School: Cheltenham
Baseball
Favorite athlete: Dustin Pedroia/Tim Lincecum
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Going to Disney World with the high school team three times”
Funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: “A couple of years ago when our assistant coach got kicked out of a game, he was told by the umpire he could watch the rest of the game on the bus. He then went over, climbed on top of the bus and watched the rest of the game.”
Music on iPod: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Led Zeppelin, Santanta
Future plans: “Play college baseball, get a degree in communications, become a sports talk radio host”
Words to live by: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
One goal before turning 30: “Start a family”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I have been told I am a talented singer.”
Jordan Hofferman is a fearless competitor.
As a sophomore, he was handed the ball to start Cheltenham’s biggest game of the season against a then undefeated Quakertown squad. Hofferman made an unusual request of his coach prior to taking the mound.
“Before the game, he said to me, ‘Coach, there’s no way I’m going to throw my fastball by these guys,’” coach Frank Decembrino recalled. “They had a lot of college talent, and he said, ‘I want to pitch them backwards.’
“As a coach, that’s a scary thing because high school kids usually can’t throw three pitches for strikes. I said, ‘What do we have to lose?’ He did that. He pitched them backwards and beat them.”
Hofferman – pressed into an emergency starter’s role because of an injury to Brian Wilde - outdueled Panther mound ace Matt Frei, leading the Panthers to a 4-3 win.
“The only way you can beat a team like that is if you show them something they haven’t seen before,” Hofferman said. “I figured they hadn’t seen a guy throwing curveballs and sliders first pitch and then trying to get them out on a fastball.
“I worked on it in my bullpen sessions, and then I was lucky enough to be able to use it in a game situation.”
Later that season, Hofferman was the winning pitcher in a 6-4 win over the Panthers, and Decembrino knew he’d inherited a special talent.
“Because he won those games, we went to the playoffs,” the Panthers’ coach said. “The thing he needed to realize early on and what makes him so good now is because of the style of pitcher he was – I kind of compare him to (Phillies pitcher) Jamie Moyer a little bit because Jamie Moyer isn’t going to throw the ball past you, but what they do is they know how to pitch.
“Jordan’s whole game is keeping people off balance, making them pop up, making them hit ground balls. I know when he starts he’s going to give a good effort.”
There are days, according to Decembrino, when the ball doesn’t break like it should, and Hofferman will get hit.
“He understands that’s part of the game,” the Panthers’ coach said. “Before, he used to get very upset about that and beat himself up.
“I told him, ‘The best pitchers in the world get hit sometimes. You just have to take it for what it is and know it’s not your day.’ That was a huge growing lesson for him.”
Hofferman didn’t get hit hard very often this spring, compiling a a 5-2 record with a 3.19 earned run average. In 52.2 innings, he struck out 49 and walked 22.
Pitching is just part of Hofferman’s game. When he wasn’t on the mound, Hofferman played third base or another infield position. His batting average was a dazzling .464 with 13 RBIs.
He has signed a letter of intent to accept a baseball scholarship to play at Chestnut Hill College.
“I just really like the environment there, and I thought it was a place I would definitely be able to succeed athletically and academically,” Hofferman said. “I got a good vibe from the coaches and the players.”
He was recruited as a pitcher but will be given the opportunity see time on the infield as well.
“I’d love the opportunity to do both,” Hofferman said. “I’d hate to give up either.
“I know a lot of people have to make that decision at the college level, but if there’s any way I would be able to be given the opportunity to do both, I think I could succeed.”
It’s a happy ending no one could have projected when – after trying t-ball when he was five or six – Hofferman opted to give up the sport.
“I was pretty bad,” he said. “I wasn’t really into it.”
Several years later, Hofferman was back on the baseball diamond.
“I think the biggest thing I can credit it to is around that period of time I became a big Phillies fan,” he said of his return to baseball. “I was really watching them, and that made me want to go back and do it again.”
This time, Hofferman’s experience was decidedly different as he not only experienced success, his teams did as well.
“I started playing AAU, travel showcase teams and that kind of thing,” he said.
Hofferman found a home on the mound, and although he insists he didn’t have a strong arm, Hofferman quickly became one of the best pitchers in the township.
“That’s what really made me want to stick with it,” he said. “As I got older, I put on more velocity, and I had a little bit of a growth spurt, and I started becoming a better, more experienced player overall.”
Hofferman also dabbled in basketball, but his two sports of choice have always been baseball and tennis. When it came time to choose, baseball was a clear-cut winner. The summer after eighth grade, Hofferman played for the Jenkintown Whiz Kids travel team, which traveled up and down the East Coast competing in major tournaments.
“Out of the 10 or 11 regulars on that team, every single one is going on to play college baseball,” Hofferman said. “We had a successful program, and I can credit the coach, Bill Angeloni, for really lighting the fire under me as far as wanting to play at the next level and doing what it took to become that kind of player.”
Midway through his freshman season, Hofferman was called up to the varsity.
“Going from eighth grade to facing 18-year-old varsity players who were going into college baseball – it was pretty eye-opening,” he said. “It was a big jump. The speed of the game changed a lot.
“You couldn’t get away with as much. I went from becoming a hard power pitcher in middle school to having to nibble my way around and making myself a different pitcher in order to succeed early on.”
Hofferman, according to Decembrino, has not only elevated his game, he has improved his temperament on the mound.
“Early on, I was a hothead,” Hofferman said. “When I was younger and things didn’t go my way, I got so frustrated because the most important thing to me in anything is winning. It’s almost like a bad disease, and I basically had to channel that into something positive.
“Whenever something doesn’t go my way, I try and think of a time where I have succeeded or think of a time when I have rebounded from a bad situation and just focus all my energy and everything towards making that happen again.”
Decembrino admits there has been a dramatic change.
“I always tell Jordan that I’m going to miss my mound visits with him,” the Panthers’ coach said. “He’s intense in everything he does. The kids always joke around that he sleeps intense.
“He’s turned that into a positive. He matured, and he’s now a young man who knows how to control it. He thinks he’s just as good as anybody, and that’s his best thing. He’ll challenge the best kids, the biggest names.”
Hofferman believes he still has a long way to go to realize his full potential.
“I have been told I still have anywhere from 8-10 MPH left in my arm,” he said. “Hopefully, in college I will be able to tap into that and start becoming a more well-rounded pitcher,” he said.
Decembrino hopes Hofferman will have a chance to try his hand as a field player as well.
“The weird thing about Jordan was I thought he was going to be a pitcher, but as he progressed through high school, he’s become a better position player in the infield,” the Panthers’ coach said. “He’s got good hands, good instincts.
The thing about Jordan is he swings very aggressively, and his talent is he’s able to hit the ball square with a very aggressive swing, which a lot of people can’t so, so he’s very much under control body-wise when he swings.”
Hofferman, who plans to major in communications, is a point of pride to the Cheltenham baseball program.
“I tell people all the time – it’s a championship for coaches when your players go on, especially the avenue of a scholarship because it’s so rare in our sport,” Decembrino said. “For me, I couldn’t be happier for the kid.
“It really is like winning a championship. I can’t really explain it any other way. I talk about him, brag about him like he’s a family member. He deserves it.”
