March 25, 2015
By Jerome Boettcher | Subscribe to Commodore Nation
Shortly after the spring semester started in January, Vanderbilt sophomore John Kilichowski headed to a new class and introduced himself to a professor.
The introduction was unnecessary. The professor knew who he was, after meeting his mom in Omaha, Neb., last summer during the College World Series.
This is a common occurrence for the left-handed reliever, who often is known as Debbie Kilichowski’s son.
“I mean the amount of girls I’ve met where I introduce myself and they say they’ve met my mom is unbelievable,” John said laughing. “It has gotten to the point where this has to stop. I have to meet someone for the first time here.”
Friendly and supportive, the Kilichowski family’s love for their oldest son is apparent and beams proudly.
The Kilichowskis, who call Tampa home, work around their busy schedules to make sure they can support their oldest child. His mother is a dental hygienist and his father, Bill, owns a small marketing business. Often, when he travels to watch his son play, he’ll work remotely. They’ll even fly John’s sister, Alexa, a freshman at the University of Florida, out of Gainesville so she can see her brother play. They’ve split hotel rooms with other families.
“They will maneuver their plans to get where I am,” John said. “I think it is a lot of my mom, that Italian family thing they got going on. Everything is together. In our family, Sundays were together. You have spaghetti on Sunday. That is the thing. We all got together. Now it has come to that point where it is weird if we’re not together.”
John can’t remember it being any other way.
His parents were always there to cheer him on. His first memories of baseball trace back to when he was a toddler, tossing a ball back and forth to his mom. His father was his biggest influence with baseball, serving as his coach all the way up to high school.
“To have him make that commitment all the time, especially with work, it is very nice looking back on it to see the sacrifices he made to spend time with me like that,” John said. “So I was very lucky.”
Now, as he wears the Black and Gold, his parents continue to root him on. Though he was used sparingly last year – notching a 1.57 ERA in just 13 appearances – and as a reliever, never certain on when he would pitch, that didn’t matter to his family.
They made it up to Nashville for a handful of series, including the Super Regional to see the Commodores punch their ticket to the College World Series. Then they were on hand for the entirety of the College World Series even though John pitched just once (allowing just one run in three innings of work in a victory in the first game of the championship series against Virginia).
In March, his family will head to Los Angeles to watch the defending national champs in the Dodgertown Classic. The weekend series against Florida at Hawkins Field May 7-9 will be a celebratory affair as Debbie’s brothers and sisters will also come to celebrate Debbie’s birthday.
“They try to make it as much as they can. They are big supporters of the team,” John said. “I played some last year but there were times where they came where I wasn’t playing and they just love watching us do well — our culture, the fun that we have out here, which is very nice. They are so easy going. They have become close with all the other families. The parents are just a close knit group of people.”
In November, the Kilichowskis showed their passion and loves knows no borders. They ventured out of the United States as Bill, Debbie and Alexa joined John and the rest of the Vanderbilt baseball team in the Dominican Republic for the squad’s weeklong trip. Not wanting to spend Thanksgiving apart, the Kilichowskis were in attendance as John pitched against international competition despite less than ideal conditions after a weird rain delay in which the field was soaked up by sponges.
Still, John was at ease.
“I remember feeling a lot more at home,” he said. “It was so foreign, everything that was going on – the way the pregame was, the field, everything like that, the atmosphere. My family was sitting right behind (the backstop). I would look at them seven, eight times a game and it was amazing how it blocked out the newness. It made me feel very much at home.”
