Almost 22, walk-on Hayden Hurst switches to football after baseball try

He hasn’t been nicknamed “Weinke” – yet.

South Carolina freshman wide receiver Hayden Hurst turns 22 at the end of August. He’s trying a second athletic career after the first one wasn’t what he wanted, and is hoping to channel the success of other notable athletes.

“I graduated high school back in 2012 from Bolles in Jacksonville, was lucky enough to get drafted by the Pirates. I did that for three years,” Hurst said on Wednesday. “Things just didn’t go as I planned it. I wanted to come back and play football and enjoy myself.”

Hurst played football in high school but his main sport was baseball. A two-time state champion, Hurst was a decorated pitcher who turned down a baseball scholarship at Florida State in favor of a draft selection by Pittsburgh.

Pitching in the pros wasn’t high school. Hurst’s fastball was still in the 90s but he never knew where it would end up.

“I signed as a pitcher and when I tried to pitch in pro ball, I didn’t really have control,” he said of his switch to first base. “Then I went through that for about two years and kind of got tired of it.”

One of Hurst’s friends, Perry Orth (from neighboring Ponte Vedra Beach) was working his way up the depth chart at USC. Hurst talked to him in February, asking him if the workouts were tough, what could he expect.

Orth passed his buddy’s name on and Hurst soon had an offer to walk on. One of the oldest, yet youngest, players on the team is hoping he can someday make an impact.

Super Bowl-winning Russell Wilson played a couple of years in the minor leagues but made football his passion. And of course Hurst knows all about Chris Weinke, who played baseball for six years before coming back to college at FSU. He wound up winning the Heisman Trophy at age 28.

“It gives me a little bit of perspective on life,” Hurst said. “I did look through the guys that have tried it. The success rate’s there so fingers crossed.”

This story was originally published August 5, 2015 at 2:02 PM with the headline "Almost 22, walk-on Hayden Hurst switches to football after baseball try."