Jeff Culpepper Earns First Team Freshman All-American honors

June 5, 2002
FansOnly.com

TUCSON, Ariz. - Gonzaga University baseball players Jeff Culpepper and Eric Dworkis were both named to the 2002 Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American Baseball team as selected by Collegiate Baseball News. Culpepper was a first-team selection while Dworkis earned honorable mention honors.

Culpepper, a redshirt freshman from Woodinville, Wash., was selected to the first team after leading the Bulldogs with a .349 batting average. Culpepper split time between right field, left field and third base for Gonzaga finished second on the team with 13 doubles and fourth on the team with 31 RBI. He becomes Gonzaga's first first-team Freshman All-American selection....

Culpepper and Dworkis now join current Bulldogs Eric Rodland, Errol Simonitsch and Eric Everson as Louisville Slugger Freshman All-Americans. Rodland was an honorable mention selection in 2000 while Simonitsch and Everson earned honorable mention accolades last season.

Jeff's father, Gary Culpepper, has provided the following additional news and links:

It was an afternoon of firsts. The first peanuts were crushed, the first sunflower seeds spit, the first fly ball was caught.

And, of course, somebody smacked the first-ever hit at Safeco Field.

Though the Mariners' new ballpark doesn't officially open for another week, Safeco was put through a test game yesterday, courtesy of local boys' summer league teams Chaffey and Seattle Arsenal. The score, 11-4 in Chaffey's favor, didn't matter. For the high school age players and their families, it was all about the memories.

Woodinville's Jeff Culpepper, the Arsenal third baseman, stepped up to the plate in the first inning without anything special on his mind. His father, though, sitting with Jeff's mother and grandparents behind home plate with camcorder in hand, pointed to the gap between short and third.

"I had two great guys hitting ahead of me, so I never expected to be the one to get the first hit," Culpepper said of his single. "It's pretty amazing."

The Culpeppers -- who cheered Jeff on with a sign that read "Culpepper Future Mariner" -- were given the ball and said they planned to put it in a plastic case for safe keeping, but only after Jeff signs it.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance for these guys," said Alea Culpepper, Jeff's mother."There were some butterflies, though. I think Jeff had trouble sleeping last night." ...

Culpepper Ancestry. Jeffrey Jacob "Jeff" Culpepper (#6972) is the son of Gary and Alea Culpepper, and the grandson of James Marvin  and Beverly Culpepper. (Sources: Beverly Hartwig Culpepper, grandmother, and Barbara Culpepper Connor, aunt.)