RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
After his 11-year career as a wide receiver in the NFL ended in 2011, TJ Houshmandzadeh channeled his passion for competition into softball when his daughters, Karrington–now a freshman at LSU–and Kennedi, showed serious interest in playing at an elite level.
The former Pro Bowl player and current Fox Sports analyst has become a highly successful club coach within the Firecrackers organization and his Firecrackers-TJ 16U team is loaded with talent and includes players going to top Power 5 programs such as Michigan, Missouri, Notre Dame, UCLA and LSU, the latter being Kennedi who will join her older sister in Beth Torina’s program in the fall of 2020.
As we continue our extensive look at elite 2020 grads leading up towards our Labor Day launch of the Extra Elite 100 (and beyond) for the current junior class, we learn more about Kennedi, who has picked up the family’s athleticism and according to her coach/father has seen “her offensive game catch up to her defensive prowess.”
Here’s a closer look…
NAME: KENNEDI HOUSHMANDZADEH
Hometown/ST: Cerritos, California
Grad Year: 2020
Position(s): Shortstop
Club Team: Firecrackers TJ
High School (City/ST): Los Alamitos (California) High
GPA: 4.0
Top Academic Honors: Math Olympics three-time champion, Scholar-Athlete award, 4.0 Honor Roll
College: LSU
When Committed? December 2016 (freshman year)
Height: 5-foot-5
Key Club Stat: led the Firecrackers-TJ team with nine home runs this summer
Other Universities Considered: Auburn, UCLA, Stanford
Preferred College Major: leaning towards Kinesiology