Kirkwood senior Griff Goodrich describes himself as a sports fanatic who watches ESPN 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
So when the 17-year-old right-handed pitcher was looking for the right school to continue his career, he had three primary factors in mind: he wanted a college with strong academics that was close to home and had successful sports teams.
"Going down the checklist, out of all my choices, Missouri felt like the only one that was a plus in all those categories," Goodrich said.
So on Tuesday he made a verbal commitment to the Tigers after also attracting interest from several schools.
Missouri's business school, proximity to Kirkwood and successful sports programs all factored into the 6-foot-4, 190-pounder's decision.
"I wanted to go to a school where all sports teams are thriving," he said. "I'm a huge sports guy. I want to see the football teams and basketball teams succeeding."
Goodrich, who said he was hitting 90-91 miles per hour with his fastball at a recent tryout in Tulsa for the Area Code Games, drew recruiting interest from Duke, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Tulane, Mississippi State, LSU, Butler and Kansas.
But the school that recruited him the hardest was the one down the road in Columbia.
"I wanted to make a decision last Friday, but I was visiting Indiana and wanted to see how that went," he said. "When I came back, I felt like Missouri was the right decision and it felt right."
Goodrich went 6-3 with a 2.10 ERA in 50 innings over nine appearances (eight starts) for the Pioneers as a junior. He struck out 69 batters, walked 22 and held opponents to a .185 batting average with just four of the 35 hits he surrendered going for extra bases.
He batted .433 (29 hits in 67 at-bats) with seven doubles, two triples, 15 RBIs, 15 runs scored and a .472 on-base percentage. He led Kirkwood in batting average, hits, RBIs, runs scored and OBP.
Goodrich was a Suburban South all-conference first-team selection as a pitcher and an outfielder.
The Kirkwood senior, who played for the Rawlings Prospects this summer, is the third St. Louis area prospect from the Class of 2012 to make a commitment to the Tigers, following Webster Groves pitcher Peter Fairbanks and Marquette outfielder Sean Ullrich.
Goodrich and Ullrich were summer teammates with the Prospects, along with Missouri freshman pitcher Brett Graves from Francis Howell.
"I've played baseball with Sean since eighth grade," Goodrich said. "It's good to have a teammate who is also going there. Also having Brett Graves on my summer team this year was huge. I talked to him a lot after Mizzou had offered me."
