By: Colin Lacy

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

This time a year ago, the name Drew Burress stirred up some buzz on the flats as the Houston County native was just beginning what would turn into one of the most spectacular seasons (let alone freshman years) in Georgia Tech Baseball history.

Last season would turn into so many accolades from ACC Freshman of the Year to Freshman All-American even the D1 Baseball and Perfect Game National Freshman of the Year, but what is Drew Burress beyond the stat sheets?

Start at the beginning of the college career for the former Houston County High standout. Burress was seriously on several teams’ draft boards for around the third or fourth round, but his commitment to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets stood firm unless a first-round call would come.

Coming into the 2024 season, Jackets Head Coach Danny Hall said multiple times through pre-season media availability that there were two things that Drew wasn’t shy about…He wanted to be a first-round pick, and he wanted to graduate from Georgia Tech in three years.

Georgia Tech Baseball has had twelve first round selections over the years, but in the 130 years of Georgia Tech Baseball nobody has ever graduated in three years while playing baseball.

Burress was a highly heralded recruit and was rated as the 6^th best player in the nation that made it to a college campus, but the first inning of his career didn’t pan out as everyone expected.

Burress was the leadoff man for the 2024 season, and in his debut at-bat, Drew would strikeout. The Jackets, however, had an impressive bottom of the first inning against Radford and batted around, so Burress came up for a second time in the inning. Alas, Burress would strike out again for the second time in his first inning of college baseball.

As Burress returned to the dugout after the second, Head Coach Danny Hall put his arm around Drew and said, “Don’t worry about it, you’ll homer next time.”

Little did Coach Hall know how right he would be because not only did Burress do just that and launch his first career homerun in the next at-bat, but he would homer in both of the next two at-bats.

As we mentioned, the accolades would roll in for Burress as a freshman in 2024 and so did the records.

Burress set the Georgia Tech freshman homerun record with 25 long balls on the season shattering Jeremy Slayden’s previous record of 18.

He also would become just the twelfth Jacket to win the team triple crown (lead the team in average, home runs, and RBI), and the first since Matt Gonzalez did it in 2016.

Burress also became just the third Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket to be named a National Freshman of the Year by a major publication joining Mark Teixeira and Derek Dietrich.

Finally, while the offensive exploits get so much of the attention, he also rewrote the defensive records by setting the record for outfield assists in a season by gunning down ten assists in the year.

After the heralded freshman campaign, Burress’ hunger for the game and improving his craft has only grown.

In a work ethic like I’ve never seen, especially in someone so young, a lot of it comes from his family.

Drew’s dad, Andy Burress, was a baseball player back in his day after being a 6^th round pick and playing in the Reds organization.

After his playing career, Andy founded and continues to run one of the premier travel ball organizations in the country with 5 Star National which has produced an extensive list of draft picks and college signees.

Even with all of the accolades, and in a time where college athletes get the mantra of “only concerned about the money” Burress couldn’t be farther from that.

Through the 2025 preseason, Burress said “I’m not worried about the stat lines if we’re in Omaha (for the College World Series).”

I’m fortunate enough to get to call Drew Burress dazzle every game on the Georgia Tech Sports Network, but the most dazzling part of the young man isn’t the on-field prowess.

The most impressive part of the Georgia Tech’s sophomore is how he carries himself through all the publicity and all the success.

The guy is a grinder, coming to the ballpark every day trying to be as good as he can be while also leading by example and showing a young Georgia Tech team how the best in the game goes about doing it.

I can’t wait to see what this year turns out to be in, what Wiley Ballard called in Burress’ Walk-off Grand Slam call his “sophomore encore.”