Nevada's Landon Wallace carries inspiration from grandpa onto baseball field

Landon Wallace lost one of his inspirations before he even graduated high school when his grandfather, Jack Chen, diedafter a two-year battle with lung cancer.

“One of the main reasons I started playing baseball was my grandpa,” Wallace said. "He died midway through my junior season of high school, and I was contemplating if I really do love baseball or if I was playing to give him something to watch or something to come, too. And I would say that was one of my biggest challenges I had to face overall. But overcoming that challenge has made every minor thing in my life really easy to overcome and not really focus on because that’s a big one for me.”

Wallace, a sophomore utility player, said the hard-learned lesson of love and loss has made him a better player and better person.

“My biggest lesson I’ve learned so far is hard times create hard people,” Wallace said. “If you’re able to get through those hard times in life, you can handle the majority of any situation after that.”

While Wallace might have contemplated whether he really loved baseball after hisgrandfather died, he quickly learned his passion for the sport dug deep.

“He loves to play, and that’s a good trait," Nevada coach TJ Bruce said. “Nowadays I don’t think there’s a lot of kids that just love to play, and you always see that in Landon. He’s always working at his craft. He loves to hit. He just loves the game of baseball, and I don’t know if you can truly say that about a lot of kids, a lot of people that can say they truly love what they’re doing. That was probably the first thing that stuck out to me."

As a freshman in 2021, Wallace was an impact player for the Mountain West-winning Wolf Pack, hitting .363 in 28 games, tallying 33 hits with a .444 on-base percentage. Nearing the end of his sophomore year with the Wolf Pack, Wallace is continuing to prove he’s a key offensive weapon. In 31 games, Wallace is hitting.348 with three homers, seven doubles, 27 RBIs and 31 runs in37 games. His.483 on-base mark leads Nevada starters.

“My personal goals for the season is to do what I did last year, but do it better and more efficiently,” Wallace said. “I had a good freshman year last year, which is great, but the thing that’s really going to distinguish me is if I can do it again and again. And I know baseball’s a game of failure, but with baseball there’s success.”

The Roseville, Calif., native was first identified by then-Nevada assistant Jake Silverman, who is now at Cal Poly. One of the draws to the Wolf Pack for Wallace was current teammateCam Walty. The two grew up playing together at youth levels for five seasons. When the decision came to decide where the two would play in college, they knew the future was Silver and Blue.

“The reason why I chose Nevada is because of TJ Bruce, he’s a great coach and it’s also close to home, my family can come,” Wallace said. “It’s a good family team, well-rounded team. You have everything you need here as a Division I program. You’ve got your cages, you’ve got your field, you’ve got your clubhouse, a good coaching staff, one of the best in the nation.”

You can watch the full video feature on Landon Wallace below.