Rice Memories: Austin Davis
5/16/2020 1:30:00 PM | Baseball, Blog
"Our National Championship team communicates quite a bit!" Davis said. "We speak to each other all the time and those relationships started and became great on and off the field. For that, we are grateful. What I can say is that there are countless stories about that team. We are and were an extremely close unit because of our experiences.
I attribute much of my post-collegiate success and preparedness to my experiences at Rice as a student-athlete. As student-athletes, we were challenged at the highest levels both in the classroom and in the field of play. I maximized my efforts in both arenas and developed skills that translated into real-world adaptability. I believe strongly in education and competition and this experience allowed me to reach the pinnacle in both.
I would tell up and coming student-athletes, and I'm a dad now myself, there are a lot of ways to obtain your dream of becoming a collegiate athlete. Hard work, determination, and sacrifice top that list. One area I do not believe is talked about as much as the previous three is visualization. Starting my junior year of high school, I pictured myself wearing the Rice uniform in Omaha. If you can keep your daily thoughts focused on not just what you want to achieve, but how it is going to feel when you get there, it is hard for unnecessary thoughts or ideas to creep in. I have found that to be a successful tool.
I would be remiss to say that any of us know what the state of the world, Houston, Rice University, and Rice Baseball will look like in the wake of COVID-19. What I do know is that Owls are extremely smart, thoughtful and resilient. We will come through this together and on top. With that being said, we have made some fantastic steps toward getting back to Omaha. We had an extremely successful RBI Club campaign, even with the shortened season, which included an amazing RBI Golf Tournament and several other planned gatherings, which we will resume ASAP! As Rice Alumni, we will always be here for our school and our teams.
Finally, I would like the Rice community to know that (2003) team left every bit of what we had on the Rosenblatt diamond. What people might not understand or know is how injured we were as a team. Around five of us were game-time decisions with injuries for that final game, but there was no chance we were going to miss it. When you win a National Championship and compete against an extremely formidable opponent like Stanford, it takes contributions from the entire team. We scored 14 runs and somehow held their bats to two runs (props to Humber and Ruchti). Our bats came through and we even had a stolen base from our smartest player, Jeff Blackington! What a fun time and something I and we will never forget.
Thank you Rice and Rice Athletics. Here is to many more Rice Championships." — A.D.