Editor’s note: Every other week, Nevada Sports Net will spotlight a local athlete as part of our “Legendary Athletes” series, which is presented in partnership with Legends Bay Casino. Today’s featured athlete is former McQueen High star Chris Aguila, who played 17 pro season, including four in the major leagues, and now owns Northern Nevada Baseball Club.

When Chris Aguila got the call to the major leagues after eight seasons in the minors, one of his first calls was to his mother, who also was having a special day.

“She was getting baptized that day,” Aguila said. “It was a spiritual moment for us as a family and for me personally.”

Since retiring in 2014 after 17 seasons in pro baseball, Aguila has been trying to make other players’ dreams come true. Shortly after retiring in Reno, Aguila started the Northern Nevada Baseball Factory. His organization has since been renamed the Northern Nevada Baseball Club and blossomed from an all-ages training facility into a full-service organization with travel-ball teams for kids aged 9 to 14 years old.

When Aguila was a star player at McQueen High in the 1990s, Reno didn’t have such offerings. Since starting his facility more than a decade ago, Aguila has helped hundreds of players reach their goals, whether that be making their high school team, getting to the college level or reaching the major leagues.

Perhaps no single person has had a greater impact on baseball player-development in Reno over the last decade. But Aguila admitted Northern Nevada Baseball Club has blossomed into something bigger than even he imagined.

“The organization kind of manifested on its own,” Aguila said. “I knew that I loved coaching, I knew that I loved being involved with the game. And over the course of years, I got into private instruction and started a couple of teams. It’s kind of grown into what it is now, which is a blessing to all of our clients that we have coming in to the coaches that I have because it wouldn’t be the organization without those guys. Definitely wasn’t what I envisioned, but I saw a niche and I saw an opportunity to provide a service and be a mentor and an outlet to these kids.”

Now 47 years old, Aguila’s facility trains players who are just getting into the sport all the way to big-leaguers preparing for the upcoming season. Aguila said his goal is to develop the person as much as the player, which is perhaps the most rewarding part of running Northern Nevada Baseball Club.

“Just being that mentor and watching these kids grow, watching and seeing what they turn into from a student-athlete to a husband and a father like Grant Fennell, a guy that I worked with (who played for Nevada),” Aguila said. “So, there’s a multitude of things that are rewarding. Seeing these kids go on and live out a dream, whether that’s playing at the next level of college or getting the opportunity to play professionally or getting to the big leagues like Drew Anderson. But then some of the most rewarding things are when guys come back to town and they’re done playing baseball and they want to see me and wanna have meetings and they’re grateful for us, for me and for my coaching staff being a part of that journey.”

Born in Redwood City, Calif., much of Aguila’s journey traces back to Northern Nevada. After missing most of his junior season at McQueen High due to injury, Aguila was recruited by college teams as a pitcher, committing to Hawaii. His senior season as a Lancer is one of the greatest for a prep player in baseball history. In 1997, Aguila hit .580, whacking a national single-season record 29 homers in 38 games. He had 52 extra-base hits, 81 RBIs, 76 runs and 19 steals. On the mound, he was 8-3 with 117 strikeouts in 70.2 innings.

“It was a great team,” Aguila said. “A lot of kids that went on to do great things, whether athletically or in their own lives and we had a great opportunity as a team to go out there and compete. As far as my individual stuff, I remember more of the end of the season because a lot of me getting drafted, playing at the next level, us going to state and winning the North was what I remember of that, and it was a blast doing it. I tell people this all the time, it was kind of when an athlete’s in the zone. All I remember is being in the zone that year. Everything seemed like it was working in slow motion. I never really fell out of a groove as a hitter. And it just seemed like things were going my way the whole season.”

A third-round draft pick by the Florida Marlins in 1997, Aguila grinded through several minor-league seasons before debuting in the bigs in 2004. He played 149 games in the majors, hitting .230 in 248 plate appearances for the Marlins and Mets. Aguila also hit .277 with 160 homers in 1,400 minor-league games and played in Japan, Mexico and Italy. He appeared for Team Philippines in the World Baseball Classic qualifiers as well, packing a lot of experience into his playing days.

“It was kind of a relief,” Aguila said of reaching the majors. “To be an 18-year-old kid getting drafted out of high school knowing that’s a pretty tough road to get to the big leagues, I was totally blessed to play as long as I did. But I think the biggest thing about playing for me was the life lessons that I learned traveling and getting to see in the world and all the adversity that you had to overcome to play that long.”

You can watch the full interview with Chris Aguila at the top of this page.