The first thing to know is, it's spelled "Refugio," but it's pronounced "Re-fury-oh."

It's the small Texas town of about 3,000 residents where Nolan Ryan was born in 1947. It's also the home of the 2020 National Gatorade Player of the Year, right-hander Jared Kelley of Refugio High School.

Thursday morning, Kelley was on a video call with Gatorade representatives after winning the Gatorade Player of the Year Award for Texas. Suddenly, another person joined the call -- Bryce Harper.

"I was shocked," Kelley told MLB.com. "I didn't know what was going on. I get on the call and then Bryce Harper pops up on the screen, and he wasn't talking or anything because he was having trouble with his mic. I was like, what is going on? Then when he announced I was the National Gatorade Player of the Year, I was just speechless. I didn't know what to say."

The National Gatorade Player of the Year Award is presented to the country's most elite high school athlete in each sport for his or her accomplishments on and off the field. Past winners in baseball include Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Clayton Kershaw and many others who went on to have success in the Major Leagues. The honor dates back to 1986, when Gary Sheffield won the first award, and the winners have combined for four MVP Awards and 40 All-Star appearances, and 27 of them became first-round MLB Draft picks.

It's just the latest award in a long line of them for the 18-year-old Kelley, whose 96 mph fastball and biting slider have made him MLB Pipeline's No. 12 Draft prospect this year.

Ryan was selected out of high school by the Mets in the 12th round of the first MLB Draft in 1965. Fifty-five years later, with the range of picks within which Kelley is projected to be taken on June 10, he could very well end up going 12th overall. The hard-throwing right-hander has a long way to go to even be considered in the same company with Ryan, a Hall of Fame right-hander who holds the all-time record for strikeouts, with 5,714.

But if anyone was built to make a run at the legend from Refugio, it's the kid from Refugio High School.

Ryan himself, when he was meeting with a friend of Kelley's father on his ranch a couple of years ago, asked if the man knew Kelley.

Ryan wanted to meet him.

"I got to meet [Ryan] at a winter banquet hosted by the Houston Astros," Kelley said. "He just wanted to know how everything was going, and he said he enjoyed watching me pitch and was keeping up with me."

Should Kelley's Major League career turn out the way many are projecting if he stays healthy, the Ryan connection will be poetic. That's a long way off. But what does Kelley think of it?

"I think it'd be some big shoes to fill," he said. "He was a great player. I just want to go out there and try to get better."

Kelley's favorite pitcher to watch has been another hard-throwing right-hander, one whose frame and delivery from the mound can be seen in Kelley -- Gerrit Cole.

Cole, who recently signed a nine-year, $324 million contract with the Yankees after a tremendous final season with the Astros, was a 6-foot-3, 197-pound workhorse of a pitcher coming out of Orange Lutheran High School in California back in 2008. The Yankees drafted him 28th overall, but Cole decided to go to UCLA before he was drafted by the Pirates first overall three years later.

Kelley is 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, and has verbally committed to the University of Texas at Austin as the MLB Draft approaches.

Like Cole, Kelley is a workhorse who throws a high-90s fastball with ease, and his 84-87 mph slider could become a devastating secondary offering much like Cole's is.

"Just kind of the way he attacks hitters with his fastball and trusts his stuff," Kelley said of what he admires about Cole. "And just the way he carries himself on the mound. He's just fearless."

All eyes in Refugio will be on Kelley when the MLB Draft begins on June 10. And whether he chooses to turn pro this year or opts instead to go to the University of Texas, we'll be keeping up with him, much like the Major League strikeout king has been.

That's quite a fishbowl for an 18-year-old to be in. But Kelley takes it in stride, knowing what he's out to accomplish.

"I'm not trying to do too much -- that's when things start to go wrong," he said. "I just try to stay true to myself and pitch in the way I know how to pitch. I love going out there against the best and try to show that I work hard to be the best baseball player in the country."