{"id":6158,"date":"2017-05-24T07:56:27","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T15:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=6158"},"modified":"2017-05-24T07:56:27","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T15:56:27","slug":"crunk-at-the-crossroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/crunk-at-the-crossroads\/","title":{"rendered":"Crunk at the crossroads"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Burke De Boer\r\nSports Editor<\/pre>\n
\u201cIt takes you forever to find a good walk-up song,\u201d said the designated hitter. \u201cIt\u2019s a very big deal. I actually didn\u2019t decide until like the last week before our first spring games, when I had to make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man who agonized over his soundtrack is Joey Crunkilton, who played his final season in 2017. He walked up to the stadium country song \u201cPeople Back Home\u201d by Florida Georgia Line.
\nHis music in 2016 was a hard reggae track: \u201cVampire\u201d by Tribal Seeds.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to understand why Crunkilton would pay special attention to his music. In addition to playing Wolves baseball, he has played cymbals for the Western drumline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw a poster, \u2018Western Oregon drumline: If you know how to read music call this number, we need people.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Well, s—, I play the drums,\u2019\u201d he laughs. \u201cSo I called them and ended up playing football games and stuff. That was kicka–.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the can-do spirit that Crunkilton brings to his game. His positive attitude reverberated through the team this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrunk is a great guy to be around,\u201d said Nyles Nygaard, junior third baseman. \u201cHe always has the biggest smile on his face and is a guy people can go to for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\"\"Roll back the clock a year and we would be talking about a different Crunk.<\/p>\n
Western Oregon is his third college team, after a successful run at Western Nevada College and a less successful run at UC Santa Barbara.<\/p>\n
\u201cBaseball was the thing, and my ticket to get my way through school,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause I\u2019m a good student, but not a great student.\u201d<\/p>\n
Western Nevada was happy to punch the not-great-student\u2019s ticket. For two years, Crunkilton took a scholarship to play ball in the desert mountains. Both years he earned all-conference honors. But a junior college is only a launching pad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had offers from random schools,\u201d said Crunkilton. \u201cAnd I wasn\u2019t sure, I wasn\u2019t getting a gut feeling on where I wanted to go. So I ended up sending my own info out to WOU, and they were like \u2018Yeah, we want you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Then UC Santa Barbara called. \u201cI wanted to go to a Division I school more than anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santa Barbara, however, did not go according to plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cDivision I was much more cutthroat. I kind of got chewed up and spit out by the team. It was an eye-opening year. It\u2019s very competitive, and if you don\u2019t stand up and prove yourself then you get forgotten about quickly. Then they redshirted me.\u201d
\nAfter a year of practicing and not playing, Joey Crunkilton was in a funk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was talking to the coach and he was like \u2018You\u2019re probably gonna be a backup if you come back. Probably in a similar spot to where you are right now. Not a ton of playing time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
So he packed his bags. He had left Western waiting, but the howling of the Wolves would wait no longer.<\/p>\n
Crunk announced himself with a home run in his debut game, a two-run smash that would prove the game winner over Azusa Pacific on Feb. 4, 2016.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, it would be his only homer all season. In the 13 games he played in April, he went hitless in nine. He finished the season with a .245 average, one of the worst on the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t play much towards the end,\u201d he took a pause. \u201cI got a little nihilistic last year. It was kind of a \u2018Whatever\u2019 attitude as I stopped playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a fifth-year senior, that all changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the thought, this is my last year. If I only play one game I\u2019m still gonna go for it and do my best.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his efforts, he helped the team earn a conference championship and sweep the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The semi-final rally against Central Washington is what Crunkilton says he\u2019ll take away most from the season.<\/p>\n
He recalls watching the Wildcats bat from the dugout. \u201cI was freakin\u2019 out. They go base hit, score a run. \u2018All right, 1-1.\u2019 Home run, 3-1. \u2018S—.\u2019 Another home run, 5-1, hit, hit, 7-1. I just got this sense of calm. We were like, \u2018Screw it, let\u2019s break some hearts.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Which is what they did, scoring 12 runs in the final three innings. Crunkilton scored two and added an RBI.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you could see Central was like \u2018What the hell just happened?\u2019\u201d He laughed. \u201cThat game was the coolest. That was the best way to cap off the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the season done and graduation imminent, Joey faces uncertainty once more.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to get out of the house, dude. Just quick as possible. Find a job first and then you can get a career later.\u201d<\/p>\n
What would this career be? He spitballs a few ideal career paths, from a fitness business to an online marketing company.
\n\u201cI want to do something more with music. I want to really learn how to play the drumset well, and then I want to join a band. Absolute dream job: being in a rock band. That would be very fun, I think,\u201d he nodded as he thought it over. \u201cI also really want to learn how to fight, like boxing or jiu jitsu. I was a wrestler growing up and that was always fun. It was so much just brute effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe one day, Joey Crunkilton will be picking music to come out of the tunnel for a fight. Or maybe some future baseball player will walk up to the batter\u2019s box while a Crunkilton drum solo plays.<\/p>\n
Or maybe neither of these things. Whatever happens, you get the sense when you talk to Crunk, it\u2019s going to be fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess my dream would be to just make something, create a business or a product or something, that just makes people\u2019s lives better and makes me money. Pretty simple,\u201d and he laughed again.<\/p>\n
Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Burke De Boer Sports Editor \u201cIt takes you forever to find a good walk-up song,\u201d said the designated hitter. \u201cIt\u2019s a very big deal. I actually didn\u2019t decide until like the last week before our first spring games, when I had to make a decision.\u201d The man who agonized over his soundtrack is Joey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":937,"featured_media":6188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/937"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}