10/10/2001 - Baseball
Catching Up with David Woolsey
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David Woolsey dreamed of playing collegiate baseball. But he also knew he didn't want to play just anywhere. He wanted to go to a big school where the enrollment was larger than the price tag on a new SUV.
While Navy may not be a Florida, Ohio State, Texas or Nebraska, attending the Academy did fulfill a dream - the chance to play.
"I really wanted to play baseball in college," the senior catcher from Columbia, S.C., said. "A lot of the schools I looked at going to, I don't think I would have gotten as much of a scholarship as far as baseball goes. I looked at Georgia, Texas and Clemson, but I don't think it was going to work out."
What did work out was the Naval Academy and it has given Woolsey exactly what he wanted and more. Entering his senior campaign with the Navy baseball team, Woolsey is primed to make this a year to remember.
The Midshipmen have battled their way to the Patriot League Tournament championship best-of-three series the last two seasons. Each time, Navy was swept by teams it had captured the season series from during the regular season.
Bucknell came to Max Bishop Stadium last April atop the Patriot League standings and undefeated in the league. However, the Bison left Annapolis, Md., with just one win in four tries, while Navy left confident and in the hunt for a championship.
The two teams squared off for the tournament title, but Woolsey and the host Mids were left searching for answers after dropping two-straight games to Bucknell, 6-4 and 6-2.
"I think this year there is a really bad taste in our mouth after what happened last year. It is made even worse by the year before when we lost to Army in the tournament championship," Woolsey said. "Two years in a row we have been in the driver's seat and gotten knocked out of the car."
The Mids will have nine seniors and a talented stable of starting pitchers to keep Navy on a collision course toward earning the league title.
Each year on the diamond, Woolsey has stepped up. From playing in just five games with eight at-bats his freshman year, he saw action in 30 games and made 24 starts during his sophomore campaign. That year he hit .293 and was named Second-Team All-Patriot League, striking out just nine times in 75 at-bats.
In 2000, the native Texan batted a career-best .337 with 28 hits, four doubles, a home run, 10 RBI and scored 17 runs. He was one of three players on the team to draw as many or more walks than strikeouts (10 BB and 10 K's).
"I've had more time to get stronger, which has helped me improve," Woolsey said. "There is not as much pressure as there was my freshman year. I am more relaxed as far as hitting goes. The thing about hitting is the more relaxed you are, the better you will be."
One change that helped Woolsey and the rest of the team last year was the hiring of Steve Whitmyer as the new head baseball coach.
Whitmyer, who spent the previous three seasons as an assistant coach at Virginia, brought a new attitude and a different style to Annapolis. Woolsey and the team thrived off Whitmyer and the new "working" environment.
"At first, I think it was more of a culture shock because we weren't really used to the positive energy he brought," Woolsey said. "We were wondering if there was something behind the whole thing. Once the year started, we just realized that's how he is.
"He has a reservoir of energy that you can feed off of and that helps a lot. He is always just as psyched up as we are about every game. When the sweat on his lips starts to bead up, you know he's intense."
Upon Whitmyer's arrival, he inherited two talented catchers in Dominic Nicolini and Woolsey. Whitmyer decided to platoon the two at the beginning of the season to give both valuable playing time and see if either would emerge as a clear-cut starter behind the plate.
"After the fall season, Coach Whitmyer pretty much told us individually that his plan was to start off the year playing us half and half," Nicolini, the 2001 team captain, said. "He wanted to have two catchers that were always ready to play. He said if either of us played better than the other, then things would change, but he wanted to know if he put either of us in, he would have nothing to worry about. We both would have loved to start and play every game, but we realized what was best for the team is for us both to play."
While neither player emerged, both took a step forward, providing Whitmyer with two capable catchers.
"I believe when you platoon at any position, you have to have two things," Whitmyer said. "You have to have the talent to be able to do it, and we have that in those two guys. Secondly, the guys need to be understanding and accepting of why it is taking place. It is a great thing to do if you have the ingredients to do it, and I think we have that in David and Dom."
The two did not just understand and accept the situation. They bonded and became close friends.
"I can think of no other guy I would rather split time with than Dom," Woolsey said. "Taking one of us out of the game and putting the other in, the team isn't losing a step. Dom does things I can't do and I do things he can't do. It is neat because I will be in the dugout and he will give me a pointer or something. I value his opinion over anybody else's."
"We do everything on the field together," Nicolini said. "Off the field, we room together on trips and sit together on the bus. Outside of baseball, we are best friends. We go on vacation together, spend summers together and go out on the weekends together."
With just a year left on the diamond, Woolsey, one of the most laid back members of the team, hopes to keep improving offensively and help the Mids get back to where they belong.
"I would like to kill the singles-hitter in me," Woolsey said. "I want to start hitting more balls in the gap and develop my home run trot. As a team, the top of our focus this year will be to go to (NCAA) regionals. There is no reason we can't do it with the talent we have and the experience we have coming back. We are going to settle for nothing less than a bid to regionals."
For now, Woolsey is looking to get rid of that bad taste and is happy living out a dream.
