Ready for the Curve

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By Laura Thill

Ready for the Curve One rep’s drive lands him a spot in professional baseball.

J

oining the Boston Red Sox was perhaps the toughest decision Andy Priola ever made – and the toughest job he ever tackled. Still, it was his dream to play professional ball, and he knew in his heart this was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

“I’m a pretty driven individual, and [growing up], playing sports was all I wanted to do,” he says. Indeed, he was recruited by several colleges to play football, and by several others to play baseball. And, once he agreed to pitch for Birmingham Southern College’s baseball team, he knew he was committed to one day becoming a professional player. And the experience prepared him well for his new career as a sales rep for Atlanta Dental.

Andy Priola and family.

As fate would have it, Birmingham Southern College switched from the NAIA division to the NCAA Division I, which meant the team would be ineligible for play Priola’s senior year. He transferred to Faulkner University, and in June, 2002 – barely a month after graduation, he was drafted by the Boston Red Sox. “A lot of teams had contacted me [about playing baseball] and, ironically, before the draft, no one from the Red Sox had called. But, when the draft rolls around, any team can draft you. Once they had my rights, that’s where I had to go.”

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rep corner But much had transpired in the last year, making his decision to move to Boston a difficult one. First, his summer school classes and hard work enabled him to graduate after his junior year of college, leaving him eligible to play one more year of college baseball. Even more importantly, while at Faulkner, Priola met his wife-to-be, April, and the two married soon afterward. At this point, April was committed to her pharmacy graduate program at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. Joining the Red Sox – or more specifically, their minor league team, the Lowell Spinners – meant living an hour outside of Boston. “So joining the Boston Red Sox was one of my biggest decisions,” he says. “It was tough to leave a new bride 1,200 miles away.”

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Indeed, pitching calls for more strategizing than the other positions in baseball. With each pitch, the pitchers must consider everything from which player on the opposing team is up to bat; which players are on base, and how fast do they run; the game score; and what are the weather and wind conditions. When he began pitching in college, Priola pitched in the upper 80s (mph). “I topped out at about 93 mph. But, [my pitches] had a lot of movement, so I generally pitched in the upper 80s.”

For a Southerner, the weather in the Northeast took a lot of getting used to. “I grew up in Alabama,” says Priola. “A cold winter day here is about 40 degrees. One time, we were playing a game in Burlington, Vt. in July, and by the end of the evening, it was 50 degrees. I was amazed. That time of year, it’s [usually] in the upper 90s in Alabama.”

That cold summer night in Burlington wasn’t the only bone-chilling experience for Priola and his team. “I joined the team a year after 9-11,” he says. “The year before, a couple of guys on the team were flying home to California at the end of the season. They flew home September 4, 2001, from Boston to LAX Airport (in Los Angeles). Their flight number and departure time were exactly the same as the flight that would hit the World Trade Center exactly one week later.”

Priola recalls one game in 2002, when his team played in Staton Island. “The ball park sat on the water, across the river from Manhattan,” he says. “The outfield skyline was where the towers used to be, and they were still clearing away the rubble.” It was a very emotional scene, he adds.

Minor league, major reality Let’s be clear: There are no huge signing bonuses for most players starting out in minor league baseball. In fact, it’s often a moneylosing deal. “We were paid $850 a month (for in-season months only),” Priola recalls. Out of that, players were expected to pay about $300 in housing fees (they were put up in a university dorm), taxes and insurance. “My paycheck was about $100 every other week,” he says. And, some of that went to paying the clubbie to clean the locker room and wash their uniforms. “In the end, we lost money,” he points out.

Then, there’s the competition associated with playing in the minor leagues, he continues. “In professional sports, a player is like an asset or piece of property,” says Priola.

“Some guys are kept on the team for a month, and some are kept on longer. It’s extremely cut throat. A player can walk in one day and be told he’s through. So while the players are all very cordial and professional, there’s not a lot of team camaraderie. There may be 11 or 12 pitchers on the team, and while one guy is pitching, the others are Family man hoping he fails so that they have a chance to move up [to As passionate as he was about his baseball career, Priola’s dedication to his wife and future family was uncontestable. the major league].”

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“Baseball was my dream, and I was doing very well,” he says. After all, what’s not to like about rubbing shoulders with the likes of Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez and other stars at spring training – memories Priola still enjoys today.

Still, “I realized this wasn’t the lifestyle for me,” he says.

If he stayed with the sport, it meant that each February he would have to leave for spring training and not return home until the season ended at the end of October, he points out.

“Most games are played at night, and I realized that if April and I started a family, I’d miss my own children’s activities and ball

professional baseball]. I would always be away from home, traveling to games or recruiting new players.

“So, I began exploring different career options,” he continues. “I called an old friend, Chad Allen, who had thought about going to dental school at one time, but [ultimately] decided to join Atlanta Dental as a sales rep.”

The rest is history, he says.

“Chad helped me get an interview with Atlanta Dental, and thanks to the great team environment the company provides, July will mark my fifth anniversary. Atlanta Dental is a great company because of the wonderful people who work there. Whether it’s someone in

“Baseball is extremely competitive. It taught me how to handle adversity, which can be intense in any sport. It taught me to develop the drive and desire to [bounce] back after things don’t go well.”

– Andy Priola

games. So, once again, Priola made “one of the most difficult decisions of my life,” and, after a two-year career, chose to retire from baseball. He was 23.

“At this point, my wife still had one year of pharmacy school left, so we were tied to the Birmingham area,” he continues. “For a while, I taught high school algebra II and trigonometry and thought I’d see how I liked teaching and coaching.” After April finished her graduate degree, the couple moved to Montgomery, where he coached baseball at Faulkner University for three years. “While I was coaching at Faulkner, we had our first child,” he says. “After three years, my wife was pregnant with our second child, and I realized this would be the same thing [as playing Dental Explorer | Third Quarter 2013

customer service, another territory rep, or a vice president or CEO, everyone there truly does [what it takes] to help one another succeed. There’s great camaraderie, and it becomes contagious.”

Short-lived as it was, his baseball career prepared Priola well for a sales career. “Baseball is extremely competitive,” he explains. “It taught me how to handle adversity, which can be intense in any sport. It taught me to develop the drive and desire to [bounce] back after things don’t go well.” It’s that fortitude, he adds, that has enabled him to make a smooth transition into his sales career – one he looks forward to cultivating for many years to come. [FI] This article has been reprinted with permission from First Impressions Magazine, April 2013.