June 20, 2009
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Alex McClure may have just finished his first year at Vanderbilt, but he is far from new to the Vanderbilt campus. A sophomore transfer from Walters State Community College, McClure spent many days of his youth making the trek between his hometown of Clarksville, Tenn., and Vanderbilt’s campus to watch from the visiting dugout as his father, Gary McClure, coached Austin Peay State University’s baseball team against the Commodores.
However, the frequency of McClure’s trips to Nashville increased unexpectedly at the age of 15.
Just days before he would begin his sophomore year at Rossview High School, Alex and his father were in Atlanta at the Perfect Game 15-under Championship when something felt different.
“I just had felt bad the whole week before, and I didn’t know what was going on,” Alex recalled.
He felt so bad that he missed the first game of the tournament. The next day he felt a little better and even played. But just when things looked like they might be heading in the right direction, they began to deteriorate, so Gary took him to a night clinic where it was learned that Alex had type 1 diabetes. Alex had a blood sugar level of more than 600 and could have slipped into a diabetic coma. The normal level is between 70 and 100.
Before he knew it, Alex and his father were on the road going “what seemed like 100 mph” toward Vanderbilt Medical Center.
“We wanted to get him to Vanderbilt where we could be there, and we knew what Vanderbilt had to offer,” Gary said. “I had to sign a waiver to sign him out because they wanted him to go to the hospital.”
For the next few months, Vanderbilt became a home away from home for Alex, who developed a fondness for the university during his time spent at the hospital.
“For a couple of months I had to come up here every other day it seemed like,” Alex said. “During those times my mom (Amy) and I would walk around the campus, and that is when I also kind of developed my love for the campus, too.”
After his diagnosis, Alex lost 25 pounds because of diabetes. For someone who lived a very active lifestyle and already was small in stature, the changes Alex was required to make because of diabetes did not come easily.
“It was definitely a process,” Alex said. “It took a long time to get back. I was able to play in the spring, but throughout that whole winter I was learning a lot. It was all really new and it was a pretty hard time, but I had to do it to stay healthy.”
One of the biggest changes diabetes has brought to McClure’s life has been the five or six shots he takes a day in order to maintain his blood-sugar level. Type 1 diabetes is insulin dependent.
Alex gives himself shots around meals and before he goes to bed, but the physical activity of playing a sport can be draining, and there have been times when he has needed to inject himself during games. While it has yet to happen to him in a game at Vanderbilt, it has happened in practice.
“I had one day in the fall during practice where I had to leave for a little bit and check my blood sugar,” Alex said. “I’ve had times such as two summers ago when I had to call timeout and stop the game just to get some sugar. It has never gotten to the point that it is too bad.”
If his blood-sugar level does get low, Alex knows it can impact his play.
“It can affect my play when I’m low,” Alex said. “I’ll start feeling dizzy and light-headed, and I’ll have to get some sugar fast. It can also take a pretty good toll on your body and it makes you a little more tired.”
Even though diabetes can affect his play if he isn’t careful, Alex hasn’t used it as a crutch and doesn’t plan on doing so.
“The people at Vanderbilt (Medical Center) told me since the second I was diagnosed with diabetes, that I could live a normal life just like everyone else. With that knowledge, I never broke stride. I’m glad they had such a positive outlook on it. I think some people who get it feel like they are limited, but I just try to act like I don’t even have it.”
The head-on approach Alex takes with diabetes is something that hasn’t come as a surprise to his father.
“As far as him overcoming diabetes, that hasn’t surprised me a bit,” Gary said. “I told him it is going to make him better in the long run because you are going to learn how to do things right and someday it is all going to pay off and you are a special person because of that.”
Having that upbeat and positive mindset enabled Alex to continue his baseball career, which eventually brought him back to Vanderbilt by the way of one season at Walters State Community College in Morristown, Tenn.
On March 24, the memories Alex had of making the trip from Clarksville to watch his dad coach Austin Peay against Vanderbilt came rushing back when the Governors made their annual trip to West End. His dad was in the visiting dugout preparing the scorecard just like old times, but Alex was in the home dugout.
For the first time in their careers, they were adversaries.
“At the beginning it was kind of weird just seeing him in the other dugout, but it was kind of cool at the same time,” Alex said. “I knew he was over there, but once we started playing it just felt like a normal game, and I had to play it like that.”
For Gary, the leadup to the game was unlike anything he had experienced in his 21 seasons of coaching at Austin Peay.
“It was definitely a little different than anything I’d really experienced in coaching without a doubt,” Gary said. “For whatever reason, I had a nervous feeling in my stomach all morning that day. It was different. I’ve coached a lot of games and I don’t particularly get very nervous, but I just had a very nervous feeling in my stomach that day.”
Vanderbilt won the game 10-5, and Alex had one of his best games in a Commodore uniform, going 2 for 4 with an RBI and a run scored.
“I don’t call the pitches for us, and I didn’t want to call them against him,” Gary said. “I just tried to stay out of the way when he was at bat and let the game take care of itself. It was different, and it was one of those things where the perfect scenario would be for him to play a great game and for us to win.”
Instead of being in a Vanderbilt uniform for the game, Alex very well could have been in an Austin Peay uniform.
“My dad recruited me out of high school which was kind of cool, but I wanted to do it on my own so I kind of set out that way,” Alex said.
“I wanted him to go where he wanted to be and do what he wanted to do,” Gary said. “I would have loved to have coached him just from the standpoint that I would get to be around him and see him play daily.”
Although he wanted to go a different route in college, there is nothing he’d rather do professionally than follow in his father’s footsteps as a coach.
“What my dad does is exactly what I want to get into when I’m done playing,” Alex said. “I would like to coach in the college ranks or in the minors.”
No matter what Alex does in the future, Gary has a hard time seeing him no longer involved in baseball.
“He’s got the kind of makeup that it takes, and he’s got the kind of love for the game that it takes,” Gary said. “He’s been around it his whole life, and he thinks about it like a coach and knows how to play.”
Alex no longer has to make the drive in from Clarksville to Hawkins Field or to the medical center. He can now walk to both places and Vanderbilt no longer feels like a second home, it feels like home.
“Everything has been great coming here,” he said. “Overall, it has been awesome and I couldn’t think of a better place.”
McClure’s path has brought him back to Vanderbilt, only this time it is for a much better reason.
“There is definitely something intriguing about him ending back up at Vanderbilt for sure,” Gary said. “It is interesting how things work out.”
