While other youngsters were on swing sets and playground slides, Brandon Turner was on a baseball field.
Life with veteran high school baseball coach Mike Turner kept him around baseball and eventually launched a career that included a stop at college baseball power Mississippi State, an eighth-round selection by the Florida Marlins in the Major League baseball draft, a couple of years in the pros and a half-dozen years in college coaching.
His youth now has led the younger Turner into establishing a year-round baseball facility to be known as Turner Baseball Academy.
“It actually came about because I think there is a need for it in the Chattanooga area,” he said. “Being from this area, it obviously means a lot to me.”
Turner, who was always around when his dad was coaching at Charleston, wound up playing for Mike at Walker Valley and went from there to Mississippi State where he earned All-America honors and played in a college world series.