MOULTRIE – When Matt Parker finished his Colquitt County athletic career in the spring of 1996, he was in the enviable position of deciding whether to pursue a college career in football or baseball.

He had just come off an outstanding season for the Colquitt County baseball team, helping carry the Packers to the state semifinals.

He had gone 7-2 on the mound and had driven in 24 runs when at the plate.

The previous fall, he was the starting quarterback on the Packers football team that went 9-4 and won a region championship, throwing for 1,382 yards and 11 touchdowns.

He had gone to Orlando to visit Central Florida, which had shown some interest in him as a quarterback. But he also like the idea of playing college baseball.

The decision was finally made after an all-star baseball game in which he displayed his outstanding arm on a throw from right field.

Mercer University coach Craig Gibson happened to be in the stands and it was not long before the Bears offered Parker a scholarship.

Parker played three years at Mercer and in 1999 was a 31st round draft choice of the St. Louis Cardinals.

He played minor league baseball for the Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays for six years.

When he retired in 2004 after suffering an arm injury, he had posted a 35-31 record with a 3.86 ERA and with 472 strikeouts in 564 innings.

His performances behind center and on the mound has earned Parker induction into the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame.

Parker is one of nine individuals and two teams that are part of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2018.

Joining him are fellow former Packer football players Brian Jordan, Brian Knighton and Sherard Reynolds; “Voice of the Packers” Durwood Dominy; basketball players Sarah Edwards and Britney Wetherington Mobley; and outstanding track athletes Amy Paine Hines and Armanti Jamal Hayes.

The Hall of Fame also will honor the 1963 state runner-up football team and the Riverside Cotton Mill baseball team.

The banquet will be held at the Colquitt County High School cafeteria. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at the Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce and Modern Cleaners.

The honorees also will be introduced on the sideline facing the home stands on Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium before the October 26 Region 1-7A football game between Colquitt County and Lowndes.

Parker should have fond memories of playing the Vikings in football. Colquitt defeated Lowndes 10-7 at Martin Stadium in his junior year as the Packers went on to win the state championship with a 15-0 record.

The Packers won again in his senior year, taking a 29-14 decision at Mack Tharpe Stadium.

Parker played both football and baseball as a youngster attending Hamilton Elementary.

His father T.A. Parker and Harry and Larry Spires coached him in baseball and his close friend Tim Sanders, who eventually would play in the varsity backfield with him, encouraged him to play football.

His physical education teacher, Packers football assistant coach Mike Singletary, also helped steer him to the gridiron.

Parker also benefited from playing youth baseball against and with another outstanding Packers pitcher, future Hall of Fame member Hayden Gliemmo.

In fact, Parker says one year in the Pony League draft, the two ended up on the same team.

The pair presented quite a one-two punch on the mound.

By the fall of 1994, Parker was the junior backup to Clif Henry, the Colquitt County football team’s starting quarterback.

But it was apparent he could handle himself well while on the field.

In the season-opener, Parker connected with Ronald Bonner on a 58-yard touchdown pass early in the game and threw for more than 100 yards.

The next week, in a victory over Thomasville, Parker and Henry both threw touchdown passes to Bonner.

As the season went on, Henry got most of the snaps as the Packers went 15-0, earning both quarterbacks state championship rings.

Parker completed 19-of-42 passes for 286 yards and three touchdowns and was clearly ready to be the starter in 1995.

With a group of receivers that included Travis Davis, Carlos Johnson, Reggie Stancil, Chas Cannon and Chris Davis, Parker completed 103-of-235 passes for 1,382 yards and 11 touchdowns.

The Packers went 7-3 in the regular season, including a 21-20 loss to Tift County.

Colquitt clinched the region title with a 42-0 win over Coffee in which Parker threw a pair of touchdown passes.

Colquitt avenged that loss with a 42-0 victory over the Blue Devils in the region playoff game, which Parker missed after having suffered a severe cut on his elbow.

The Packers went on to defeat Camden County 30-0 the next week before their season ended with a 15-8 loss at Warner Robins.

Parker was named to the All-Region second team at quarterback and received honorable mention as the team’s punter.

He returned to the spotlight the next spring on the Packers 1996 baseball team.

His two previous varsity baseball seasons had hardly been remarkable.

In 1994, he hit .071 and went 0-2 with a 3.50 ERA.

The next season, he hit .184 and was 4-6 with a 2.86 ERA.

But he and Gliemmo helped lead the Packers to one of the program’s finest seasons in 1996.

Parker found his comfort zone on the mound, going 7-2 with a 2.08 ERA. He also struck out 73 batters in 61 innings.

He also batted .286 with seven doubles, three triples and a home run and was second on the team with 24 runs batted in.

One of his most memorable performances came in the opening game of the state semifinal series against Parkview when Gliemmo, who was 9-0 with a 1.18 ERA, was scratched just minutes before the game was to start.

Packers coach Jerry Croft remembered it well.

“We called on Matt on short notice,” Croft said when Parker signed his scholarship to play at Mercer. “I mean 10 minutes. But he jumped up there, got loose and pitched a great game.

“Every time he pitched in the playoffs, he did a great job for us.”

The Packers beat Parkview 5-3 that day, but the Panthers won the next games of the series to advance to the finals.

Parker was named to the All-Region second team as an outfielder and received honorable mention as a pitcher.

Both Croft and Colquitt County head football coach Jim Hughes were disappointed to see Parker graduate. He had skipped a grade in elementary school and was well younger than many of the senior players on his teams. Both believed he would be successful at the next level.

Parker contends he might have been a better football player than baseball player in high school, but it appears his decision to accept Mercer’s scholarship was the right one.

At Mercer he was on a team that already included Alton Kersey and he roomed with Brad Tyson. Both were former Colquitt County teammates.

He found himself starting in right field as the season opened.

And he had an auspicious start for the Bears, hitting the first collegiate pitch he saw for a home run and connecting for three homers in his first five games.

That production did not last, however.

“Then they started throwing stuff I’d never seen before,” he says.

And his pitching improved when he decided, “I was going to throw to batters what I didn’t want them to throw to me.”

As a freshman in 1997, he appeared in 25 games, including six starts, and went 4-2 with saves in five of six opportunities. He spent part of the season in the bullpen.

“I was up and down,” he said. “One game I’d be terrible and the next one I’d be spot on.”

Parker started 15 games as a sophomore and went 8-7 with seven complete games and two saves. He struck out 115 batters and walked just 33 in 114.1 innings.

“I was much better,” he said of his sophomore season. “I was much more consistent.”

Parker pitched in the Valley League for the New Market (Va.) Rebels the summer before his junior season.

But Parker was not pleased with that junior season, which was his final one at Mercer.

“My junior year was terrible to my way of thinking,” he says. “I think I should have been better.”

He went 6-7 with two complete games and one shutout.

He remembers a game against Savannah State in which just as he went into his windup against the first batter, “I saw 50 radar guns go up. And I had a bad game. I was trying to throw it too hard.”

Among his 18 collegiate wins were ones over Florida, Auburn, Alabama and Tennessee.

Parker jumped at the chance to try professional baseball when the Cardinals drafted him in the 31st round in 1999.

He considers himself better at the professional level than he was in college.

He liked pitching to wood bats.

“You throw inside on the black to a rookie and it would break his bat,” he says. “I college they’d bloop it into the outfield.”

Parker pitched for Johnson City in the Appalachian League his first season and went 1-1 with a 2.59 ERA. He threw out of the bullpen and had two saves.

While with the Cardinals organization, one of his road roommates was Albert Pujols.

He started the 2000 season with the Cardinals’ Peoria team in the Class A Midwest League and was 2-2 with a 2.59 ERA and three saves before he was traded to Milwaukee with catcher Eliezer Alfonso for infielder Fernando Vina.

The Brewers made him a starter and he went 4-2 with a 3.46 for Beloit in the Midwestern League.

In 2001, with the Brewers’ High-A High Desert Mavericks team in the California League, he had his best season, going 13-6 with a 4.30 ERA and 134 strikeouts. He was named to the league’s all-star team and earned the save in the all-star game.

In one game that season, he threw eight innings of no-hit baseball.

The next year, Parker started at High Desert, but was promoted to Huntsville of the Southern League, where he went 4-4 with a 3.84 ERA.

He spent the entire 2003 season with Huntsville Stars, going 8-6 with a 3.10 ERA. He appeared in 42 games, starting five and saving six and, for the second time, was named to the all-star team.

In 2004, his final season, he was back with the Cardinals organization and went 2-2 with Tennessee of the Southern League. He was then sent to Tampa Bay’s Montgomery affiliate, also in the Southern League, where he went 1-6 with a 5.01 ERA.

He finished the season with Milwaukee’s AAA team in Indianapolis and Tampa Bay’s AAA team at Durham, but went a combined 0-1.

Parker also pitched one off-season in Puerto Rico and another in Venezuela.

In addition to Pujols, Parker played with several other future major leaguers, including Coco Crisp, Corey Hart, Justin Morneau, J.J. Hardy and Chris Duncan.

After the 2004 season, he returned to Griffin, where he has remained and is the manager of a scrap metal recycling business.

He met Jenny English at Mercer and the two married and now are parents of two girls, Ava and Olivia.

“I loved playing the game,” he says of his baseball career. “I don’t regret any of it. I had a whole lot of fun. But I can’t watch it anymore. I guess it’s knowing what could’ve been.”

And while his father was instrumental in Parker’s early desire to compete, there were others who served as models as well.

“My love of sports comes from my family,” he says. “Without my brothers Chris and Alan, none of this would have happened.”