USC Aiken's Warrick Living Life in the Balance

AIKEN, S.C. – Tripp Warrick has been around athletics all of his life.

When your father, Randy Warrick, has been the Director of Athletics at one institution for all of your life there really is no choice.

Still, Tripp has embraced the opportunity, as he has followed his father to the University of South Carolina Aiken where his father is in his 34th year with the athletic department. Randy was the head baseball coach at USC Aiken for 11 years before solely focusing his efforts on the administrative efforts of the NCAA Division II institution.

Tripp has not let the daunting prospect of playing baseball at the institution where his father is in charge get to him.

Instead, the 21-year-old has become the human embodiment of everything that NCAA Division II “Life in the Balance” is all about.

The “Life in the Balance” approach in NCAA Division II notes that the student-athlete experience at the level is a comprehensive program of learning and development in a personal setting.

Not only a member of USC Aiken’s nationally-recognized baseball program, Tripp Warrick is also a Chemistry major at USC Aiken.

Tripp has put the same fervor into his studies that he has put into his baseball efforts as he enters his senior year boasting a 3.985 grade point average. Warrick hit .333 in the 2012 season for the nationally-ranked Pacers.

The junior was also most recently elected the Student Body President at USC Aiken.

In a Division II student-athlete model that emphasizes six key attributes in learning, balance, resourcefulness, sportsmanship, passion and service, Tripp has unknowingly proven that the model is obtainable and finding the right balance is exactly what every college student at the level should try and do everyday.

In fact, Peach Belt Conference Commissioner David Brunk used Tripp as an example of what finding the right balance is all about at a meeting with the NCAA in Indianapolis in the spring of 2012.

Tripp plans to continue his efforts in the classroom into medical school after graduating from USC Aiken in the spring of 2012.

Baseball will not be a part of his studies at the next level, but the balance and integration he obtained from his time as a Division II student-athlete will have more than prepared him for his life ahead.