“I put him in my hands, and I raised him to God and said. ‘Lord, I know he’s destined to be an LSU Tiger,” Dwayne Queen, the father of LSU Linebacker Patrick Queen said.
Dwayne and Patrick’s mother Mary Sue were already a full family with three daughters, but Dwayne always wanted a son. The Queen’s had to try for 10 years before Patrick’s birth, but once the linebacker arrived, his father began training him early.
“They would call me, and they would be like ‘Oh no! He’s going to kill him!’ I’d come and be like ‘That’s enough. You’re doing too much,'” Mary Sue said.
Dwayne trained Patrick in multiple sports though, and his abilities in baseball blossomed almost as much as his football skills.
“He hit the ball over the fence, and we had people walk up to us like ‘Man I never seen a kid at eight hit the ball that far over the fence.’ It was so common that people started saying ‘well he’s got to be too old.'”
The Livonia alum was the youngest member of any baseball events, and Patrick’s parents had to bring his birth certificate to every event to prove his eligibility. The dual-athlete’s skill in baseball were what his football coach, Guy Mistretta noticed first when he took over the team.
“He went through the whole lineup with me of returning starts, but then he told me, possibly the best athlete in the school was a freshman named Patrick Queen. Kind of caught me off-guard. A week later, I saw him play in baseball and said ‘wholly smokes!'” Mistretta said.
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