Jayden Butler '23 Recruiting Profile

My love for baseball started when I was very young.  Sports have always been a part of my life.  I have grown up playing three sports; football, basketball, and baseball. What I have realized throughout the years is that it does not always take the most talented team to win. Most people know the saying by Tim Notke, "Hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard." This statement could not be truer. But what really creates a good player is someone who is talented and is willing to outwork anyone, and that is me.  I am constantly studying about how to be a better pitcher and welcome feedback, especially from coaches.  My baseball philosophy follows the quotation by Dan Gazaway, "You don't want to compete on the mound, you want to dominate."  My goal is to win all the little things in life which leads to winning the big things. As a pitcher I am trying to win every pitch. If I win every pitch, then I will win the at bat. Winning at bats leads to winning the inning, and winning innings leads to winning games.  I hate losing more than I like winning, but you can still learn valuable lessons from your losses.  I want to win in the classroom as well.  I strive to achieve a high GPA while taking honors and college level classes.  Taking challenging academic courses has taught me skills necessary to prepare me for my future, including being a college pitcher.   Transferring skills learned in school allows me to pick up on different tendencies of coaches, players and programs. Exploiting your opponent's weaknesses gives your whole team a better chance of succeeding.   My coaches say that I am a good leader.  I help redirect the team onto a path of success when they start to fall off the tracks.  Pushing my teammates to be the best they can be pushes me, as I do not want to let them down.  We are a family.  My teammates know how much this game and winning means to me.   I am very dedicated to being consistent.  I follow a practice-day routine and a game-day routine and inquire about our game-day plan of attack, so I can prepare both mentally and physically.  In conclusion, I am a pitcher that has a winning mentality, strong work ethic, continual drive to improve, strives to produce consistent results and is a team leader who can be counted on in any situation.  At the end of the day, I pitch to glorify God and raise His name.  I am thankful He has gotten me to this point, let's see how far we can go.