Sports360AZ
If you think teenagers aren’t busy outside of their studies, think again.
Take Tyler Wyatt for instance, a 16 year old sophomore at Liberty High School.
Wyatt’s a two-position player on the Lions baseball team. He’s one of the starting pitchers (and a very good one at that), and he’s also the starting shortstop (he’s also very good at that too).
It doesn’t stop there. Wyatt will also be the Lions starting quarterback come this fall, taking the place of Tyler Rogers, who graduated and moved on to the Air Force Academy.
Even at such a young age, Wyatt sees himself as a leader on his teams, and he doesn’t take it lightly, because he’s noticed how the added athletic responsibilities has translated over to his personal life.
“It helps me with everything,” Wyatt said. “It helps me with being a leader in the community, it helps me with being really respectful at home, it helps me with being a leader in the classroom.”
“Just kind of being a captain everywhere I go,” Wyatt said.
Wyatt and the Lions are on a roll right now. The baseball team is currently undefeated, and Wyatt’s had a lot to do with their success.
Right now, Wyatt is hitting .556, with 9 doubles, three home runs and 25 RBI.
His pitching numbers are just as stellar. He’s 4-0, with a 0.81 ERA. Wyatt’s given up just three earned runs in 26 innings.
He says it’s all about putting in the extra work.
“The work ethic, you pretty much gotta go for it,” Wyatt said. “You gotta play every practice like you’re playing a game, and you gotta take every game situation in practice like 100-percent full speed.”
“In the classroom, it’s the same thing,” Wyatt said. “You have to work, you have to do your homework, you have to study a lot, you have to do everything just like you would do it on a field.”
Being a two-sport athlete and trying to maintain a solid GPA and finding time to be a kid and enjoy life isn’t an easy thing to try and balance out, as Wyatt can attest to.
“It’s difficult, because you go here, you go like 2 1/2 to 3 hours of practice and you have to go home and do 2 1/2 hours of homework,” Wyatt said. “Being a student athlete is one of the hardest things to do, and you just gotta juggle it and you gotta get through it.”
Wyatt has some big shoes to fill come this fall, as he’ll try his best to maintain that level of solid quarterbacking that Rogers was known for when he was under center in Peoria, Ariz., for the Lions.
“I learned a lot from him, I learned a lot from our coaches,” Wyatt said. “He’s a great kid, great athlete, great quarterback and I just want to take everything where he took it last year, maybe even further.”
Wyatt seems like a young man that is wise well beyond his years. He says he’s played quarterback ever since he was physically able to throw one. He says he’s played practically every position on a baseball field, and at some point, the game just slows down for him and he sees it in a different light.
“It just starts to flow,” Wyatt said. “You understand what’s going on, you understand what’s going through the positions and everything, and you just kind of lose thought of it, you don’t think about it anymore, you just go and do it.”
