Grit and Determination

It has been an exciting winter season for Pickering College’s Finn Walker. The Grade 12 student and member of the Team Ontario Astros baseball club has signed with the Marian University Knights baseball program in Indianapolis, Indiana, which competes in the Crossroad League of the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics). The 18-year-old shortstop from Aurora was awarded a scholarship and will pursue a dual degree in math from Marian University and engineering from Purdue University’s engineering school located at Indiana University (IUPUI). “It is exciting, it’s a great opportunity,” he says.

Walker began playing baseball in Aurora as a member of the Aurora King Jays. He went on to win two provincial championships with teams in Aurora and Newmarket, eventually moving up to the Canadian Premier Baseball League’s Toronto Mets before landing with the Team Ontario Astros elite baseball club. Balancing a competitive baseball season with a full academic schedule can be a challenge, but as a member of the High-Performance Student Athlete (HPSA) program at Pickering College, Walker has been able to keep up with his studies while on the road.

“There are trips in the fall and times where we go away for an extended period. Travelling can be tough—you can be driving seven-hour days— and then you get to play. Then you sleep and do it all again the next morning,” he explains.

“School can be difficult to fit in there, and that’s actually why the HPSA course that I took was really helpful—I didn’t have the workload of four courses and was still able to get a credit for it.”

For Walker, the lessons learned through baseball extend far beyond the diamond. Learning how to overcome failure and having the discipline to persevere are among the biggest life lessons he has gained through sport.

“When I was a child, I wasn’t great with failure and part of sports is learning that failure is okay and that you only get better. Learning from your mistakes is an ongoing battle. Sports never change, and as you get into higher competition, you must persevere,” he says.

Having achieved his goal of being signed at the university level, and with an exciting future ahead of him in engineering, Walker admits he would jump at the chance to play in the major leagues, if the opportunity presented itself.

“You never know what could happen,” Walker says. “I mean, that would be amazing—that’s everyone’s dream.”