Todd Helton’s football background helped shape Hall of Fame baseball career

Following a stellar Central High School athletic career, local product Todd Helton was doing it all at the University Tennessee. He was one of several talented players inside David Cutcliffe’s quarterback room and was the best player on the diamond for Rod Delmonico.

When sports fans of my generation think of the newly minted Hall of Famer, we think of the power-hitting first baseman in Coord Field. However, Helton arrived at Tennessee on scholarship to play football. He actually played too, appearing in 22 games with several starts. He was the Tennessee Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior with the Bobcats, after all.

But football was in the backburner for Helton and everyone knew it. His sole focus was baseball – hitting the cages or throwing a bullpen – regardless of what season was on the calendar.

“I was fortunate at the University of Tennessee,” Helton said Tuesday after the Hall of Fame announcement. “I had coach Phillip Fulmer and coach David Cutcliffe. They were baseball fans, so they let me concentrate on baseball in baseball season.

The two legendary football coaches also turned the blind eye during football season too, apparently.

“Once we went into team – I did all the individual at practice, and then we’d break for team and the kickers would run in and I’d run in with them and go down to the cage and hit and miss the second half of practice,” Helton recalled. “They never knew I was gone.”

But the lessons that were taught along the way stuck with the soon-to-be first rounder in 1995. How to be a professional. How to control your emotions. Stuff that would serve him well over an illustrious 17-year career in Denver.      

“All of our tests – all of the stuff that we had to learn from coach Cutcliffe, there was always a baseball saying in the back. For instance, one of them was ‘don’t be a dirt kicker.’ That stayed with me,” said the former Vol. “Don’t show your emotion and don’t show the other team that you’re mad. Yeah, I broke many bats and many helmets, but it was under the tunnel where no kid could see.”

The college football regular season has only 12 games. College baseball seasons boast 50+ games. In the minor leagues, prospects play 140 games and in The Show, the schedule is a grueling 162 games in the regular season.

It’s a marathon and not a sprint in baseball, but Helton channeled his focus as if he was back on the gridiron.  

“I think in football, you practice, and everything is focused on that one game. That one week. I kind of took that football mentality into baseball,” the Rockies’ great remembered. “I just let it out every game and played every game like it was my last. At least I tried to. I think football, mentality, helped me a lot in my day-to-day work. Playing baseball, and football in college too, they asked me what the hardest thing to do was, and it’s managing your time.”

Helton could have went the professional route straight out of Central High School as the San Diego Padres selected him in the second round in 1992. Instead, the Knoxville native chose to go to school and play both football and baseball.

The decision paid off.

“It was hard, and I learned what was important. I learned a lot in college,” Helton concluded. “I wasn’t ready as a high schooler to go out and play. I grew up a lot and made a lot of good friends. It was a great time in my life. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

Helton went on to be drafted eighth overall by the Colorado Rockies following an Omaha run in 1995. The ending was fitting for one of the most decorated athletes in Tennessee history.