Baseball
Favorite athlete: Bryson DeChambeau
Favorite team: New York Yankees
Favorite memory competing in sports: Throwing a no-hitter in first game of Legion baseball of 2025.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Freshman year being put out in left field on the school team and tripping and falling on a fly ball to me. Then I picked the ball up and handed it to the center fielder to throw in.
Music on playlist: Everything. Catholic music, country music, rap, classical, house, classic pop, jazz, swing...more.
Future plans: Villanova University to study Mathematics and play Villanova Club Baseball
Words to live by: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5
One goal before turning 30: Follow my true passion.
One thing people don't know about me: I’m an avid classical pianist.
By GORDON GLANTZ
To some, he is known as “The Professor.”
To others, he is “The Piano man.”
The truth about John Whelan, who recently graduated from New Hope-Solebury with a 4.5 GPA and is bound for Villanova University, is that the southpaw checks all the boxes.
In addition to being athletic, Whelan never got less than an A in his life and is a classical pianist.
“John is an incredible young man,” said New Hope-Solebury baseball coach Tony Vlahovic. “He is very intelligent. He’s very kind. He has a dry sense of humor. You have to get to know him though to get it.
“My nickname for him is ‘The Professor.’ He can dissect his pitching and the game itself and have some pretty heavy conversations about how to attack hitters and about what he is doing to tweak his motion. He has a high baseball IQ to go along with his intellectual IQ. He knows the game.”
Vlahovic, who hopes to follow Whelan throughout his life’s journey, is excited to see what comes next for him.
“We joke about it,” said the coach. “We say that he is going to be running the country one day.”
As for baseball?
“I hope that he gets the opportunity at Villanova to get into the club program and play,” said Vlahovic. “I don’t think he is ready to stop playing the game of baseball. I’d love to see him get that opportunity.”
Making Music
As far as his outgoing ace’s aptitude on the piano, seeing was believing for his coach of four years.
“I knew that he played the piano,” said VIahovic. “I said, ‘Hey, can you show me a clip of you playing the piano. I heard that you are pretty good.’ So, he sends me this clip of him concert. I was blown away.
“This is just at a different level. Some of the guys call him ‘Piano Man.’ He is just incredible. He never really talked about it much, and I had him for four years.”
Whelan was not one of those kids who have been playing the piano since before he could walk.
“I’ve been playing for about 10 years,” he said, adding that he has recently been playing more church hymns than classical. “Originally, my aunt was my teacher, but I kind of outgrew her. I found a classically trained pianist. I just had a liking for it. I was playing a lot of classical stuff for a long time, which was pretty challenging stuff.”
Guided by Faith
Beyond academics and sports, which includes a new penchant for golf and playing basketball for the Lions through to his junior year, Whelan is guided by his Catholic faith.
“He is one of those young men who is very active in his church, and active in his community,” said Vlahovic. “Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Coach, can I leave a little bit early to perform some sort of service.’ I’ll say, ‘You got it, John. It’s fine.’”
Whelan has Bible quotes on his wall to keep himself grounded and inspired. He has been an alter server, reader and lector at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Lambertville, N.J.
“I don’t like to party,” he said. “I don’t really like any of that stuff. I’ve always gone to church a lot, and I’ve been going more and more. It’s been a big factor in my life.”
Home on the Hill
A crafty lefty with a strong pickoff move, Whelan initially supplemented pitching by playing outfield and some first base. He was also a designated hitter on Vlahovic’s lineup card.
However, he settled down as just a pitcher later in his career. Whelan refined his hill skills with the Diamond Nation travel team and also the Plumstead American Legion team.
Whelan’s best scholastic season, in terms of raw stats, was his junior year, as he picked up the W in five of the team’s six wins and just missed out on All-SOL honors.
“Without him, we probably wouldn’t have won a game,” said Vlahovic. “He was our go-to guy.”
As a senior, Whelan was working through some arm soreness that began around Easter, and he also experienced some tough luck.
“He always faced the best teams and the other team’s number one since he was our number one,” said Vlahovic. “He never turned it down, even if his arm was sore at times.”
Whelan, who describes himself as a warm weather pitcher, was thankful that he was able to work through the pain toward the end of the scholastic season. He finished with a 3.22 earned run average for the season and more than 100 strikeouts for his career.
“Something was wrong in there, so I stopped throwing,” he said. “I came back after Easter break, and I was a little bit behind the eight ball. When I came out the first game after coming back, I just didn’t feel like I was ready, but they needed me. We didn’t really have anybody else. I wasn’t about to say no. They needed me out there. “I didn’t have my best stuff. From there, I just felt like I was a little bit behind. I had some struggles in and around there. I kind of got it back toward the end.
“What happened around the Easter break sort of held me up a little bit, but I was able to find it since then.”
Still, through it all, there was no doubt that Whelan was the top arm on the staff, not to mention the whole
team’s spiritual leader.
“He definitely was our ace, and he was a quiet but good leader,” said Vlahovic. “He is not a loud guy at all, but you knew he was there and you knew that he cared.”
And, next year, he won’t be there anymore.
“I’m definitely going to miss him,” said the coach. “He is one of those guys where the four years went by really quickly. He is just a quality young man.”
Vlahovic, a physical therapist who communicates with teachers to make sure his players are behaving themselves, will not be alone.
“The teachers that I talk to absolutely love him,” said Vlahovic. “He tutors other students. The teachers all liked him a lot. He’s not one of those guys who walked around and said, ‘Hey, I’m an athlete. I’m a hot shot.’”
While players like Whelan’s younger brother, Anthony, will form the core of the team next year, there will still be a void.
“It’ll be a big hole,” said Vlahovic. “You get used to players, and get used to being around them. I’m definitely going to miss him.
“I not only have to find a new number one, but also a junior professor. There will never be another professor.”
Memorable Moment
As it was this past spring, Whelan’s pitching arm felt better by season’s end and he threw a no-hitter for Plumstead Legion to open the summer season.
This occurred the night before the Lions’ banquet, which provided some good-natured teasing.
Said Vlahovic: “Our joke then was, ‘John, why couldn’t you do this sooner?’ We were laughing about that.”
Whelan realized he may have been experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by throwing a no-no.
All the bounces didn’t seem to go his way during the high school season finally were.
“When you throw a no-hitter, you have to have a little bit of luck,” said Whelan. “In the first inning, there was a line drive to right-center. It was hit well, but it was caught. Everything else was pretty much smooth sailing. There was a ball hit sharply to third that was caught. The only other thing that luck came was when one ball was lined back right at me and it hit me in the side. It bounced off and right back to the second baseman. Our field in Doylestown there has very thick grass, so the ball died. Luckily, the second baseman picked it up and threw it.”
The One and Only
There is no doubt that Whelan, a math whiz who plans to major in math, could have pitched at the Division III level, but Villanova matched all of his other needs.
“We talked a lot about his plans,” said Vlahovic. “Villanova seemed like a great fit for him, and he is probably going to try and play club there.”
Whelan - who has been encouraged to consider the priesthood but is currently thinking he’ll be a math teacher - sees the fact that the new pope majored in Math at Villanova as a good omen.
“I only applied to one school,” he said. “It was going to be a Catholic school that I was going to apply to, and I only applied to one school.”
As for being a priest?
“There are a lot of downsides to it,” he said. “For one thing, you can’t get married.”
Family Support
Due to family circumstances, Whelan has spent a lot of time with his maternal grandparents, Donna and Dr. Sam Ollio, over the bridge in Lambertville.
He thanked them, along with his mother, Elizabeth Whelan, and aunts Carolyn and Gail Ollio (the original piano teacher), for their love and support. And also for becoming a devoted New York Yankees fan (he estimates he sees about 160 of 162 games per year).
“That’s definitely my grandfather’s influence,” he said, adding additional gratitude Vlahovic, i.e. “Coach V,” and assistants John Pecora and Mike Coryell, along with Diamond Nation coach Steve Schrenk.
