‘Failure is not an option’ for Trevor Condon as he flies high into St. Louis
Every day presents a new challenge for Trevor Condon, whether he is on the baseball field or simply going about his daily life. But for Condon, failure is not an option. The Woodstock native will do whatever it takes to come out on top.
Baseball is widely known as a failure sport. When you play a game centered around the law of averages, being perfect is just not going to happen. You’re bound to get out more than you reach safely, pitchers are going to have off days, and teams are not going to win every game.
While the odds generally do not lean in one’s favor, Condon admits that it is how you respond when adversity hits that shows your true character as a competitor.
“Failure is not an option, but failure is something that’s going to come in this game of baseball,” Condon said in a phone call with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. “It’s how you react to your failure that means something to me. And what I mean by that is your failure is your character.”
It is this mindset that has driven Condon ever since his father, Craig, put a baseball bat in his hands at the age of six. Standing at 5-foot-11, 175 pounds, Condon is not the most physically intimidating player. But that has not stopped him from proving people wrong.
A big fan of retired United States Navy SEAL and now author, athlete and motivational speaker David Goggins, Condon has adopted a brief but impactful line from him since middle school: “You don’t know me.”
“Everybody wants to judge you for who you are, but at the end of the day, you don’t know me. You’ve never walked in my shoes. I’ve never walked in yours,” Condon said.
Condon has read multiple books by Goggins, who explains that he did not just wake up becoming this ultra-fit human: “he built himself from the ground up.” That logic Condon explained applies to his life, as his parents molded him in clay to become the best player he can be.
Those words of motivation have been put to use ever since Condon stepped foot on campus at Etowah in 2022. He arrived as an already committed player to Miami, but he did not have a role handed out.
Etowah that season had a pretty good group of outfielders, as head coach Greg Robinson said, so while he was already on varsity, the consistent playing time would need to be earned. Condon had a good season, but he did hit a mental rough patch during it.
“You’re not starting, and you’re being told from a couple of players on the team that you don’t deserve your Miami scholarship,” he said. “This, that, and the other. You’re cocky, you’re arrogant, all this stuff, and you know it really does start making me think a little bit negative on myself.”
It became the wake-up call he needed because after that season, everything started falling into place. Condon began growing physically and maturing more as a leader. While he was getting more playing time, Condon was sitting at the bottom of the order, and he was just not going to settle for that.
So the left-handed slugger started producing so well that Robinson had no choice but to thrust him up the lineup.
“He worked his way up from nine to seven, and then boom, it was obvious,” Robinson said. “It’s like we’ve got to get this guy to one or two.”
“I had to prove myself, and as I told myself every day when I worked out, you’ve got to make it undeniable, Trev,” Condon added. “You’ve got to make it undeniable, and that’s kind of just what I did.”
That second year ended with a doubleheader sweep over Pope to claim a GHSA Class 6A state championship. During that series, Condon blasted a no-doubt three-run home run in Game 1 that stamped the exclamation point on the series and his time associated with Miami.
Not long after that series, Condon’s home run celebration rubbed the Miami coaching staff the wrong way. The disagreement ultimately led him to decommit from Miami before later committing to Tennessee.
“I took it a little bit as disrespect, and if you don’t like me for hitting a home run in one of the biggest games of my life at this point, then like you probably won’t like me if I’m playing for you,” Condon said. “I knew immediately that Tennessee was going to be the place I was going to go.”
Over the next two seasons, Condon’s rise up the draft charts only got higher. In his junior year, Condon hit .419 with 52 hits, including four doubles, five triples and eight homers to go with his 41 RBIs and 23 stolen bases. Etowah came up short in the state semifinals that year, but it only motivated Condon and his teammates more heading into their senior campaigns.
This past season, Condon entered as Baseball America’s 22nd overall draft prospect and No. 1 player from the state of Georgia. But even with all the draft hype, Condon’s mentality never wavered; in fact, it only grew given how last season ended.
Across 39 games played, Condon hit .492 with 59 hits, 17 doubles, five triples, nine homers, 42 RBIs, 33 walks and just 13 strikeouts in 120 at-bats. He earned Region 5-AAAAAA Player of the Year and was named the Gatorade State Player of the Year.
More importantly, he helped lead Etowah back to the mountaintop with another state championship title. One that fittingly ended with Condon recording the final out from center field, where he had patrolled the skies over his four seasons.
Condon called winning a state title “a feeling everyone deserves at least once,” and, lucky enough for him, he won it twice. It was a real curtain call for Condon and his fellow senior infielders, Deion Cole (Georgia Tech commit) and UGA commit right-handed pitcher Matthew Sharman.
Sharman and Condon grew up as childhood neighbors and started playing ball together from a very young age. From then on, their friendship only grew to where it is now. Sharman finished his high school career with a 36-3 record, a 1.31 ERA with 380 strikeouts, held batters to a .184 average and won MaxPreps Georgia Player of the Year honors.
“Whenever I’m on the mound, I wouldn’t rather have anybody else out there in center field, just because not only as a baseball player, but also just as a competitor, and his mindset and attitude he brings to the game,” Sharman said. “I don’t think there’s a person that’s more competitive that has more audacity than Trevor. And every time a ball goes up in the air, I know it’s getting caught. I can basically just walk off the mound.”
A few days after the state title, Condon took a trip down to Tampa, Florida, where he worked out with members of the St. Louis Cardinals. He was not planning on even throwing while down there, but was talked into “letting the big dog eat” and showed off that powerful arm, which left them impressed.
Condon said it did not take long for him to develop a strong connection with the Cardinals, drawing similarities between the organization and the coaching staff at Tennessee. That relationship continued to grow throughout the MLB draft combine, and on July 11, the Cardinals called Condon’s name with the No. 13 pick — the call he had been dreaming of.
“Very surreal feeling, especially when you dream about this since you were five to six years old and had literal dreams of playing in the major leagues,” Condon said. “I believe that God put me with the best team that fits me, and that is the St. Louis Cardinals.”
After already breaking five program batting records such as hits (167), triples (13), homers (19), RBIs (128) and runs (147), Condon set two more records becoming the highest drafted played out of Etowah and the only one ever picked in the first round.
Condon’s slot value at pick 13 was set at $5,661,300, and he is expected to sign, he told the AJC.
The now-Cardinal said he does not know where he will be stationed within the organization, but he knows that as long as he brings the right attitude, it does not matter what level of baseball he is playing at.
“CYP, can you play? And at the end of the day, I say this all the time,” Condon said. “Nobody will ever be able to take away from me, and that is my heart. My heart. You can’t take that away from me. I’m here for one reason, one reason only, and that’s to win.”