To Kavan Thompson, walking off the field with a clean jersey means letting the team down.
“I try to dive as many times as I can,” said Thompson, senior biology major and member of the baseball team.
Before coming to NSU, Thompson’s baseball career was split in two locations—with a two-year baseball career at Merritt Island High School followed by another two years of ball at Melbourne Central Catholic High School. In high school, he was named class 3A, District 5 Player of the Year and was selected to the All-Cape Coast First Team.
Thompson recently got the chance to volunteer in NSU’s prospect camp, where he reminisced about his time at the camp before becoming a shark. Thompson, along with nine other Sharks on the baseball team’s roster, has been to an NSU camp.
“I was very grateful for the opportunity, so I always like to go and help out when I can, and let those kids know that it is possible,” said Thompson. “I showed incoming students what NSU was all about.”
At NSU, Thompson represents his team as the third baseman. Thompson hit his first homerun as a Shark in a 18-2 win over Albany State University and his second home run in a 7-6 victory over University of Tampa.
“When I hit the home run, my mom ended up getting the ball because they didn’t know if I was going to hit another one,” said Thompson.
To Thompson, playing baseball means taking pride in sprinting on and off the field and never having regrets about his performance.
“I go in there with the mentality of hitting the ball back at the pitcher every time,” said Thompson.
So, are you really a biology major?
“Yeah, there are no other bio majors on the team. I talked to Coach Cruz about it, and he said not a lot of people do it. I decided to do it in the end, and my GPA isn’t as high as everyone else’s, but I sacrifice social time for it because I take harder classes.”
What are you planning to do with a biology degree?
“At first, I was planning to go to med school, but I ended up changing that plan. I want to get a master’s in something business-related and do something with medical sales. So I’d have a little of the bio background and the business side from the master’s degree.”
The team had a lot of accomplishments year, aside from winning the conference championship, what was the best part of the season?
“The best moment of the season was Teft hitting two home runs. He worked his butt off, and it was great seeing him succeed. We were all so proud of him.”
How meaningful was winning the conference championship?
“It’s pretty awesome to think that there were some pretty good teams in the conference, but we were better than them.”
How cool is it to see guys who played on this team having so much success, like J.D. Martinez’s no- hitter?
“This just shows me that it doesn’t matter where you go; what matters is what kind of player you are. They have the competitive nature inside of them. It’s just a game, and they’re really good at it. As long as they keep having success, it’s a good route for them.”
What’s going to be your Halloween practice costume this year without West to team up with?
“I don’t know. I think we’re going to do Super Mario Kart characters. Something like that, or be a Pokémon or something.”
Tell me about your experience playing in the regionals, even though we didn’t get the result that we wanted.
“That was my first time going. We had a little wind factor, and the field was pretty big, so the game wasn’t in our favor. The experience will definitely make us all want to get there again, but I don’t think it’ll make us any less anxious. In the end, it was still baseball, so that was fun.”
Last year’s team slogan was “37 hearts, one beat,” what did it mean to you?
“It was awesome because we’re 37 on the team and Teft was number 37, and he was kind of the glue that held everyone together.”
Photo Credit: COURTESY OF M. GALLNER
