NC magnet senior Andrew Prather will soon reach for the home base as a Tiger at Sewanee University later this year. Out of all the colleges applied to and multiple acceptances, Sewanee University stood out to Prather by lending him the perfect chance to pursue a degree in business and economics, while also playing the sport in the rural mountains of Tennessee that he has grown to love.

“I felt like it was a really good fit for me; their business and economics program is pretty good, which is what I want to pursue in college. The location that it’s in is pretty nice too, it’s up in the mountains in Tennessee. I like being in the outdoors so there’s lots of stuff to do for me there,” Prather said.

Prather’s academic and baseball career inside and outside of NC left a mark on him, as he received a variety of offers and scholarships to join other colleges and universities. After traveling to several colleges with a summer baseball team, Prather visited and played baseball at Sewanee University even before his scholarship offer.

Watching Prather at several of NC’s varsity baseball games, the coaches decided Prather stood as an exceptional fit for the Tiger’s baseball team at Sewanee, offering him the rewarding position in the summer of his junior year.

“The coaches were really forward with me, they put things on the table for me set and clear. I’d been interested in this school since I started high school, it was one of the schools I was gonna try to get recruited for since the beginning. I had a couple other offers from other schools, so I thought about it for a while and decided that it was gonna be the best fit for me personally and for my future,” Prather said.

Prather began his baseball journey at only seven years old, playing for kiddie baseball teams such as Little League and Travel Ball. He went on to make NC’s Warrior baseball team at the beginning of high school, also trying out for the challenging academic-based baseball team, the East Cobb Patriots.

Prather’s successes throughout high school arose through the knowledge and training he received from several of his coaches and the constant encouragement from his parents. He owes many of his athletic achievements to both NC’s baseball coach, Tom Callahan, and Jim Lovejoy, manager of the East Cobb Patriots.

“Coach Callahan has encouraged me and got me into the process of thinking about college baseball. My manager for the East Cobb Patriots, Jim Lovejoy, has also helped me out a lot with having many connections to different college coaches and knowing what he could do for me and my future with baseball,” Prather said.

Prather finds himself content with the assurance of playing baseball after graduating, feeling prepared to move onto the next stage of life in the near future.

“I’m going to play baseball in college and keep playing because if I stopped playing, I don’t know what I’d do. I’m not entirely sure about after college, but I just know I want to be able to play this game for a long time,” Prather said.