NORWALK – Duncan Davitt sits in the back row of the Norwalk High School gymnasium on Nov. 24 and quietly watches as the school’s girls basketball team takes on ADM. Davitt, a sports reporter for the Indianola Independent Advocate, jot down notes on his laptop throughout the contest.
“I keep a flow to the game more than anything,” Davitt says.
It’s a tactic that many sportswriters use when covering high school basketball. But Davitt isn’t your typical sports reporter. The 26-year-old is a right-handed pitcher in the minor leagues for the Chicago White Sox.
“The way it started was I needed a little bit of money and they needed someone to write sports,” Davitt said. “And it’s kind of blossomed into somewhere where I’ve started enjoying going out.”
Davitt, an Indianola High School alum, may be on the verge of fulfilling his dream of playing in the major leagues. But that hasn’t stopped him from covering high school sports throughout the winter. Davitt has grown to love it so much that it could be a calling for him whenever his baseball career is done.
“I don’t think he’ll ever entirely leave the game and I could see this being something that it might be an avenue he chooses to go,” his mom, Amy Duncan, said.
Davitt shines at baseball but shows promise working in sports journalism
Davitt has had his sights set on being a professional baseball player seemingly forever. As a kid growing up first in Altoona and then Indianola, he was always good at the game. His dad, Mark Davitt, recalled former Simpson president John Byrd, who lived near the family, coming over to the house one day and playing with Duncan Davitt in the backyard.
Byrd was standing about 20 feet away when he threw a pitch to the 4-year-old Davitt. Holding a plastic bat, Davitt ripped the offering right back at Byrd. It was hit so hard that Davitt’s dad joked that it nearly