Growing up in tiny Maynard, Mass., Evan Scully was known around town as “the kid who could throw a baseball really far.” He first stepped up to the plate when he was four and has played the great American game ever since.
At Endicott, Scully now pitches for the baseball team, going all the way to the College World Series three times. “I’m incredibly grateful,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s just something that never happens for a student-athlete.”
The only thing that Scully likes as much as baseball is building apps.
Starting in sixth grade, he attended the Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School. When all of the engineering classes were full, he enrolled in introductory computer science courses instead. Something clicked into place. “I just fell in love with the creativity of it all,” he said.
Before applying to college, Scully already knew he wanted to study computer programming. When he met Head Coach Bryan Haley at a recruitment event, they sparked a connection right away, and Scully felt an instant pull to Endicott—as much for its baseball program as its computer science department.
From the start, he found friendships on the baseball field and the support and camaraderie he needed in the classroom as well.
“In computer science, I’ve had three really good professors: Professor Feild, Professor Ocean, and Professor Diehl. I’m part of a small core cohort of students that has been together since freshman year. If you have any questions, the door is always open with these professors,” Scully said.
Feild is Scully’s advisor, and by his count, Scully has taken five of his courses at Endicott.
“Intro to AI & Machine Learning is a 400-level course meant for juniors and seniors, but Evan took it when he was a sophomore,” Feild said. “I remember thinking that was pretty brave of him, and he did great in the class—he’s definitely up for a challenge.”
Scully took on another challenge as a senior in Feild’s Senior Research this fall when he set out to design a capstone project that would demonstrate all of the skills he’d picked up in the major. He’d known what it would be for a long time.
An avid photographer, Scully bought his first drone camera in eighth grade. Over the years that followed, he taught himself what he needed to know to pick up work creating real estate listings, snapping interior shots, and using his drone to capture aerial shots of properties. It took months of studying to pass a state licensure exam for drone use, and Scully had grown increasingly frustrated with having to log in to multiple apps and platforms each time he wanted to upload images from a shoot, share them with a client, and then invoice the client for his time.
In Feild’s class, Scully conceived and designed Prime Shot, an app geared toward professional photographers and their clients to simplify the process. This semester, he’s getting into the weeds, building out the app’s prototype, and refining a demo for potential partners and customers.
It’s been a powerful experience to see how his skills translated into a real-world business idea, and an excellent demonstration of the Endicott Experiential Edge in action. Once he’s created a demo for the app, he hopes to go live with it. For Scully, the biggest challenge this year has been juggling the app and his photography job with a demanding baseball schedule, plus a six-month full-time internship with Thrive Bioscience, a startup housed in Beverly’s Cummings Center.
The semester threw him a curveball he’ll never forget when, during the NCAA Super Regional Championship game against Claremont Mudd-Scripps, Scully was pitching and got injured by a comebacker.
Protecting his face with his elbow, which bore the impact of a ball hit at more than 100 mph, Scully said that “life went into slow motion as I saw it coming towards me.”
The pain in his elbow was instantly crushing. “My career is going to be over,” he thought as the team trainer, Victoria Kendall, wrapped his arm in the dugout.
Miraculously, an MRI showed that the ball had missed shattering the bones in his arm by just a millimeter. Scully dusted himself off and came back to start in game three of the NCAA D3 World Series. He threw all six innings coming off an injury in the most important game of his life. Endicott won the game.
It was a teaching moment. “On the baseball team, the thing I learned is how to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations,” Scully said. “If you go through college and it’s a perfect, smooth sailing ride, you’re probably doing it wrong. You’re not challenging yourself enough.”
That’s a lesson he hopes to take into the career he’ll break into next year, as he begins a brand new season as a computer programmer in the sector he’s always dreamed of joining.