Wonderful way to bring finality to his HS/baseball days. Thank you Zachary, for being a "good guy". ALL ACADEMIC ATHLETE TEAM Members of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette All-Academic Team were nominated by the school coaches, teachers and administrators By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette This article was published today at 4:49 a.m. A long line of injuries never got the better of Zac DeShazo. But adversity, including a tragedy involving people he didn’t even know, brought out the best in him. During his athletic career at Springdale Har-Ber, DeShazo not only compiled some impressive statistics, but he also collected an abundance of scrapes and bruises that kept the local medical staff quite busy. Among his mishaps were: a meniscus tear in his right knee, two broken thumbs, a shoulder injury and two cracked ribs. “None of them were real serious,” DeShazo said. “I was always a little aggressive and a little bit unlucky. I played really hard and my attitude was that I didn’t really care what happened to my body.” DeShazo said he suffered his knee injury one day during football practice his sophomore season but kept the injury a secret. At the end of the season when the doctors finally got around to giving DeShazo a thorough examination, he was told his football career was over. As the starting first baseman for the Wildcats’ baseball team, De-Shazo earned all-conference and all-state honors. He batted a team high .418 and led the Wildcats in on-base percentage. DeShazo was even more impressive in the classroom where he earned the University of Arkansas Chancellors Scholarship and the Alumni Rhodes Scholarship. He was especially fond of his math and science classes. He considered going into physical therapy and sports medicine, but decided that finance and economics was a better fit. “Math just clicks for me,” said DeShazo, who plans to major in business administration at the University of Arkansas. “I’m a very organized person and what I want to do just goes well with my personality.” DeShazo seems to be at his best when adversity strikes. Soon after the EF5 tornado that struck Joplin, Mo., in May of 2011, DeShazo asked how he could be of assistance. “I got in contact with a firefighter who is a friend of mind and I asked him what I could do,” DeShazo said. “He told me that a lot of people had already donated a lot of food and water, but what they really needed now was shoes. No one ever thinks about shoes.” Within eight hours, DeShazo coordinated an effort that gathered 350pair of shoes for the rescue and recovery effort. “I really feel like that God has blessed me with some talents and it’s my job to share those talents,” DeShazo said. “When something like a tornado hits, it puts a little fire in my heart to do something to help people out.” DESHAZO AT A GLANCE HIGH SCHOOL Springdale Har-Ber SPORTS Football, baseball COLLEGE Arkansas MAJOR Business administration ACT 31 CLASS RANK 9 of 485 PARENTS Keith and Dawn DeShazo DATE OF BIRTH Dec. 13, 1994 Sports, Pages 24 on 07/14/2013 Print Headline: ZAC DESHAZO
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 15:32:09 +0000
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