Last fall, before he even had an official practice with the Rice baseball team, Brad Kottman got word he would be going to play this summer in the famed Cape Cod Baseball League for the Brewster Whitecaps.
But then, just a month before the spring semester ended, Kottman was notified those plans had changed.
The officials from the Whitecaps had overbooked their roster and told the former Guyer star pitcher he wouldn't get a sufficient amount of innings, so his new coaches at Rice decided to send him out West.
"It was an out of the blue thing," said Kottman, who transferred to Rice from Brown prior to the fall semester and had to sit out the 2011 season due to the NCAA transfer rules. "It was late for a summer team to do that."
But judging by Kottman's success, and his affinity for perfect 70-degree weather and the ocean, he couldn't be happier with the way things turned out.
This summer, Kottman has played for the Santa Barbara Foresters in the California Collegiate League, a summer league for college baseball players similar to the Cape Cod League or the Texas Collegiate League.
The Foresters have won the league title in 16 of the last 17 seasons and won the coveted National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kan., a tournament with collegiate summer league teams from around the country, twice.
Kottman has represented Texas well, along with the rest of the Texas players on the roster, including three others from Rice.
More than midway through the season, Kottman has a 1.93 ERA in 14 innings pitched with one start, one save and 20 strikeouts to go with just seven walks. He is allowing an opposing batting average of just .143 while playing for the country's No. 4 collegiate league team, according to the website PerfectGame.org.
He was selected for the California Collegiate League All-Star Game, which will be played Wednesday in Glendale, Calif., and will be televised on Fox Sports West.
"I was really excited," Kottman said of the nod. "I wasn't sure how they selected the team here because there weren't many kids on our team with many innings pitched because they try to keep it really fair here. I was pretty elated to make the team. There's four Rice players here in Santa Barbara and three of us made it [Michael Ratterree and Austin Kubitza are the others] so that just shows what we have coming up at Rice."
The team has been run since 1995 by its head coach and general manager Bill Pintard, who took over four years after the team's inception.
Pintard said Kottman has shown he can be a highly effective pitcher after struggling in an early outing.
"His fastball and his change-up and his ability to throw the change at any time in any count are what separates him from other pitchers," Pintard said. "His change-up is excellent. He's working on spotting a fastball and he's working on a breaking ball and when he gets that, he's going to be very difficult to hit."
Aside from the weather, the ocean and learning to surf, Kottman has also had a chance to get used to what he called "the grind" and playing every day, something college players don't have to do.
Rangers designated hitter Michael Young, who went to college at California-Santa Barbara and used to work out with the Foresters also played in a collegiate league, spending time in the Alaska Baseball League with the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks.
Young said the biggest thing summer leagues do is help prepare players for the marathon that is a professional baseball season.
 "In college you play three or four times a week and that was my first time to play every day," Young said. "When I signed [with the Toronto Blue Jays] the following summer I had a bit of a head start, I think. I knew what it took to play every day. It's a little bit different when you do it for the first time."
Like Kottman, Young was also a big fan of the weather in Santa Barbara.
"I loved my time in Santa Barbara," Young said. "It was incredible. You're not gonna find better weather on the planet. It's probably the best weather in the world -- like literally -- in the world. It's just absolutely gorgeous."
Kottman has also had the chance to grow as a person, with the help of Pintard.
Pintard runs a program called "Hugs for Cubs", which was started with an idea from his son, who suffered from a rare form of cancer and died in 2004 at the age of 31.
Eric Pintard was set to sign with the Milwaukee Brewers when he was diagnosed and told he'd never walk again, much less pitch or surf.
He did all of those things, and even though he lost his battle with cancer his spirit lives on through the program that Kottman has taken so much satisfaction in.
The program runs free camps for childhood cancer patients and allows the Foresters players to interact with them both on the field and off with activities such as fishing and bowling.
The team recently took a group of children to a Los Angeles Angels game and they were able to go down on the field and meet Angels manager Mike Scioscia.
"Those kids are so happy when we come and see them," Kottman said. …"It's all been very rewarding."
Pintard added: "These guys are young, big, strong baseball players and worried about their ERA and batting average, and this puts it a little more in perspective for them."
Kottman said he's learned a lot from Pintard, much more than he might learn from a typical baseball coach, and that's just the way Pintard wants it.
"Time is really valuable and if you waste it, it's gone forever," Pintard said. "You don't get today back. If we haven't done something today to make this a positive place, then we've kind of wasted the day, in my eyes.
"We're more than a ball team. That's why we've done so well I think. We're struggling more than normal this year, but we're still in first place."
But with all that said, Kottman said he is ready to get back to Houston and play for his dream school, where he hopes to land a spot in the 2012 starting rotation for the national powerhouse Owls. The summer season ends July 31 before the team travels to the NBC World Series.
"I'm having a good time out here, but I'm definitely anxious to get back to school and perform for Rice," he said. "That's pretty much a dream come true to be able to play there, and I'm ready to put on the uniform and win some games."
ADAM BOEDEKER can be reached at 940-566-6872. His e-mail address is aboedeker@dentonrc.com.
