Baseball | April 19, 2022

Yogi Berra once said, "Love is the most important thing in the world but baseball is pretty good too." For some people, they find their first true love is baseball and try their best never to lose that love. 
 
For 23-year-old graduate student-athlete Sean McQuillan, he was able to fall in love with baseball at four years old and play all the way through his collegiate career. He remanences on his childhood, "It was pretty traditional growing up. I played all kinds of sports; baseball, football and basketball, but baseball was always my favorite." 
 
McQuillan grew up playing baseball with his friends in his backyard which was a big reason to why he loved the sport so much. "I would play baseball in the backyard with my friends, and I enjoyed that more than any other sport." 
 
McQuillan knew he wanted to play college baseball at a young age. This aspiration to play at the colligate level pushed him to become high school baseball material. He would later attend and play baseball for Green Hill H.S. in North Carolina.
 
"I went to a pretty good high school. Basically, at our school, if you play high school baseball it's basically a guarantee you're going to play college baseball," McQuillan said. His high school being a great place for recruiting and his skill on the field and at the plate would put him on a few college recruiter's radar. 
 
Growing up in North Carolina, at some point in his childhood McQuillan had seen himself playing as a North Carolina Tar Heel, but he always kept his options open. He says, "Being from North Carolina, the big school there is UNC for baseball, and that was one of my favorites, but I never had a particular school in mind."
 
McQuillan was definitely college ball ready, but his recruitment process was different than most. He stated, "I had a really weird [recruitment] process. When I was a junior, I was getting looked at by Lindsey Charlotte [College] a lot, and then their recruiting coordinator quit, so that just kind of went away." 
 
McQuillan didn't give up hope after this first recruiting obstacle, but that wouldn't be his last run in with a recruitment oddity. "Late in my senior year, the coach from TCU saw me play and kind of offered me on the spot, but it was never really…" he finishes with a shoulder shrug. 
 
McQuillan would end up playing baseball for the University of South Carolina Aiken after coach Phil Disher would give him an offer. He also decided to play as a Pacer because his former teammate and high school friend, Mitch Spence, played for USC Aiken.
 
"I ended up coming here [USC Aiken] because a kid in the class before me, Mitch Spence - he came here and he eventually got drafted. He was really good, so when he came here and I got interest I decided this was a good place for me," McQuillan smiles and nods. 
 
Growing up in the game and knowing he always wanted to play college baseball, McQuillan had some expectations for his colligate baseball career. He says, "Colligate ball is pretty much what I expected it to be like." However, he did have to get used to the longer seasons. 
 
"I guess the biggest difference from high school baseball is the season. It was much longer than I expected. I guess it's twice as long as a high school baseball season," McQuillan says. 
 
Only having a few weeks off from baseball was something brand new to him. "May-ish you get a couple of weeks off, but that's really kind of it," he says with a grin. 
 
This is McQuillan's last year of baseball and he's playing this season as his extra year he received with COVID. After this season he will work towards his master's degree in Applied Intelligence from Georgetown University. This will be McQuillan's first time since he was four years old that he won't be playing baseball. 
 
"It's definitely weird because I've never been in this situation where I've only every thought about doing one thing," McQuillan says about leaving baseball. "This past year or two I've just been trying to figure out what's next. It's kind of exciting and new, but definitely different." 
 
McQuillan isn't sure what the future holds for him and baseball. He spent his entire life at the plate and on the field, but now he'll have to put the bat back in the bag, at least for a little while. 
 
McQuillan says, "I might get back into it [baseball]. My degree is into more data entry and analytics style which could help with baseball." 
 
So, it seems that there might be a future for the two of them to rekindle an old flame, but for now he's just focused on receiving his MBA from Georgetown University.