Naperville Central graduate Sam Hojnar’s college baseball career recently ended, although he might not be done with the sport.
Coaching, if not playing, remains on the table.
But Hojnar, 23, is considering another possible vocation: country music artist.
“I can’t get too far away from baseball, but music has become a big thing for me the last two years,” he said. “I still feel like I need to get my feet wet more, but I definitely want to pursue it as a potential career.”
Hojnar, a second baseman who was voted to the All-Big Ten first team at Maryland this season, has been playing baseball for most of his life. After he graduated from Naperville Central in 2019, his college stops included Southern Illinois, Heartland and Iowa. But he is fairly new to performing on stage.
Hojnar’s father, Jack, and older sister, Ki, are longtime musicians, and Hojnar dabbled with the guitar while he was growing up. But he stepped away from the instrument for years until his dad bought him a guitar during the coronavirus pandemic. He began playing in earnest two summers ago while he was rehabilitating a calf injury in Iowa.
“I was so focused on baseball in high school and early in college, but it was a good way to spend time while I was hurt,” Hojnar said.
That led to some solo shows at Elray’s Live & Dive, a bar in Iowa City. Also that summer, he started playing music casually with one of his Iowa teammates, Wheaton North graduate Andy Nelson, and they put together a list of songs to learn.
Hojnar, on vocals and guitar, and Nelson then got a series of shows at another local establishment, The Airliner, throughout the fall.
“It was nerve-wracking when we first started, but when you get into that flow state, like in baseball, it comes together,” Nelson said. “Playing with Sam was really fun. More and more people started showing up, and it started to become a thing.”
Transferring to Maryland for the 2023-24 academic year didn’t quell Hojnar’s desire to perform. Shortly after he arrived in College Park, he pounded the pavement enough to land some stage time at Looney’s Pub.
“I knew I had to start from scratch, but they were open to giving me a shot,” Hojnar said. “I started playing at 4:30 in the afternoon for them to see if I was any good, but over time I started playing later in the night.”
By this point, it’s pretty apparent that Hojnar is good. He keeps getting booked.
Nelson offers a solid scouting report.
“He’s a really good player, and his voice has that raspiness that makes him sound country,” Nelson said. “If it wasn’t for Sam singing, my passion for the guitar wouldn’t have grown. To be able to watch people enjoy themselves watching us was great.”
Hojnar recently moved back home, so he doesn’t, at least for the moment, have anything formalized on the music front. To expand his potential reach down the road, Hojnar is working from the ground up, trying to write songs. To this point, his set lists have primarily featured covers, with Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers and Morgan Wallen among his favorites.
“It’s similar to baseball in that you have to practice to try to get better,” Hojnar said. “I’m trying some new techniques, and there are a lot of different things to work toward.”
With a temporary pause on live shows, Hojnar has made a smooth pivot back to baseball, specifically as an instructor at the same St. Charles facility, Legacy Sports Performance, where he trained while he was growing up.
His pupils range in age from the 9-and-under level to adults, and he’s incorporating some of the training techniques he learned at Maryland, specifically through a philosophy championed by Terrapins coach Matt Swope.
“Your brain has a natural pattern of movement that is hard-wired into you,” Hojnar said. “It’s based on your motor preferences, and it helps athletes figure out movement patterns that are best for them. It’s all about being repeatable, getting your brain and body to align.”
Although Hojnar was at Maryland for just one year, he benefited from a fresh hitting approach. He had 16 home runs, 57 RBIs and 15 doubles this season, leading the Terrapins (34-22) in all three categories, and batted .275. In late April, he became their first player to hit two home runs in consecutive games since Matt Shaw, the Cubs’ top pick in the MLB draft last year, did it in 2022.
“With him buying in the way he did, he was able to get the most out of his body, and he played excellent defense,” Swope said of Hojnar. “I don’t want to speak for him, but it looked like he was having fun playing baseball.”
Hojnar is having fun coaching too. But music is still front and center in his mind.
“I definitely spend a lot of time on music,” he said. “It would be my dream to work in the music industry as a full-time occupation and not have another job to support it.”
Steve Reaven is a freelance reporter.
