On the mound, in the middle of the baseball field, Charlie Pearce ‘25 stood staring down #5 from Rocky Mountain High School on April 9. The sun shone in his eyes as he wound up.
He pitched.
The ball left his hand and landed in the umpire’s glove. #5 was out, and Pearce ran to the dugout to cheer with his team.
When Pearce started playing baseball, he was five years old. He hasn’t stopped since.
“I just kind of developed a passion for it,” Pearce said. “My dad put me in it because he was a baseball player, and over time it just became my favorite sport.”
To Pearce, baseball isn’t just a sport. It’s his passion and his life, something he’s done for as long as he can remember.
“If I didn’t have baseball or any type of sports, I don’t know what I’d be doing, Pearce said. “There’s just not much to do. Being an athlete, it’s so fun.”
Baseball has not only impacted Pearce and the way he lives, but also his relationships with his friends.
“We all play baseball. We all support each other through everything,” he said. “All my club team friends, they’re all going to play college baseball like me, so it’s pretty nice.”
Pearce plays for two teams—Monarch’s varsity team and the Slammers club team in Broomfield.
“Playing for Monarch, you can’t beat it,” Pearce said. “I don’t think I’d want to play for any other school. The coaches, they’re great.”
Pearce’s baseball career won’t end here, though. Pearce plans to further his education and continue playing baseball in college at Old Dominion University, a Division I school.
“I first heard about Old Dominion over the fall, when my teammate got an offer from them,” Pearce said. “I heard they’re a pretty good pitching school. Over this winter, my coach gave me their contact and stayed in touch with them, and I went from there.”
As a junior in high school, he finds that the process of committing to play sports in college is much more difficult than he anticipated.
“It’s a long process,” he said. “It started in the summer of my sophomore summer. There are coaches at every game, recruiting you, and then it comes to August when they can start talking to you. Then they give you their number and text you. They’ll fly you out to their school.”
But throughout this process, Pearce hasn’t forgotten what baseball truly means to him.
“I just have a passion for baseball,” he said. “I don’t think it’s ever going to go away. I think playing baseball is just a great time, especially when you’re on the mound and everybody’s behind you supporting you.”