By Jerry DiPaola
August 2, 2018
Chris Archer and Francisco Cervelli shake hands before the game on August 1, 2018. (Christopher Horner/Tribune-Review)
Bennett Jones used to teach computer engineering at Clayton (N.C.) High School, where one of his students was Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Chris Archer.
When Jones was asked what grade he gave Archer during his senior year of 2006, the teacher never hesitated, almost as if the question had an obvious answer.
“Oh, he made an A with me,” Jones said. “Chris was a good student.”
Jones, now the school’s principal, is proud of Archer’s academic achievements, but they still are only part of what has shaped his personality over the years, he said.
Archer, who will make the first start of his Pirates career Friday at PNC Park against the St. Louis Cardinals, regularly returns to Clayton in the offseason.
Whether it’s to attend a high school football game, run a free baseball camp for about 200 Clayton kids, or hand out scholarship money, turkey dinners and Christmas gifts through his Archway Foundation, he never has forgotten his roots.
Yet, he’s still never too busy to give a call to Jones’ 11-year-old son, Carson, and ask him if he’d like to play catch.
“That’s the kind of citizen Pittsburgh got,” Jones said. “Pittsburgh got a gem. What you see now as Chris is what we saw as a 17- and 18-year-old. The same guy that walked around these halls.”
Two years ago, Clayton retired Archer’s No. 4 football jersey. Archer, the quarterback whose fastball now approaches the upper 90s, directed an option offense that did little else but run the ball. Jones thinks that’s ironic.
“We had the best strong-armed quarterback who ever went Clayton High School, and we never threw the ball,” Jones said.
One day, Jones coaxed Archer to try the high jump on the track team. It was his fourth sport after football, basketball and baseball.
“He won the conference championship,” said Jones, recalling he cleared 6 feet, 2 inches. “He didn’t know what he was doing. He was out there jumping in basketball shoes.”
Clayton baseball coach Brandon Lusk was Archer’s pitching coach in high school, and he remembers a fastball that topped 90 mph and a spin on his slider that “was just different.”
He was so good that a Clayton man once inquired about buying stock in him, his mother, Donna Archer, told sportsonearth.com.
“But it wasn’t numbers,” Lusk said of what set Archer apart from the crowd. “It was the kind of teammate he was, how he treated not just the guys on the varsity team, but the JV team as well.
“He set a great example. Not only was he the most talented player, but he was the hardest worker we had. When he’s on the mound, that’s home to him.”
Raised and legally adopted by his maternal grandparents, Ron and Donna Archer, he believes the work ethic he learned at home will serve him well in Pittsburgh.
“It’s a blue-collar city. It’s roll up your sleeves and go to work,” Chris Archer said. “That’s how I was raised.
“My dad, he worked in hardwood floors. He laid hardwood floors on his hands and knees to provide for me. That’s where I learned my work ethic.”
He told sportsonearth.com, “That’s how Dad got his bad knees.”
Archer, who will turn 30 next month, isn’t afraid of a little hard work. He threw 212, 201 1 ⁄ 3 and 201 innings for the Rays from 2015-17. He has pitched only 96 this season after missing a month with an abdominal injury.
“I try to do everything I can to be on that field,” he said. “My nutrition, I try to be very conscious of what I put in my body.”
He learned good eating habits from his junior varsity baseball coach, Ron Walker. He has told Archer to stay away from fried food and anything with butter. Once, when he was in the minors, he called Walker and casually mentioned he was eating pizza. “You’re eating what? Don’t put that in your body. Spend $30 on something healthy.”
Archer said he tries to sleep 8-10 hours a night, then he wakes up and works out.
“My life is baseball. That’s my life’s work and I try to put everything I possibly can into it,” he said.
He hopes to share that passion with his teammates and, he said, one day get 1,000 innings a season out of the five-man starting rotation.
“If you’re about it, be 100 percent about it,” he said. “Our goal is to maximize our potential, and if I can help somebody do that by suggesting they eat a little bit better and get an extra hour or two a night of sleep, I’ll be very happy.”
Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jerry at jdipaola@tribweb.com or via Twitter @JDiPaola_Trib.
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