Thomas Sylvester finished his career at Kalamazoo College with a degree in business and as a four-year letterwinner for the baseball team. However, Sylvester will be transferring to NCAA DI Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky., to complete his remaining two years of athletic eligibility due to Covid-19 and to continue to take classes in pursuit of passing the Certified Public Accountant exam.
Sylvester was a force on the mound for the Hornets, helping with their first MIAA Regular Season Championship since 1927 this past season and an MIAA Tournament Championship the year before. He was "extremely grateful and something I have learned a lot from" in talking about his experience within Kalamazoo College athletics.
"If I were talking to someone in general about my experience as an athlete, I would tell them it is something that I am extremely grateful for and something I have learned a lot from," said Sylvester. "It has taught me discipline and time management. I would also tell them it has taught me how to deal with tough situations and find a way to look at them positively."
As a junior and senior, Sylvester was named to the All-MIAA First Team and the All-MIAA Second Team after being the pitching staff's ace. He led the Hornets in starts, innings pitched, and strikeouts the past two seasons, collecting an 11-5 record in 27 appearances (24 starts) with 127 strikeouts.
The combination of academics and athletics at K has Sylvester feeling prepared for life after college. Sylvester explained, "K helped me prepare because the trimester is often faster paced and means you must learn more information more quickly. This feels like what the real world will be like. You have a project that might take five weeks, but in the first four, a lot is going on, and after everything gets piled up, you still need to complete the project. Sports also help with this because it makes you more aware of your time management and responsibilities, ensuring you stay on top of everything and get it done on time. The biggest thing I learned from being an athlete at K is how valuable my time is and how different schedules college athletes have compared to a non-athlete student."
Sylvester gained plenty of experience in the business world during his time at K, interning with Lifetime Financial Growth and doing his senior integrated project on how companies evaluate potential businesses and decide if they are worthwhile investments which was an extension of his study abroad paper. He gained experience in disability insurance, wealth management, and different ways people can invest and protect their money in his internship. The experience was made even better because he got to work with a fellow K graduate, Frank Giglio.
Studying abroad in Aberdeen, Scotland, Sylvester called his experience "probably one of my favorite things I did while I was at K." For three months, he learned what it was like to go through their school system and how the process differed from in the states. "It was cool because I was able to be there with two of my teammates, and all our families were able to visit us," added Sylvester. "Also, because Europe's countries are smaller at the end of the term, we could do lots of traveling and saw some very cool cities. I recommend it to underclassmen and should put people over the edge in deciding if they want to come to K."
A native of Livonia, Mich., and a Detroit Central Catholic H.S. graduate, Sylvester said going through Covid-19 was the most valuable experience he could have gotten. However, he would not want anyone else to experience it in the future. It allowed him to figure out how to learn on his own in his first trimester off campus. With online school and no in-person meetings, it taught Sylvester how to focus better while on the computer, where there are many distractions. It also taught him how to communicate better online and work in groups when not everyone can be in the same place simultaneously.