Pro Baseball Player Visits the 'Square
Kansas city Royals' Right-Hander Ben Norton Overcomes Many Obstacles to Achieve Success and Encourages Students to Work Through Challenges

At 23, Ben Norton knows the taste of victory. He has fought his way through academic failures, peer rejection and financial hardship to realize his dream to play professional baseball.

Now a right-handed pitcher for the Kansas City Royals’ organization – last summer he was with the Idaho Falls Chukars (break out the dictionaries!) – Norton visited the ’Square on Wednesday, February 27, 2008, to encourage kids and teens to fight through difficulty. Speaking in turns to the 5th through 8th grades, Norton discussed learning difficulties which caused many problems for him at the private parochial high school he attended in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

His problems, however, were not limited to academics. In an affluent culture of academically advanced students, Norton was often painfully aware of his differences, academically, financially, and morally.

Norton shared that his parents worked very hard to support their family but family finances were always an issue. The Nortons insisted that their kids attend parochial school (two brothers attended before him), but at a high cost – thousand of dollars a year for each child. As a result, there wasn’t much disposable income left for this hard-working blue collar family. Besides being unable to buy the latest athletic shoes and fashionable clothes, Norton had to wait years until he could join travel baseball clubs to further his athletic development and increase his exposure.

When he was nine, he decided he would make a living playing baseball, and for years everyone around him – his friends and every coach he had through high school – balked at the idea. Everyone, that is, except for his family and especially his mother. When asked if there was a particular coach who inspired and motivated him to reach high, he immediately said, “Oh sure. My mom. She always coached me and believed I could do it.”

Norton’s quiet ambition, coupled with the fact that he stayed true to his own code of morality despite temptations in high school, contributed to his social standing, which was – at best – peripheral. Norton clearly knew right from wrong, as we all do, but he lived his code, avoiding an available drug, drinking and sex environment when others weakly fell in line with an unhealthy status quo.

And things started going his way.

Out of high school, Norton attended Wabash Valley Junior College in Illinois. He put in his time behind the desk and on the field and by the end of his sophomore year was given three opportunities to play ball at four-year universities. He chose to attend the University of Evansville. The other two offers came from schools that rejected Norton when he talked with them two years earlier.

At UE, Norton was named 2006 Missouri Valley Conference Newcomer of the Year with a 9-3 record and 3.23 ERA. In 2007, he earned a 9-4 record and 2.55 and was named to the all MVC second team, among other honors. “I proved a lot of people wrong,” Norton said.

Students peppered Norton with questions. They asked if a collegiate baseball career is stressful (“oh yeah, every day”) and what he will do when his baseball career is over (“coach or open a baseball academy”). One giggling middle school girl asked the clean-cut pitcher if he were married (“No,” he smiled. “Next question.”).

Norton handed out plenty of rookie baseball cards and autographed baseballs. He stressed recognizing and taking opportunities. “Do the most with every opportunity you have,” he urged. “You have to be here 180 days? Make the most of your 180 days.”