Haylen Green: A Baseball Life

Haylen Green has been tossing a baseball off his wall from the time he was able to use his hands. There are pictures of him as an infant laying in his crib with a baseball or football right by his side. He says he has had a strong desire to play sports since the age of 4.

A photo of TCU student Haylen Green as a young baseball player.

A photo of TCU student Haylen Green as a young baseball player.

Baseball and football were Green’s passions while growing up. He put all his time and effort into competing in sports and challenged himself to become a professional athlete one day. He started playing baseball at the age of 4 and football at the age of 12.

Though he wanted to begin playing football at earlier age, his dad opted to keep him out until he was older to avoid any serious injury from a contact sport. From that point on, Green was a dual-sport athlete and enjoyed baseball and football equally, having fun and getting better every day. His father was the offensive coordinator at the local high school in his hometown where he grew up, so the sport was definitely in his blood. The dream of playing for his dad one day at the high school level pushed him to work on his craft, day in and day out.

When Green was a junior in high school, he suffered a devastating shoulder injury that ended his football career. Emotions ran high as he and his family knew that going forward football was no longer in his future. But this allowed him to shift his focus strictly to baseball after he recovered, giving himself optimal time and energy to concentrate on a single sport. He wanted to pitch, hit and be an everyday player – known as a “two-way player – and he did just that. This led to Green being recruited by several Division I colleges.

One hot summer day, he was pitching in a baseball tournament at TCU, one of the many schools that had recruited him. When he arrived, he was captivated by of the state-of-the-art facilities and the purple-and-white themed campus. From that moment, his interest to play for TCU was on the rise and he started doing research about the school.

He discovered that at the time of his recruitment, the TCU baseball team had competed in the College World Series for three consecutive years. There was nothing more appealing to a kid out of Lufkin, Texas, than to play in a College World Series. Without a doubt, Green knew TCU was where he wanted to call home: Next stop, Horned Frog country.

Green originally came to TCU as a business major and decided it didn’t challenge his creative side enough. After his third semester, he made the switch to the Bob Schieffer College of Communication. He changed his major to strategic communication and his minor to business. After he made the switch, he was excited with the new creative challenges the major offered.

Studying design, strategic writing and advertising made Green feel he was using his creative talents more efficiently. The faculty at the college have fueled him to succeed from the very beginning of his transfer and help and motivate him to continue his hard work both in the classroom and on the baseball field.

A photo of TCU student Haylen Green playing baseball for TCU.