Finding His Pitch

Entering his final collegiate season, Texas State left-handed pitcher Austin Smith has begun to look towards his future career path.

One path takes him into teaching and possibly an athletic director role at the high school level as he is currently working on his master’s degree in management of technical education. 

The other road is towards a singing career.

Growing up in Abilene, Texas, Smith graduated from Cooper High School and got a full ride to Ranger College after being offered by current Bobcat assistant coach Josh Blakley, who was the head coach of the Rangers from 2013-17. Smith ended up signing with UT Arlington after his redshirt freshman year. The fall of 2019 at UTA made him realize it wasn’t the place for him.

“Just something about the place and the culture of the team didn’t fit me,” said Smith. “I felt like I wasn’t going to make friends and the guys weren’t very welcoming, so I decided to go back to Ranger.”

He would go on to start six games on the rubber posting a 3-2 record and 3.77 ERA in 31 innings before the season was shut down due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The connection with Blakley made Smith reach out to him as he was now on staff at Texas State. After weeks of waiting while his eligibility was checked on, Smith finally heard back that he was eligible and accepted a spot on the team later that night after talking with head coach Steven Trout.

In his first two years in San Marcos, Smith has dealt with lows and highs of the baseball program. Being a member of the 2021 team that posted the worst record in school history while dealing with COVID-19 restrictions, and then being on the best Bobcat team ever, pitching in an NCAA Regional and coming within three outs of not only advancing to the team’s first-ever Super Regional appearance but hosting it as well.

“I’m grateful to be a part of it. Last year was a crazy experience and never imagined myself being on that huge stage of playing in a regional,” Smith said. “It’s unreal that I’ve got to experience that, and I think it has been a big help for me even coming into this year.”

Smith attended the local Catholic church and sang in the choir as a kid. He also let his sang along to country songs in the car. As he got older, he got more bashful with his singing and would hide his talent.

When he graduated high school, Smith decided to post some videos of him singing on social media.

“I eventually built up the courage to post a video on social media. If it was bad, then I wouldn’t see most of those people again,” said Smith. “It ended up getting pretty good feedback and thought I might start doing this again. I started posting stuff on Snapchat for select people and then started posting on Twitter as well.”

His family started figuring out and encouraged him to do more. Eventually his dad, Brad Smith, found out about it.

“So, I always thought he [Dad] would be the one to think, ‘That’s dumb and you don’t need to be doing that.’ But I found out that he loved it and that I need to pursue it,” Smith said. “That’s when I thought that maybe I do need to try something with it.”

Smith began to post videos of himself singing on TikTok, which got thousands of likes per post compared to around 200 likes on other videos he’d put up on the social media platform. The increase in interactions got him to start posting more. That would pay off when he got to San Marcos and met fellow pitcher Triston Dixon in the fall of 2020.

“One day I was scrolling on TikTok and saw him singing,” said Dixon. “The next day at practice invited him over to my place as I play the guitar and he could sing. At first, he was super nervous and wouldn’t sing, so I just started singing and that helped break him out of his shell.”

They have continued to get together at least two or three times a week where they play songs by Tyler Childress, Zach Bryan, Chris Stapleton and other singers in the country-rock genre.

Heading into this year’s Leadoff Dinner banquet, Trout asked Dixon and Smith about performing. Dixon responded first via text that they wouldn’t. But Smith answered back that he did want to do it if Dixon did it with him.

“I knew if I said no right there, I was never going to do it. I had to say yes, otherwise I was never going to get in front of people and sing,” said Smith. “It was a perfect way to start because it would be in front of people I know and their families.”

That night at the banquet, Smith was nervous and stressed. He barely ate during it so he wouldn’t get sick while on stage. His anxiety continued to build during the senior part of the event as both he and Dixon were the last of the seniors to be asked a question. Despite it all, their performance of Cannonball, a song by Kolby Cooper, was one of the highlights of the banquet.

“We thought it was a perfect fitting for the banquet because it talks about going headfirst and you can’t be fearful of what’s ahead,” said Smith.

Over the summer, Smith met Holt Jones, who is a popular musician in the Abilene area. Jones wrote a song that he hadn’t put out yet and had Smith not only sing it for him but record it, too. “Say to You” was released on December 1, 2022 and is available on Apple Music and Spotify.

“Guys back in Abilene have taken him under their wings and helped him write songs, produce it and get his music out there. That’s a good thing. The hardest part is getting your music out there for other people to hear,” said Dixon. “I think his songs are amazing. His new ones that he hasn’t released yet are probably going to be his best ones.”

On February 20, Smith will be releasing his second song about his late father and then another one later this spring.

Smith ended up loving the process and that has driven him more to pursue a music career, even if it is just for fun. While he does not have to choose one of his two career paths quite yet, it appears one is only getting started.