Texas Tech University Athletics
Red Raider Profile: Kevin Whitehead
October 18, 2011 | Baseball
Whitehead threw out 14 would-be base stealers last season
Oct. 18, 2011
Red Raider Profile: Kevin Whitehead | 
Photo Gallery
The Texas Tech baseball team's fall season is underway and throughout the remainder of the semester, Texas Tech Athletics Communications will take an inside look into the Tech program with Red Raider Profiles on each player.
Kevin Whitehead (C - 6-2, 205 - L/R - Sr./3L - Tacoma, Wash./Franklin Pierce)
The Red Raiders have several familiar faces back for the 2012 season, but maybe no one on the team is as familiar with the Texas Tech baseball program as senior catcher Kevin Whitehead.
Whitehead is the only Tech position player that is a returning three-year letterman (RHP Brennan Stewart, LHP Ben Flora - also three-year lettermen) and he will enter his fourth season at Tech with 84 starts behind the plate while playing in 116 games.
Whitehead is a career .246 (72-for-293) hitter with 17 doubles, eight home runs, 41 RBI and owns 41 walks with a .361 on-base percentage.
It isn't necessarily what Whitehead does at the plate offensively that makes the biggest impact on the Red Raiders. It is what Whitehead has done behind the plate that has made him a difference maker for this Texas Tech program.
Whitehead has thrown out 32 percent of would-be base stealers in his career, including 14 last season. In fact, in 468 career chances behind the plate, Whitehead has committed only four errors.
"Kevin has had a good career, he has been a steady guy," fourth-year head coach Dan Spencer said. "We feel very good about our catching position, and a big part of that reason is because of Whitehead. He has a lot of division I games under his belt, he has caught in a lot of games and he is developing as a leader."
In addition, Whitehead is one of several Red Raiders from the northwest, an area that Spencer is very familiar with, especially after serving 10 years as an assistant and associate head coach at Oregon State. Other players from Washington include, infielder Tim Proudfoot (North Bend), infielder Stephen Hagen (Lakebay) and left-handed pitcher Rusty Shellhorn (Spokane). The lone representative from the state of Oregon is right-handed pitcher Aaron Corwin (Corvallis).
