didn’t go as I wanted," Thompson said at the NFL Combine in February, via NESN. "I had a couple media people make a joke out of it, but it was motivation to me. I really wasn’t tripping off of it. … I felt like I used it as motivation going into my freshman year, and that’s what I did. I met some great people there. I met this thing called failure, learned how to overcome it and move on.”
Yes sir pic.twitter.com/vWPq0X5FZh
— Shaq Thompson (@ShaqThompson_7) March 18, 2013