Glenwood's three-sport star Appenzeller bucks trend when it comes to sports' specialization

He has a 2-handicap as a golfer, and he’s only 17. On a basketball court, he can bring the crowd to its feet with one of his left-handed slam dunks. On a pitching mound, he can make batter's knees buckle with one of his frequent lefty “slurves.” In this age of high-school sports specialization, where kids are advised to pick just one sport to focus on for a possible future, Cameron Appenzeller is bucking the trend at Chatham Glenwood High School.

He's the star of the Titans’ golf team that won the Central State Eight Conference title last fall, he’s the leading scorer of a Titans basketball team currently having a rebound year under new/old coach Todd Blakeman, and come springtime, he figures to be the ace of the Titans’ pitching staff. Not bad for a kid who is still only a junior.

Talk about a bright future: despite the fact he won’t graduate Glenwood until 2025, Appenzeller already is verbally committed to play baseball at the University of South Carolina. At 6-foot-5, 175 pounds, he has hit 88 mph on the radar gun, and by the time he fills out to a desired 220 or so, Appenzeller hopes to regularly throw in the mid-90s.

While he’s got the talent to play collegiately at those other two sports, baseball is Appenzeller’s first love and where he hopes to take his talents as far as they’ll take him.

“I think baseball is probably what I’m best at, so, yeah, I probably think about that more than the other two sports,” Appenzeller said. “But if I’m on the golf course or a basketball court, I mean, I’m as into it as much as I ever am in baseball.”

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With Titans’ star pitcher Parker Detmers now at Louisville on a baseball scholarship, Appenzeller has his chance to be the ace next spring. Ironically, he found out on a golf course that his future would be in baseball.

“I was in the middle of a round, and I got a text from South Carolina with the offer. It was a pretty amazing moment,” Appenzeller said. “My mom (Lisa) cried. I’ve never seen my dad (Kyle) cry, but he came pretty close I think.”

On the basketball court, Appenzeller is listed as a guard. But with his height, he can often be found down low grabbing rebounds and blocking shots. He has very good dribbling skills and seems to prefer mid-range jumpers or scoring off the fastbreak, and he can leap. In a game against Sacred Heart-Griffin last month, Appenzeller salted away a win over the Cyclones with a thunderous dunk.

“I’m gonna tell you, he’s got the tools,” Titans basketball coach Blakeman said. “His skill set is really high. We’re still pushing him up that hill, where it’s consistent. I call it the ‘varsity hill’. We’re still trying to get up that hill. Most of them are still climbing it. It’s hard to tell them; they just have to go through it. It’s consistency, from the beginning to the end of practice and then we kind of lose sight of it and that’s kind of where he’s at. It’s pushing him up that hill, so we gotta get him up and over so he knows what’s going on.”

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On a basketball court, Appenzeller plays with an edge. He’s been known to talk a little trash to the opposition and get in guys’ faces. Against the Cyclones, he went out of his way to give an opponent a pretty hard shoulder block, then stared him down some.

“I’m more like that in basketball than the other sports for some reason. I just get more into it that way,” said Appenzeller, whom many teammates call “Capps.” “I’m not like that off the court.”

When he doesn’t have a golf club, basketball or baseball in his hands, Appenzeller likes to listen to NBA YoungBoy and mostly just chill with his friends, eating pizza and playing Madden NFL.

A Chatham native and lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan, Appenzeller has the luxury of having a year and a half of his high-school days still left, yet already knowing where he’ll be in the fall of 2025.

“I’m lucky, and I just want to say thank you to everybody, my parents, my coaches, for making this possible,” he said.

Adrian Dater is a freelance writer for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached through the sports department at sports@sj-r.com.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Boys basketball: Glenwood's Appenzeller can throw it down in basketball, knock it in in golf and throw it hard in baseball