Fresh off his first season of professional baseball, NIU alumni Colin Summerhill reflected on his time at NIU and how his pro signing impacted the Huskies’ program.
Summerhill spent two seasons with the Huskies prior to his signing, finishing his tenure ranked third all-time in home runs with 30. Summerhill also set the Huskies single-season home run record in his senior year slugging 19 home runs.
“I came to NIU after I hit below .200 at Troy, and I was just looking for a fresh start, and I turned it into a professional opportunity,” Summerhill said. “So, anything can happen if you just work hard and you believe in yourself.”
Summerhill was signed by the Los Angeles Angels following the MLB Draft in 2024 and spent his first professional season split between two teams in the Angels system.
Despite seeing success at the collegiate level, Summerhill’s offensive production was not the same his first year, slashing .217, .323, .656 with six home runs and 40 runs driven in.
“I don’t think the game itself changed too much for me, it was more the off the field stuff and how I spend my free time,” Summerhill said. “There’s not a lot of free time, your day kind of revolves around the game. When you’re in the season and you’re going through rough patches you just have to be committed to your process and your teammates that much more.”
The Chicago native began the season with the Inland Empire 66ers, before ending the season with the Tri-City Dust Devils for a total of 108 games played.
Summerhill noted getting called up to the next level mid-season was one of his favorite moments of his first pro season.
“Getting called up is a cool experience because you get promoted, you get to go to a new place, get a fresh start, your stats go back to zero,” Summerhill said. “So you say to yourself, let’s do something cool here.”
Summerhill also had the opportunity to share his pro baseball experience with his younger brother, Brendan Summerhill, who was drafted 42nd overall by the Tampa Bay Rays, just one year after Colin signed his first pro contract.
“He got drafted on July 13, which was a Sunday,” Summerhill said. “That was our last game before the All-Star break. So, I got to play and I was at the airport, I was flying home for the break and I’m on FaceTime and our house was jam-packed with people, family and friends and I just thought it was so cool. And then he hears his name called at 42 to the Rays.”
Summerhill, as well as former NIU baseball teammate Eric Erato and NIU baseball head coach Ryan Copeland, all expressed the influence that Summerhill’s pro-signing has had on the program and its future.
“This is a time in college athletics where it’s more challenging than ever to stay afloat,” Copeland said. “There is so much competition with recruiting and facilities and, of course, NIL and revenue sharing. You just want to make sure people are aware of what you are doing. That we have really good players that are moving on to the professional level because, at the end of the day, that’s why anybody moves on to college, is to find a way to compete at the next level. So, when you have guys like Colin that are playing pro baseball, it can really help bring awareness to what we’re trying to do.”
The year following Summerhill’s signing, the Huskies brought in several key transfers to the program, including Logan Gregorio from Benedictine University and Gavin Baldwin from Southeast Missouri State University.
Both Gregorio and Baldwin were instant difference makers to the Huskies’ offense, leading the team to one of its best offensive seasons ever with team records in home runs, runs, RBI’s and walks.
“I just think his signing just showed that NIU was back on the map again,” Erato said. “With it being so long between signings for this program, it kind of shows that he not only put in the work but it also shows the work that this new staff put in as well. In just one year, they turned around an entire offense, which is very impressive. Being able to do that is huge for the program.”
The two transfers also made a run at Summerhill’s home run record set the prior season, with Gregorio finishing with 18 and Baldwin with 15.
“I wanted them to try and break the record,” Summerhill said. “Records are meant to be broken and I want NIU baseball to be as good as possible. So, if that meant for those dudes to go out there and hit bombs and win games, so be it. I don’t really care about a single season home run record in college. I’m on to bigger and better things now. I want those dudes to break my record this year and I hope they win 40 games. They both had a great year, though. They were fun to watch.”
Summerhill stressed his belief that people can play baseball at NIU and go on to have a professional career, without feeling the need to transfer to Power 4 programs to put themselves on the map.
“Make sure it is known that you can get picked up at NIU,” Summerhill said. “People think that if you go to NIU, you’re not going to play professional baseball, that is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. Anything can happen if you just work hard and you believe in yourself. Those are the two biggest things that helped me because I was down on myself and then I just thought, ‘you only have one life, you can’t live it scared.’”
NIU’s 2026 season kicks off this spring, with an exact start date to be announced.
