PHOENIX – Back before the awards and draft projections started flowing, the people closest to Daniel “Roch” Cholowsky remember a player whose greatest strength wasn’t his talent. It was the consistency with which he approached the game every day and the high standard he and those around him set.
“I worry about the things that matter to me the most,” Cholowsky told Cronkite News back in 2023 as a senior in high school. “Winning and having fun.”
In a state that has become one of baseball’s richest talent pipelines, producing stars at every level such as Chandler’s Cody Bellinger and Tucson’s Ian Kinsler, few represent that tradition better than Cholowsky, a Chandler native whose journey from Hamilton High School to college baseball superstardom has made him one of the nation’s most recognizable college players and the favorite to become the No. 1 pick in the MLB Draft on Saturday in Philadelphia.
Growing up in a household with a dad, Dan Cholowsky, who was selected 39th overall in the 1991 MLB Draft, Roch Cholowsky was tasked with doing things for himself early on, both in baseball and in life.
“At a young age, I’ve always treated him like a man. I never treated him as a kid,” Dan said of raising his son. “Obviously, we talked about it. We talked about more of the mental side of the game. But as far as the game itself goes, that’s what he does naturally. He always has.”
Often when people hear about the sons of ex-athletes, they hear about how much their parents influenced their game or helped their kids get where they ended up. That was not the case with the Cholowsky family.
Allowed to craft his own swing and his own style of play, Roch Cholowsky quickly grew into an elite player on the field.
“I’m not a fan of the way the game is trending with manufactured swings and people swinging the exact same way,” Dan said. “I remembered most of the at-bats, if not all, so we’ll sit down and talk about counts. ‘Why’d you not make a pass on that ball? (At) 2-0, 3-1, what were you looking for?’ So, he and I talked more about the mental side of the game than the mechanics.”
While other kids were playing video games inside, Cholowsky could always be found outside, working on his game. Whether it was throwing the football with his friends or hitting off a tee, he was always doing something to keep himself active.
“He was more of a ball-in-hand type of guy,” Dan said of his son. “I think he’d rather be outside, with a ball in his hand, basketball, football, baseball, whatever it is, than anything else.”
That penchant ended up paying off in a big way as Cholowsky grew up. Not only was he playing baseball for his little league, but he was a star quarterback at the same time, standing out on both fields and growing his love for both games.
Playing both sports was something that, when Dan looks back on it, helped Cholowsky develop into a well-rounded athlete. Getting thrown around and tackled made him tough.
Cholowsky wasn’t sure which path he would pursue, but it didn’t take him long to decide that baseball offered him the best path.
“He chose baseball for the possible longevity of it,” Dan said.
Genesis of a star
It was at Hamilton High that everything started to come together. Cholowsky found himself as the backup quarterback on a storied varsity program, but also the starting first baseman for an equally storied baseball team.
“He was a quarterback on the football team so he didn’t show up ‘til after Christmas,” former Huskies coach Mike Woods said. “It became pretty apparent he might be one of our better guys.
“He became a freshman starter on the varsity, which we’ve only had three or four of those in our history. That doesn’t happen.”
It was at that point that Woods realized what a special talent Cholowsky was. Woods had met Cholowsky at a baseball camp back when he was in seventh grade. Woods noticed something different about him right away.
“He carried himself with a lot of confidence for a little seventh grader,” Woods said. “He wasn’t that big, but he only stood out with his infield skills.”
Soon after arriving at Hamilton, Cholowsky found himself practicing on the football field while the rest of his teammates on the baseball field were getting ready for the season.
Somehow it didn’t matter. After making varsity as a freshman, Cholowsky’s impact on the team was immediate, Woods said.
He was placed at first base, but knew that wasn’t where he wanted to be. He knew he belonged in the middle of the infield. He worked toward that goal in the 2020 season before it was canceled due to COVID after just eight games.
It didn’t matter how old he was or how many reps he had taken. He wanted to be a leader right from the jump.
“He wasn’t a leader yet, he was a freshman, but I mean again, he wasn’t afraid to speak up,” Woods said. “He would maybe even correct a senior and say, ‘Hey, man, you should have done this’ or ‘Let’s do this.’ So he always had the confidence to lead.”
Woods said Cholowsky was popular. It didn’t matter if you were an athlete or not, Cholowsky was someone who was kind and friendly to everyone he met.
“He had a lot of friends that weren’t baseball players, which was cool,” Woods said. “Some of his best friends weren’t even athletes. So, I think he’s just a pretty amiable kid.”
Cholowsky spent his first high school offseason continuing to work toward his next step. That next step was becoming the starting shortstop for the Huskies for the next three years, two of which he ended in a state championship including a two-loss sophomore season. By the time he left Hamilton, Woods viewed him as one of the best leaders he had coached.
“He knows what he needs,” Woods said. “He could put his needs aside and make sure everybody else is on the same page with the team.”
Thanks to all this success, he found himself listed as the No. 44 prospect in the 2023 MLB Draft. He was poised to be selected in or around the first round, but teams knew he was unlikely to sign an MLB contract over attending college so they passed on him.
California dreamin’
From a very young age, Cholowsky knew he wanted to be a UCLA Bruin and he made it happen as soon as he could. With his mom’s side of the family being from the Los Angeles area, he often went to LA to cheer on the Bruins.
“There’s pictures I had when he was very young, wearing UCLA gear,” Dan said.
The first college to send him an offer was UCLA. After a workout with coach John Savage, it only took the Bruins a few hours to send that offer and he verbally committed almost instantly, despite an offer from Notre Dame to play football.
His first year with the Bruins didn’t go as planned, with the team only winning 19 games. Cholowsky still led the team in many offensive categories, highlighted by a .308 batting average, but he was eager to get back to UCLA for his sophomore season. He had only ever experienced winning and he didn’t want that to change.
The Bruins didn’t just take a step forward his sophomore season. They took a leap. The Bruins went 48-18, tied for the third-most wins in the program’s history. Just one year after failing to make the Pac-12 tournament in the conference’s final season, the Bruins found themselves in the College World Series in Omaha.
Dan credited the success to the team’s relationships.
“His teammates, they have a very close bond,” Dan said. “I would bet that whenever he gets married, all these guys are going to be by his side.”
Cholowsky played in all 66 games that season, leading the team in almost every offensive category, including his 23 home runs, which was good for fourth in the country.
Right after the season, Cholowsky shot up every mock draft board.
Entering into his final year with the Bruins, Cholowsky was the consensus No. 1 overall pick for the MLB Draft on every site’s mock draft, and he was the No. 1 overall draft prospect according to MLB.com.
On the No. 1 ranked team entering the 2026 season, Cholowsky kicked things off with an 11-game hit streak and 15 hits during that streak. After starting the season 6-2, the Bruins went on a 27-game win streak and held the No. 1 ranking in the country for all 14 regular-season polls.
The season ended in heartbreak when the Bruins fell to St. Mary’s in the Los Angeles Regional, ending their season and Cholowsky’s college career. Cholowsky hit .320 and drove in 60 runs, while his .965 fielding percentage ranked second among all NCAA Division I shortstops.
“It was tough,” Roch told reporters at the Draft Combine. “No one wants to go out like that. I wanted to win one national championship every year. Just, you know, we didn’t play our best baseball at the end.”
Cholowsky loves nothing more than to get work in the field, but he prefers getting those reps at shortstop instead of in the batters box. This resulted in him committing just 15 errors between his final two college seasons.
“He just likes being at the park,” Dan said. “Most guys like to go to the park and hit all day long. He’ll go to the park and take ground balls all day long. He’ll take more ground balls than he does swings in the cages.”
During his time in high school and college, he won multiple awards under the sun, including being named an All-American like his dad, winning the ABCA/Rawlings Gold Glove in 2025 and the Brooks Wallace Award in 2025 as the best shortstop in college baseball.
One of his favorite accomplishments was getting to wear the red, white and blue and play as a member of Team USA on the college national team.
His time at UCLA was not only highlighted by his work on the field, but off it as well. Whether it was visiting sick children in the hospital or signing autographs for young fans, Cholowsky has always been someone who loves to give back, his dad said.
“You won’t know about it in the media. He’ll just go do it,” Dan said. “I think that’s what makes him who he is, is that he’ll go the extra mile, especially for the young kids. He has a lot of young fans.”
Since the college season ended, Cholowsky has kept his mind focused on the next step: the draft. But with draft day almost here, everyone in Cholowsky’s corner is patiently waiting for Saturday to arrive. Between the interviews he has conducted for UCLA, the interviews with MLB and the draft combine, the past few weeks have been a grind.
“I can’t wait for it to be over,” Dan said. “We’ve had a lot of downtime right now, and not knowing what’s gonna happen, it’s just, I want the process to be over. I know Roch is anxious right now.”
Between getting drafted out of high school and getting drafted out of college, Roch said he made the right decision taking those three years at UCLA.
“It’s different for everybody. Everyone’s got different paths, different routes,” Roch said. “I thought the best thing for me was to go to college and, you know, those three years that I spent there really helped.”
After years of preparation, championships and steady growth, Cholowsky is expected to hear his name called at or near the top of the first round when the MLB Draft begins Saturday at 10:00 a.m. MST on NBC and Peacock.
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