Name: Filip Milatovic

Sport: Baseball

Position: Catcher 

Year: Sophomore

Hometown: Chicago

High School: Von Steuben High School

LG: When did you start playing baseball?

FM: I started playing baseball around five years old. I have two older brothers, and they played, so I think it was just meant to be. I always looked up to them. I saw them playing and from a young age, I always wanted to be around them and support them. So, I just kind of grew into it.

LG: What is your best memory from a baseball game?

FM: I have a lot of good memories. A lot of fun teams I’ve been on, including here at COD. I have a lot of good memories playing with my friends. I think my favorite memory though was I got to play my freshman year of high school with my brother and that was really fun. I got to play with him for one year. He was a senior at the time. On his birthday, that was probably my best memory. He hit a home run, and then I hit a home run as well. That was really cool because we were on the same team. and it was really fun to both hit a home run on his birthday. That was a cool memory.

LG: That’s awesome. What motivates you, especially when your team is losing?

FM: Definitely my family. I’m very close with them. So, I am always talking with them after a good game or a bad game. Baseball is a tough sport, and you’re going to fail a lot. There’s a lot of failure and sometimes you don’t get the outcome you want. I talk to my family for advice. But also the team. We’re all very close with each other. We’re with each other more than our families sometimes. I think us being that close and having each other’s backs really motivates us, even when we’re losing or times aren’t going as good as we want.

LG: What are your goals with baseball?

FM: For myself, the goal would be to play pro baseball one day, no matter what level that would be. That’s been my dream since I was younger. Right now, the goal is just looking for a school for the next few years. Looking at my options, I have a couple of opportunities on the table right now, so we’ll see what happens this season. So I’ll go somewhere else for my last two years of college and then hopefully, if everything works out and the cards are in my favor, it will be awesome to play pro baseball.

LG: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received from a coach?

FM: Probably “never be satisfied.”  I think that’s a really big one. I can say for example, here at COD we win a lot of baseball games and it’s fun. We’re a good program, and we have a lot of good people around us. I think it’s kind of easy sometimes to be comfortable and take things lightly. So the biggest thing is to never be satisfied and always know that you can get better and no matter where you are, if you think you’re the best player or the worst player, there’s always room for improvement. I think that’s probably the best piece of advice I’ve gotten.

LG: What does your nutrition plan look like when you’re in baseball season?

FM: That’s a good question. I’ve never gotten asked that before. That’s very important. We play a lot of games, like 45-50 games a year. A lot of games per week, and practices and lift days as well. Nutrition is a really big part. For myself, I like to eat a lot of food. So I probably eat four meals a day, maybe five depending on how much time I have. I definitely wake up early and make a good breakfast of four or five eggs, bacon, some sort of toast or something like that. Lunch is usually a sandwich or a smoothie, something light before a game. Then I’ll have a big dinner and if I’m still hungry after that, maybe another little dinner after the game. That’s usually how it works and that’s a very big part of the game that’s overlooked sometimes by people. The healthier you are, the better you’re going to perform.

LG: What are the strengths you have that make you a great athlete?

FM: I think I’m a hard worker. I don’t want to toot my own horn obviously, but I think I work hard and try to put my best effort forward, even on the days I’m not feeling the best if I’m tired or had a long day or night before. I feel like as long as I can give my best effort, I can try to give my team the best chance to win. That’s probably one of my best strengths as a player.

LG: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

FM: Maybe somewhere in Europe, like Italy and Greece. I’ve always wanted to go and I think that would be really cool. Europe has a lot of countries nearby, so I think it would be cool to go there and experience their culture and how they live. I really like European culture. I think it would be fun.

LG: What’s your favorite class right now?

FM: I’ve had a lot of good classes. I’ve always liked history, but I think right now my favorite class would be Sports Marketing. I think that’s really fun. I am a marketing major, so I think it’s fun learning all of the intricate things, and especially with it being sports marketing and me being an athlete and being around sports my whole life, I think it’s kind of cool how the marketing side and business tie into sports and the athletic side with professional sports, college sports, and even high school sports sometimes. That’s probably my favorite class.

LG: What is your dream job?

FM: Like I said, becoming a professional baseball player is definitely a dream job of course. But I’d say after that when I’m done playing, I would love to own a baseball facility and help kids out. Help kids like myself and give them somewhere they could train, lift weights, whatever it might be to give them the resources they need to go play at the next level, whether that be college or professional baseball. I think that’d be really cool to give back to the community. Speaking from personal experience, I know how big of an influence coaches can have. If I could be just a small percentage of that impact for a kid or multiple kids, I would really be happy about that.

LG: What one word best describes you? 

FM: Competitor. I think that’s a good word for me. No matter what I’m doing, it doesn’t have to be sports-related or baseball-related, I think in life I love to compete. I love competing and being around those competitive atmospheres and getting the juices flowing. I really like being in that type of spotlight so I think competitor would be a good way to describe me. 

LG: Thank you very much, Filip.

FM: Thank you, Lily.