Smith

JACKSON TWP — Being a two-sport star in high school, Kevan Smith has been in his share of games.

But he's not used to playing the waiting game.

Smith, who graduated from Seneca Valley High School Saturday, wasn't taken in the first 18 rounds of Tuesday's Major League Baseball Amateur Draft.

Rounds 19 to 50 are scheduled to begin at noon today.

"There were scouts who told me that I could be taken pretty high," said Smith, who is on a family vacation on the North Carolina coast. "But I really didn't know what to expect."

Smith, who was a star catcher at Seneca Valley, recently was named the WPIAL Quad A Player of the Year.

But he is in a unique situation, one that most high school athletes can only dream about.

Along with the possibility of being drafted to play professional baseball, Smith also possesses Division I football talent as a quarterback.

He made a verbal commitment last summer to play that position at the University of Pittsburgh on a full-scholarship, making it official by signing a letter of intent in February.

After a left-wrist injury kept him on the sidelines for most of his junior campaign with the Raiders, Smith passed for 1,459 yards and eight touchdowns as a senior in 2005 for a team that finished 1-9 for the second straight season.

But many Division I football programs became interested in his services long before that after seeing him at several scout camps the previous spring.

Michigan, North Carolina State, Iowa, Michigan State, Toledo and Akron were among the teams that courted Smith, but Pitt made the final cut.

And depending on how the final 32 rounds of the baseball draft play out today, Pitt could still be Smith's destination.

"The way I look at it, I'm in a win-win situation," said Smith. "If I don't get drafted into baseball, or the money's not right, I've got a full-scholarship to play football at Pitt."