Ryan Norton has experienced plenty of success -- individual and team-related -- in his baseball career.

Norton came by Scotland High School's baseball camp on Tuesday to share stories of playing with the North Carolina Tar Heels this season in the College World Series. As a group of wide-eyed campers listened, Norton explained how every player at the World Series is treated "like a celebrity," and how ESPN's Peter Gammons can quickly go "from a guy you've seen on TV your whole life" to a person "sitting in the dugout next to you, eating sunflower seeds."

The whole story of Ryan Norton is not that extravagant. It's about a young man who, at times, has been overlooked, and who has gone the extra mile to prove the naysayers wrong. Norton went from a state champion at Scotland in '06 to accepting a scholarship to Lenoir Community College, where he would become an All-American and help lead the Lancers to a runner-up finish in the NJCAA Division-II World Series.

At one point, Norton was not sure his baseball career would extend past Lenoir. Then came a scholarship offer from UNC Greensboro, followed by an offer from the UNC Tar Heels that Norton could not turn down.

There are so many things that make the Scotland baseball program special, and one of them is how even the most successful former Scots always seem willing to come back. Norton did not hesitate when SHS jayvee coach Michael Sellers asked him to come talk to the kids during camp.

"I just got a text message one day, I'd just got back into town," said Norton. "(Sellers) shot me a text saying, 'If you happen to be around town, maybe early next week, I'd like to have you come out to camp for a day.'

"I called him back right then... A lot of these kids are the same kids I helped coach a few years back when I helped run camp for two or three years."

Norton also remembers being a camp participant and getting to experience visits from special guests.

"I remember Russ (Adams) coming out here one year," Norton said. "Whenever you see those guys who have made it big like that, it's great. I know this area around here is Tar Heel country, so that's one guy you'd look up to, and say, 'Wow, he plays at Carolina.'

"I remember getting to go watch him play sometimes, and how fast it looked out there with those guys. That's just something you dream of. And then him getting drafted in the first round... You look at him and say, 'He made it. He did everything you can do.'"

At a baseball camp, a thing such as academics can get overlooked, but as much as he is qualified to talk baseball to the SHS campers, Norton, a Political Science major just 21 credit hours shy of earning a degree at one of the most highly-regarded academic institutions in the country, is just as qualified to talk about the importance of a good education.

"That's going to take me a lot farther than baseball is," he said. "A degree's going to stick with you forever; you can't play baseball forever.

"With that degree, it's very prestigious, academically, up at Chapel Hill. It's definitely been a pretty big transition, going to school there from community college. It's not too terrible, as long as you get in the books.

"Obviously, the first semester, I had to make myself get in the books a little bit more because they require a little bit more of you up there."

Norton will be playing with the Staunton Braves, a Valley Baseball League team in Virginia, this summer. He'll be trying to do as much as he can to earn more playing time at UNC in 2010.

Norton, if he stays true to character, will ride this baseball thing as far as it will take him, as he should, because he has already surprised so many people with how far he has gone. Within his sights, however, he has mapped out a wonderful back-up plan.

"Depending on how things go next year, I've got to take the LSAT, and maybe law school, if things don't work out the way I want them to," Norton said. "I have to make sure my grades stay up.

"That's definitely what mom's pushing me for, and that's the road I'm looking at, as long as everything sticks to plan."