2-sport athlete JonJon Vaughns steps up to bat after football season

JonJon Vaughns loves baseball.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when he wishes it was as physical as his other favorite pastime, football.

“It happens a bunch,” Vaughns said. “At practice with some of the guys, I’m like, ‘You’re lucky you’re not on the football field because that play at home probably would have been bad.'”

Unlike his fellow freshmen on the diamond, Vaughns had gotten comfortable donning blue and gold well before the first pitch of the 2021 baseball season. The linebacker/safety hybrid recorded 13 tackles and one tackle for loss in seven games with UCLA football in the fall before making his first appearance for UCLA baseball March 2 as a pinch hitter.

Since then, the freshman started 13 of the Bruins’ last 14 regular-season games in the outfield and picked up three home runs and 10 RBIs across that stretch.

Vaughns qualifies as a hard-hitter in both sports, considering his .510 slugging percentage is third on the team behind only future top MLB Draft picks junior shortstop Matt McLain and redshirt sophomore first baseman JT Schwartz. On the gridiron, 247Sports national recruiting analyst Greg Biggins wrote Vaughns was “one of the fiercest hitters out West” when he was playing at St. John Bosco High School in 2019.

Playing two sports inevitably means missing offseason training for whichever team isn’t in season, and that was the case when Vaughns had to miss football’s spring camp that ran concurrent with baseball season last month. Football coach Chip Kelly said April 30 that Vaughns had a bright future ahead, wherever it may be, and that it was he and baseball coach John Savage’s job to make sure he has all his options open now and moving forward.

“None of us – JonJon included – know where his future is,” Kelly said. “I’m excited for JonJon’s success. I’m excited for our baseball team’s success. He’ll stay in baseball until whenever coach Savage is done – hopefully after the College World Series – then he’ll come back and join the football program.”

Savage said Vaughns was only the hitting tool shy of the full five back on May 22, the same day he blasted a two-run homer to right in the fourth inning but led off the bottom of the ninth with a strikeout down two runs. Savage attributed that kind of inconsistency to a lack of at-bats and reps, while also recognizing Vaughns’ room to grow thanks to his raw talent and big-play ability.

“He can really play center, he can run the bases, he’s got power, he can throw, he just needs to play,” Savage said. “It’s a tough combo just because of the football and baseball thing, but he’s an exceptional athlete. We’re very fortunate to have him and he’s been pretty darn good this spring.”

Kelly and inside linebackers coach Don Pellum were the first to reach out to Vaughns in high school, and once he received an offer to join the football team, they put him in touch with Savage to talk about joining the baseball team as well. Vaughns said Arizona offered him a similar opportunity, but he was more attracted to the situation Savage presented to him at UCLA.

“(Savage) was excited for me to play both sports because there hadn’t been one in a while,” Vaughns said. “He’d seen me hit people in football, and then also hitting the ball, so he was comfortable with everything I was doing in both of them.”

Vaughns said he grew up always wanting to take on both sports at once, mostly because it was part of his family’s tradition.

One of his older brothers, Aaren, played football and baseball at Mount San Antonio College before transferring to Utah State. Tyler Vaughns didn’t get to pull double duty at USC as he had initially hoped, instead deciding to fully commit to football, while the oldest brother, Geoffrey Jr., played both in high school as well.

“I’m inspired by all my brothers,” JonJon said. “It was just a family event, and I just roll with it and I just kept on doing it. … They always push me in anything I do – schoolwork, football, baseball, doesn’t matter.”

Now that Vaughns is continuing that family tradition at UCLA, he joins a list of dual-sport Bruins that includes Tyler Scott, former NFL safety Jarrad Page and the one and only Jackie Robinson.

Robinson lettered in four varsity sports in his time at UCLA – baseball, football, basketball and track and field. While Vaughns is two sports shy of matching Robinson’s school record mark, he said he still takes inspiration from one of sports’ most recognizable trailblazers and hopes to follow in his footsteps.

“I wish I got wear No. 42 in baseball,” Vaughns said. “It’s an honor to go on that path that he went on and all that, knowing the history.”

UCLA Athletics retired Robinson’s No. 42 for all sports back in 2014, so Vaughns wears No. 15 for baseball and No. 21 for football instead.

The jersey numbers, a busy year-round schedule and a loaded legacy aren’t the only things Vaughns has to juggle, however. He also balances two massive groups of friends, considering he had over 150 teammates to get close to between his two teams this school year.

Vaughns is the only baseball player living on the top floor of his dorm building, with most of his teammates living either on the ground floor or elsewhere in Westwood. Instead, Vaughns essentially lives amidst his own personal fan club of football players, from his roommate rising sophomore linebacker Damian Sellers to his former high school teammate rising sophomore receiver Logan Loya and 310-pound rising redshirt junior left guard Baraka Beckett.

“They’re really supportive,” Vaughns said. “I see them every day walking around and they’re excited for me. They can’t wait for me to get back (to the dorm) and say, like, ‘Keep doing it, we love seeing you play.'”

Vaughns’ football teammates have been some of the first to retweet his highlights since he became a more regular member of the baseball team’s lineup in mid-May, and he has had plenty – both at the plate and in the field. His highlight reel in the Rose Bowl has yet to reach the same level, but he has at least another three years to turn that around and establish himself as a dual-sport star in the making.

While Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson played baseball and football professionally in the 1980s and 90s, Jameis Winston and Kyler Murray are just a couple of the recent names who played both in college before committing solely to the NFL. Dave Roberts – someone Vaughns said he looked up to after hearing stories about him growing up – was a three-sport athlete in high school and turned down an offer to play quarterback at the Air Force Academy so he could go all-in on baseball at UCLA.

Vaughns said he’s looking forward to remaining a dual-sport athlete all the way through college, and he hopes he’s able to juggle both of his passions at the highest level should he reach that point.

“It’s all in God’s hands, what I can do, but that’s what I’m planning on doing,” Vaughns said. “If I get drafted in both, then I’m going to continue doing both.”