Former Angels Announcer Victor Rojas’ Path To Coach The Hastings Broncos

Victor Rojas, the son of the legendary Cookie Rojas, is a man perpetually looking forward in his baseball life. His career journey has moved through being an announcer with MLB Network and the LA Angels, a baseball lifestyle apparel business, a GM of a minor league team, and more. Now he finds himself in Hastings, Nebraska coaching college baseball, balancing his ESPN broadcasting commitments, while keeping family first.

He didn’t expect the next step in his career to come so close to home.

Rojas had been in broadcasting, first with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2003, followed by MLB Network, the Texas Rangers, and then, in 2010, a decade with the LA Angels. He interviewed for the Los Angeles Angels’ general manager position and had picked up a contract with ESPN to do college broadcasts. When the Angels’ GM position fell through, he was looking to be closer to home to address his wife’s health issues and be there for his kids in Texas. In the midst of it, he started Big Fly Gear, a baseball-apparel lifestyle company.

“I can’t shut down my brain,” Rojas tells me about always thinking ahead, as part of an exclusive interview for Forbes. “That’s why there are days I sleep great. There are other days I’m up at 3 am just because that’s how it goes. There’s nothing I can do, right? It’s good and bad – I manage it. I know when I’m tired and when I need to shut it down.”

While in Texas, the Frisco RoughRiders reached out. The Double‑A club’s ownership group was seeking a president and general manager, and the opportunity aligned with his circumstances. Living in Trophy Club, about 25 minutes from Frisco, he was looking for a role that would allow him to remain closer to home amid family health considerations. They were willing to look outside the box.

“It was just kind of like a perfect storm,” Rojas says. “It just kind of worked out perfectly.”

He accepted the position and spent two seasons overseeing the RoughRiders’ baseball and business operations. In early 2021, the team was sold to Big Fly. By 2022, he stepped away from the role, choosing to prioritize family as his son entered his senior year of high school.

Following graduation, the family relocated to Southwest Florida as his son prepared to attend the University of Central Florida. The move also brought them closer to extended family. Although his son later transferred to Tennessee after a coaching change reshaped the roster, the family remained in Southwest Florida.

Professionally, he continued his work with ESPN, covering college baseball through the 2024 season. His assignments included regional and super regional broadcasts, offering him a broader view of the sport’s growth and direction at the collegiate level.

That perspective sharpened during the 2024 Super Regional between Texas A&M and Oregon at Blue Bell Park. The atmosphere surrounding the series highlighted the rising profile of college baseball and prompted him to consider a new professional path. Drawing on decades of experience in the sport—including leadership roles with multiple minor league organizations—he began exploring whether Division I baseball programs could benefit from a dedicated general manager role, similar to front‑office structures long used in football and basketball.

Initial conversations with head coaches were encouraging, with widespread interest in the concept. Still, uncertainty has slowed progress. With pending NCAA settlements and NIL and unresolved questions surrounding future revenue distribution, schools have been cautious. In a sport that accounts for a smaller share of the collegiate revenue landscape, many programs remain hesitant to move forward without greater clarity on what lies ahead. But the seed had been planted.

“When the settlement happens, you know, in a year, or whatever, then I’ll reapproach the idea of getting involved at the college level,” he said.

Rojas had always had a place in his heart for Kansas given his dad playing for the Royals, so thinking he could maybe coach, he randomly put in for the coaching job at Hastings College in Nebraska. The job would be opening for the 2024-25 season.

“I sent an email on a Friday to the athletic director saying, ‘Hey, if you’re willing to think outside the box, I’d love to have a conversation with you. I grew up in Kansas – I know the Midwest, and I’m at that stage in my life I really want to slow down, meaning I’m just done with the rat race. I’m not chasing anything.’ I sent that out like it was like 3:30 pm in the afternoon on a Friday, expecting maybe the following week to get a follow-up.”

Instead, the AD must have thought he was getting pranked. He called a couple of hours later, asking if this was the real Victor Rojas and if he was serious.

Of course, he was serious. But in the meantime, Hastings had other candidates they were interviewing and opted to go with a coach who had been there before. That didn’t go well for the Broncos, who went 9-33 (.214 winning percentage) in the 2024-25 season.

Rojas was still doing recurring year-to-year deals with ESPN for broadcasting. He was torn between the idea of coaching and his broadcasting gig. ESPN offered up a flexible deal allow him to broadcast while also keeping the college coaching career path afloat. He got offered an assistant coaching position in Arizona, which allowed him to get some job experience at that level under his belt. But he hadn’t burned any bridges with Hastings. One day, he gets a text from Chris Clement, the Athletic Director at Hastings asking if they could speak. They had just fired their baseball coach.

“We need you to come up here and change things and change the culture, and the job is yours if you want it,” Clement told Rojas.

And so, the baseball lifer, who has had more turns in the road, is able now the head coach of the Hastings Broncos’ baseball program, while also getting to work around his baseball broadcast schedule with ESPN. His son transferred in, so he plays for Rojas. His wife works in admissions, “so it’s kind of a family affair, and it’s, it’s worked out really well,” Rojas said.

But will Rojas, the man whose mind can’t stop and has seemed to be a nomad in a baseball world, finally slow down? He seems to have reached that stage.

“I always say that if you’re not evolving, you’re dying,” Rojas tells me. “That’s my mentality. The interesting thing about that, I’m not chasing anything anymore, whereas before it’s like, what am I going to do next? I did 18 years in the broadcast booth…. I want to be home now, you know. I really have no idea what the future holds. Maybe it is 15 years of being right here and building this up into something special, or go coach with my son, Tyler, if he decides to get into coaching. You know, that’d be kind of cool, too. So we’ll see what the future has in store.”Victor Rojas, the son of the legendary Cookie Rojas, is a man perpetually looking forward in his baseball life. His career journey has moved through being an announcer with MLB Network and the LA Angels, a baseball lifestyle apparel business, a GM of a minor league team, and more. Now he finds himself in Hastings, Nebraska coaching college baseball, balancing his ESPN broadcasting commitments, while keeping family first.

He didn’t expect the next step in his career to come so close to home.

Rojas had been in broadcasting, first with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2003, followed by MLB Network, the Texas Rangers, and then, in 2010, a decade with the LA Angels. He interviewed for the Los Angeles Angels’ general manager position and had picked up a contract with ESPN to do college broadcasts. When the Angels’ GM position fell through, he was looking to be closer to home to address his wife’s health issues and be there for his kids in Texas. In the midst of it, he started Big Fly Gear, a baseball-apparel lifestyle company.

“I can’t shut down my brain,” Rojas tells me about always thinking ahead, as part of an exclusive interview for Forbes. “That’s why there are days I sleep great. There are other days I’m up at 3 am just because that’s how it goes. There’s nothing I can do, right? It’s good and bad – I manage it. I know when I’m tired and when I need to shut it down.”

While in Texas, the Frisco RoughRiders reached out. The Double‑A club’s ownership group was seeking a president and general manager, and the opportunity aligned with his circumstances. Living in Trophy Club, about 25 minutes from Frisco, he was looking for a role that would allow him to remain closer to home amid family health considerations. They were willing to look outside the box.

“It was just kind of like a perfect storm,” Rojas says. “It just kind of worked out perfectly.”

He accepted the position and spent two seasons overseeing the RoughRiders’ baseball and business operations. In early 2021, the team was sold to Big Fly. By 2022, he stepped away from the role, choosing to prioritize family as his son entered his senior year of high school.

Following graduation, the family relocated to Southwest Florida as his son prepared to attend the University of Central Florida. The move also brought them closer to extended family. Although his son later transferred to Tennessee after a coaching change reshaped the roster, the family remained in Southwest Florida.

Professionally, he continued his work with ESPN, covering college baseball through the 2024 season. His assignments included regional and super regional broadcasts, offering him a broader view of the sport’s growth and direction at the collegiate level.

That perspective sharpened during the 2024 Super Regional between Texas A&M and Oregon at Blue Bell Park. The atmosphere surrounding the series highlighted the rising profile of college baseball and prompted him to consider a new professional path. Drawing on decades of experience in the sport—including leadership roles with multiple minor league organizations—he began exploring whether Division I baseball programs could benefit from a dedicated general manager role, similar to front‑office structures long used in football and basketball.

Initial conversations with head coaches were encouraging, with widespread interest in the concept. Still, uncertainty has slowed progress. With pending NCAA settlements and NIL and unresolved questions surrounding future revenue distribution, schools have been cautious. In a sport that accounts for a smaller share of the collegiate revenue landscape, many programs remain hesitant to move forward without greater clarity on what lies ahead. But the seed had been planted.

“When the settlement happens, you know, in a year, or whatever, then I’ll reapproach the idea of getting involved at the college level,” he said.

Rojas had always had a place in his heart for Kansas given his dad playing for the Royals, so thinking he could maybe coach, he randomly put in for the coaching job at Hastings College in Nebraska. The job would be opening for the 2024-25 season.

“I sent an email on a Friday to the athletic director saying, ‘Hey, if you’re willing to think outside the box, I’d love to have a conversation with you. I grew up in Kansas – I know the Midwest, and I’m at that stage in my life I really want to slow down, meaning I’m just done with the rat race. I’m not chasing anything.’ I sent that out like it was like 3:30 pm in the afternoon on a Friday, expecting maybe the following week to get a follow-up.”

Instead, the AD must have thought he was getting pranked. He called a couple of hours later, asking if this was the real Victor Rojas and if he was serious.

Of course, he was serious. But in the meantime, Hastings had other candidates they were interviewing and opted to go with a coach who had been there before. That didn’t go well for the Broncos, who went 9-33 (.214 winning percentage) in the 2024-25 season.

Rojas was still doing recurring year-to-year deals with ESPN for broadcasting. He was torn between the idea of coaching and his broadcasting gig. ESPN offered up a flexible deal allow him to broadcast while also keeping the college coaching career path afloat. He got offered an assistant coaching position in Arizona, which allowed him to get some job experience at that level under his belt. But he hadn’t burned any bridges with Hastings. One day, he gets a text from Chris Clement, the Athletic Director at Hastings asking if they could speak. They had just fired their baseball coach.

“We need you to come up here and change things and change the culture, and the job is yours if you want it,” Clement told Rojas.

And so, the baseball lifer, who has had more turns in the road, is able now the head coach of the Hastings Broncos’ baseball program, while also getting to work around his baseball broadcast schedule with ESPN. His son transferred in, so he plays for Rojas. His wife works in admissions, “so it’s kind of a family affair, and it’s, it’s worked out really well,” Rojas said.

But will Rojas, the man whose mind can’t stop and has seemed to be a nomad in a baseball world, finally slow down? He seems to have reached that stage.

“I always say that if you’re not evolving, you’re dying,” Rojas tells me. “That’s my mentality. The interesting thing about that, I’m not chasing anything anymore, whereas before it’s like, what am I going to do next? I did 18 years in the broadcast booth…. I want to be home now, you know. I really have no idea what the future holds. Maybe it is 15 years of being right here and building this up into something special, or go coach with my son, Tyler, if he decides to get into coaching. You know, that’d be kind of cool, too. So we’ll see what the future has in store.”