An Arkansas signee and legitimate MLB Draft prospect, Landon Schaefer is well-known in baseball circles across the country. That wasn’t the case when Mike Neighbors first laid eyes upon him, though.
No one has ever accused the self-described “basketball junkie” of being a baseball scout, but it didn’t take much expertise to recognize the Fayetteville High grad’s talent – even at just 9 years old.
That’s when Neighbors, then the women’s basketball coach at Washington, hired longtime friend Todd Schaefer – Landon’s dad – as an assistant. He was hanging out at their new home in Seattle when he got sucked into a game of wiffle ball in the backyard.