Sports Reporter
He is a month into his freshman year of college, and baseball remains at the forefront of Patrick Thibodeau’s life.
The Woodland native recently completed an impressive season of baseball, both at the high school and American Legion levels, and is not ready for his competitive career to end quite yet.
Staff photo/Kevin Sjoberg
Pat Thibodeau, who recently concluded a successful playing career in high school and American Legion, is attempting to walk on as a member of the University of Maine Black Bears. Thibodeau, a Woodland native, played for the Caribou Vikings at the varsity level and for the Presque Isle Patriots in Legion and won several individual honors through the years. He is the son of Jimmie and Lori Thibodeau.
Thibodeau is attempting to join at the University of Maine Black Bears as a non-scholarship or walk-on player, and the first step in that process is participating in the abbreviated fall season.
“Coach [Steve] Trimper is working us very hard with conditioning and long practices lasting up to four or five hours,” Thibodeau reported in a recent e-mail. “I’m loving every minute of it.”
Thibodeau’s season with the Presque Isle Patriots’ American Legion team came to an end in late-July. He batted .473 with three home runs and 21 runs batted in, striking out just twice in 55 at bats. He was named a first-team outfielder on the Zone 1 all-star team.
He closed out his Legion career with a four-year batting average of .469 with 19 doubles, six triples and 62 RBI, fanning just 17 times in 247 at-bats.
His high school stats were also impressive. As a senior for the Vikings, he batted .581 with 33 runs, 29 RBIs, 10 doubles, six triples, four home runs and 26 stolen bases. He struck out just twice in 62 at-bats and drew 16 walks, 10 of them intentional.
In his four-year high school career, he batted .482 with 75 runs, 82 RBI, 30 doubles, 11 triples, eight home runs, 53 steals and just seven strikeouts in 199 at-bats.
Thibodeau was one of three finalists for the Mr. Baseball Award, presented annually to the top high school player in the state. He was also named Penobscot Valley Conference Class B Player of the Year and for the fourth consecutive season was a PVC and Aroostook League all-star. He was invited to play in both the Maine vs. New Hampshire all-star game at the University of Southern Maine and the Maine Senior All-Star Game at St. Joseph’s College.
Tim Olore coached his Presque Isle Wildcats against Thibodeau for four seasons and has much admiration for Thibodeau’s all-around game.
“Pat runs, hits for high average, fields very well and his arm strength and power, which are good, are both continuing to improve,” Olore said. “I like all that Pat brings to the field and he plays the game with a lot of passion.”
In addition to the statistics and accolades, Thibodeau is respected by his teammates for his ability to lead.
“A lot of people don’t see this, but both in the dugout and on the bus, he’s a good leader,” said Chad McCarthy, also from Woodland and a teammate both in middle school and high school. “Even if a game was two days away, he’d get everyone pumped up.”
Thibodeau admits he has been a baseball “junkie” and student of the game from a very young age. It began as a player for the Woodland Tigers in the Caribou Little League, with his uncle, Alan St. Peter, serving as his first coach. He recalls in his second game as a 9-year-old, playing second base and catching a pop up in short right field, tagging second for the second out and firing a strike to home plate to nab the runner from third and complete the triple play.
“My dad looks back at that play and tells me he knew it was the beginning of something special,” Thibodeau said.
Thibodeau went on to attend a baseball clinic at the University of Maine that summer, and admitted that he wasn’t ready and remembers that it didn’t go well.
A couple years later, Thibodeau went back to the camp and this time it turned into a big boost to his playing career.
“That’s when I learned about playing the outfield,” he said. “I had told [Trimper] that I was a shortstop, but he saw that I was a left-hander and switched me to the outfield.
“I hated it at first, but then started to like tracking fly balls and other aspects of outfield play and then I began to actually like it out there.”
Thibodeau remembers hitting 10 home runs over the fence his final year in Little League and that his confidence level was soaring. It parlayed into some strong years as a middle-schooler, both for his Union 122 school and summer league teams. He picked up the art of bunting to add to his skill set, and also said he is indebted to his middle school coach, Mark Kalata, for a brief introduction into weight training, which he began entering his freshman year of high school and has continued ever since.
His father, Jim, served as his coach throughout his varsity career, and although he admits that situation had its ups and downs, is thankful he was able to play for his Dad.
“It was tough as a freshman especially, because I got that label ‘coach’s son’ and I struggled at first,” Thibodeau recalls. “He was hard on me, but he told me to keep working and I set out to prove that I deserved to be out there.
“He’s been great. He’s always been there to talk about baseball with and always will be and I’ve always appreciated that.”
McCarthy said Thibodeau’s will to succeed may be his greatest attribute.
“It is always 110 percent with Pat,” McCarthy said. “Every at-bat, if it didn’t go his way, he’d analyze it and depended on his teammates as much as his coaches to let him know what went wrong.”
Now he’s taking that strong will to the college level, and just wants to continue to give it all he has and see how it turns out.
“Coach [Trimper] has already told me that I have turned some heads down here and that I have a lot of God-given talent, so hearing that has made me love being here even more,” said Thibodeau. “I’m going to fight through everything to get to that next level. I’ve done it for this long, I’m not going to stop.”
