Maryland’s Sam Hojnar pursuing baseball and country music careers: ‘Neither one would surprise me’

Edward Lee, Baltimore Sun
·6 min read

Maryland second baseman Sam Hojnar keeps a notebook. Not to jot down opposing pitchers’ tendencies and tells, but to contain about 50 song fragments and 20 full songs he has authored.

“I have about a billion notes in my phone and this notebook of mine that I hope to turn into my own songs someday,” he said.

Hojnar (pronounced HOE-nar) is aiming for success in both pursuits. One of only four players to start all 28 games this spring, the redshirt senior leads the Terps (20-8, 3-3 Big Ten) in doubles with 11, ranks second in home runs with five, and is tied for second in RBIs with 25.

Hojnar, an Iowa transfer, also has his own YouTube channel in his quest to become a country music artist. In the fall, he performed weekly at Looney’s Pub in College Park.

“It’s pretty crazy to me that he is so talented on both sides of his life,” fifth-year senior catcher Charlie Glennon said of Hojnar. “He could be a professional baseball player or he could be a star artist. Neither one would surprise me.”

After growing up in New Carrollton in Prince George’s County, Maryland coach Matt Swope admitted he prefers old-school hip-hop and go-go music. But he is quite fond of Hojnar.

“I’m not the biggest country music fan,” he said, “but I’m a Sam Hojnar fan.”

A career in baseball didn’t seem likely for Hojnar, who said he was just 5 feet, 2 inches tall through middle school in Naperville, Illinois. But between his sophomore and junior years in high school, Hojnar said he grew six inches and continued to his current height of 6-2.

“I thought I’d always be small,” he said. “But I think that helped me a lot when I was younger because I kind of had the mindset that I wasn’t going to be the physical specimen that most coaches were looking for, so I had to be that much better.”

Hojnar said he began playing the guitar and piano when he was a second grader and credited his father Jack, who was a guitarist for a rock band called Ditchweed Diesel, with inspiring him. Jack Hojnar recalled his son writing and performing his own song at a talent show competition, but Sam Hojnar said he mothballed music to concentrate on baseball.

“Baseball was more important to me at the time,” he said. “I felt like I had to do everything I could to be my best in baseball given my size.”

Hojnar spent his freshman year at Southern Illinois, his sophomore year at Heartland Community College in Illinois and then his junior and senior years at Iowa. Last spring, he started 57 games for the Hawkeyes, ranked third in home runs with 10, and went 11-for-11 in stolen bases before graduating in May with a bachelor’s in psychology.

But after paying full tuition, room and board for two seasons, Hojnar had to find a program that could offer some support. He said he was initially leaning toward Pepperdine before speaking to Swope.

During the summer before his junior season at Iowa, a teammate brought a guitar to campus and invited Hojnar to play, and a dormant passion was reignited. Hojnar eventually began to regularly open for former Hawkeyes defensive lineman and country music artist Dallas Jacobus and sang a cover of “Wagon Wheel” by former Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker with Jacobus.

“After I sang, I was like, ‘OK, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,’” he recalled.

Perhaps because of his roots in music and football, Jack Hojnar said he has consistently pushed his son to pursue a singing career. The elder Hojnar said he is grateful that Swope has also encouraged Sam Hojnar to play music.

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“I’m just glad that he’s doing both and that he’s making time in his life for both because baseball will end someday and music never has to,” said Jack Hojnar, a 58-year-old chief marketing officer for a financial company in New York. “The fact that he’s keeping both in play and doesn’t have a boss telling him to pick a lane makes Sam a better player and a better musician.”

Swope said he didn’t view Hojnar’s passion for music as a distraction from baseball.

“I think anybody that is a grad transfer and already has a degree knows how to take care of his business,” Swope said. “I worry much more about kids staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning playing video games than I do someone playing music.”

Glennon, the catcher, said he and his teammates knew Hojnar played the guitar. But they didn’t understand the depths of his talent until 40 of them attended one of his shows at Looney’s Pub.

“It was a lot of fun, and right off the bat, his first song, we were like, ‘Oh, my God, he’s for real. He’s not just some guy who plays music. He’s a pretty legit artist,’” he said. “I think a lot of guys were surprised and didn’t really know what to expect. I think it’s awesome.”

Sam Hojnar said two of his role models in country music are Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers, and “God Speed” by Bryan is one of his favorite songs. And maybe because of his father’s influence, he also admires the Eagles and Foo Fighters.

Baseball remains a priority for Hojnar, who said he would gladly give up his personal numbers for the Terps to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. Despite his short time with the team, Hojnar has already earned the respect of his teammates, Swope said.

“He’s extremely important to what we do in the field defensively and our hitting,” he said. “So it kind of unfortunately hinges on certain older guys like him that if they’re going to produce, we’re going to be good. If they’re not, then we probably won’t be as good.”

But if Hojnar had to choose between baseball or music after earning a master’s in professional studies in project management? He isn’t sure.

“I don’t really know when it comes to baseball,” he said. “I have to play well enough to get a chance after this year. But what I know is no matter what happens, at some point in my life, I’m going to want to give playing music professionally a shot. Whether that means after this year, I move to Austin or Nashville, or whether that means I take some time to focus on baseball until my career is done — whatever I want to do, I want to keep playing music.”

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