Alex Havlicek is a business administration graduate student and pitcher for the UTRGV Baseball Team. Havlicek is from Oakland, New Jersey and moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 2022. He wants to pursue playing for a Major League Baseball team.
Q: What do you do for fun outside of baseball?
A: “I usually play with my two golden retrievers, take them for walks. My girlfriend and I take them for walks; we go hiking. Just anything outdoors really.”
Q: What kind of music do you like?
A: “I pretty much like it all, but lately I’ve been on a lot of classical rock and metal lately. I like old-school, like, 90’s rap and hip-hop too. I would say Wolfmother and Wu-Tang Clan.”
Q: What movies or shows do you like?
A: “My favorite movie is ‘National Security’ with Martin Lawrence, 2003, I think. And my favorite TV show is ‘Breaking Bad’ or ‘The Sopranos,’ actually.
Q: What motivates you?
A: “I just play for the Lord. He’s blessed me with the talent to play this game and be able to play this game for, now, my sixth year of college. So, I’m grateful for that. On top of that, I have a great support system. My family, my mom and dad, have pretty much done everything for me to help me succeed and get me to where I want to be. I got a wonderful girlfriend too and just got really, really, awesome teammates at UTRGV and they’re always positive with me. And when things are going bad, they’re still with me. So, just my whole support system including my teammates, really.”
Q: What are some current goals you have?
A: “Current goal long-term is to play Major League Baseball and then to be just a successful husband and father in the future, set a good example for my future kids and my future wife. Short term is this season, I want to help this team win a [Western Athletic Conference] Championship and get to a regional and take this program to a place it’s never been before.”
Q: Who is one of your role models?
A: “My mom for sure. She kind of instilled my work ethic in me. She’s an emergency room nurse, so she works kind of crazy hours overnight and she just does everything to kind of help provide for our family. My dad too, he works from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day doing MRI’s. My work ethic kind of evolves from them and seeing them every day. My mom. … She was the one that was around to take me to baseball and stuff when I was in high school because my dad worked throughout the day and my mom at night.”
Q: How did you get started with baseball?
A: “My brother. He never really played baseball, but he’s 31 right now. He’s eight or nine years older than me, but he always had the Mets on and ever since I was young, I would just watch the Mets with him and we’d go to games and kind of developed from there, really.”
Q: Would you want to keep playing or do something with your degree?
A: “I would like to keep trying baseball but that can’t be forever, obviously. There’s a time when you gotta hang them up, so I thought about owning my own business, owning some gyms or owning a baseball facility or something like that.”
Q: What do you like about UTRGV and the Rio Grande Valley?
A: “This is my second year at UTRGV, so [I moved] August of 2022 I believe. Well, the people are very welcoming. I haven’t met anybody that’s rude. I love the food down here. Even in restaurants that predominantly speak Spanish, they kind of bear with me and I’ve tried to learn a little bit on my own. It’s just very welcoming. It’s just a cool place to live. Everyone’s pretty cool and everyone’s really nice. The support system here at the school for our baseball games is second to none. I haven’t seen it anywhere else I’ve been.”
Q: Do you have a fun fact about yourself?
A: “I’m pretty good at skateboarding. I started when I was, like, 10 and then, for about two years I did it and got pretty decent at it, I guess. And then I took a break from high school all through, pretty much, until last year is when I bought another skateboard. So yeah, I’m not great, but I’m pretty decent at it.”
–Compiled by Jose Medina
