After years of training, one sophomore athlete commits to a Big Ten university by age 16, while most high schoolers do not start thinking about college specifics until junior or senior year.

Tyler Snep, junior, committed to the University of Iowa by the end of his spring season for baseball in May, and to continue his passion into college.

“For Tyler, the sky’s the limit for him. He can do a lot of things in this world even before baseball. He’s the kind of person that you have a conversation with and you know they’re going to be successful in life.” Richard Erickson, varsity baseball coach, said. “Baseball wise, he’s going to be a scholarship player in college, and hopefully one day we will see him in the major leagues: which is something he can definitely accomplish with his amount of dedication, talent, and work ethic.”

Dedicating himself to Iowa so young, he felt the sense of community while also being able to stay close to home, be around family, and visit friends.

On the field, according to Erickson, Snep is not only a teammate but essentially another coach. When you teach him something, Erickson says he turns around right away and helps the rest of the team, acting like an additional coach with the way he learns, loves, and teaches the game.

“I love the team aspect. You can’t do anything without the eight other guys out there. You win or lose as a team,” Snep said. “What you do out on the field helps the entire team and the goal we are going for.”

One of Tyler’s long time teammates, Michael Chialdikas, junior, says that it is great playing with him because of how talented he is and how he can always lift the team’s spirits and be a good leader. According to Chialdikas, they both benefit from learning from each other.

“When we used to play, we would always bat back to back, so that has always been our saying during games, ‘back to back,’” Chialdikas said. “Tyler’s very good, and I think it’s going to lead to great places.”

Improving as a player and moving up on teams has been a challenge, according to Snep, because when he played on varsity freshman year with older teammates, Snep said it helped him learn the confidence to play at any level with support from his family.

“The person who has influenced my baseball career the most is definitely my dad. He is someone I spend a lot of time with, and he’s been pushing me through lessons since I was young. That’s made a huge difference now,” Snep said. “He always motivated me to work like I did, and it’s gotten me to where I’m at.”

Snep has reached his goals by countless hours of hard work, both athletically and in the classroom, according to Gary Snep, father– who is excited about the opportunity Tyler has to get a good education and play baseball at the next level.

“Tyler has grown a lot as a person, he spends a lot of hours training and balancing his schoolwork,” G. Snep said. “His grades are just as important to him as baseball. Baseball is a game of failure: you learn a lot of lessons from the game and apply   them to school and life.”

He is always practicing, playing with other teams, and getting better at baseball whenever he can, according to Erickson. Baseball is Snep’s passion, and he plays the entire year.

“Tyler is an obviously very gifted athlete, but part of the reason why he is so talented is because of his character and his work ethic,” Erickson said. “Last year, as a sophomore, he was voted team captain of the varsity team, which is very rare for a sophomore to be named team captain. He carries himself with a class and confidence. That makes him such a great kid to work with.”