Mitch Janssen is a starting pitcher for the Bradley Baseball team with lots of accomplishments under his belt already. The Illinois native cracked the starting rotation for a talented Division I baseball team. He threw a no-hitter in high school where he garnered a sub-1 ERA during his senior year. Not to mention, he owns planes and flies jets at the age of 20.

Janssen on the proudest moment of his career

Janssen, born in Peoria, has been fascinated with planes his entire life. He still remembers as a child when he got his first remote-controlled plane. He flew his first jet, the Embraer Phenom 100, during high school at age 16. He became the youngest certified pilot in the world to fly that jet. He is also the only collegiate athlete certified as a pilot.

Janssen on the process of getting a pilots license

In high school, Janssen was a three-sport athlete. He played baseball, basketball, and football. Baseball is where most of his accolades came from at Princeville HS. There, he was a three-time McDonald’s all-star and was an all-state baseball player his junior and senior year. His senior year, he hit .380 with more than 15 extra-base hits, and he also held a 0.68 ERA to go along with 162 strikeouts. Those 162 punch-outs were over the course of just 82 innings.

Janssen attended prep school before coming to Bradley. While there he accumulated just under 200 innings pitched. Amongst those innings, he racked up 406 strikeouts while shutting out the opposing team 15 times. College-level baseball is a whole new challenge for everyone. Janssen has had some rough innings but maybe finding his comfort zone as of late. Moreso a reliever, Janssen has stuck out nine, allowed zero runs and has allowed only one hit in his last four appearances.

Janssen on where his passion for flying originates

Janssen, whose ideal profession is to be drafted and play in the MLB, already has a fallback option just in case, as a pilot for a commercial airline. Janssen currently works part-time with United Express. The right-handed pitcher just prefers to being outside for work rather than being cluttered up in an office. In fact, Janssen also gets some laughs up in the air when he’s teaching people how to fly. When he’s instructing, “sometimes people do things like not land on the runway and go into the grass,” Janssen said. He finishes with saying it’s not funny while it’s happening, it’s funny looking back after the fact.

Janssen on the responsibilities of being a pilot