Donny Lucy Interview

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WARTHOG WATCH

Q & A with Donny Lucy – Catcher for the Warthogs

 

 

Warthogs Catcher Donny Lucy

 

Donny Lucy is the primary catcher for the Warthogs and a graduate of Stanford University, where he had a stellar collegiate career and was named All-Pac-10 as a junior.  Selected in the second round of the 2004 draft, Lucy spent 2005 with Kannapolis, where he hit .264 with 1 home run and 22 RBI’s in 54 games.  He missed the first 2 months of the season after breaking his right ring finger at the end of spring training.  A versatile athlete, Lucy was named the 2001 San Diego County Male Athlete of the Year while playing football (RB and LB) and baseball (catcher and infielder) at Fallbrook High School in California.

 

Why did you decide to attend Stanford University? 

Out of high school, Stanford was one of the schools that recruited me pretty hard and they were my third recruiting trip.  I had a really good trip and I already knew a couple of guys that were up there and it was just a really good situation as far as the academics, the school and the playing time.  It’s tough to turn down Stanford and the baseball program that it has, along with the academics, so it was a pretty easy choice.

 

What other schools did you look at?

I actually looked at USD (University of San Diego) because my brother played there.  I looked at North Carolina because I have family in Chapel Hill.  I looked at USC and a couple of other schools for football, but baseball is my main interest.

 

How serious were you about playing football in college?

There was a point when I was pretty interested in trying to play both.  I was recruited by a couple of schools for that, but when it came down to it, but I just really want to focus on baseball.

As a political science major in college, how do you plan on using that degree after your playing days are over?

We will see how baseball plays out, I would love to have a long, big league career and parlay that in to a political atmosphere on more of a local level.  It is something I have been interested in since high school and it was a really good fit at Stanford.  They have a great political science department and a lot of great professors, so I really enjoyed taking classes there.  I think it a pretty good major as far as business too, if I wanted to go in that direction. 

 

How about the comparison of using an aluminum bat in college and making the transition to a wooden bat in the minors.  Is that a difficult adjustment?

I think it is something pretty difficult.  The aluminum bat allows a certain amount of forgiveness as far as on the end of the bat getting jammed.  In college, you get a little taste of it playing in summer leagues with wooden bats, but it is tough.  It takes a couple of months, maybe a couple of weeks for some guys, but there definitely is an adjustment to be made.  Once you make that adjustment, it is really not that different.

 

On your player questionnaire that all players fill out, you noted that Turbo from American Gladiators is your girlfriend’s father… Is that true?

Yes that is actually true.  The guys on the team give me a lot of grief about that, but it is true.  We have been dating for a while and her Dad is in fact Turbo and he was on the TV show for about eight years.  He is quite a Dad to actually go up to and ask his daughter out, so I was a little nervous on that first date, but he’s a great guy.  He is a good athlete in his own right, so it’s hard to impress her through any athletic achievements.

 

If you had the option of competing against him in Hang Tough or The Gauntlet, which one would you try?

I think in the Gauntlet I have a good shot.  He is starting to wear down a little bit, but he is still in tremendous shape.  He still big and works out a lot and he has the experience on me.

 

You also mentioned that in the offseason, you like to fish, golf and surf.  Any enjoyable experiences from this past year?

I have been on some good fishing trips with some buddies and I even got up to Montana to do a little fly-fishing.  I also like to do a little bass fishing, but mostly golf and surfing in my off time.  San Diego is a good location for both and all my buddies surf and my brother is a big golfer, so whenever I get some free time, I am usually headed in that direction.

 

With your family out West, how often do they get a chance to visit and see you play?

My Mom and Dad try to get out here once every five or six weeks or something like that.  Most of my immediate family, Mom, Dad, brother and sister are out on the West coast, but I do have two uncles that live in Chapel Hill and one is a professor at UNC.  So I have family on the East coast and my Mom has eight brother and sisters, so I have family members dropping in on me wherever I play, which is nice

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