a will to succeed

Will Hawkins was named the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference’s hitter of the year last spring, when he mashed out a .406 average with 11 home runs and 55 RBIs. And the 6-foot-2, 230-pound junior from Nettleton hasn’t restricted his hitting to the baseball field. As a linebacker for the Majors football team, Hawkins has recorded three straight double-digit tackle performances, capped by a career-high 15 in a win over Rhodes last week. Maybe the Millsaps basketball team could use a board-pounding power forward …
P.S. Mississippi State’s recruiting class for 2010 is rated No. 8 in the country in the recently released Baseball America overview. An under-the-radar player to watch, according to the experts at BA, is Jaron Shepherd, a left-handed hitting outfielder signed out of Navarro (Texas) Junior College. He is described as raw but bursting with potential; his dad, Ron, played 115 games for the Toronto Blue Jays in the mid-’80s. Ole Miss’ class comes in at No. 12, highlighted by lefty-hitting juco catcher Miles Hamblin. BA is very high on Hamblin, who starred for a Howard (Texas) JC team that went 63-1 last season.