Nansemond-Suffolk Academy has added another former standout to the ODAC All-Academic team in Greg Beale.

Beale, a former baseball standout for NSA, was selected to the 2016-2017 ODAC All-Academic team. The rising senior at Randolph-Macon College demonstrated excellence in the classroom that saw him getting rewarded for it at the end of the athletic year.

“I’ve always been proud of my grades, whether I received an award for them or not,” Beale said. “It always feels good to be recognized for the hard work that goes into playing at the collegiate level and keeping up good grades, especially knowing that there isn’t much downtime in baseball.”

Being a student-athlete has been important to Beale since he was a young kid. He has always made a strong effort to make sure he balanced achieving good grades and excelling in sports. Randolph-Macon set a school record this year with 190 athletes making the ODAC All-Academic team.

Last season was an unfortunate one for Beale. Due to an injury to his knee, he wasn’t able to log any innings last season. He missed most of the fall and winter practice seasons, which put him behind in his development. Beale also admits that the grind of being a collegiate athlete also took away from the time he was able to dedicate to his academics.

After doing a lot of thinking during and after his junior season, Beale decided not to return to the baseball field for his senior year.

“I realized that perhaps the best way to move forward was to focus on the things that were going to open doors for me later in life,” he said.

Beale wants to be able to do things such as expand on his engineering experience with internships. He ended his junior season with a 4.0 grade point average. Beale feels at peace with his decision and doesn’t feel any disappointment with how his collegiate career went.

“I think I gave it 100 percent of my effort for the time I was playing,” he said. “While it was unfortunate, it didn’t work out as well as I had liked it to. It wasn’t because I didn’t put in the effort. So, when I look back, there is no disappointment.”

As a freshman for RMC, he pitched 1.2 innings. During his sophomore year, he pitched 2.1 innings and recorded four strikeouts.

At NSA, Beale was a first team all-conference and all-state baseball player. He also played soccer and was on the swim team.