Faculty’s five-year reign ends in 9-4 softball defeat in annual faculty, student softball game

During the annual Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Texas Baptist College (TBC) faculty, staff, and students softball game, held Nov. 5 at the Recreation and Aerobics Center softball field, the faculty and staff team lost 9-4 to the student team, ending their five-year winning streak.

Organized by the Office of Student Life, the annual game is an opportunity for the Southwestern Seminary and Texas Baptist College communities to enjoy an evening of amateur athleticism and genuine camaraderie. The game has been held regularly since 2016, with an interruption in 2020 due to COVID-19.

Charles Carpenter, dean of students at Southwestern Seminary and TBC, organized the event and led the team made up of faculty and staff. Recognizing that “age likely played a significant role” in the team’s loss, he explained “what the faculty gave up in youth it made up for in skill and trash-talking.” 

Mitchell Amick, a Master of Divinity student from Teague, Texas, served as captain of the student team. Made up of seven men and three women, the student team was an even representation of the seminary and college students, he explained. However, as team captain, he was intentional in recruiting people for his team.

“I wanted people who had previously played baseball [and] softball,” Amick stated. He and the co-team captain, Elijah Brewer, a TBC student working toward a Bachelor of Arts in Christian Studies, “bounced names back and forth between one another before we started inviting people to play for the team that would face the faculty. Two players on the team sent their information to Student Life and after I spoke with them, they agreed to join.”

John “Peyton” Donaldson, a Master of Divinity student from Bossier City, Louisiana, agreed the team had the primary purpose of defeating the faculty.

“The goal was to be competitive since the teachers won every year,” Donaldson said. “Our team was made up of men and women ready to play hard. We had athletes of all ages, and most of us had played some sort of sport growing up. We recruited students to play that had the same desire as the rest of us: Beat the faculty!”

“The students were elated when they recorded two innings with more than three runs,” Carpenter said. “The faculty tried to climb out of this deficit, but their hamstrings, eyesight, and ball-handling skills were too much to overcome.”

Carpenter also noted “in the not-so-distant future, the students will be forced to put their skills to the test again, and, I think then, faculty members will come out of retirement to show the students they are not ready to hang up their cleats.”

Prior to living on campus, Amick commuted to campus two hours each day for classes and “the cycle of leaving early in the morning [and] getting home late left little room for social activity.” He admits he once struggled with loneliness. However, since moving to campus two years ago, he has been able to build relationships and community through participating in social events.

“As I have steadily built a stronger community among fellow students over the past two years, I’m reminded that if I struggled with loneliness chances are somebody else probably does, too,” Amick explained. “So, events like this are important because they help students get to know one another. We are here to prepare ourselves as ministers of [the] Gospel. A huge part of that preparation is academics, but it isn’t the only part. Hopefully, through something as silly as a student versus faculty softball game, lifelong relationships where brothers and sisters can encourage and build one another up can develop.”

Upcoming events organized by Student Life can be found here.