Brownlee inks to play for West Point
FOUNTAIN LAKE — Baseball, engineering and the Army may not seem to have much in common, but Fountain Lake senior Bryce Brownlee might disagree with that assumption.
Brownlee signed his name to a letter of intent Wednesday to play baseball at West Point in a small ceremony at Irvin J. Bass Gymnasium that had been rescheduled multiple times.
The senior pitcher said that while baseball was a significant factor in his decision to choose Army, it was not the only factor.
“I wanted to go to a good baseball program, and I knew they had a great baseball program, but mainly education,” he said. “My goal in life is to be successful, and I know many colleges had the possibilities of making that a dream. But westpoint sort of tipped it off, put it on top. So when I got to talk to them and then got the offer, it was a no-brainer. I get to go and become an engineer at one of the best engineering schools in the world and get to go serve my country, and I can’t really ask for more than that.”
Having played baseball for over a decade, Brownlee said that the journey was not an easy one.
“I was always the small kid on the field,” he said. “I wasn’t the biggest, wasn’t the strongest, wasn’t the fastest, but I worked harder than most people. I spent every day, every night getting better, working on small mechanics, making sure that it paid off. And then when I got bigger, faster and stronger, all that hard work that I put in when I was younger, when people thought it was pointless, paid off and helped me get to this point.”
Cobras head baseball coach Hayden Thornton said that Brownlee’s signing is big for the Cobras program.
“Anytime you send a kid off to go play college, it’s a big deal,” he said. “It’s good for the kids; it’s good for the school; it’s good for the program. But you start talking West Point, I mean, that’s a, that’s a big deal. He’s talking about something other than baseball. He’s talking about setting, setting up for life, and we’re super proud of him for it. it’s a it’s a major deal.”
Thornton said that with the season just getting started, he anticipates great things from Brownlee this season.
“He’s working on his arm strength, getting it back from from last year,” Thornton said. “You know, he had a little operation on the shoulder, but, you know, we’re expecting big things from whenever he gets back, which he will. He will. We don’t know what that role is gonna look like yet, but we definitely
need him. We count on him, and he knows that, and he’s ready … to get back out there.”
Brownlee said that he will be seeing time on the mound while at West Point, and he has several strong pitches that he relies on and is averaging around 90 mph on his fastball with a 93 max.
One thing he will miss when he gets to New York is his friends.
“They’re more like family, especially the more I’ve gotten to know them,” he said. “I’ll miss the school, too, but I’m ready for my next stage in life. But my friends probably is — they’re there when I need them, there to have fun, there to make me laugh. I’m probably gonna miss my friends the most.”