It’s a common misconception that athletes assume the responsibility of being a role model for young kids once they make it to the pro’s. With the amount of times they appear in the news for negative off-field antics, it could be easy to lose hope that good guys still exist in the professional sports realm. For Andrew McCutchen, however, he embraces his role of a role model and with the holiday season upcoming, he’s ready to give the community more than just their first winning season in 20 years.
McCutchen, who signed a six-year $51.5 million contract last year, is the face of the Pirates and it’s something that he doesn’t take for granted. But, it wasn’t an easy path for him to make it to where he is now. McCutchen grew up in a trailer park in Bartow, Fla. with his family, and with his newfound fortune, McCutchen is ready to give back in a big way.
While McCutchen is on pace to go down as one of the Pirates greats of all-time early in his career, he wants to be remembered for more than his play on the field.
“My biggest thing is I don’t want people to know me just because I’m a baseball player,” McCutchen said. “I want people to know me for the things I’ve done outside of baseball.”
In giving back to the community, McCutchen has another Pittsburgh legend that he is hoping to model himself after that Pirates fans may have heard of before.
“You look at a person like Roberto Clemente and the things he did. The majority of people when you ask them about him, they don’t say he was a great baseball player, they say that he was a great guy,” McCutchen said. “That’s something that I want to be like and he’s someone I want to be like. That’s a person that I admire because he was just a good person all around. He was a great baseball player of course, but the things he’s done outside of the baseball stadium says a lot about him.”
One of the ways that McCutchen plans on giving back is with his partnering with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Pittsburgh to become their official spokesperson. With Habitat, which believes that everyone deserves a decent, safe and affordable place to live, McCutchen will take his own personal experiences in growing up to show that as long as you have love, support, safety and family bonds, then you have a home.
“They have such a great history and are trying to do the same things I am. It’s just something that we are just now starting and we haven’t gotten into anything too deep with it right now,” McCutchen said. “I’ve seen the work they’ve done in the past and it’s something that I’ve wanted to be a part of.”
With PirateFest this past weekend, McCutchen took the time to meet with Habitat for Humanity program families and explain that if he made it, anyone can.
“I just want to help and that’s what it’s all about. It’s more than just being a baseball player. It’s about using that to do things like Habitat for Humanity, give back to your community and to interact with a bunch of people,” McCutchen said. “I told them to stick with it and keep doing it. That’s what I did and now I’m out here. You can do the same thing. Anything is possible.”
To keep up with his charitable acts, McCutchen also announced that prior to the season, he’s going to form “Cutch’s Crew” for the Pirates Charities 5k race. While not much information was available at press time, Cutch said stay tuned.
“I can’t quite say too much because it hasn’t gotten out yet, but I’m trying to do some work with them,” McCutchen said. “I’m trying to do some things with that coming up and I’m looking forward to working with them.”
A personal touching moment for McCutchen came last week when he finally had the chance to catch up on his fan mail. McCutchen opened a piece of mail from a 10-year-old girl named Taylor. Taylor explained in the letter that she attended her first Pirates game this past year and to show his appreciation, Cutch brought her to PirateFest and surprised her all weekend.
“Anything that I can do to change the lives of anyone, I want to be a part of it. That’s what I’m going to try to do. It’s awesome,” McCutchen said with a smile. “I grew up too as a little kid and had people that I looked up to that I always wanted to meet. It’s good to meet at least one person. I found a letter that they had and to actually meet them is great.”
While there are many causes that Cutch said he would like to help out with, he said he knows the ones he should by just following his heart.
“You just follow your heart. It’s the biggest thing. Anything you have a heart towards, that’s what you do,” McCutchen explained. “That’s what I do. I let my heart make the decisions. You definitely have a lot of people that come at you from one way or another. I just have fun with it.”
While you may or may not believe in Santa Claus, McCutchen is giving the city of Pittsburgh a reason to believe all year long.
Photo Credits: WPXI
