Kobe Stenson '24 dreams of being a professional baseball player just like his dad - the person in the world he admires most, but can't remember.
Kobe was only a year old when it happened, which is a blessing and a curse. Sadly, he can't remember the man his mom describes as humble, funny, and smart. Fortunately, he can't remember November 5, 2003 either.
Dernell Stenson was the 91st overall pick in the 1996 Major League Baseball draft. The big-hitting outfielder quickly advanced to the Triple-A affiliate in the Boston Red Sox system, but couldn't crack the major league lineup. In 2003, he signed with the Cincinnati Reds and in August of that year, he made his big league debut. Stenson hit three home runs over 37 games in the Majors that fall. One month later he was murdered.
According to his mom, Kobe always walked around the house with a small baseball bat in his hand. He would cry if it was taken away. The precocious ball player joined tee ball when he was three, but he wasn't hitting off the tee for long. Kobe developed into a prospect, like his dad, though not exactly like his dad. Kobe has a slighter build, plays a different position, and hits from the opposite side of the plate. But his swing? According to Kobe's grandfather, it's the carbon copy of Dernell's.
In late fall 2003, Dernell Stenson, just 25 years old, was playing in the Arizona Fall League with other top prospects in the game. On November 5, he was murdered outside a Phoenix suburb. Four men were arrested; two are serving life sentences. At the time, Stenson was batting .394 for the Scottsdale Scorpions, third best in the league. He had a good chance to make the Reds' opening day roster the next season. Kobe hopes to finish the professional career his dad had only started.
Kobe grew up in Syracuse, and by his junior season at Liverpool High School, he had a growling list of Division I suitors. But, Kobe blew out his knee that year, then lost his senior season to the pandemic and the scholarship offers dried up. Only two remained, Siena and Oswego. Kobe chose Siena for the coaching staff and the applied physics major (mechanical engineering track). He dreams of playing pro ball like his dad, but he's smart like his dad, too.
Kobe keeps pictures of his dad on his phone, but he doesn't carry around the hard copies. The artifacts from their brief time together are too precious, so they're kept safely at home. Still, it's not the pictures that matter most, it's the stories he's heard from his mom, and grandfather, and Dernell's former teammates. Kobe's dad was an outstanding baseball player, but he was an even better person. When Kobe says he wants to be like his dad, he's not talking about the swing they share. (Read below.)
"He’s a huge presence in my life. I definitely think about what I can do just to be like him as a person. I don’t want to be anything that wasn’t him. There's an award for sportsmanship in his honor. I want to be a person everyone likes by the way I act, just the way he acted."
Kobe Stenson '24
The Dernell Stenson Sportsmanship Award
A year after Stenson's death, the Arizona Fall League created the Dernell Stenson Sportsmanship Award to honor his memory. The award is presented annually to a player who best exemplifies unselfishness, hard work, and leadership. The manager and coaching staff from each of the six AFL teams nominate one player for the award. (Dernell, right)
"It's a huge honor, not only to be honored in the name of what a great person Dernell Stenson was, but to be in the company of the guys who won it previously means a lot to me. I think everyone is so concerned with numbers, but I think it's unappreciated sometimes, what it means to have a good work ethic."
Sam Fuld, 2007 recipient
'The Injury Didn't Scare Us'
When Kobe tore his ACL his junior season in high school, he just assumed he'd have the following year to show off his potential to college coaches. But because of the pandemic, he didn't have a senior year. And because Kobe wasn't able to prove the knee injury was no longer a concern, most coaches shied away. But not every coach.
"We've been watching Kobe since he was a 10th grader. We have had many players over the years with a similar injury who were very effective, so the injury didn't scare us. I knew that schools would shy away from him because of it, so we were happy they did. We feel he will be a contributor right away."
Tony Rossi, Siena baseball coach