Mike Vukovcan “To be successful at anything, the truth is you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t: consistent, determined, and willing to work for it.”
Hopewell High School sophomore baseball player Brody McCullough subscribes to that mindset and is putting in the time, actually overtime, to become a valuable piece to the Vikings varsity baseball program.
Hopewell softball and youth baseball is sponsored by Lisa McCoy, your neighborhood State Farm agent.
Whether it’s working out at the gym, working with an instructor, practicing with a teammate, receiving guidance from head coach Morgan Singletary and his staff, McCullough has been doing it with one goal and mind- to become a player that his coaches and teammates can count on to perform and make this talented Hopewell team even better.
Brody’s drive to become a better baseball player didn’t just start this past offseason, it’s a trait he’s possessed since playing in the Hopewell Youth Baseball organization.
While other kids play multiple sports growing up, that wasn’t the case with Brody. Baseball has always been his only love.
“It all started when I was a little kid,” McCullough tells Vikings Sports Now. “I watched baseball on the TV every night and dreamed of one day being those guys. When I started playing as a kid and although I wasn’t very good, I kept playing because I loved the game. I then developed the mindset of wanting nothing but to try and get better.”
“There were times that I wanted to try and play football and maybe basketball but, in the end, it always came back to wanting to play baseball. I’ve started to play golf in the offseason but really for me, it’s all about baseball.”
As a way of improving his skills, like many kids today, McCullough gave travel baseball a shot, playing with the Pittsburgh Diamonds Dawgs and now with the Beaver Valley Baseball. While it’s a grind, considering the time he’s also investing with the Hopewell program, McCullough believes it’s definitely benefited him as a player.
“I’ve been playing travel baseball for eight years now,” said McCullough. “When I was little, travel baseball helped me grow a lot but as you grow up, you have to take the growing development into your own hands. By that I mean, you take aspects of what they’re teaching you and use that to develop on your own. When I started playing travel, I was young, and I wasn’t awful, but I also wasn’t great either. There has been a lot of really good players that I’ve played with that have helped me get better. As I gotten older and a little bit better, travel has helped me a lot. Now that I’m older, they want to showcase me and help me get recruited.”
“The last couple of years, I’ve started to develop confidence as a player. Prior to that, I honestly wasn’t always confident on the field, when I went to hit or pitch, I wasn’t confident in that I’d get a hit or make a pitch. But being on travel, it’s helped me grow mentally and believe in myself that I am good enough to hit against this guy or get this batter out.”
Because of his development and mindset, McCullough enters this 2025 season with the real opportunity to have a role on this year’s team. In the field, Brody believes his best chance to get on the field is at one of the corner positions- first or third base. In order for that to happen though, he knows what he has to do.
“I know that if I can hit, I will get the chance to play. All I want to try and do is help the team win,” said McCullough. “This year, I’m very excited and as we’re practicing, I look at it as my opportunity to try and prove myself to the coaches”
“Last year I wanted to get onto the field so bad, but I realized that I still had things to work on to get better. Although I didn’t play a lot, I was able to learn things like what to expect and how to achieve what I needed to. I was able to learn the type of player I needed to be and what I mean by that is I now understand what the team needs and expects out of me. Even if you’re not playing, you can cheer on your teammates, warm up properly and stuff like that because you never know when your opportunity is going to come. Sitting allowed me to learn where I needed to be because next thing you know coach puts you in and you have to know what’s going on and be prepared and most importantly be a good teammate.”
Along with being an everyday player, McCullough also has the opportunity to make the team better on the mound. Brody has a live arm and throws as hard as anyone on the team, but the challenge is location and getting the ball consistently in and around the strike zone.
2027 P/1B @BrodyMccullou10 throwing a nice pen today. @FlatgroundApp @PB_Uncommitted @uncommittedBBs @BUncommitted @UncommittedStud @PG_Uncommitted @BaseballCf @Uncommitted_ID @UncommittedUsa @Grant04171194 @bvbaseball20 pic.twitter.com/7UpLEdqHQN
— Nick Hoth (@CoachHoth) February 20, 2025
“In the last couple of years, my velocity has taken a jump, which has helped me,” said McCullough. “But the problem and something I’m working really hard on is command of that velocity. This past year, that’s improved, I’ve been around the zone and if that continues, it’s going to help me a lot. I’ve improved on my breaking ball, and I think I have the chance to be a lot better as a pitcher.”
“To work on my command, I finally understood that even if for a bit, you might have to take something off your pitches and learn to consistently find the zone. Once I did that, I started tweaking my mechanics to start getting into my hips more, which helped me be more accurate and it allowed me to throw more pitches, in case I was used as a starter. But the biggest thing was finding the zone because you can throw the ball extremely hard but if you’re wild and not in the zone, the velocity is useless.”
With the start of the Vikings season just a few weeks away, McCullough is excited for his opportunity and wanted to give a shout out to someone that’s helped him prepare and a player with a similar mindset like his of continually working to get better, his catcher junior Charlie Smetana.
“Having Charlie as a catcher is going to help the staff because he is phenomenal behind the plate. He’s a team leader and has really helped and pushed me the last 6 months in the gym, with tee work, etc. Coach Morgan and Coach Grant have also pushed me to be better on and off the field, staying after practice to work with him on his game and my attitude.”
“I think we have a really good chance of repeating what we did a couple of years ago,” said McCullough. “We didn’t lose many guys from last year’s team; this team is young and talented and learned a lot from playing their first year of varsity. With more experience, more reps and with our talent, I think we’re going to be really good this year and have the chance to make a long run in the playoffs.”
