By Jessica Stopper
Born to a pair of college athletes, Kellen Strahm was destined for a future in athletics.
Both of San Jose State’s starting center fielder’s parents were student-athletes at the University of Oregon.
His father, Curt, was an All-American wrestler for the university and his mother, Kim,was a softball player who was inducted to Oregon’s sports hall of fame, in the same class as Nike founder Phil Knight.
“Growing up with two parents that were athletes is pretty special,” Strahm said. “You don’t really know a lot of people that have two amazing parents that played a sport in college.”
Strahm was born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, but was not pushed by his parents to play sports — something he values to this day. Instead, they simply encouraged him to go outside and enjoy the outdoors, supporting whatever activities he chose to do.
At the age of five, Strahm was already playing baseball, basketball and football. But out of the three sports, baseball was his main hobby and ultimate love.
“I just fell in love with baseball,” Strahm said. “I picked up a baseball before a football and fell in love with it, but I can’t say I hate football.”
During high school, Strahm played football alongside baseball.
“Football was a close first love, but I came out of high school with no scholarship offers or any looks for walk ons,” Strahm said.
During his senior football season in 2015, Strahm tore his ACL during an all-star game. During a run, Strahm had the ball in hand, turned the corner and got hit low.
“I wasn’t in a good state of mind then,” Strahm said. “It was hard not playing a sport when I grew up playing all the sports.”
Strahm did not let the injury affect his future in athletics. ‘
The down time was unusual for someone who had played sports year-round the majority of his life.
“A lot of people said I couldn’t come back from a serious injury” Strahm said.
The unconditional support of his family pushed Strahm to persevere through the darkest time of his life.
“It’s been a year and a half and I feel better than ever,” Strahm said. “It feels good.”
Strahm had ties within the SJSU baseball family before he became a member of the Spartans.
SJSU’s assistant coach, Dean Stiles, is a close friend to the Strahm family. Stiles’ son and Strahm’s older brother grew up playing sports together in Eugene.
“I came here knowing no one,” Strahm said. “It was pretty cool coming here at least knowing one person, especially the coach.”
Strahm also had a connection to new head coach Jason Hawkins, who was familiar with one of the outfielder’s former coaches.
According to Strahm, his biggest accomplishment so far is having a starting position on the university baseball team, the only freshman of the starting squad.
“I think I proved myself but it’s not over yet,” Strahm said. “I still gotta grow as a person and player and keep getting better.”
Strahm is hitting .310 and leads not just the team, but the conference in stolen bases.
Through his next few years at SJSU, Strahm will strive to help bring the team a Mountain West title and have the opportunity to play in a Super Regional.
College baseball however is not the end to Strahms dream.
“My parents always told me to get a degree first and I think that’s the most important thing,” Strahm said. “I would love to play after college.”
