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McWilliams Reflects On His MVP Trips
by Brad | September 13, 2022

McWilliams Reflects On His MVP Trips

Division I pitcher at Wofford made five overseas excursions
By David Driver, MVP Communications

WASHINGTON – O’Kelly McWilliams IV has gone on five baseball trips with MVP International, a leader in youth sports overseas travel.

But the first one stands out for the Oakton, Virginia resident – who is now a pitcher for Division I Wofford of the Southern Conference.

Both of his parents, his sister and grandmother were also along the summer before his freshman year of high school.

“Looking back on the first one and how blessed you were to be able to go to Italy and spend that time as a family,” recalls McWilliams. “I am thinking at 14 years old, to be able to experience all of the things I was able to experience and see all of the cool history.”

 

O’Kelly McWilliams has been on five baseball trips with MVP International.
He is a pitcher at Wofford and has two more years of college eligibility left.

 

He realizes now the cultural opportunities he had while visiting Florence, Rome and other cities.

“I didn’t want to wake up at 8 a.m. and go on a tour of museum but looking back and thinking how cool that was I was really blessed to be able to do that,” he notes.

His other four trips with MVP were to Spain; central Europe, including the Czech Republic; the Dominican Republic and an excursion to the Caribbean.

Pudge Gjormand, the Founder & Visionary of MVP International, was the coach for the trip to the Dominican and on many others.

“Coach Pudge talked about it, but being able to live it was amazing,” says McWilliams. “Being able to go down there, being able to complete, it was some of the best fun I have ever had playing baseball.”

That trip to the Dominican stays fresh even today.

“I think another awesome experience was the Dominican Republic,” he says. “That trip was a lot more laid-back in terms of the things we saw; it was a lot of hanging around the pool with your teammates. I had played with a lot of those guys before, but how close we were able to come in a week or 10 days of playing with each other was just great.”

“The last two years of my career, I have done a lot of thinking on the baseball field, and that is my fault – nothing that has gone on at my school,” adds says the right-handed pitcher. “I just remember thinking back to those days in the DR – you just grabbed a ball and threw it. It was just raw and a lot of passion. It was a really good time to compete.”

McWilliams, who turns 22 next month, began attending Oakton High and ended his prep career at the Flint Hill School, also in Oakton.

He was a three-year starter in baseball and posted an ERA of 1.57 in 53.1 innings as a senior while hitting .309 with 21 steals as an All-Conference and All-State performer for the private school.

A resident of Oakton, he was also a quarterback and cornerback on the football team at Flint Hill.

As a freshman at Wofford in 2020, he had an ERA of 1.80 in 10 innings out of the bullpen with 18 strikeouts – and he was named to the 2020 Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American team.

In 2021, he pitched in two games of relief, against UNC Asheville and Mercer, and was named to the Southern Conference Academic Honor Roll.

This past season, McWilliams appeared in seven games out the bullpen and had an ERA of 10.57.

He also made a trip to Spain with the baseball team at Wofford – where he has two more years of eligibility remaining.

Off the field, McWilliams is majoring in Business Economics and hopes to eventually attend business school.

“I want to go into the business world, more on the marketing side,” he says. “I feel that is where my passion is.”

His father, O’Kelly McWilliams, graduated from Longwood in Farmville, Virginia and is a General Counsel for MVP International. His mother, Karen, went to Phoebus High in Hampton, Virginia.

His sister, Kelsey, played lacrosse at Army West Point, graduated from Temple and now works for a company in Virginia.

Editor’s note: David Driver is the former sports editor of papers in Arlington and Harrisonburg in Virginia and Laurel and Baltimore in Maryland. He can be reached at @DaytonVaDriver and www.daytondavid.com. His book, “From Tidewater to The Shenandoah: Snapshots from Virginia’s rich baseball legacy,” written along with Lacy Lusk of Baseball America, is available on Amazon and on his website.

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