WILLIAMSBURG, VA (WTKR)- Braden Lee likes to win. He's competitive and puts his best foot forward regardless of the competition arena and the list of sports he doesn't play might be shorter than the activities in which he takes part.
The Lafayette senior is a five-sport athlete, competing in cross country, swimming, indoor and outdoor track and field and baseball. The busy schedule may make high school hectic, but also provides plenty of victories and friendships.
"He will go out and run miles before practice," noted Rams' head baseball coach Quentin Mascari. "It is insane."
"Most cross country runners aren't baseball players aren't swimmers," Lee added. "I've been able to get to know a bunch of different people from all across the school and build different friendships with each of them."
His body has racked up plenty of miles on land, in the water and on the base-paths, but out of all the sports in which he competes, one holds the rank of being his number one pick.
"Baseball's definitely my favorite, just because it's the least painful," he smiled. "But I feel a lot more satisfaction when I finish a swim or a running race."
Lee entered the fall with one year left in each of his five activities, but his senior seasons almost came to a halt before even starting. For this part of the story, we have to rewind back to his sophomore baseball campaign as he stood at home plate.
"My sophomore year in an at-bat for the baseball team, my shoulder popped out and in, just really quickly," Lee recalled. "[It] really hurt, but I didn't really mention it to anyone."
He suffered the injury to his non-throwing shoulder and it started to feel better as the summer progressed, but during his junior year, he noticed the pain returning and growing.
"I got an MRI this past summer and I found out I had a posterior labrum tear," he said. "They were like 'surgery is your best option. It's four to six months."
That put two doors in front of Lee. Through the first, sitting out nearly his entire senior year. His second choice was to manage the pain and play through it.
"This is probably the last time I'm going to be playing sports," he pointed out. "I probably won't play in college, so let's just go for it. I don't really need a shoulder for running at all, so I can at least do those three and then swimming and baseball we can just do the best that we can."
"That 'team over me" mentality that all of us as high school coaches really preach, to have a kid that epitomizes that and vocally says it, it's so selfless," Mascari added.
Lee says that doctors assured him that his injury could not worsen, as the labrum was already totally torn. He made some adjustments, only swimming certain events and only playing the field in baseball. The utility player used medication, physical therapy and stretching to help treat the pain, helping him to a senior athletic campaign that was as close to normal as possible.
"It let's those guys know 'hey, I might be a little nicked up, but I can sort of fight through it," Mascari said. "This guy's out here with a serious injury, something that needs major surgery, and is in pain and it can just tweak any time."
"Once the event is going on, the adrenaline takes over and then usually I'm pretty good," Lee noted. "It does hurt a lot after, but then I just try to stretch, ice and heat to try to minimize the pain as much as I can."
Lee's resume of sports is also indicative of his work on the baseball field. He plays every position except catcher and hopes to get at least one at-bat during senior day. This summer, he'll finally have the necessary surgery to repair his shoulder, but feels that so far, his decision to push it back has been worth it. He's helped the Rams' to championships in several sports, been part of a cross country team that finished third in the state meet and the state runner-up swim squad. Those are all memories and experiences that he would have missed had he chosen a different path.
"All that stuff I wouldn't have been able to do if I had gotten the surgery," he pointed out. "I would definitely be glad that I didn't get the surgery and I was able to help my teams throughout my senior year for sure."
"It is so nice and refreshing to see that," added Mascari. "There's a lot of self-gratification in this world and to do some things that aren't gratifying for just yourself is amazing."
While he does not plan on playing sports at the college level, Lee will show off his academic skills. He boasts a 4.3 GPA and will major in finance at the University of Virginia beginning this fall.
