Baldwin HS grad signs with Barton

MILLEDGEVILLE, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Baldwin High School grad Elijah Mitchell credits his parents for helping him get where he is today.

“My mother passed away in the summer of 2011,” Mitchell says. “She told me she wanted me to make something out of myself, so I do my best to make her proud.”

Mitchell earned a track scholarship to Barton College in North Carolina, a school located about 40 miles east of Raleigh. He signed Tuesday inside the high school’s media center.

“He makes me proud,” Elijah’s father Albert says. “I don’t tell him enough, but he does.”

Elijah started out as a football player before switching to track, a sport he says has helped team him life lessons.

“It helped me really learn how to be disciplined in whatever I do,” Elijah says. “Stay working hard no matter what even if I don’t make it where I want to make it, because I haven’t been as successful as I want to be in it.”

Albert thinks someday his son may be a preacher.

“He’s always to himself,” he says. “He stays to himself a lot.”

For now, he’s heading to Barton, where he’ll major in exercise science.

“Whatever God calls him to be, I just want him to obey and be successful.”