Reeves drives Bearden to success on multiple fronts

The Bearden boys golf team heads into the district match on Monday led by a senior who truly fits the moniker “student-athlete.” Ben Reeves is in AP classes, the president of the Student Government Association, and the captain of the golf team. “I am good at juggling different things,” Reeves said. “I am pretty sure sophomore year I was in like 10, 15 clubs.” However good at managing his time Reeves was, trying to participate in this many clubs was not allowing Reeves to truly commit to any of them. This year, he prioritized. “I’ve committed myself to three different things: golf, SGA, and FCA,” Reeves said. In addition to his responsibilities as SGA president, Reeves is the vice president of FCA and has committed to play golf at the University of Tennessee-Martin. So if he has already committed to play in college, what keeps him committed to improving? “College golf is a lot different than high school golf,” he said. “There is a lot more competition. If you’re not ready once you get to college, you won’t even make the traveling team.” While virtually any Bearden student knows where former Bearden football and basketball stars Devrin Young and Ty Greene go to school, few know where the best golfer Bearden has had in years is going to play at the next level. Reeves understands. “It’s not like kids can just go watch a golf match,” Reeves said. “It’s not the most interesting sport to watch unless you actually play it.” He has a good attitude about his sport and that signature smile of his does not go away when he is on the course. “When I play with him, I enjoy it,” sophomore golfer Tucker Roof said. “We view it almost as if (the two us) are playing on a team. We goof around a little bit.” This definitely does not mean that Reeves does not lead on the course. He just leads in his own way. “He is just a team leader in general,” Bearden golf coach Susanne Sisco said. “He has a good attitude when he walks out on the course.” Since golf is usually an individual sport, the high school level is part of a brief stretch in Reeves’s career where Reeves will play for a team; he is definitely enjoying it. “It’s cool in the matches, it’s all about the team,” Reeves said. “It’s like a brotherhood sort of, It’s kind of been like a mentoring thing. When I was a freshman and a sophomore, the older members helped me out with high school.” Reeves has been starting for Bearden since he was a freshman, but he has been on the team since he was in eighth grade. “Eighth grade year, I tried out for the high school team and made it,” Reeves said. “It became less of a hobby and more of a bigger part of my life.” In order for that to happen though, he needed a little help. “My dad introduced me to golf,” he said. “If people don’t know, golf is a very expensive sport to play. It’s a huge part of his life too.” As Bearden’s golf team heads into the district match, the Bulldogs have the obvious goal of advancing the team to regionals and then state, but Coach Sisco thinks that the season is a good one regardless of postseason performance. “I think we have already had a successful season,” Coach Sisco said. “The team has come together.” Reeves wants the team to perform well in the next couple of weeks, but he also echoes his coach’s sentiment. “This year is cool,” Reeves said. “It’s been a blast so far.” And while some great individual sport athletes ignore their high school team, Reeves wouldn’t trade his experience with Bearden golf for anything. “Just being a part of a Bearden athletic team is really cool,” Reeves said. “It went by really quick. “It’s been a really fun experience. It’s kind of sad to see that it’s almost over.”