To say Wes Agnew is determined to play the sports he loves, would be an understatement.
Agnew who plays baseball and basketball for Grace Christian, lost his right eye in a freak accident Feb. 5, 2019 while pitching to his brother in a batting cage.
“I just didn’t get behind the screen,” he said. “He hit it back at me. It hit my eyeball perfectly. It didn’t hit any bones.”
Agnew had surgery that night “The surgeon put my eye back together but a couple of weeks later it failed.”
Despite the injury, he missed only two games during last year’s baseball season. “The day the doctor said it was OK to play, I went to the batting cage.”
At this time, Agnew said there is no procedure to restore the vision to the eye, but he has gotten used to playing baseball and basketball with only one eye, although it was a learning process. “With baseball, it’s depth perception. In basketball it’s awareness.”
In basketball practice prior to the 2019-20 season, he found himself running into other players on his blind side. “Sometimes I just couldn’t see them and I body slammed into them. But I have definitely gotten a lot better. Toward the end of the season, it wasn’t an issue at all.”
He also experienced some reading problems with school work after the accident, but said, “Like everything else, I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve adapted to it.”
Grace Christian headmaster and basketball coach Jason Morgan is highly complementary. “First off, his defining characteristic, in my opinion, is his determination. You don’t have injuries like this and continue to play sports without determination.
“The second thing I will say is that from a basketball standpoint, if I didn’t know he was injured, I wouldn’t be able to tell. He can defend, drive, shoot and do anything everybody else can do, which is amazing to me. It’s a credit to how hard he works, how much he wants to be the best he can be, and how much he loves to play. Incredible example of working to overcome adversity and refusing to let obstacles slow you down.”
His father, Charlie Agnew, is Grace Christian’s first-year baseball coach. “I was optimistic about how he would handle it,” he said of his son. “He had a good attitude about it. He never had a down moment expect for the day the doctor told him they would have to remove it (the eye). He was emotional for a few minutes. He had lost an eye. A half day later, he was okay.”
Agnew is a home schooled student who began playing baseball for Grace Christian as a freshman after his family moved to Mississippi from Alabama. “We were looking for some place to play and we heard that Grace Christian allows home schoolers to play for them.”
Agnew was a full time catcher for the Eagles as a junior, but this year is playing other positions as needed by the team, including pitcher. “I love catching, but pitching is new and exciting.”
He has been throwing with his brother, trying to keep in shape during the current hiatus, in the event that the season is resumed.”
