Slegers attended Notre Dame Preparatory High School in Scottsdale,Arizona. He pitched for the school's baseball team,spending most of his junior year on the junior varsity team. He underwent a growth spurt between his junior and senior years,increasing from 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) to 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m),and resulting arm pain as his bones grew faster than his tendons,limiting him to only two innings pitched in his senior year. [1] He enrolled at Indiana University Bloomington,where he made the Indiana Hoosiers baseball team as a walk-on. He threw one inning before he suffered a broken wrist when hit by a line drive. The next year,he had a stress fracture in his right tibia. His injuries limited him to throwing