Some athletes look like they are playing a different game.
They can’t fly or lift buildings, but they can zip a fastball down the plate at a scorching 105.5 MPH. They can also win dunk contests, earn a finals MVP as one of the greatest shooters to ever live or drive the puck into the net on a fastbreak past five defenders – on ice. Things most normal professional athletes just can’t do.
Vince Carter. Steph Curry. Nate MacKinnon. Kids from past and present generations have looked up to these people, among many others, as superheroes.
But there are other ways of being a hero. It’s easy to have a platform and not do anything with it, but certain players go above and beyond. Vince Carter may be one of the most electrifying athletes to ever exist, but his Embassy of Hope foundation remains one of the more impressive things about his career. Curry and MacKinnon are also well known for giving back to the community.
Tennessee’s Ben Joyce did some amazing things for the former No. 1 team in the country this season. He broke the college record for fastest recorded pitch and threw 3.1 fantastic innings against Notre Dame in the Super Regional round.
But just before the Volunteers’ game against Notre Dame, Joyce and a few other players on the team decided to visit the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital. A few days later, Joyce announced he was partnering with the organization, specifically the Pain and Palliative Care Program, with the intent of raising money for children with life-threatening conditions.
“Now that I have a little bit of a platform I wanted to use it to do some good. Me, Kirby (Connell), Chase Dollander, Evan Russell and a couple of other guys went to the hospital the day before we played Notre Dame, just to go around and say hey to the kids,” Joyce told Off The Hook Sports. “I was like ‘I want to do more, whatever I can’ so I reached out to them over email and we set something up so I could raise some money and just give back as much as I can”
Joyce’s fundraiser is called ‘Giving Cancer The Heat’ and it’s making a significant impact for a cause he believes in.
And the redshirt junior with a rocket for an arm says he isn’t finished.
“I think I’m going to continue to do stuff with them in the future; they’re an awesome organization,” Joyce said. “Seeing those kids, how it brightened their day just having us around, it was awesome. It really puts things into perspective.”
Joyce hammered home that last point of how visiting the Children’s Hospital put things into perspective. He’s wanted to give back to a community that he has grown up around, one that has given him a chance to play the sport he loves.
A Farragut native, Joyce has been around East Tennessee his whole life. He attended Walters State and threw there for one season before transferring to Tennessee. Tommy John surgery held him out of his first year in the Orange and White, where he took advantage of a redshirt year rehabbing to get back on the mound.
His patience paid off. Joyce was as solid a reliever as Tennessee needed him to be. He could strike you out at 105, but could slow it down with a wicked slider when necessary.
That kind of range was torture for opposing batters, but national media and Tennessee fans ate it up. To a couple kids at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, meeting Joyce and the rest of the players who visited was a breath of fresh air.
“I think for me, we came in and talked to a kid. You could tell he was hurting, but he got pretty happy when we got in there,” Joyce said. “Then his dad walked out with us and said how much it brightened his day and how hard things have been for him, how much of a difference we made for him. That was something that hit pretty deep. Just realizing how good we have it.
“If I have a platform, why not use it in that way?”
