Less than a month after being hired, Northwestern baseball coach Ben Greenspan almost got his truck towed when he parked illegally while hosting a recruit during a Wildcat football game.
After somebody alerted him of the threat to his truck, Greenspan sprinted out and pleaded with the tow truck driver, saying he had just gotten to campus and couldn’t afford to lose face in front of his potential new player.
As the exchange went down, someone across the street rolled down his window and asked, “Hey, are you Ben Greenspan?”
It was John Lausch, Jack Lausch’s father.
The conversation that unfolded wasn’t just small talk. Greenspan learned how Jack Lausch had navigated his path to campus, the ins and outs of his recruitment and the conversations that had taken place with then-football coach Pat Fitzgerald.
Less than two years later, that conversation would have lasting significance, as Jack Lausch made his debut on Northwestern’s baseball team last weekend.
For the past three years, Lausch, now a junior, put all his energy into football and left baseball on the back burner –– just as he did coming out of high school.
At Brother Rice High School, Lausch was a three-sport standout, playing football, baseball and basketball. He was most highly touted, though, for his skills on the diamond.
If it weren’t for the COVID-19 pandemic, Lausch would’ve been a four-year varsity player. Though he played his freshman year, it was the summer following his canceled sophomore season that put him on the map, as he found a home in center field on his club team.
“He’s super athletic. He can really move, very twitchy, bat speed,” Lausch’s high school baseball coach Sean McBride said. “Jack was just very coachable. He always kind of took what you said and did it.”
Lausch’s standout moment came when he hit a walk-off home run as a senior to beat IMG Academy, the No. 1 team in the nation at the time.
It’s the day after, however, that stands out to McBride the most. Brother Rice was playing at a complex with four fields. The team was taking batting practice.
The outfielders are supposed to communicate when they’re getting their defensive reps during batting practice, but Lausch was by far the loudest player on the field.
“I remember scouts coming over to our field being like, ‘Wait a minute, that’s the guy with the home run yesterday, and he’s the loudest guy calling for baseballs in the outfield,’” McBride said.
Lausch’s accolades piled up during his senior year. That season, he was voted the 2022 Chicago Catholic League Baseball Player of the Year. He hit .386 with five home runs and 43 RBI. Lausch was the No. 1 outfielder in Illinois and the No. 23 outfielder in the country according to Perfect Game. On top of that, Baseball America named him a top-250 prospect in the 2022 MLB Draft.
Despite all the attention, Lausch chose football over baseball.
In June of 2021, Lausch committed to Notre Dame to play baseball and was granted a preferred walk-on spot for football.
When NU came calling with a football scholarship opportunity in December of that year, though, he decided to become a Wildcat.
“I think he’d be the first to tell you his first true love was always football,” McBride said. “I knew that as his baseball coach.”
Even after he became a Wildcat, however, baseball remained in the back of his mind. As early as last year, Lausch was thinking of coming back to the sport, but the special circumstances of the football team stopped him from doing so.
“It was Coach Braun’s first year as (the permanent) head coach, like it was really his program for the first year. Coach Lujan, coming in, new offense, new scheme,” Lausch said. “I just felt like I needed to put all my time into football last spring.”
His gamble paid off.
Just two weeks into NU’s football season, Lausch was named the starter. Though the ’Cats finished with a 3-7 record with him in the pocket, Lausch passed for 1,714 yards and seven touchdowns.
When the season ended, Lausch had time to recharge — and that’s when baseball came back into focus. By the time winter rolled around, he was ready to return to the diamond.
“When (Lausch) called in December, he said, ‘You know, I really miss it, and I want to give it a shot,” Greenspan said. “Coach Braun is first class, and he said, ‘You know, if there’s one person that I think can do this and do it at a high level, it’s Jack, and I trust you to get your work in here.’”
Lausch’s decision to return to baseball hinged on a mix of timing and instinct.
“I’m happy about (the time I put into football last spring). It paid off,” Lausch said. “I obviously wanted to play baseball, and so this year, it wasn’t an opportunity I was gonna let go by again.”
Though it’s been a few years since Lausch focused his attention on baseball, Greenspan said he saw flashes of his talent right away.
“There are times where it’s like oh my gosh, that is an incredible play, or what a swing. Then there are times where it’s like, yeah, there’s still some rust there,” Greenspan said. “I think the more gameplay, the more comfortable he gets, the more you’re going to see what kind of a high-level player he is.”
For Lausch, it’s all about having a mindset geared towards consistent improvement and enjoying the ride.
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Division I dual-sport athletes are few and far between.
Lausch is the first NU player to play both football and baseball for the school since Dan Kubiuk in 2015-16. The rarity of the experience is not lost on the outfielder.
“I think the coolest part about doing both is just the teammate aspect of it. You have two sets of teammates, which is pretty cool, and that’s just more relationships and more bonds to make,” Lausch said. “As a competitor, it’s awesome. I’m on the go all the time, and I love that.”
Despite still having some rust to shake off, Greenspan expects Lausch to play a “prominent role” as he continues to get better throughout the season.
In NU’s opening weekend series victory against Long Beach State, Lausch started all three games for the ’Cats in center field and batted .300 with one RBI and a double.
McBride is confident that Lausch will hit his stride quickly in his return to the sport.
“The talent doesn’t leave you, and the mindset never leaves you. Just because he hasn’t been playing baseball regularly over the last few years, he’s older, he’s more confident, he’s been through more as an athlete and as a human being,” McBride said. “I have no doubt that when he hits his stride, he’s going to be the Jack Lausch that we all saw when he was a prep star in baseball.”
Email: annawatson2027@u.northwestern.edu
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