by Griffin Leonard
Kingsmen Baseball has added Preston Hudak, son of founder and head coach Joe Hudak to its summer coaching staff. Preston will also serve as Assistant Director of Kingsmen Baseball. For Preston, baseball was always more than a game. It was his identity and his future. However, that dream of intertwining baseball and life did not come easy.
The Rock Hill native picked up baseball before he started grade school. With his father serving as the Head Baseball Coach at Winthrop University, Preston was always around the game. Though passionate about the sport, things took a while to get off the ground. Hudak found getting recruited by collegiate coaches to be difficult. While talented, he was undersized. That challenge, paired with surgery for a torn labrum his senior year, gave Preston two options.
“My options after high school were to try and walk on to a 4 year university, or take a gap year,” Hudak said.
Preston wound up taking the latter option. In that year, he transformed into a different athlete. After growing 5 inches and adding over 25 pounds, Hudak had grown into the build he’d strived for. The offers finally came. He committed to Campbell University, where he planned to start his collegiate career. But, even while committed, Hudak had his eyes on bigger – on his dream.
A twist of fate opened the door to the University of North Carolina, where a wave of players taken in the MLB Draft cleared space on the roster. Hudak seized the opportunity and headed to Chapel Hill. After receiving high levels of playing time his freshman season, everything looked to be at its peak. Then, further trials struck.
“After playing in 18 games my freshman year, I tore my shoulder for the 3rd time,” Hudak said. “I had surgery and was out for the rest of the season.”
His time was up in Chapel Hill. Hudak, out of options at the division one level, transferred to division two Francis Marion. Just weeks into the fall however, another labrum tear wrapped up his baseball career for good.
“I spent my days in [physical therapy],” Hudak lamented. “I knew pretty soon that I wasn’t going to be able to play and realized it was time to call it.”
Despite his love for the game, Preston was forced to walk away. It was for his own good, in order to protect himself from further injury. That didn’t make it any easier.
“Trying to move on from baseball…I didn’t know what to do,” Hudak recounted. “I was lost, confused, and had no real purpose for a long time.”
Trying to fill the hole that baseball left both in his schedule and in his heart proved to be harder than he anticipated. Struggling with the emotional pain of losing his identity, in addition to the physical pain of years of injury, Hudak turned to darker measures in an attempt to ease his struggles.
“I turned to drugs and alcohol. I isolated myself and used in an attempt to fill the God-sized hole in my heart,” said Hudak. “I went numb from the cards that life dealt me and drugs were the only thing that made me feel something for a long time.”
Searching for answers, and searching for a new beginning, Preston moved to California in 2021. He chose to bet on himself and attempt to turn a new page. After finding new friends and discovering Alcoholics Anonymous, he began to rekindle his life that had once burned brightly. In the end, it was one other blessing that burned the brightest and helped Hudak to truly turn his life around.
Hudak was reintroduced to the Lord.
“Through God’s intervention I was able to find meaning and purpose in my life,” Hudak said. “In return, I received a deep level of peace and understanding about what is really important – loving others and making the next right choice.”
After trying to fill his heart with earthly desires when baseball ended, Hudak had felt frustrated and unfulfilled for what felt like an eternity. But in the clouds of uncertainty, it was Him that parted the waves and brought Preston home.
Today, three and a half years sober, Preston Hudak lives in North Carolina, working alongside his father at Kingsmen Baseball Academy. Though not on the field playing, Preston once again gets to live out his baseball dream. Only now, the mission is bigger.
“Coming back to be a part of Kingsmen is a ‘full circle’ kind of feeling. I’ve discovered a new and profound way to love the game,” Hudak explained. “That is by using baseball as a platform to help young men build a foundational identity not only in what they do on the field – but more importantly who they are off the field.”
“I’m so grateful for the opportunity to build this with my dad and my family, and I can’t wait to see what God has in store,” he added.
For Preston Hudak, the road to redemption wasn’t easy, and it definitely wasn’t without its bumps in the road. But now, with his scars worn proudly and his faith in the Lord stronger than it has perhaps ever been, he’s proof that even when a dream ends, something greater may be just around the corner.
