With high school athletes getting the chance to put pen to paper on their National Letter of Intent to play the sport they love at the next level, Brunswick’s Elijah Wellman will do so with the Samford University baseball program.
Signing on the dotted line to join the division one program based in Homewood, Alabama, Wellman spoke on when the reality came to him that he could play at the next level.
“Playing college baseball became a real reality when I came to high school,” Wellman said. “When my brother (Isaiah) was playing, he was striving for the same goal and he achieved the same goal. He is playing at Flagler College right now. I saw him go through the process, and I knew I had it in my mind that I had to do it too. The reality kicked in that I could get to the higher level was about two summers ago when schools started to talk to me. I had a few schools that were talking to me, and it went from there.
“We had a couple of visits that fall of junior year and Samford talked to me and I got to go up there and sometimes with some of the schools you think maybe, maybe not. But, then you go, and it’s eye-opening, and the whole experience that made me really want to go there. I wanted to pursue it there because I’m a big believer in Jesus Christ and they are a Christian Baptist-based school, and their coaches were moving so much for me to try and get there. I knew that if they were going to do that and I wasn’t even there just wait until I get there and what they would do for me once I’m a part of the team. It was really great.”
Being a super utility player for the Pirates, Wellman said Samford has talked to him about being a pitcher at the next level and it’s something he is all for.
“I get to control the game,” Wellman said of being a pitcher. “The ball is my hand and the game goes how I go. I get to control it.”
Happy to have his college decision out of the way before stepping on the diamond for his final season as a Pirate, Wellman said the feeling now is to just go out and play the game he has grown up loving.
“It really is just like some weight taken off of your shoulder,” Wellman said. “You can just go out and play and not worry about what my percentage is like, how many strikes am I throwing, and how hard I’m throwing. You just go out and play, just have fun with it.”
As the season goal is to win the Region 2-6A region championship, Wellman will be doing so against a future teammate of his in Glynn Academy’s shortstop Gus Gandy.
“We didn’t really talk about it, it was just how it aligned,” Wellman said of the two becoming future teammates. “We didn’t really talk about what schools we were talking to. We kind of kept that apart from each other but once I figured out they were talking to me and I committed first, the coaches were trying to get me to egg him on to try and get him. Once I figured out he was talking to them and they were heavily on him, then I began to talk to him and got really excited.”