If you have been a fan of the Ball State University baseball team since the mid-1980s then you may be suffering from a bit of déj+â-á vu when watching this year's team.
For the second time in program history there is a Shannon McCormick wearing No. 18 on Ball State's roster.
The first was Shannon McCormick Sr. from 1982-1985. His story is one of an underdog who through hard work and a never-give-up attitude was able to have a successful career.
Shannon Sr. wasn't offered a scholarship to play baseball at Ball State when he graduated from Muncie Southside High School prior to the 1982 season. Instead he had to travel the road of unknown and walk-on at Ball State with no guarantee of making the team.
"If you looked at me when I got to Ball State I was five-foot nine-inches, maybe 150 pounds," Shannon Sr. said. "I was pretty strong. I always was working with the weights but I just wasn't a very big kid. Where I would get more out of myself than some of the big kids was my determination and will not to lose."
Shannon Sr. would start for three-and-a-half years at Ball State. Most of his career he would be the starting second baseman but also spent some time as the designated hitter and third baseman.
"He was certainly no super star," Pat Quinn, Ball State's coach for Shannon Sr.'s last three years, said. "He wasn't real fast, he didn't have a great arm, didn't hit for power but he did everything right ... He was the type of guy who wasn't going to take no for an answer, he was going to find a way to get it done. Of all the players I've coached at Ball State he was as hard a fighter and as tough a competitor that I've coached."
While he might not have been a super-star talent, he did garner Second Team All-Mid-American Conference his senior year. He was a team captain the 1985 season and led the team with a .344 batting average.
Now, 23 years later there is a new Shannon McCormick at Ball State. Shannon Jr. has followed, in what has become a family tradition, in his father's footsteps by coming to Ball State.
Not only do they share a name and jersey number, but they both had to walk-on at Ball State and Quinn, who is now the associate athletics director for Facilities and Operations for Ball State, said the comparisons don't stop there.
"When I see him out in the field taking ground balls in pre-game infield, when I see taking batting practice, seeing him wear No. 18 - the same number his dad wore - he looks almost identical to Shannon Sr.," Quinn said. "They got so many of the same mannerisms."
Shannon Jr. is a redshirt freshman on this year's team. While he doesn't start everyday, he has seen time in 10 games including two starts playing like his father before him at second base predominantly.
"I didn't want anything more than to come here, play where my dad played, and now I wear his number too which is pretty neat," Shannon Jr. said.
Shannon Jr.'s decision to come to Ball State happened late. Less than a week before classes were to begin Shannon Jr.'s first year, he was still not planning on coming to Ball State.
This was because Shannon Jr. was every bit as good on the basketball court as the baseball diamond. He finished in the top 15 in scoring average both his junior and senior year. He averaged 24 points per game as a senior and scored more than 1,500 points in his career.
Coming out of high school Shannon Jr. thought he wanted to play both sports in college. He had offers from Division II schools in the University of Southern Indiana and Anderson University. Up until a week before school was to start Shannon Jr. was prepared to play at Southern Indiana but then he got a phone call.
"Five or six days before classes were supposed to start for me coach [Greg] Beals called me and asked me to come in and talk about giving me a spot on the team," Shannon Jr. said.
Beals offered Shannon Jr. a spot on the team as a walk-on. Shannon Jr. had just led the state in batting average, hitting .604 as a senior, and gladly accepted despite it meaning he wouldn't play basketball.
"I don't know what happened, but one day it just clicked, and I wanted to be on the baseball field," he said. "Basketball sometimes practices would lag, and it wouldn't seem like all that fun, but anytime I'm on the baseball field it's a great experience. I just love it and it never gets old. I could come out here five or six hours a day and never get sick of it."
Shannon Jr., however, isn't the first child of Shannon Sr. to play at Ball State. His sister, Amanda McCormick, was the starting libero for the women's volleyball team, winning the National Collegiate Volleyball Update Libero of the Year award last year as a senior.
Amanda, who now coaches for the Circle City Volleyball Club in Indianapolis, might never have had the opportunity to play for Ball State however, if it was for Shannon Sr. making some sacrifices in his life.
Shannon Sr. was married in-between his junior and senior year at Ball State, and Amanda was born his senior year.
Shannon Sr. graduated with a degree in physical education and wanted to teach, but with a baby and wife to support his job search didn't last long.
"When I graduated I took that first summer to try and find a job in education, but I had a family so I didn't wait around a whole lot for that teaching job to come through," Shannon Sr. said.
He gave up a possible teaching career and went into the working world. He works production control at Minnesota Mining Manufacturing in Hartford City.
Still he found time through the years to fuel his children's sports careers. He said he signed his children up for just about every sport he could.
While his kids played all kinds of sports and won in just about all of them, there was always one game they never could win. That was any game they played against their father. Shannon Sr. would play sports against Amanda and Shannon Jr. but being the ultra-competitive guy he is would never let them win.
"He would never let me win, that was one thing he would never let me do," Shannon Jr. said. "That's one thing he did with me and my sister that really helped. He wanted us to give our best and never feel like we were given anything."
Shannon Sr. said it was all about creating a drive to win and giving his children a lesson in life.
"I never gave into them, and I think that gave them more drive and desire to beat me, to keep them doing their best," he said. "I think that will teach them a life lesson when they get out ... you got to be the best, you got to go out and get it. Nobody owes you anything."
He didn't get his career in education, but that didn't stop him from doing his fair share of teaching.
Shannon Jr. has a long way to go before his career can match his father's and Shannon Sr. reminds him of that everyday.
"I don't remember the last time I had a conversation with him where he doesn't tell me I couldn't hold his jock," Shannon Jr. said. "Not one day goes by that he doesn't remind me how good he was."
There is a healthy rivalry between the two Shannon's. They compete in just about anything that can be turned into a competition, however, the rivalry isn't limited to just the males.
Amanda has competed with Shannon Jr. just as much if not more than their father. The difference in sex didn't stop them from playing many of the same sports as kids, including baseball. They both always wanted to be the best, a trait inherited from their father.
Pat Quinn, having coached the Shannon Sr. and been at Ball State while Shannon Jr. and Amanda grew up, said he has witnessed the rivalry and heard the stories.
"I have witnessed [Shannon Jr. and Sr]. going back and forth at each other," he said. "I've also had the chance for Amanda to relay those stories to me, and I just have to laugh about it because I know how Shannon Sr. is. He takes a tremendous amount of pride in what he was able to do as an athlete."
While the three of them have a healthy, strong rivalry, the two siblings' competitiveness drove the two of them throughout their sports careers.
As they grew older, Amanda began to concentrate on volleyball and Shannon Jr. focused on basketball and baseball, but when they got home at night they would still try to one up each other with the statistics they had compiled that night.
"He would come home and say 'I scored 37 points' or whatever and I would come home and say 'well I had this many kills,' it was a constant battle," Amanda said. "When I was a senior in high school and he was a freshman, even though they are opposite seasons, I would think 'OK, what do I have to do this season so that when little Shannon plays this year it won't be better than what I did?'"
Unlike some sibling rivalries, Amanda and Shannon Jr. always kept it friendly.
"It was never like where we would be mad at each other or we would bicker," Amanda said. "It was always a friendly competition."
Now that Shannon Jr. is the only one still playing, the rivalry of comparing statistics has died, but that hasn't stopped them from finding other outlets to compete in.
"We'll play the Nintendo Wii and it gets really competitive," Amanda said. "I'm not kidding ... we could play Monopoly and it would turn into a war."
While they continue to duke it out through the Nintendo Wii or some other game, there is still one argument pertaining to sports that all three of them, Amanda and the Shannon's, get involved in.
"We still have this on going thing about who's the best athlete in the house," Amanda said. "... We always talk about who's the better athlete, who did more at Ball State."
Amanda said she ranks herself at the top followed by her father and her brother at the bottom. She said her brother has a long way to go if he wants to match what she did.
"Shannon [Jr.], we'll see if he can catch up ... he's a great athlete but I don't think he'll ever catch up to me," she said.
Being the father and the only one of the three to be alive to witness each career, Shannon Sr. had a less biased opinion of who is the best athlete in the McCormick household.
"Amanda has accomplished more in her athletic career than I accomplished or Shannon [Jr.] accomplished," he said. "This is going to surprise Amanda, but I would say she is the best athlete of the bunch. Right now Shannon's got me a little bit just because I'm getting older."
Ten years from now there might be an unsuspecting new member of the McCormick household at the top of the list. Amanda and Shannon Jr. aren't the only children Shannon Sr. has. The youngest, Lincoln, is still not a teenager and has taken a sport that none of the other three got heavily into.
"Lincoln is a little different," Shannon Sr. said. "He may win a state fishing title and a national fishing title ... he likes that stuff."
Fishing isn't an official NCAA sport but there is a professional league. Lincoln might, one day down the road, turn pro in fishing making him the only McCormick to go pro and everyone in the family would be just fine with that.
StatsGames played: 11Games started: 2At-bats: 15Runs: 5Batting average: .200Hits: 3RBIs: 3Slugging percentage: .200Walks: 2Hit by pitch: 1Errors: 1
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