{"id":4748,"date":"2010-04-19T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/?p=4748"},"modified":"2017-06-22T11:20:58","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T16:20:58","slug":"former-football-star-following-his-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2010\/04\/19\/former-football-star-following-his-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Former football star following his heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Self described as a more elusive, but less powerful Tim Tebow, Sinclair Community College baseball player Byron Johann was so good at high school football that he earned a full scholarship to Ohio Dominican University. There was one problem though; his heart wasn\u2019t in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up I always played baseball and football,\u201d Johann said. \u201cBut I mainly focused on football throughout my high school career (at Pickerington North) because my older brother was a college quarterback and I wanted to be a lot like him (because) he was my role model.\u201d<\/p>\n

With 1,842 total yards, Johann broke Pickerington North\u2019s record for total offense in a single season in 2007, which earned him a full scholarship to ODU. But after redshirting his freshman season, Johann had a revelation that took him back to baseball.<\/p>\n

\u201cI woke up one day and just didn\u2019t feel the urge to go make myself better at what I was doing,\u201d Johann said. \u201cI kind of checked myself right there. It was like am I really in love with what I\u2019m doing, do I really want to be here right now, would I rather be somewhere else?\u201d<\/p>\n

Johann added: \u201cI think it was that day I was like my heart is not into it, I got to find a different path.\u201d<\/p>\n

That path led him to a tryout for Sinclair\u2019s baseball team this spring, which was set-up by his former high school baseball coach Tim Thomas. Thomas knew Sinclair baseball coach Steve Dinataman because the Sinclair coach tried recruiting one of Pickerington\u2019s North players the year before. Dintaman said he had never seen Johann play prior to the tryout.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called a couple people I knew out of Columbus and one of the guys coached him during summer ball,\u201d Dintaman said. \u201cThe coach said that Byron was one of the top-3 hitters in Columbus his senior year in high school, but no one really heard about him because he played so much football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dintaman was impressed by Johann\u2019s tryout and said he knew right away that Johann was a player he wanted as part of his program.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Johann\u2019s) very, very talented,\u201d Dintaman said. \u201cHe\u2019s got good speed and he\u2019s got a cannon for an arm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through hard work, Johann earned a spot as the starting right fielder for Sinclair. He said the work ethic he developed in football helped him earn his spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn football there\u2019s a lot of hard work that goes into it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve always said things like \u2018I\u2019d never let anyone outwork me.\u2019 I thrive on competition, beating somebody out (for a spot) is what I like doing most. It makes me a better player all round.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of April 16, Johann lead\u2019s the team in hits (58), batting average (.443) and doubles (14) as the primary two-hole hitter for the No. 5 ranked Tartan Pride. He said while his choice to leave ODU was rough, he\u2019s very happy with his decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really tough decision (leaving ODU) because I knew I was giving up like $100,000 (in scholarships) to come play baseball instead,\u201d Johann said. \u201cMy parents didn\u2019t really pressure me or anything; they said do whatever makes you happy. I\u2019m a lot happier here than I was there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Self described as a more elusive, but less powerful Tim Tebow, Sinclair Community College baseball player Byron Johann was so good at high school football that he earned a full scholarship to Ohio Dominican University. There was one problem though; his heart wasn\u2019t in the sport. \u201cGrowing up I always played baseball and football,\u201d Johann […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[1140,116,1402,1035,1139],"class_list":["post-4748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-change-of-heart","tag-football","tag-samuel-huist","tag-sinclair-baseball","tag-tartan-pride-baseball"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1eA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4748"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4773,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4748\/revisions\/4773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}