Rick Horton: ‘Our effort is not only just about success’

After a video of baseball days gone by, former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Rick Horton gave a talk reinforcing the idea everyone has a “purpose and destiny” during the sixth annual Semoball Awards on Saturday at the River Campus.

Horton, who is also a current broadcaster for the Cardinals, said he believes every great achievement begins “with you being given that gift.”

“I personally believe that God gives us gifts, uniquely and wonderfully,” he said.

And that’s part of understanding athletic abilities may outshine others’ talents, he said, “but it doesn’t stop there.”

There must be people behind you helping you, Horton said, supporting excellence within those talents.

“Every time we had a young player come to the big leagues, I had goose bumps. … I know that is a celebration of his hometown,” he said.

Horton encouraged those within the crowd — specifically the award-winning student athletes — to be lifelong lovers of sports and to also be “people of gratitude.”

There’s a humility that comes with that, he said, “because you know you’ve been given a gift, and you have people helping you with that gift.”

Horton said the Cardinals’ team manager in 1985 encouraged him and his fellow teammates to dream big, “and I think that is a time-tested thing for us to consider.”

People have the dream they want to pursue, he said, but they must first know how to carry it out.

And that’s where vision comes in, he said. It’s studying, taking advice from mentors and deciding which position to play within a specific field, Horton said.

It’s not just dreaming, he said. It takes choices, day after day, to make an athlete a great athlete, Horton said.

“Be a lifelong learner, and a lifelong athlete,” he said.

On his 40th birthday, Horton participated in a half-marathon with “a long time,” he said with a laugh.

But Horton said his journey in training for that challenge was better than the marathon itself, because, “the training is what matters.”

He finished the race, but did he win? Horton said, “I did.” The year and a half he trained is where he really won, he said.

“Our effort is not only just about success,” he said. “We’re celebrating success here, but I believe God has gifted us to care about something deeper.”

Horton was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and later played at the University of Virginia before the Cardinals drafted him in 1980. He made his Major League Baseball debut in 1984 and played seven seasons, winning a World Series with the Dodgers in 1988.