Alex Nolan’s mission in baseball took shape on the field at Brock University.

The 23-year-old Burlington-born pitcher, who grew up in Arizona but returned to Ontario after high school and enrolled at Brock, has long dreamed of reaching the big leagues. He’d assumed it was a goal shared by many of his university teammates, until an eye-opening conversation during his second year.

“I said, ‘Hey, you ever think of getting drafted? You ever think about playing pro ball?’” Nolan recalled last fall. “(The response) was, ‘No, I just play Brock baseball. That’ll never happen.’”

That answer surprised Nolan, and his objective shifted from that day forward. Getting drafted by a major-league team was still the dream, but so was changing the mindset of Canadian players — and the attitude toward them.

“The mindset of young athletes in Canada is, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go to the (United States) to make it. That’s where I’ve got to go.’ But that’s not to say it can’t happen, just because you’re playing in Canada,” he said.

Nolan wanted to create a path for others, to prove Ontario University Athletics could be a stepping stone to a major-league career, just like American Division I or II.

He got one step closer this past June, by signing with the Blue Jays as a free agent.

Nolan is the third Brock Badger ever to land with an MLB organization. Pitcher Jamaal Joseph signed with the Florida (now Miami) Marlins in 2004, and infielder Shaun Valeriote was drafted by the Jays in the 39th round in 2012 — still the only OUA product ever selected.

If Nolan plays a big-league game, though, he’ll be the first.

Nolan’s family moved from Burlington to Tucson, Ariz. in 1999, after his father’s job was relocated by Bombardier. He remembers representing Toronto in his new home by sporting Blue Jays, Maple Leafs and Raptors gear — specifically a purple Vince Carter jersey.

“I was always a Toronto kid growing up in the desert,” Nolan said.

Baseball in Arizona is like hockey in Canada, and it didn’t take long for him to catch on. Soon he was playing on five teams a year, with just a two-week break in December. The path to success was clear: high school ball, Division I, pros.

“It’s a way of life almost there,” Nolan said.

Something didn’t feel right, though. He considered himself a decent player, improving year by year, but the level of selfish ambition — among players and parents — was a turnoff. He would return to Canada in 2015 and enrol at Brock, where he joined the school team and decided to chart his own path.

“As long as you’re good and you work hard and you want it, you can get looks,” Nolan said. “You can find your own avenue. You can create your own little space.”

Nolan got his look from Badgers alum Andrew Tinnish, the Jays’ vice-president of international scouting. They met in the fall of 2017, after Brock coach Marc LePage suggested it to Tinnish.

“Alex Nolan, you show up and you see six-foot-four, 225 pounds. The ball moves. He can spin a breaking ball,” Tinnish said last fall. “There was a lot to like. There was a tools component that, for OUA baseball, definitely stood out …

“When I did talk to him, it was almost like an indirect challenge in a sense. It was like, ‘Hey, this is what it takes to be a professional baseball player. These are some things, if you can get to, then you might have an opportunity to play professional baseball some day.’ He was very enthusiastic, he was very outgoing and I could tell right away that he took it very seriously.”

Tinnish made no promises. He offered tips about velocity and what needed to be cleaned up in his delivery. Nolan ran with them.

He also stopped looking at conditioning work as punishment, instead hitting a local fitness club to lift and throw bullpens with spongeballs in a mirror gym rather than going out with university friends. He changed his diet, devoured YouTube clips on mechanics, and linked up with Dr. Andrew Robb, a former Brock pitcher and sports chiropractor in Waterloo who Nolan says has a “PhD in pitching.”

Nolan knew he would have to work twice as hard as Division I players if he wanted to reach his goal. Brock didn’t have that kind of baseball reputation, and his fastball wasn’t in the mid-90s — although he did hit 94 miles per hour this past summer, which he credits in part to working with Robb.

“For someone like me that was kind of on the borderline, you’ve got to push yourself a bit,” said Nolan.

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The dedication paid off.

Nolan was invited to pitch in the Northwoods League — second only to the Cape Cod League among elite American collegiate circuits — in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

He posted a 1.78 ERA in his final year at Brock, in the fall of 2018, while notching 11.72 strikeouts per nine innings and walking just eight batters over 351/3 frames in total.

The Jays brought him in for a pre-draft workout this past June, between starts for the Kalamazoo Growlers — a week in which he estimates he threw 200 pitches.

He still wasn’t expected to be drafted, but was disappointed when his name wasn’t called.

“I was actually pretty upset. You just hope. You’re still a kid deep down. To see your hometown team picking guys, you’re like, ‘Dang, I wish that was me.’”

That letdown made the call that would come from Tinnish all the sweeter.

Nolan recalled he was in the shower when the phone rang that day, and that he had to calm down before returning the call. Telling Nolan that the Jays wanted to sign him was a privilege, Tinnish said.

“It’s one of those really good phone calls that you get to make, especially when you know how much time and effort a kid has put in,” he said. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have made that phone call if he didn’t put that work in.”

Nolan spent the rest of the summer of 2019 in the star-studded rotation of the class-A Vancouver Canadians, holding his own with top pitching prospects Alek Manoah and Adam Kloffenstein. Nolan posted a 3.22 ERA over 582/3 innings, while striking out 35 and walking 11. Tinnish wasn’t sure what to expect at that level, but said he was impressed by Nolan’s ability to throw strikes, locate his secondary pitches and, perhaps most important, pitch with confidence.

“He’s not thinking, ‘I’m wearing a Brock jersey and Alek Manoah, you’re wearing a West Virginia (University) jersey and this guy’s wearing a Florida State jersey,’” Tinnish said. “He’s like, ‘We’re all wearing Vancouver Canadians jerseys. We’re on the same team. I’m going to go out and I’m going to compete, just like you and you and you.’ Not everyone has that. I think it’s an intimidating situation to walk into for most people, and it wasn’t for him. It wasn’t.”

The road Nolan has taken to this point wasn’t easy, and he has an uphill climb ahead. This year, he’ll likely face better competition and a longer season than ever before. But Tinnish says Nolan has the mindset to take that next step.

Nolan knows the Blue Jays system is deep in prospects. He wants to be realistic about his chances, but he also doesn’t want to let himself down — or the people who helped him get this far.

“My legit dream is to pitch at the Rogers Centre, and underneath my jersey I want a Brock shirt somehow, with a Brock ‘B,’” he said. “Have it underneath, with my parents in the stands and my coaches from Brock, some of my professors. It’s my dream.”

It is also his mission.