CHANDLER – For most MLB prospects, the draft is a chance to either gather with family and friends or attend the event in person as they hear their names called and their lives change forever.
Instead, Roch Cholowsky got to enjoy his big day with his entire community. The 2026 No. 1 pick in the 2026 MLB Draft spent Saturday at The Trophy Bar in Chandler with nearly 300 people there to support him.
“It’s a big family here in Chandler,” Cholowsky said. “It makes it more fun when everyone’s bought into each other and there’s a lot of love around each other. I’m just trying to keep that along with me and try to build relationships as far as I go.”
Cholowsky is the second player in UCLA history to go first overall in MLB, the other being Gerrit Cole in 2011. He’s also the second player from an Arizona high school to go No. 1, joining the recently deceased Bob Horner.
The original plan was for the Cholowsky family to host the event at their home, but they quickly realized they couldn’t hold enough people as they started making their guest list and it kept getting bigger and bigger.
“Just thinking about who I wanted here, the list didn’t stop very early,” Cholowsky said. “There were just a lot of people that I couldn’t leave out. Having everyone here means the world to me.”
While Cholowsky knew his fate hours before the draft started when the Chicago White Sox called him and told him, he still wanted it to be a surprise for everyone in his life to enjoy together. That meant not telling his parents Tika and Dan, sister Shyla, teammates or coaches.
He wanted everyone to be together through the stress.
“He wanted it to be over as well, so I stress when he stresses,” his dad, Dan Cholowsky said. “He knew a little bit before I knew what was going to happen. But now, we’re golden.”
For those who know Roch, wanting to be with everyone makes sense.
While he has always been someone who loves to shine under the spotlight, he is also rooted deeply in his family, friends and community. They have always been by his side and they are the ones who care about him the most.
“Humble,” is how Roch’s mom, Tika Cholowsky, described him. “With this pressure and everything that has come over the years, anybody can turn around and be somebody else. He has stayed true to who he has always been. He’s a good son. He’s a good friend. He’s a good cousin. He’s just a good person.”
Along with his friends and family, nearly half of his teammates and coaches were there to share the moment with their shortstop. Much of that has to do with who he is off the field.
Everyone knows him as one of the nation’s best college players and the No. 1 overall pick, but there is a side of him that most don’t get to see. Only those who shared a locker room and a campus with him got to see it.
To Roch, it didn’t matter who you were or where you played on the UCLA team, he wanted to be the guy that made people feel welcomed. He wanted his team to be more than a team, but a family.
“When I got to campus, he was super welcoming,” UCLA catcher Kasen Khansarinia said. “He really made it a point that he wanted this team to be close and to be a family and a brotherhood. He made us feel as comfortable as possible and I knew from that day we were going to have success. “
These relationships are what helped him grow into the player and person he became.
Cholowsky took a gamble on himself years ago coming out of Hamilton High School. As one of the top prospects in the 2023 draft, he made it clear that he intended to go to college so it made no sense to draft him. He wanted to improve his game and build new relationships along the way, and he did both of those in life-changing ways.
“I mean, it all worked out in the grand scheme of things,” he said. “There’s a lot of baseball left. This isn’t the end of it. But I thought that college was the best decision for me and a lot of that paid off today.”
His loyalty to the team and kindness to others was exactly what the Bruins needed to help them take the program’s next step. His talent, mixed with his leadership ability, became a catalyst that propelled UCLA into the national rankings almost as soon as he got there. By the start of the sophomore year, the Bruins remained in the Top-25 and stayed for the duration of his time there.
That included kicking off the 2026 season as the No. 1 team in the country and staying there for the majority of the year.
That loyalty is also what kept Cholowsky at UCLA and kept him on his path to becoming the No. 1 pick. Despite the team having a rough year when he was a freshman, he stuck it out with the Bruins, trusting and knowing that his coaches and teammates could and would figure it out.
“He is a guy that is so loyal to our program,” UCLA coach John Savage said. “He could have gone into the portal and taken all kinds of money after that first year. I think it’s a lesson for a lot of players out there in the country to be loyal to the program that they’re in and to run the race, and that’s what he’s done.”
Even being away at college, Cholowsky never forgot where he came from and who helped him to the point to even warrant a party. The ones who were maybe the most excited for him were the guys with whom he grew up.
Having his party in Chandler, Roch was surrounded by the people he called brothers long before his days at UCLA. The guys who were there during his little league, middle school and high school days. They got to watch firsthand just how special he is and the effort it took to get to that point.
“In every aspect of his life, he is striving to be the best at what he does,” his childhood friend Jake LeDoux said. “In school, as a person, as an athlete, I mean, he takes everything with 100% tenacity. His drive to succeed in life is second to none.”
Both his friends and teammates knew how hard he worked in his life to succeed, but they also knew when he needed to turn it off.
“Off the field, he really just likes to be a 21-year-old and have fun,” Khansarinia said. “He’s always down for a good time. We love to go eat together. He loves the beach. He just likes to live life. But as soon as we get back to the field, he knows he’s got work and he’ll flip that switch on.”
Once he stepped onto that field, Bruins players said he wasn’t their friend, he was their teammate and he wasn’t afraid to challenge teammates if it meant it could help them. That was one of Cholowsky’s biggest goals on the field: helping those around him get better.
“He just raises the standard,” UCLA catcher Cashel Dugger said. “He pushes everybody to get to his standard and raise the bar as the team and just holds everybody accountable.”
Whether it was picking up his teammates when they needed it, or to check on someone if they needed help, teammates call Cholowsky a natural leader on and off the field.
“He’s one of those guys that has the ability to transfer belief,” assistant coach Bryant Ward said. “He makes players better around him. He’s a winning guy, top to bottom.”
The White Sox saw more than talent. They saw competitiveness and leadership that cannot be taught.
“He got comfortable and he made it very clear that this was a slam dunk place that he wanted to go,” White Sox General Manager Chris Getz told MLB.com. “That was certainly something that we wanted to hear and it made it a lot easier to make that selection.”
Cholowsky said the White Sox made it easy on him, too.
“I went out there a couple months back and being able to meet the team was awesome,” he said. “It’s a lot of younger guys, the whole office. There’s just a lot of knowledge and a lot of want to win out of those guys and I’m just excited to try and get up there and be a part of it as soon as I can.”
While 10 UCLA players were drafted over the weekend, the team and coaches wanted to be there for Cholowsky. They chose to make their way to Chandler to be there for their leader. Their captain.
“It was automatic to come here,” Dugger said. “Being here for Roch, such a special day for him. We’re just so excited, we had to be here.”
Even for those who couldn’t be there, the moment still meant the world to them.
Cholowsky’s high school coach, Mike Woods wasn’t able to share the moment in person with one of the stars in the program’s storied history, but Woods still kept up with the draft and cheered on his player the whole way.
“I couldn’t be more proud,” Woods said. “I don’t take a whole lot of credit. I think his parents did most of the heavy lifting, but it was nice to be part of a guy’s career who’s going to do great things and has done great things.”
While outsiders may think that winning is the most important thing to Cholowsky, the gathering on Saturday proved that there is something above winning. Despite all the success, the accolades or the upcoming money, Cholowsky loves family.
Whether that is his family at home, his family on the field or his family in his city, those closest to him say Cholowsky has never let his background or his origins be drowned out by all the noise. Cholowsky is set to make more than $11 million in signing bonus money and he will likely enjoy fame during his MLB career, but the setting on Saturday made it clear where his priorities lie.
“It always starts with his hometown,” LeDoux said. “He’s always bled being a proud Arizonan and I think he’s just always wanted to make his family proud.”
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