Nick Lopez’s gutsy gambles have paid off

When senior infielder Nick Lopez recalls the moment he became a Trojan, his voice fills with childlike excitement. 

Lopez was playing for Santa Ana College in May 2021, which was never part of the plan, but became the long-awaited climax to a bumpy journey. He was passing time between the first and second games of a doubleheader against Saddleback College.          

As he prepared for the first pitch, Lopez’s phone rang with an electric buzz. Lopez picked up and listened to then-USC assistant coach Gabe Alvarez make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Everything changed. 

“I felt a lot of weight was lifted off my shoulders. I just was so relieved that, man, I actually did it,” Lopez said. “It was the coolest thing ever.”

It didn’t come easy though.

Almost three weeks before Alvarez called him, Lopez posted one of his many highlight clips on Twitter, tagging 11 accounts that could bring him attention for an offer. He didn’t have to post them anymore. Lopez was going to his dream school. 

In Lopez’s short career, he’s taken enough gambles to make a Las Vegas casino proud. But too many have paid off that a stay at Caesers Palace is impossible — he’s undefeated against the house.

“It was always persevere and fight through it. That’s kind of what’s been my motto for the past four or five years, is that I’m gonna do it,” he said. “I’m going to prove everyone wrong and I’m not done. This is what I’m gonna do.”

Barefoot runs home and holes dug

Athletics came early for Lopez, with baseball and soccer dominating his childhood. But baseball always had a special place in his heart. When asked in the first grade about his dream career, he always said: “A Major League Baseball player.”

Lopez had the talent to get there. His father, Raymond Lopez, described Nick as a natural: someone who rolled out of bed cracking and catching baseballs. As a six-year-old, Nick stood on mounds and delivered strikes.

“He always did things that showed ‘Man, there’s something there,’” Raymond said. 

But Nick still had room to improve. 

Raymond began coaching him and his older brother, CristianLopez, at an early age. Their backyard overflowed with batting cages, weights, a machine to work on short hops and a “full-on” baseball training facility in the garage. 

It created a workout environment for Nick growing up that was nothing short of intense.

“If he wanted to go out and play, hang out with his buddies, he’d have to take a couple hundred swings, couple hundred ground balls,” Raymond said. “Everything was just baseball [24/7].” 

After one workout when Nick was 12, Raymond disliked how Nick practiced and made him run home barefoot on gravel. Another time, Nick’s energy during a workout irked Raymond, who in turn told him to dig a hole five feet deep by four feet wide in their backyard.

“I was in construction, so I would make [Nick and Christian] go mix concrete, haul dirt around in the wheelbarrows,” Raymond said. “Part of it is just the work ethic I was trying to instill in them.”

The work continued when Nick kicked around in his other sport. Going to soccer practice required playing catch with his dad before. Nick’s coach began calling him the “baseball player,”  and he equally stood out on the field.  

While playing on American Youth Soccer Organization teams at seven years old, coaches created two groups during practice, splitting them using opposite sides of the field. Nick’s play left parents watching him instead of their own kids. 

Those same awe-inspiring performances translated to the baseball diamond. Playing a year or two above his age, he relied on his competitiveness and natural ability to fill the gaps. But, at 13, Nick had to decide between soccer and baseball. 

“My dad kind of sat me down and he said, ‘You can either go one way or the other,’” Nick said. “That’s when I decided to continue with baseball because I knew that was gonna be my route in the end.” 

He traded in those soccer cleats for baseball cleats, marking the beginning of a journey as bumpy as Nick could have imagined. 

“He wants to be at the top of his game”

As Lopez planted each foot down on his first day at JSerra Catholic High School, he knew it was a long way from Century High School. 

Unaware of where his classes were, he was shadowed around campus. The parking lot overflowed with students in luxury cars, while Lopez traveled to school by train. The campus resembled a college, with open spaces to roam and separate facilities for athletes. 

Just half a year before, Lopez went to Century High School. Now, Lopez couldn’t comprehend being at JSerra. 

“It was a dream come true,” he said. “There was a bridge that crossed over to the athletics side of the school and just being around it was just like culture shock for me.” 

His first gamble began.

While at Century, he immediately started on varsity. Lopez played with his older brother at a school where his mother taught. Century’s coach brought him in like his own son, Lopez said, adding to the blanket of support he had. 

When he walked around campus, students treated him like a celebrity. At JSerra, he was just another kid, surrounded by collegiate and professional talent, the ultimate selling point for his decision to switch over.

Once Lopez and his family submitted paperwork to transfer schools, they began discussions with JSerra’s baseball coach, Brett Kay, about joining the team. Kay didn’t promise anything, telling Raymond that Nick had to compete. Nick didn’t care, scraping and clawing to immediately earn a starting spot on varsity. 

“You don’t question what type of kid he is, but you also don’t question what type of work ethic he has,” Kay said. “He wants to be at the top of his game, every single chance he gets.” 

Nick’s work ethic and versatility stood out throughout his early career. Kay praised Nick’s ability to play anywhere and be a “really good defender.” When he returned for the JSerra All-Star Game, Kay played Nick at every position on the field, becoming the first player ever to do so at the high school. 

“That’s the confidence that really took me to where I am today, is being able to take a gamble on myself and completely change schools and competition and be able to say I can do it,” Nick said. 

But with his time at JSerra ending, Nick planned on taking a gap year because of a lack of college offers. He wanted to work on his craft and then find a way back in. 

Or, at least, that’s the route he believed he would take. 

Setbacks and coming home

It was just another summer game in 2018. Lopez was playing for the Southern California Renegade travel team at Irvine Valley College. He had two doubles, one lefty, one righty. He closed the game with three strikeouts for the win, an emphatic end to a complete performance.

As he walked in the parking lot with his dad, Raymond pointed to a coach standing beside his car. Minutes earlier, the coach was glued to his camera, videoing every single motion of Nick’s performance.

“I said, Nick, ‘You should go talk to that coach because he was here to watch you play,’” Raymond recalled. “He did not take his eye off you the whole time.” 

Nick introduced himself, and the coach ended up being from the University of Illinois Chicago. Impressed by Nick’s play, an offer jumped on the table. However, the final spot on that season’s roster was given to another player. Nick decided on the gap year, ensuring he could join the team in 2019 when there would be room.

Playing Division I baseball gave Nick the unique opportunity to compete again with his brother, also part of the UIC program. Nick called the experience a blast, but, like almost all of his journey, there were bumpy moments that tested his dedication.

While pitching in a winter game in 2020, Nick tore his ulnar collateral ligament, a nightmare for pitchers which often requires surgery and a recovery time of at least one year. Nick refused to be sidelined, taking an approved platelet-rich plasma injection to still be able to hit. 

Two months later, the season shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, offering Nick a chance to leave a situation that turned sour. 

“My head coach never seemed like he cared about what was happening to his [players]. I didn’t really have a good relationship with him,” Nick said. “When [coronavirus] hit [it] was kind of an easy decision that this is not the coach I want to play for.”

Back at home, Raymond had dismantled the backyard training. But with his two sons returning because of the pandemic, it meant starting all over again. 

The garage became a training facility once more. The batting cages triumphantly returned. Bobby Andrews, at the time a volunteer assistant at USC, began working with Nick, talking to the USC coaching staff and playing a key role in Nick’s transfer, his main goal once he enrolled in Santa Ana College.   

Nick performed on the field and received offers from various colleges. The University of Washington made a big push, and the coach promised to get Nick drafted. He declined the offer, having his eyes only on USC, even without a set route to get there. 

But Nick didn’t blink. He turned to Andrews with a question: What do I have to do to get to USC? 

“At the time, Nick was batting .280, had some home runs, and Bobby told Nick, ‘They wanna see your batting average be higher,’” Raymond said. “That night he went five for five and his average jumped 40 or 50 points and Nick’s like, okay, what else?”

Finally, USC offered Nick a preferred walk-on spot, unlike other schools interested in him. Nick wasn’t guaranteed anything, just like his transfer to JSerra. He had to prove himself and roll the dice again.

And so far, it’s paid off.

His five home runs are the second most on the team this season. He’s one of four players to have a batting average over .300 with more than 90 at-bats. He emerged as a key player during his first season at USC, starting in 47 of 53 possible games. 

None of that mattered when USC hired new Head Coach Andy Stankiewicz last offseason. Nick had to prove it all once again, and his work ethic stood out immediately. Stankiewicz recalled times after practice when he had been heading home and turned around to see Nick working in the batting cage with the lights on.

“There’s moments where you wanna tell him, ‘Hey man, Nick, just go home, just put the bat away for the night and come back tomorrow and we’ll go at it again,” Stankiewicz said. “But, he’s committed to it. He wants to be a great player.”

That work ethic has been crucial in Stankiewicz’s rebuilding of the program, with Nick serving as an example for younger players. Stankiewicz praised Nick’s baseball IQ but, most importantly, his fight during his journey.  

“He just refuses to go away. That’s a fantastic quality athlete,” Stankiewicz said. “For sure there’s been moments where he’s been frustrated, disappointed and all that, but at the end of the day, he keeps coming back.”

And with a professional career imminent, Lopez won’t shy away from rolling the dice and gambling to achieve his dreams, just like what got him to that call back at Saddleback.