By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS — A.L. Brown senior CJ Gray honored a long-standing verbal commitment to N.C. State University and signed with the Wolfpack’s baseball program on Wednesday.

Gray is a solid enough athlete (6-foot-2, 205 pounds, still growing) that he had Division I offers in both football and baseball.

He’s gotten a lot of baseball exposure from high-level games in high-level settings for the South Charlotte Panthers in the summer months.

As the team’s quarterback, he’ll lead coach Justin Hardin’s Wonders into their 4A playoff game at Weddington on Friday. After that, he is expected to focus all of his energy on baseball, a sport where he has an unlimited ceiling.

Gray plays shortstop for the Wonders, and he’s played all over the field for the South Charlotte Panthers, but his future will likely be on the mound because he can consistently throw 96 mph and he has the curve and slider to mix with the fastball.

A.L. Brown baseball coach Empsy Thompson is confident Gray will throw 100-plus in due time.

Officially, Gray signed with the Wolfpack as a pitcher/utility player. While his arm is the electrifying asset that stands out in his arsenal, he can also run, hit and field.

He is on top 10 lists as far as the top senior baseball players in the state and has even made some top 50 lists nationally for the Class of 2025.

You may hear his name called in the MLB Draft this summer, but whatever baseball path he chooses, college or pro, he has a good chance for success. He just has to stay healthy.

He’s a very good student, makes B’s in math and A’s in everything else. He’s a mature and articulate 17-year-old. Academics were always an asset for him in the recruiting process.

He has a lot of ties to Rowan County.

His father, Charlie Gray, was a lineman for Livingstone College’s football team and played on those powerful Blue Bear teams of the late 1990s. His mother, Donitta Michelle Gillespie, was a track and field and volleyball athlete at Salisbury High.

CJ — that’s short for Charles Junior — was playing baseball from the time he could walk, and the work he put in has paid off.

Ironically, he was raised as a UNC fan, but NC State saw him throw and offered him back in 2022. He was much smaller then, but the Wolfpack could see the potential his right arm offered. A campus visit by Gray confirmed that Raleigh would be his college destination.

Gray has heard from just about every strong college program over the last few years as his arm speed and velocity have steadily climbed — LSU, Florida, UNC, South Carolina, Virginia Tech, and so on — but his commitment to the Wolfpack never changed.