Ohio State sophomore outfielder Nolan Clegg stands on base.Credit: Courtesy of Nolan Clegg
In baseball today, launch angle — the baseball’s flight path angle relative to the ground after it leaves the bat — plays a factor in determining the power behind a hitter’s swing.
Launch angle can be all the difference between a weak pop-up and a home run. For Ohio State sophomore outfielder Nolan Clegg’s future profession, launch angle could be the difference between life and death.
With only a few steps left in the process of getting his pilot’s license, Clegg, an air transportation major, hopes to pilot jets for either the Navy or Air Force after graduation. Pairing his studies with his time on the diamond, Clegg said flying is a unique experience.
“There’s really no comparison to being up in a plane, compared to driving a car on the ground,” Clegg said. “It’s really a different feeling when you’re up there by yourself flying around.”
Clegg said he had not taken many flights as a passenger early in his childhood, but that changed when he started taking cross-country trips to baseball tournaments in high school.
Math and science always intrigued him in grade school — solving problems and figuring out how things worked — and he wanted to meld his scientific nature with his newfound love for flying.
“I knew I didn’t want a typical 9-to-5 day at a desk, so this was kind of the perfect fit for me,” Clegg said.
Out of high school, Clegg chose Ohio State’s aviation program over Ohio University’s due to the facilities at the Ohio State University Airport at Don Scott Field. Clegg’s air transportation studies run through the College of Arts and Sciences, focusing on geography, with lab courses that run flight simulators.
He has flown with instructors at his side but said he has hopped in the cockpit for a few solo trips.
“It was pretty weird the first time I flew solo,” Clegg said. “When you take off and make your first turn and you see out of your peripheral that no one’s in the passenger seat.”
Clegg said his longest flight was 150 nautical miles, converting to 172.6 miles on land. He took off from Ohio State’s airport, flew to Mansfield, Ohio, then up to Findlay, Ohio, before returning to Columbus.
Clegg is close to getting his pilot’s license, as he has one more solo flight and the final test to complete. Then, he said he will most likely have to go to officer’s school after graduation in order to fly for the military.
Luckily, he has a mentor in pilot Matt Karaffa, father of Toronto High School teammate and Ohio State sophomore infielder Nate Karaffa. Matt Karaffa currently flies for United Airlines with 26 years of experience in the cockpit.
Karaffa said the two talk every three to four months. He guides Clegg in the right direction, offering up advice from the commercial side of piloting as well as answering any questions he has about the career.
“We talk about how his progress is doing — where he’s at in his stages of aviation,” Karaffa said. “We talk about a bunch of different things as far as where to go to get the medical [exam] and what kinds of headsets to use — those types of things.”
Karaffa believes Clegg can accomplish anything he puts his mind to.
“Nolan’s a great young man; he’s very intellectual,” Karaffa said. “It always seemed to me he enjoyed the fighter (jets) portion of it better, which he’ll be able to achieve anything he wanted to.”
Clegg said his teammates also talk to him about flying, but more in a joking manner, resulting in the nickname “Clegg Airplane.” He said despite the razzing, they understand his goals and what he wants to achieve in the future.
“Whenever we see one of those little planes flying overhead, they always ask if that’s what I fly,” Clegg said.
As an outfielder, Clegg relies heavily on communication and spatial awareness to make tracking in difficult fly balls look routine. He said these two skills translate from baseball directly to the cockpit to prevent fatal collisions with other airplanes.
Clegg recognizes the dangers of flying for the military and the need to excel at what he does, and he said this realization comes from playing baseball for all these years.
“In baseball everyone trains, everyone wants to be the best at the end of the day,” Clegg said. “The stakes are a little higher in the military than on the baseball field, but I feel that core thinking of training, being the best and preparation are the keys to everything.”
