He may be the American Country Awards’ reigning New Artist of the Year, but Scotty McCreery is still a regular high school senior. And, he’s planning to play ball after his stint on Brad Paisley’s Virtual Reality tour.
The 18-year-old part-Puerto Rican country singer will be heading back to his native North Carolina to play baseball for his high school in Garner. And, even though he’s an American Idol champion and has sold more than a million copies of his debut album, McCreery isn’t getting any special treatment from his coach.
“Singing don’t really mean you can really play ball well,” he recently admitted to ABC News Radio. “So, they had to see if I had a little something left in me.”
But McCreery doesn’t think that’s the only challenge he’ll face on the field.
“I have a feeling it’s gonna be rough,” he admits. “I’m a pitcher, so I have a feeling when I get on the mound, guys are gonna be taunting me. I’m just gonna blow it off and strike ’em out!”
Unfortunately, the rising country star has to miss the first games of the season as he concludes his touring commitment, but he’s happy that everyone is working with his schedule.
“I enjoy high school, I enjoy being there with my friends and getting to hang out,” he explains to BlogCritics.org. “But I also enjoy the music and getting out here with the fans and singing a lot. It’s really cool for me to be able to do both. It’s been a fairly nice balance with schoolwork and being on the road. We’ve made it work.”
It’s good that McCreery is learning how to find a balance between his singing career and his academics, since he plans to attend college in the fall.
“That’s going to be another monster,” he tells Nashville’s Tennessean newspaper. “But we’re going to figure out a way to do [it]. It might take me 50 years to get a degree, but I want to get there and go to college.”
The singer has already been accepted to East Carolina, with applications still out to North Carolina State, Belmont University and Middle Tennessee State University.
“In the music business today, you’ll be around and in a few months everybody forgets about you,” he continues. “I want an education to lean back on.”
Scotty’s run on the Virtual Reality tour comes to an end on March 3 in Lexington, Kentucky.