Rolloff fields his dreams
Nolan Rolloff, left, smiles for a photo with his father, Brandon Rolloff, following a game last season. Rolloff credited his father as being instrumental for helping him become the player that he is today. Submitted photo
While many high school baseball players continue their seasons into the summertime playing for local town ball teams, Owatonna’s Nolan Rolloff continues to go the extra mile – sometimes even over 1,000 of them – to keep playing the game he loves.
The rising senior’s ambition to improve his game and continue turning heads has led him to playing for the select Minnesota MASH program and the local Owatonna Legion Post 77 baseball teams.
“It gets to be a lot, but it’s like when you love your job, you’re never really going to work,” said Rolloff. “I’d say I’m playing about 4-5 games a week on average. I travel a lot with MASH, and it’s usually 1-2 games a day, but when I’m home, I’m still playing in Legion games.”
According to him, the MASH program plays frequently in large tournaments with the majority of events taking place outside of Minnesota.
“We travel a lot. They put together a team and then we usually go to eight tournaments with six being out of state. We go to places like Georgia, Arizona, Illinois and Ohio,” said Rolloff.
The goal: Keep attracting the attention of scouts to play at the next levels.
Earlier this year, Rolloff committed to play Division I baseball for the University of St. Thomas (UST) Tommies in St. Paul, but the goal is to do more than just make it to college.
“The goal is to get to the MLB, but I’m going to take it as far as the game will let me,” said Rolloff on his future goals.
According to him, UST recruited him to play his natural shortstop position, but said he’s willing to play any position or role needed to help the team win.
His love for baseball started at a young age with the help of his father, Brandon.
“I don’t think there was an exact plan for all this to happen, but it’s just something we both enjoy doing a lot. I think we hit almost every day, probably six days a week, mostly year-round. We have so much fun doing that it makes it really hard to say no to not doing it. If you do it every day, you’re going to get better,” said Rolloff.