Men's Cross Country | April 07, 2022

Sometimes life plays out in funny, weird ways. Some say it's easier to just roll with the punches, and some try to punch back. Those curve balls you're thrown in life might be best to leave for a foul, but sometimes taking a swing at them can bring great opportunity.
 
Sophomore David Witt experienced one of those curve-balls his sophomore year of high school. He grew playing baseball and fell in love with the sport. His father had been a baseball player in college which left Witt with an aspiration to one day play baseball for a college team. 
 
Soon after Witt earned a spot on his high school's baseball team – Fox Creek High School – he realized it was much different than he had imagined and didn't feel that he was quite cut out to play college baseball. "Going from rec [recreational] league to high school is a whole different thing," Witt recalled.
 
After playing baseball his entire life, Witt felt like he had to give up on his dream of playing college ball. This didn't stop him from trying something new, though. "When we were doing our runs in baseball, I was beating everybody," Witt says with a grin, "I thought I should go out for track and cross-country."
 
Witt had gone into his junior year of high school with his mind made up that he would run for Fox Creek H.S. He had no expectation to be good or to be recruited to any college teams, but he tried this new sport out anyway. 
 
"I was terrible my junior year, and then I went into my senior year and broke the school record. I started getting recruited from several different colleges," Witt said. Witt started his college career off at Truett McConnell University, but after speaking with the University of South Carolina Aiken's cross-country coach at the time – Lauren Etheridge – he made the decision to run as a Pacer. 
 
Witt was surprised about his offer to run on the colligate level. He said, "To be honest, I didn't think I was good enough, but when I broke the school [Fox Creek H.S.] record running eighteens they [college recruits] said, 'you're definitely college material' and I was like 'well okay, let's go for it then.'"
 
Witt left high school not really sure what he wanted to do in the future regarding any sport. He thought it was great that he was recruited, but a college sport hadn't been on his radar since he ended baseball. Witt was comfortable letting whatever was going to happen, happen. "I just let everything happen the way it was going to happen and everything fell into place."
 
Witt says, "My favorite thing about running cross-country is going to different meets. You get to run different courses. Not every course is the same, so you're going to have more hills and obstacles." It's kind of ironic that his favorite thing about his sport is the obstacles when life has handed him so many to get to where he is now. 
 
Witt now runs both cross-country recently ran in a track meet. He runs track more so to stay in shape for cross-country, but he seems to be excelling in this sport as well. Discussing his feelings about track, Witt says, "It's different [track]. I've never done track. We had our first track meet about two weeks ago. I ran a 1500 and ran a 4:48 in it." 
 
Witt chose the University of South Carolina Aiken to run his colligate races for not only because he would be closer to home, but he also wanted to join the exercise sports science program USC Aiken had to offer. He hopes to one day do something with athletes as he grew up an athlete and feels that he would be able to work well in that field. 
 
After growing up as an athlete, being able to run at the colligate level, and dealing with a diagnoses of plantar fasciitis he sees himself being able to work well with athletes in the future as a sports business owner or physical therapist one day.