After The Whistle: Parkside’s Connor Bailey

SALISBURY, Md. — Meet Parkside’s Connor Bailey. Twenty years from now when you’re talking about the greatest winners from the shore,  Connor Bailey’s name needs to be mentioned.

“It’s amazing. I mean, my two state championships, team sports, my teammates, I couldn’t be luckier to have such great teammates and such great coaches for all my sports,” he says.

He has a baseball state title, a soccer state title, and a regional track title. “I think any time to have success in any sport is a great experience,” Bailey says.

He’s been playing baseball and soccer since he was in elementary school, and throwing shot put since his freshman year. To train for all of those sports he’s got to be in the gym year-round.

“I think for track, it’s a lot more explosive training and strength training. While baseball, it’s a lot more in sport skill training. For baseball, you have to have great hand-eye coordination and great footwork in the field. And then for soccer, obviously, you got to have great footwork, and I just think all those sports kind of help me for the other sport,” he says.

Now that he’s a senior, he says he’s going to instill his wisdom in the next generation.

“I can help kids that some of the younger kids, especially like freshmen, sophomores, and juniors that haven’t played against teams, and this is kind of their first year starting and playing, I think I can just help them settle in,” he says.

He says the secret to his success is no more than dedication and preparation. “You just got to work hard to be successful. I think in anything in life, if you work hard, I think good things happen,” Bailey says. He says his dream is to play college baseball, but he has not committed to any schools yet, so he’s banking on a monster senior year to help push him to the next level.