CLEMSON – After a long, grueling day of cutting out shapes and learning the alphabet, most pre-school aged children unwind with cartoons, a nap, and a well-deserved peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After all, mastering addition and subtraction requires some downtime.
But four-year-old Jacob Jarrell was never one for post-school rest.
Instead, Clemson’s now-senior catcher spent his preschool afternoons listening to the ding of softball bats and breathing in the smell of freshly shorn spring grass while his mom ran practices five hours east of Upstate South Carolina.
The Florence, S.C., native’s mother, Melissa Jarrell, served as the head softball coach at UNC Wilmington from 2002-08 and as a result, extracurricular time in Jarrell’s younger years was spent at UNCW’s Boseman Field.