Dream Weaver: a look at the life of fsu baseball’s starting pitcher
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| Dream Weaver: A look at the life of FSU baseball’s starting pitcher
By Allison Beckley As young children grow up, most of them have a seemingly certain idea of what they want to be when they grow up. Ask any one of your friends or family members and they will all respond with something probably very different than what they are currently pursuing as a career: when I was a small girl I wanted to be an astronaut—funny, considering I have zero capability to do any kind of math or physics. However, sometimes kids know what they want to do, and that idea doesn’t change as they grow older. For Florida State baseball player Luke Weaver, that has been the case since he was in elementary school. Growing up in DeLand, Florida, there is not much to do. Located in north-central Florida, a drive to the beach or to Orlando’s theme parks is a mere 45-minute cruise down the highway, but it’s not the kind of thing you do every weekend. So in-between those sporadic day trips, it is not uncommon for the children in the community to turn to other activities that they could count on to stay entertained on weekends and weekdays after school. Sports typically become something that most children become involved with, and because of this, DeLand has become a sort of sports hub. In the midst of it all, Weaver began playing baseball when he was five years old. Mind you, it wasn’t “real” baseball—it was tee-ball— but regardless, he has been immersed in the world of baseball since he was barely in kindergarten. As time passed and most kids in town began trying out other sports, taking on other activities, or quitting sports altogether, Weaver recalls how he stuck with baseball: “In middle school I started doing travel ball and doing tournaments on the weekends. It went on and started to be more to my liking, and then I started to be on good teams and started winning tournaments. It just became fun and something to look forward to.” Little did he know that playing on “good teams” was something he would not just do in middle school. His freshman year began at DeLand High School-- his first year at a public school, as he went to a private school until ninth grade-- which meant a bigger spotlight. The school boasted over 3,400 students that year, a figure that far outnumbered his elementary and middle school’s. Despite the bigger audience, Weaver continued to pursue baseball and tried out for the junior varsity team. But even after playing JV for a year as a ninth-grader, then moving up to varsity level for the rest of the three years, he felt like he wasn’t giving the game all he had. “In high school it’s not too serious, and it’s more laid back. You’ve got people who are there most of the time who aren’t going to the next level so it’s just kind of for fun for them,” he said. “I didn’t have that mentality…I was trying to stay at the level everybody else is at, which kind of pulled me down a little bit. I felt like I was holding myself back. I’m not taking away from any of those guys, but I felt like I wasn’t reaching my full potential in high school. I feel like I could have done better.” Turns out that holding back didn’t hurt Weaver in the slightest. Before he was even halfway through high school, college scholarship offers began trickling in. “I went to a Bethune-Cookman [University] camp and did really well. That was the day the coach came over and offered a scholarship to me, and as a sophomore, I’m just like ‘Wow.’” Bethune-Cookman wasn’t the only school vying for Weaver’s attention early on. Stetson University, a school located in downtown DeLand with a repeat Atlantic Sun Conference champion baseball team, kept close ties with Weaver throughout high school as well. And before his senior year, Weaver could also add The University of Central Florida, The University of Florida, and Florida State University to a list of Division I schools that had all contacted him with the hopes that he would both verbally and formally commit to their school.
“I was at home and I was watching the draft on the computer because at that point, by that round, that’s what it’s on. I went outside with dad, with the computer, and put it off to the side and was playing catch with him and chatting it up. And then right when we got finished, my dad looks at the computer and my name got called,” he said. “At that point I was just upset because I thought I was going to be higher. I had a chance to be in the fifth round but it was less money and so we were just going to stick to our money roots or else I was going to college. So it would have been $200,000 than I was asking for.” The Toronto Blue Jays had drafted him in the nineteenth round. When it came down to it, Weaver went with what he had originally been planning to do: go to a good school, get a degree, and hopefully play baseball all four years. The only thing left to do was weigh the pros and cons of each school’s offer. Fortunately for him, the choice between universities wasn’t too difficult. He liked Florida State’s campus, some of his family members had attended the school, and he had always been a fan of the baseball team. So after going back on his verbal commitment to UCF, Weaver officially signed with Florida State at the end of his senior year. Like most freshman, Weaver struggled to adjust to college life and through both of the semesters tried to find a balance between leisure time, academics, baseball practice and games, as well as a social life. “It’s really hard to do, to balance things,” he said. “Your freshman year is just insane, and as an older guy you see freshmen coming in…this year, last year, and it’s the same story for everyone, they all struggle with school and get yelled at.” Weaver learned from the past and moved on, learning to balance all of his activities and also remaining a strong player on the team. His hard work paid off, and at the end of his sophomore season he was named as a player on the 2013 All-American team. He was named starting pitcher for his junior year, and continues to have more and more of an impact on the baseball field and at the school. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 10.44 Kb. Share with your friends:
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