White Sox top prospect Colson Montgomery draws from three sports as Knights standout

Colson Montgomery is on the rise.

The 6-foot-4, 225-pound shortstop is the top prospect in the White Sox organization. He also leads the Charlotte Knights in games played, home runs, RBIs and walks, as he prepares to take part in the MLB All-Star Futures game (Saturday, 4:10 p.m. ET, MLB Network) at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.

But it was just a few years ago that Montgomery’s sports path could have taken a completely different turn.

He was the star of his basketball team at Southridge High School in Huntingburg, Indiana, where he still holds the program’s scoring title. As a three-sport athlete who played quarterback for the football team as an underclassman, Montgomery was receiving Division I basketball scholarship offers as a top-tier recruit in the state of Indiana.

“Growing up in the state of Indiana, people love basketball,” Montgomery said. “That’s pretty much all you play. If there’s one sport you’re gonna play, it’s basketball. So, of course, growing up I played that all the time. Ever since I can remember, I played basketball.”

But as Montgomery started to ascend in basketball, he also started to capture the attention of Major League Baseball scouts on the diamond. Montgomery was forced to choose his career path, and with agents and scouts monitoring his progress in baseball, the answer was simple.

“They started talking about professional baseball to me when I was a sophomore in high school and once they start talking about that at that young of age, it kind of kind of turns your head a little bit,” Montgomery said.

While he still played basketball, Montgomery quit football to go “all in” on baseball.

That decision paid off, as Montgomery was selected in the first round (22nd overall) of the 2021 MLB Draft by the White Sox — straight out of high school. Just three years later, he is rated as the 16th overall prospect in Minor League Baseball.

Montgomery attributes his experience in other sports to his enhancing his athleticism.

“The biggest question everybody has on me is playing shortstop, being 6-4 and having a big frame, and I credit basketball and football for me being able to play that at a high professional level,” Montgomery said. “So, I would say the same thing to my kids if I had kids or anything like that — is play as many sports as you can, because you never know what you’re going to love the most. But then also there’s no negatives to playing that many sports.

“Football taught me how to stay tough. Sometimes you’re going to get smacked in the mouth and it’s going to hurt, but you gotta get back up for the next play. And in baseball it happens a lot. Failure happens all the time and things like that and basketball kind of just kept me athletic pretty much. You’ve got to be versatile in basketball. There’s a lot of vertical jumping, running, sprinting. So I would say that helped with being able to play shortstop as well.”

The 22-year-old points to two of his biggest influences, hall-of-famer Derek Jeter (6-3, 195 pounds) and four-time all-star Corey Seager (6-4, 215 pounds), as examples of taller shortstops who have excelled on the diamond.

Montgomery loves playing the position, and he wants to get to the big leagues in that spot.

“If you told me that I can go up there right now and play second base, I’d be a fool to say no to playing in the big leagues,” Montgomery said. “So I’m open to whatever the White Sox want me to do as long as it is whatever I can do to help the guys win and help the team win. If it’s to put me at third base or second base, whatever. I’ll do whatever it takes for the team to win, but I would like to stay a shortstop long term.”

Through 77 games this season, Montgomery is hitting .215 with a .331 on-base percentage and a .378 slugging percentage. He has hit 11 homers, knocked in 36 runs and stolen seven bases.

While those numbers aren’t eye-opening, Montgomery will get the opportunity to impress the White Sox and the rest of the league on a bigger stage during the Futures game. Still, he’s not putting a lot of pressure on himself.

“The biggest thing is having fun,” Montgomery said. “If you go 0-for-4, it’s whatever. If you go 4-for-4, you’re like, all right, whatever, you know, and things like that. But I would say the biggest thing that I’m excited for is just meeting all those guys there, too, that got picked for the highest level and things like that and you can kind of talk about their story, your stories and things like that Some people have easier rides there and some people have tougher rides.”

Montgomery’s “ride” will continue after the weekend, and he will look to further his standing within the White Sox organization, which has struggled mightily throughout the MLB season.

The last-place squad has a bit of a logjam at shortstop with Paul DeJong, Nicky Lopez and Danny Mendick all capable of manning the position. But with the MLB trade deadline approaching on July 30, it’s hard to rule anything out for Montgomery over the next few weeks.

“My biggest goal is just to take it day by day and stay as consistent as I can be,” Montgomery said. “You can’t predict the future and you can’t dwell in the past either. So I think the biggest thing that I’m going to try to do is to stay consistent, take each day, day by day and think of each day as a new day, learn from my mistakes and also learn from what I did good.”