Cole Hurst is in line to be a four-year starter for the Republic Tigers baseball team, but it didn’t start out that way.
“He didnt start at the first of (his freshman) year, but…he was very aggressive and hard-working,” says coach Howard Quigley, who says Hurst’s success is a lesson for other students.
“Making your own breaks by being aggressive and working hard. That’s kind of how your success will be determined for the rest of your life, for that matter. No matter what you choose to do, whether it’s sports or something along the business line, a lot of it will be based on your personality,” Quigley says.
That personality has earned Hurst a spot on the baseball roster at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, near Hannibal, Missouri. Hurst has signed a letter of intent to play baseball there, starting next year.
“It’s always been a dream growing up, that was the thing, to play college baseball. That’s the thing I’ve always wanted to do,” Hurst says.
He’ll be playing for a coaching staff with lots of experience. Head coach Kevin Kocks joined Culver-Stockton in 2011, but has been a head coach at the college level for 18 years, and has been coaching for 30. That experience was a factor in Hurst’s choice of colleges, but so was the atmosphere at Culver-Stockton.
“The biggest thing that sold me is that it’s a smaller private college. I like that,” Hurst says. “It’s about the same size of our high school, and I like that a lot.”
Hurst says his four years at Republic helped shape him into a player who’s mentally ready to succeed at the college level.
“The biggest problem I had was hard-headed. A lot of kids who work hard or are aggressive are also hard-headed,” he says. “Baseball’s a game of failure, and if I messed up, it would make me do worse. The biggest part I had to do was grow up a little bit. I’ve definitely grown up as a player mentally and physically.”
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