FMU senior Preston Shuey is one of the two baseball team captains voted on by the team to lead for the 2010 season.
“Since we have a lot of new players on our team, Coach Inabinet thought that it would be nice to vote some people to step up as leaders of the team,” Shuey said.
Shuey’s experience as a four year starter made him a great candidate for one of the captain’s positions. The team this year is relatively young, so Shuey feels that makes him a role model for his team.
“Since I was voted on as a captain, it is nice knowing that everyone looks at me as the captain,” Shuey said.
Shuey was born in Lexington, Ky. When he was about a year old, his family moved to Charlotte N.C. where he would spend the rest of his childhood. It was in Charlotte that Shuey picked up his first bat and glove.
As a young child, Shuey started tee-ball at the age of five. From a young age Shuey said that he had a passion for the game.
“Baseball was my dad’s favorite sport,” Shuey said. “He got me into it, and I have loved it ever since.”
After tee-ball, Shuey went on to play recreational baseball up until the time that he made the cut on his middle school team. After that he started to play travel baseball. Travel ball allowed him to play all over the country.
When Shuey went to high school, he played baseball for both the school and the travel ball team. His travel ball team placed second in the nation twice while he was on the team. Along with baseball in high school, he also played football and basketball.
After high school, Shuey was offered a spot on FMU’s team for as a starter.
“Francis Marion was the only place that offered me a spot on the team for a chance to play,” Shuey said. “I got overlooked by everyone else because I was so slow. FMU gave me a shot to walk on, and I have been starting ever since.”
Since Shuey has been playing at FMU, the team has won the Peach Belt Conference Tournament and placed second in the regional tournament.
Outside of baseball, Shuey said that his favorite sport to play is basketball. If he didn’t play baseball right now, he said that he would be interested in playing basketball.
Shuey’s major at FMU is finance. He is not sure what exactly he would like to do when he graduates. If he gets the choice to pursue baseball as a career, Shuey said that he would really like to do that. If that does not work, he plans on getting a job in finance and settling in with a coaching job around retirement.
Shuey’s favorite moment during his baseball career happened during sophomore season when he hit a walk off inside the park home run.
“The game was tied, and I came up to bat in the bottom of the ninth,” Shuey said. “I was the first hitter and I hit the ball over the center fielder’s head, and I scored before they could get the ball in.”
Shuey’s favorite thing about baseball is that it is a team sport.
“You can’t win a game by yourself,” Shuey said. “It really takes all nine guys to win a game. You could play the best game of your life and your team could still lose.”