John Pawlowski played a joke earlier this season on Hunter Wood.
Western Kentucky usually doesn’t practice on Monday nights. But the Hilltopper coach Pawlowski told the catcher Wood several weeks beforehand that he was changing the schedule and that WKU would have a workout about 7:30 p.m. April 17.
That was the exact same time WWE would be hosting an event on campus at E.A. Diddle Arena. Wood didn’t think twice before answering his coach.
“He told me, ‘Well, you all can practice but I won’t be there,’ ” Pawlowski recalled this week.
Baseball is the first passion for Wood, a Hilltopper senior who’ll play his final home games this weekend. But wrestling isn’t far behind.
Wood’s first goal is to make baseball a career. If that doesn’t work out, then the Mount Washington native told the Daily News he wants to try pro wrestling.
“You’ve got to go to wrestling school,” Wood said. “You’ve got to train and you start working all the local, independent promotions around there and you try to get noticed.
“The chances of making it big time are just about like in baseball – probably like a million-to-one.”
Wood was a big wrestling fan as a kid, saying Triple H was his favorite pro wrestler. He paid tribute to Triple H by using the wrestler’s entrance music as his walk-up music his first few years at WKU.
Wood said he “kind of got away” from wrestling as he got older before rediscovering it a few summers ago.
“I was playing summer ball my freshman year,” Wood said. “I was down in Texas playing and the only day we had off was Monday nights. That was my routine – I’d watch Monday Night Raw. …
“The more I watched it the more I’d say, ‘Hey, I can probably do this.’ ”
Wood is halfway to having his wrestling moniker picked out. He wants his last name to be Zeppelin, but he’s still figuring out a first name.
That’s a tribute to Led Zeppelin, that’s been one of his favorite bands since he was little. Even now, Wood says he still cranks “Stairway to Heaven” during team weightlifting sessions.
“Everyone hates it,” a smiling Wood said of his teammates. “The first four minutes are a little slow, but it pays off in the end.”
Wood is still figuring out what moves will be in his arsenal. At 6-foot and 215 pounds, he knows he won’t have the most intimidating frame in the ring.
“Being 6-foot tall in the land of the giants, I’ll have to come up with moves I can do to bigger guys,” Wood said.
He’s also been lobbying his coach to come watch him wrestle one day.
“I said, ‘Yeah, give me a front row seat, Woody, I’ll be there. I’d love to see it,’ ” Pawlowski said. “But he’s really into it and that’s great, I love it.
“That’s what makes our country so great, the opportunities these kids have to choose whatever they want to do. If you would’ve said, ‘Hey, there’s a guy on your team that wants to go into WWF, I would’ve said, ‘Really? That’s surprising.’ But when you talk to him, it’s unbelievable. I’m happy for him and I’ll pull for him in whatever he decides to do.”
Plan A for Wood is still to play professional baseball. He’s built a nice resume for potential pro teams with his performance this season.
Wood took over the starting catching job during the middle of his junior season and has held down the position in 2017.
Wood has started 45 games and played in 47. He leads the team in batting average (.308) and ranks second in both home runs (nine) and RBIs (32).
The switch-hitting Wood hit a home run from each side of the plate last weekend in a loss at Marshall.
Defensively, Wood has thrown out 21 of 57 potential base stealers. His 21 times snuffing out would-be base stealers leads all Conference USA catchers.
“We noticed in the fall that he was starting to catch the ball better, starting to throw the ball better, really starting to swing the bat as well as we’ve seen,” Pawlowski said. “We just gave him his opportunity and he took off with it.”
Wood’s individual success has come in the middle of a rough season for the Hilltopper baseball team. WKU (14-35 overall, 4-20 C-USA) has already been eliminated from qualifying for the eight-team league tournament. The Tops have lost 13 straight C-USA games and must win their final six games just to reach 20 wins this year.
The 2017 Hilltoppers are in danger of becoming the first WKU team since a 12-24 squad in 1976 to finish with less than 20 wins.
“It’s really tough,” Wood said. “At the end of the day it’s wins and losses, you know what I mean? It wasn’t really a good day if you didn’t win.
“I mean it’s tough to be happy about what you’re doing when you’re losing but I try to find the small successes in everything, just keep moving forward.”
Wood and eight other seniors will play at Nick Denes Field for the last time this weekend when the Toppers host a three-game set against Florida Atlantic. First pitch for Friday’s series opener is scheduled for 5 p.m.
WKU will then end the season next weekend with a road series at FIU.
The 2017 MLB Draft will take place June 12, with Wood hoping to hear his name called. The Hilltoppers have had at least one player drafted every year since 2009, except for 2012.
“This was a dream playing here at the Division I level at WKU and playing professional baseball would be an even bigger dream come true,” Wood said.
But if professional baseball doesn’t work out for Wood, he has pro wrestling as his backup plan. Either career would be fine with him.
“It’s just more of a dream than anything else,” Wood said. “I’ve done my homework, I think, and I feel like I would do well.”
