Alex Degen '18 Recruiting Profile

The motto that I have lived by in my athletic and academic life since the day I came into this world has been nothing worth having ever comes easy. When I first started playing baseball as a young athlete, I didn't know the first thing about hard work. Your parents drove you to the field, you played, had fun, and left. And you just kind of went through the motions everyday. Not really worried about if you're doing it right or if it's gonna make you any better. As I continue to get older and older, I am continuously beginning to see the game much more differently. If you don't put any work into the game, the game's not gonna give you anything back. Maybe when you're 7 and 8 years old you can get away with simply just raw talent, but hard work beats talent every day if talent doesn't work hard. Coming off an NJSIAA Group 4 State Championship last baseball season, I can now truly see the value of hard work and how the game will give back to those who put the work into the game. If the game of baseball has given me one thing in the many years I have played it, it has given me the chance to make myself a better person every day. I can go to bed every night knowing I will wake up a better person and wake up every morning thinking about how I will make myself even better than yesterday. A day without improvement is a day poorly spent and every day you waste is another day that your competition is slowly passing you by. I believe that I will be a good fit for your program because I will not settle for mediocre and will under no circumstances allow others to surpass me in my work ethic, neither academically nor athletically. There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to doing something, you accept no excuses; only results.