Harvard and community college? Owen Holt did both at the same time on the way to Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH — Owen Holt took four classes at Alvin Community College in the spring of 2021.

General stuff — including music appreciation, speech, a sports officiating course.

“That was kind of neat,” he said. “I learned a few rules about the libero in volleyball or how softball has a designated player and not a designated hitter.”

But at the same time, he was also enrolled in three virtual classes 1,800 miles away from his native Houston and nearby Alvin, Texas.

At Harvard.

Holt was enjoying his junior year as an economics major and a baseball pitcher at the Ivy League institution when COVID-19 shut the country down in March of 2020. That ended Holt’s 2020 season, but the conference later canceled its 2021 campaign as well.

Instead of sitting out, Holt went to Alvin. He registered for those four classes so he’d be eligible to join the school’s baseball team while also continuing his Harvard studies online.

The move helped boost him onto the radar of Major League scouts. The Cincinnati Reds picked him in the 16th round of last year’s draft and assigned him to Daytona at the beginning of this season.

“He’s a creature and a half,” Tortugas catcher Hayden Jones said.

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Before COVID

Even before his double courseload, Holt had a unique path.

He never really dreamed of going to an Ivy League school until the opportunities started coming, and he didn’t plan on playing baseball in college.

At Lamar High School, he starred on the football field as a quarterback. He suited up for the school’s baseball team, too, mainly as a first or third baseman, and rarely pitched. His coaches wanted to protect his quarterback arm because he was getting recruited on the gridiron, and Lamar already possessed three future college pitchers.

“I just liked the quarterback dynamic of (being) the man,” Holt said. “You’re touching the ball every play, and winning and losing kind of boils down to you. I definitely liked that aspect and that leadership. It was really fun.”

Holt considered Rice, Yale and Penn before deciding to attend Harvard. He played two years of football and appeared on only one play, holding an extra-point try against Yale in 2018. The game was at Fenway Park.

His mind started to wander in the spring of 2019.

Baseball?

Harvard’s quarterback depth chart was stacked, and Holt watched some of his friends on the university’s baseball team get drafted.

He talked with his old high school coach, who signed him up for a local summer ball league. Holt’s arm was already in shape. Instead of a corner infielder like he was in high school, he became a full-time pitcher.

During the summer, he reached out to the Harvard baseball staff to see about getting onto the team. A former Crimson team captain, who went to Lamar High School, vouched for Holt and his talent level.

He entered the program in January 2020 and earned a spot in the starting rotation. He pitched twice, with both matchups coming on the road. He held Alabama scoreless for five innings in his first start before surrendering seven runs to Ohio State over three innings in a game held at Stetson University.

“Then, the COVID shutdown,” Holt said.

Those two appearances were like a tease.

“It was like, ‘Hey, you could be good, but you have a lot of work to do,’” he said.

After COVID

Holt went home and finished the semester online. He stayed in Texas for the fall, too.

“I just needed a way to do some live at-bats or something,” he said.

He got that opportunity through another Lamar graduate, Ryan Farney. Farney was coaching at Alvin at the time and invited Holt to work out there. Soon, Farney told Holt to think about studying and playing there the following spring.

“I was like, ‘Well, I’m close to getting this Harvard degree,’” Holt said.

Farney said he could do both.

Holt hopped on the phone with a Harvard dean and the school’s NCAA go-between.

“They were both like, ‘Yeah, I don’t see why not. There’s no rule that says you can’t,’ ” Holt said.

So that’s what he did. People jokingly questioned his sanity, but it beat no baseball at all with the Ivy League season still shelved.

Holt got a little apartment in Alvin. For one semester, he woke up and tried to complete his Harvard work before anything else. His team practiced at 2:30 each afternoon, and he fit in his workout lifts and Alvin homework whenever he could. On days he wasn’t pitching, he sometimes showed up late to games because of his school commitments.

“Alvin was really good about it,” Holt said. “It was definitely a lot.”

None of his Alvin credits transferred to Havard. He was taking those only to remain sport-eligible. But the semester was huge for his baseball development. He hurled 57 innings and struck out 65 batters.

He moved on to summer ball with the Williamsport Crosscutters of the MLB Draft League after the season. The Reds selected him in July.

Holt was sent to Daytona after spring training this year, and it didn’t take long for his teammates to discover his story. His teammates rib him a bit for being a Harvard guy.

“He’ll make some comments or start a conversation that is way over my head because it’s like super smart talk, and I just stay out of it,” said Jones, a free agent signee of the Reds after last year’s draft.

“But I’ll make sure to let him know, ‘All right, we get it. You went to Harvard.’ With some smart, out-of-the-box, scientific type thing, it’s like, ‘All right, dude, you can dumb that down a little bit.’ ”

Holt has also wowed his teammates — and everyone else — on the field.

With a fastball, changeup, slider mix, he is assembling his best season ever, posting a 1.71 earned run average in 17 relief appearances and solidifying himself toward the back-end of the Tortugas bullpen. He has three saves, including one last Sunday.

“He’s awesome,” Jones said. “In a tight situation at the end of a game, he’s the guy you want to come in. He can hold his own and not much is going to bother him.”

Holt feels like he has learned simply by watching the mechanics and approaches of Daytona’s other pitchers. He’s still a relatively new full-time pitcher. His first collegiate start came just two years ago. So did his struggles against Ohio State in DeLand, which he hasn’t forgotten.

Holt hasn’t forgotten about college yet, either.

He still has one semester left.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Owen Holt thriving in Daytona after Harvard, Alvin Community College