Brett Banks’ baseball career almost ended before it ever took off.
The UNCW reliever was selected No. 336 overall by the New York Mets in the 11th round of the 2023 MLB Draft on July 11, marking a high point in a journey riddled with hardship.
An East Carolina commit going into his senior season at Garner High School in 2019, Banks was playing some of the best baseball of his life and excited for a college career with a Division I college.
That all changed after he de-committed from ECU and suffered a ruptured disc in his back, ending his season and forcing him into months-long recovery after surgery.
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“I was very close to hanging up my cleats,” Banks said. “I went from being one of the top pitchers in North Carolina to having my scholarship pulled from me and getting injured. I didn’t know if I would be able to handle it.”
Now 21, Banks’ journey to UNCW started in junior college at Wake Tech, where he played one season before transferring to Catawba Valley.
Those years, he admits, weren’t easy. Quitting, however, wasn’t in the cards.
“I still, to this day, wouldn’t trade my time in junior college for anything,” he said. “I didn’t have a locker room, I didn’t have a crazy amount of team gear given to me, and you didn’t get free stuff. You worked for everything you had to make it out of there, and that was some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing baseball.”
Joining the Seahawks in 2022, Banks wasn’t at the top of his game right away. Appearing in 11 games and making six starts, he spent most of his time trying to find the rhythm he once had.
Throughout UNCW’s regular season and conference championship this spring, Banks returned to full form as the team reliever, making 30 appearances and throwing 44 strikeouts in 38 1/10 innings.
Returning to his former self and helping the Seahawks to their best season in recent years made all the struggles worth it.
“I wasn’t a big piece, and we didn’t have the year we wanted in 2022,” he said. “We all trained our tails off during the fall, and a lot of us wanted it really bad. To win the regular season and conference tournament was a huge accomplishment for all of us and set UNCW back on top.”
Despite never doubting his skill, Banks says he’s grown more than he could have imagined in the past three years, on and off the field. While his journey hasn’t been typical, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It was a very emotional ride to get where I’m at,” he said. “I went back to the bottom and had to work my way back up. It was a long journey back up the mountain, but it’s a dream come true.”
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Why New York Mets draft pick Brett Banks almost quit baseball