Giving up Baseball for Track

Hi. I'm currently in eighth grade and I play baseball and golf. In my first year of high school (9th grade) I will be playing golf, but, I have seen myself stuggling to keep up in baseball. For middlee school last year I was picked 21st out of 24. I don't see myself making varsity anytime son. So, should I play track instead? My dream is to attend either the Air Force or Naval Academy and become a pilot/ aviator. VMI would be my choice other than these. Ok, so, would one sport be look highly over the other?

PS: I know grades are the most important thing, and I have made that so, highest classes possible in my school, French I as well, all A's first nine weeks. If you're wondering I am taking Pre-AP Geometry. I already have two credit years of math, Algebra I and now Geometry. Sorry if I'm talking weird I just watched Forrest Gump and my brain is now wired to speak like him.

Thanks in advance!
Trey

First off, you have a long ways to go before an academy and your body and brain are going to change quite a bit before then so the fact you are "struggling to keep up in baseball" is meaningless at this point. It is good you are looking ahead as a couple of good choices now can put you in a better position in 5 years and your academic choices are very good. As far as athletics, think like the Academies think: they, ideally, want gut-busting, team, contact sports where you give your last once of strength along with a functioning team to achieve victory. It doesn't take a rocker scientist to see the correlation between a playing field and combat. If that is the case, you can see which sports are looked on with favor. Football, rugby, lacrosse, come at the top of the list. Baseball, basketball (supposedly non-contact but team sports) come next. Wrestling would come next (contact and gut busting but not a team sport). Swimming, track, (non-contact and non team but gut-busting) come next. So where does that leave golf?

No matter what sport you go out for, though, you must like it and enjoy playing it no matter whether you are good or bad at it. Otherwise you will hate it and will never be good. Additionally, the Academies look at your athletic fitness the entire year. If you are varsity football jock and spend the rest of the year playing video games after school, don't think the Academies are going to be impressed. You need to show regular participation in all kinds of athletic (not necessarily sports) endeavors the entire year whether is in team sports, club sports, fun sports (I am putting golf here), working summer jobs in construction, farm,ranch, or landscaping work. While the Academies SEEM to put an emphasis on being the captain of a team, participation by itself is equally important. I am not saying that in order to go to an Academy, that you MUST play football, etc. I am just telling you the order of the cards and you stack them however you want.

I had a young man years ago who only went out for one sport in high school and he warmed the bench a lot. He had few EAs and really seemed not too competitive except for his grades. Upon interviewing him, it became apparent that he did the job of a grown man on a family farm, year-round, ran work crews, bought and sold livestock, and trained hired hands in running heavy machinery and all the other stuff in agriculture. In his case he made up for his lack of sports both in gut-busting work and leadership on the farm. If that is not the case with a candidate, then sports are the way to demonstrate continuing athletic fitness.

+1 to Spud. Plus I wanted to emphasize something he said about year-around sports. I can see someone in 8th grade playing two spring sports perhaps, but not in high school. I expect you'll be making choices between track (spring) and golf (spring). Why not cross-country (generally fall), and then something in the spring? Maybe even fill in a winter sport. And although I agree with Spud that wrestling is not a team sport in the sense that football is (where every player on the field must execute in unison on a given play), it is in the sense that the team cannot win unless each individual gives their all and does their part. Wrestling could fill in that winter sport and it will definitely teach you about "gut wrenching effort". You'll will learn just how long is six minutes of supreme effort. Definitely good preparation.

Hmm at my school golf is a fall sport and track is spring. Thanks for the input.

Trey

PS Might give wrestling a try..

I played baseball from 3rd-8th grade, but decided to run track in high school. Best decision of my life. Ended up being team captain and an all-state sprinter (which was a big contributing factor to earning an rotc scholarship). If you're a decent runner or sprinter, track is definitely the way to go. As long as you excel in your sport, I don't think they will really care what sport(s) you played.

PS - never say you "play track". That's probably the biggest pet peeve of all track runners lol.

Hey Tiger. I am a little out of shape right now. When I have more time I will start running. I was not really interested for running, but for the field events. I want to try discus and shotput. And, as I get more athletic, I might try some running events.

Trey

Spud said:

I am not saying that in order to go to an Academy, that you MUST play football, etc. I am just telling you the order of the cards and you stack them however you want.

Click to expand...

Football...... yawn. Or you could take the pizza out of your mouth, put on your big boy pants, and play a real contact sport..... hockey.

tigers06 said:

I played baseball from 3rd-8th grade, but decided to run track in high school. Best decision of my life. Ended up being team captain and an all-state sprinter (which was a big contributing factor to earning an rotc scholarship). If you're a decent runner or sprinter, track is definitely the way to go. As long as you excel in your sport, I don't think they will really care what sport(s) you played.

PS - never say you "play track". That's probably the biggest pet peeve of all track runners lol.

Click to expand...

Unless you are a really top notch athlete likely to play an NCAA sport, VMI is not going to care what sport you are playing. What they are looking for is something that shows you are reasonably fit, understand how to work and how to persevere, how to function as a member of a team and hopefully have demonstrated some leadership characteristics. Find the sport that you like, and then do the best job you can, while successfully balancing a challenging academic load.