School: North Penn
Baseball
Favorite athlete: Javy Lopez
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Winning the baseball PIAA State Championship.”
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: “When I was going onto the ice for my first varsity ice hockey game, the other goalie and I were the first players to skate out. As soon as I stepped on the ice, my strap got caught under my skate, and I fell in front of all those people.”
Future plans: “Go to Frederick Community College and play two years of baseball and then transfer to a D-I or D-II collegiate program.”
Words to live by: “Every failure, obstacle or hardship is an opportunity in disguise. Success in many cases is failure turned inside out. The greatest pollution problem we face today is negativity. Eliminate the negative attitude and believe you can do anything. Replace ‘if I can, I hope I can, maybe’…with ‘I can, I will, I must.’”
One goal before turning 30: “Buy a house and a Siberian Husky.”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I surf.”
Bob McCreary knew from the first moment he spotted Brandon Costa at summer youth camp that the aspiring young baseball player would be an asset to his program.
“You can immediately tell that he just has a passion for the game,” the Knights’ baseball coach said. “In everything that he did – he was always first to arrive, first to help out and just loved everything about it.”
Not a whole lot has changed since those days.
Costa – now a senior - still has a passion for baseball, and he is still the first to arrive and help out.
In truth, Costa helped out in ways McCreary might not have expected this season after a career that was plagued by injuries, including a torn labrum that sidelined him his entire junior year.
“Coming into this year, we really didn’t have many expectations of him,” McCreary said. “He was going to be on the varsity because he’s the kind of kid you want to keep around, but in terms of playing, we didn’t think he was going to be capable of playing.”
Then McCreary saw Costa – a catcher and first baseman at the junior varsity level - field ground balls at third base during the first day of tryouts.
“We really had a question mark at third base,” McCreary said. “After the first two or three ground balls, it was like, ‘We just found our third baseman.’
“I had never seen him play third before because he was a catcher. He was always very good fundamentally, but his arm was never healthy enough for him to be able to throw. He played third base this year, and he had a super arm and a tremendous glove, and (the position) was his. It never was not his the whole year.”
It was a happy ending to a career that included more than a few medical setbacks, but none, it seems, could hold Costa back.
“You can control some things in your life, but other things you can’t,” he said. “Once something happens to you, you can always control the outcome - try and make the best of it and always have a positive attitude toward everything.”
That approach has certainly been effective for Costa, who has been hearing impaired since he was two years old.
“In the classroom, I have to sit up front and make sure I hear the teacher,” he said. “In sports, I have to tell my coaches and teammates because if they don’t know – it’s going to hurt the team communicating-wise.”
Costa also had to deal with the not-so-little matter of having a tumor removed from his neck in the fall of his junior year.
“It was benign, and that took a little pressure off, but I still had to recover from that, and I wasn’t able to play that much fall ball,” he said.
Soon after Costa recuperated from that surgery, he tore his labrum, an injury that sidelined Costa his entire junior baseball season.
“I was with the jayvee team, and I was called up during the playoffs,” he said. “I had shoulder surgery (in early June), but I was with the team through the state playoff run.
“It was tough being sidelined, but being with the team, being around the excitement – it was awesome.”
The fact that he was undergoing rehab didn’t prevent Costa from attending workouts whenever he could.
“Even when he had his arm in a sling last year, he was always at our workouts even though he couldn’t do anything,” McCreary said. “Teenagers have a lot they want to do, and they don’t always want to work out even if they’re healthy, and he’s coming to pretty much every workout even though he can’t work out.
“That says a lot about his passion for the game and being around the guys. When he was healthy, he jumped right in. He was always there, taking extra ground balls, coming in mornings to catch. Everything you’d want from a kid – he did it.”
And he did it with a smile.
“He’s a kid that’s always smiling,” McCreary said. “I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about him. He’s just a super kid all around.”
With two older brothers – Ryan and Scott – who also played the sport, Costa came by his love of baseball honestly, and he has been playing since he was three or four years old.
“I would always take my wiffle ball and bat to my brothers’ games, and I’d hang out around the dugout,” he said. “I was around baseball all the time, and I wanted to be just like my brothers, so I kept playing and playing and enjoyed it.”
Costa - who also played ice hockey through his freshman year - went through the usual progression with baseball, beginning with t-ball and culminating with playing for the Philadelphia Angels in a wooden bat league.
His smooth transition to third base this spring could be attributed to the fact that he was forced to move out from behind the plate during fall ball last year.
“I wasn’t able to catch right away because of my shoulder, so I played third base,” he said. “I just was good at it, and I was like, ‘I might as well try out for school ball,’ and it worked out for the best.
“Anywhere I can play on the baseball field to be an everyday starter – that’s all I wanted to do. It doesn’t matter where I’m playing just as long as I’m playing.”
McCreary certainly liked what he saw of Costa at third.
“Defensively, I really do think he was probably in the top two or three third basemen in the league this year,” the Knights’ coach said. “That’s pretty impressive since he really has not played much third base.
“He’s got very good hands and pretty good range. His hitting wasn’t his strength, but defensively – he was pretty much playing every day because of his glove.”
Next year, Costa will be taking his talents to Frederick Community College in Frederick, Md. The school boasts a tradition of excellence at the JUCO level. He signed a letter of intent in January and has his sights set on moving on from there to play at the Division I or II levels.
If a positive attitude is worth anything, Costa is destined to succeed.
“I’m very appreciative of how I’ve bounced back from my injuries and bounced back from everything,” Costa said. “Never take anything for granted and just always work hard and see what happens.”
Costa has chosen to pursue a career in athletic training. Whatever his career choice may be, McCreary will be rooting for him.
“You see a kid who has been through all that and who’s never given up and continues to try and improve,” the Knights’ coach said. “You would never know he’s had those medical issues, and that’s what jumps out the most. So many people will complain about everything, and a lot of people don’t even know he’s had those things.
“He’s the kind of kid you want to see win because you know what he’s been through.”
