Williams, Whitaker to Continue Careers at Four-Year Schools

Jerod Williams and Bradley Whitaker have made their respective marks with Bear Baseball over the past few years. Now they get the opportunity to do so once more on the four-year level as Williams heads to Hattiesburg to play at William Carey while Whitaker moves north to Jackson to play at Belhaven.

For Williams, he says the process of signing with the Crusaders started back in the early summer.

“Before the (NAIA) World Series, they called me at the beginning and said that the center field spot will be open and they asked me if I want to be the guy to fill that position,” he said. “I thought about it and took the spot.”

Williams chose to sign with the Crusaders over offers from a school in Kentucky and the University of Mobile in addition to ones from HBCU’s in Mississippi including Tougaloo, Mississippi Valley and Jackson State. Another important factor that helped Williams with his decision-making was the close proximity to his home in Gulfport.

Signing with Carey also reunites Williams with former Bear teammates, Braydon Coffey and Brady Wilson.

Williams took advantage of the extra COVID year, further expanding his game at Southwest. While he shined at the plate hitting .313 with one home run, 21 RBIs, 28 runs scored and 22 stolen bases in 45 games, he made just as big of an impact in the field, finishing with a 1.000 fielding percentage and earning an NJCAA Division II Rawlings Gold Glove Award.

Southwest head coach Jack Edmonson said that Williams checks many boxes on what he brings to the William Carey squad.

“He’s a very good defender who can run,” Edmonson said. “He’s good on the bases and he’s a very-consistent hitter who has hit over .300 all three years he was here. He’s got a little juice for a smaller guy and he’s a guy that will be able to create runs for them.”

For Whitaker he became known as a reliable arm out of the bullpen, making 12 total appearances and striking out eight.

Getting the chance to continue his academics and playing career at Belhaven is something that he is very grateful for, giving a lot of credit to Southwest for helping him achieve that goal.

“It’s awesome. I really enjoyed my time at Southwest,” he said. “If it wasn’t for a great coaching staff like Coach Edmonson I wouldn’t be here. A big thanks to coach for reaching out to Belhaven and helping out with that. When I first came in (to Southwest), I wasn’t sure if I was going anywhere afterward but after I got to Southwest, I started playing and realized how much fun college ball was. With how good of an experience Southwest was, I definitely wanted to keep playing. Knowing that I am going to keep playing for the next two years is awesome.”

Just recently, Whitaker played summer league ball in Florida and that helped add on to his recruitment as he was offered by New College of Florida in addition to receiving offers from a school in Brooklyn and St. Xavier in Chicago.

And like Williams, Whitaker will be reunited with a couple of Southwest teammates as he will continue to play with Connor McHenry and Hunter Harrell who also recently signed with the Blazers.

“Going into Belhaven with two of my brothers is going to be awesome,” Whitaker said. “I know I’ll have two people right there. We will hopefully bring some leadership.”

When Whitaker gets to Jackson, he said that the plan remains the same for him to come out of the bullpen, but he adds that he is open to helping in any way that he can.

Like Williams, Coach Edmonson is very happy to see Whitaker get the chance to continue his academics and athletics at the four-year level.

“I’m really excited for Bradley and his family,” he said. “He works extremely hard and won our challenge that we have at the end of the fall. He has really good stuff and really figured it out this summer on how to keep the ball in the zone. I’m really proud of him and I think that Belhaven is a good fit for him.”