SACCO: Another Zirkle heads to Shepherd

The whole time he talks — a low-toned, well-thought-out kind of talking — mom sits there and smiles.

Her eyes open wide as he answers each mind-numbing question.

What do you like about the campus?

Excited about playing Division II baseball?

Are you going to live with your older brother?

Blah, blah, blah?

So on and so forth.

And Sean Zirkle keeps on answering them.

Intelligently.

Quickly.

Softly.

His voice never breaking into an “um” or “you know” or a “like.” Just low, slow answers to each question without even an eye-blink moment of hesitation.

And mom, Joan, sits there and smiles.

“It’s not easy,” she says, fresh off the heels of seeing her oldest son, Brett, head back to Shepherd University.

Believe it or not, that tree-root foundation of the dark days of Stuarts Draft football is actually a college senior. He’s also expected to be the Rams’ starting quarterback this football season.

“Mom,” she says, not pausing, just like Sean, “gets a little emotional.”

If you know Augusta County sports and followed a bit of St. Anne’s-Belfield over in Charlottesville, you know the last name Zirkle.

Sean, who stands at 6-foot-3 and weights in at 205 pounds (“These days,” he says, again, in that low drone), is not the size you expect from a high school catcher, a position usually reserved for those built like a fire hydrant, not like the hose.

But his final campaign at STAB got him noticed. He batted .363, hit four homers and drove in 19 RBI. And like all baseball players, he had dreams of playing Division I.

“Yes,” he says, “it was a hope at some time.”

But the situation at Shepherd appealed to him. He was told the team would go with three catchers, with him as the third. He was also told there were no plans to red-shirt him.

“So that’s a positive,” he says.

And as he continues to talk, mom continues to smile.

After attending Stuarts Draft through his junior year, Sean transferred to STAB, repeated his junior year and won a state title in football while playing for the Saints. In 2008, the Saints baseball team lost in the state semifinals.

That experience playing against other high-level private schools paid big dividends.

Taking the diamond against Greenbrier Christian, he faced three Division-I caliber players. Paul VI, a consistently national-ranked program out of Fairfax, fields the same kind of talent.

Behind the plate at STAB he caught for Brett Goodloe — heading to William & Mary to play baseball — and Kyle Long. They both threw in the mid-90s.

“That’s the uniqueness of it,” Sean says. “You’re catching players like that. The next thing you know, it’s in your mit.”

Sunday and Monday were spent saying goodbye to family and friends.

Today, he’s packing his clothes — the last bit of work he has to do — loading the car and heading up Interstate 81 to the school that sits on the banks of the Potomac.

“I can go fishing,” he says, his face breaking into a grin.

And mom soaks it all in.

Another athlete, another good student (Brett is pre-med, Sean plans on getting into computers) and another off to college to fulfill a dream.

“I couldn’t be prouder,” she says.

Of course, she’s smiling.