Elyria High senior Anthony Reitz earns Evans Scholarship

Pressure isn't a downhill 4-foot putt to break 80 for the first time.It's trying to get a full college scholarship — especially after your older sisters did.Anthony Reitz stepped up and knocked it right in the middle.The Elyria High School senior was recently awarded the Western Golf Association's Chick Evans Scholarship given to caddies. He's headed to Ohio State, and the scholarship pays for full tuition and housing for four years, a value of approximately $120,000."It was definitely scary leading up," Reitz said. "Like the week before I got the letter in the mail, I was nervous about it, but once I opened it up, it's life-changing. So knowing about that, it's awesome."His parents, Beth and John, must be thrilled the family embraced caddying at Elyria Country Club."Yeah, definitely," Reitz said.Julia, the oldest sister, picked Miami University. Natalie is at Northwestern.The process is stressful."The fall of your senior year, you fill out an application," Anthony Reitz said. "You get letters of recommendation from the caddiemaster and also teachers from your school or mentors in your life. And there's an essay."Midview's Hunter Crum also earned an Evans Scholarship, which had been previously announced.Reitz and Crum got the scholarship by meeting four criteria: strong caddie record, excellent academics, financial need and outstanding character. Twenty-one students in Ohio received one this year.More than 12,500 caddies have graduated as Evans Scholars since the program was founded in 1930 by famed amateur Charles "Chick" Evans Jr. The Evans Scholar Foundation paid $41 million in tuition and housing expenses this year. The program is funded by contributions from more than 43,000 donors, including scholarship alumni.Reitz started as a caddie in the summer of his eighth-grade year. He had watched his sisters take the job and earn the scholarship."So it was definitely a path for me," he said.He liked the flexibility of the job."I can work as much or as little as I want," he said.He's a member of the golf and tennis teams at Elyria. One of the perks of the job is an occasional round at Elyria Country Club."It's hard," Reitz said of the course.He plans to major in aerospace engineering."It'd be fun to work on planes, designing them, like spacecraft," he said. "It's always interesting."Both his sisters went to school for biomedical engineering. Natalie plans to be a doctor or surgeon.Reitz chose Ohio State because of its stellar engineering program. He also likes its size and the programs offered."Something that definitely caught my eye was all the clubs," he said. "There's a club for anything you want to do down there. So that's definitely a cool part of it."I'm excited."He started watching football the past few years and knows the Buckeyes are annually one of the nation's best."It's definitely going to be fun to watch," he said.Contact Scott Petrak at (440) 329-7253 or spetrak@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @scottpetrak on X.