Sam Crawford – Georgia Tech Baseball

“I was 4-years-old when I started playing baseball. I was inspired to play because my great-grandfather won a world series with the cardinals in 1934. He really wanted someone in our family to play baseball. Very early on I decided that if I was going to play, I wanted to be the best I could be.”

“My junior year of high school I had an elbow injury and missed the recruiting season in its entirety. When I reached out to college coaches no one would listen to me.  I remember getting a call from a coach at a Division III school who said he had a spot for me but that I’d most likely never play.”

“I showed up to Georgia Tech in the fall as a student and emailed the coach to see if I could try out. I was on the team, working out with them every day, up until two days before the first game when I was cut. The next year followed a similar pattern.”

“Though it was discouraging, I knew I wasn’t going to quit. I didn’t want to look back on my life and realize that I had the opportunity to play, but had quit a year before everything panned out. I decided to just put my head down and go to work. I adopted the mentality that there was no reason why I couldn’t be one of the best players on the team. It became about working harder and smarter to prove to the coaches that I was ready.”

“I can’t say enough about the Coaches at Georgia Tech, especially the pitching coach. He didn’t see me as a Freshman with no game experience who had been cut twice, he saw me as someone who could make an impact on the team. When I finally saw the mound, I knew I had worked harder and was more prepared than anyone else that was making their first college appearance.”

“Looking back it was absolutely the right move to cancel the season but it definitely didn’t feel like it those first few days. I was off to a decent start and we were hitting a groove as a team. As hard as this is, I hope athletes will see it as an opportunity.”

“This is your chance to elevate yourself above the competition. You may not be able to practice, or be with your teammates, but you can improve yourself, and you’ve got a lot of time to do that.”