A week before the baseball team’s season opener, coach Elliott Avent gathered the players in the dugout. He had a lot on his mind.
Avent had just watched the players scrimmage each other, and he was not happy with their performance. In fact, the coach was furious. And he let the players know with a very loud, scream-in-your-face, explicit speech.
It was hard to tell which players sparked Avent’s tirade, but freshman Russell Wilson wasn’t one of them.
“We have a long ways to go,” Avent said. “Right now, we’re not doing things that we’re going to have to do to beat the people we’re going to have to beat. Some of the things that we’re missing, he gives us. He loves to play. He’s a team guy. If [I] could have anything it would be him out here every day.”
Wilson isn’t with the baseball team every day because he can’t be in two places at once. He is a scholarship quarterback with N.C. State’s football team and a walk-on second baseman for the Wolfpack.
Right now, Wilson’s typical day starts at 4:20 a.m. He gathers all his books and heads to the Murphy Center with his roommates. He works out and eats breakfast with the football team before his first class starts at 8:05.
After his classes get out at 12:30, he grabs a bite to eat and heads to the baseball field until about 6 p.m. Then, maybe, he’ll head back to the weight room.
Somehow, he finds time for homework. And sleep.
“He is a machine,” junior shortstop Drew Martin said. “I don’t know how he does the school part. You can’t ever tell when he’s tired and when he’s not.”
And Wilson wouldn’t have it any other way. He hails from a family of athletes, and both his father and brother played two sports in college.
His father, Harrison Wilson III, played both baseball and football at Dartmouth College and was later drafted by the San Diego Chargers. Tammy Wilson, his mother, used to be a track star. His older brother played both baseball and football at the University of Richmond.
But according to Russell, the most athletic member of the family is his 10-year-old sister, Anna Wilson, who stands all of five feet tall and “plays everything.”
During his high school career, Wilson attended the Collegiate School in Richmond, Va., where he was a standout in both sports. He was selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the 41st round of the 2007 MLB draft. But because he was recruited to play both sports at State, he turned down the pros.
“I’m having fun doing it,” Wilson said. “God gave me the gift to play two sports. I’m trying to use it to the best of my ability and trying to make it work in any way I can. I’m trying to stay in shape and achieve in school at the same time. It’s going well.”
Now, according to Avent, Wilson has a legitimate shot to break the lineup. And on signing day, coach Tom O’Brien said he was a serious contender for starting quarterback.
“We liked what we saw with him,” O’Brien said. “We’re going to take a long look at him in spring practice and give him a lot of opportunities.”
To compete for the starting quarterback job, he must attend every spring practice. That is bad news for the baseball team, as Wilson will inevitably miss several games.
Wilson is aware that he may one day have to make a decision between the two. But since he has not yet played a game on either field, he said he’s in no rush.
“I really don’t know at this point,” he said. “I try to think about it every day, because what if something happens? What if I wasn’t able to play both; where would I be? When I’m on the baseball field from 2 to 6 p.m., I love doing that. When I’m running at 5 to 7:30 a.m., I love that too. Whatever it is, as long as I’m working hard, I enjoy it. I have time to play it out.”
