Jason Gregory is MacArthur High School's choice for the Athletic Spotlight for this week.

Gregory has been a member of MacArthur's Baseball team since he was in the ninth grade. In this, his senior year, his coach, Steve Costello, will be relying heavily on Gregory for his leadership ability. Costello describes Gregory as an extremely hard worker who leads by doing. Costello says that Gregory is like having another coach on the field. The coach can put Gregory in charge of a group of players to work on drills and Costello will know that the work will get done.

The fact that Gregory's teammates elected him team captain and saw no need to elect a co-captain shows that they recognize his leadership ability.

Gregory has a great work ethic on the field and is always looking to improve on his skills. This ethic paid off last year as he batted a .340. He has good strength and can hit the ball with power to all fields. As the starting second baseman this year, Costello feels very confident that he has the right man for the job.

The MacArthur Generals will be fielding a very young team this year but as Coach Costello says, they will be quality young players that he is looking forward to working with and developing into good, sound players. This, he says, is why he will be relying heavily on Gregory and his leadership ability. Having someone of Gregory's caliber to work with the younger players is instrumental to the success of any athletic program, so it looks like the baseball program at MacArthur is in good hands.

Needless to say, as with all of MacArthur's Spotlight athletes, Gregory puts the same drive and determination into his other extra curricular activities as he does in baseball. Gregory has been a member of the National Honor Society since 10th grade; he is a member of the elite Peer Leader Group, a group of students chosen by teachers and administrators to help underclassmen acclimate themselves to high school life; he is a member of the Spanish Club, the Key Club, Model Congress, the Physics Olympiad Team, and Mathletes. As an 11th grader, Gregory placed third in the Stony Brook University L.I. Physics Olympics. He is ranked fourth in a class of 258. He scored a combined 1410 on his SATs and has an overall average of 104.1. Gregory has had an outstanding career at MacArthur High School and has certainly made the most of it. To close out this impressive career, Gregory would like nothing more than to help lead the Generals to another County Championship in baseball and if the Generals do win another County Championship this year you can be sure that Jason Gregory will be one of the reasons why.