Mauricio Millan’s senior season of high school baseball and first season at El Paso Community College were cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He’d already stopped playing football to focus on the diamond. When the pandemic happened, Millan had serious thoughts of ending his athletic career entirely.

Millan wasn’t a highly touted recruit out of high school, but his lifelong dream of playing baseball at the collegiate level ultimately kept him in the game.

“I found myself, like, waking up and motivated to do something,” Millan said. “I wanted to prove so many people wrong. So I was just like, well, I owe it to myself to just kind of play through this and see what happens.”

Millan, known by teammates and fans as “Mo,” has proven to be a consistent leader for Wichita State, both in his play and demeanor.

Senior Josh Livingston said that’s what Millan will be remembered for the most.

“It’s the consistency on the field of being the same player all the time, and you know what you’re going to get every day,” Livingston said. “And the leadership aspect of, I mean, I don’t know how many guys like this come around … I’ve played baseball for a long time, and you don’t see guys like this come around every year, two years, three years.

“It just doesn’t happen. If there could be an All-American for leadership, I’d hang his banner in the end if I could.”

The now-senior catcher for the Shockers has hit .306 during his three-year career at WSU. He is also top-10 in career fielding percentage all-time for the Shockers at .992 — and his final season has yet to end.

“He is the guy you want when you need a hit,” head coach Brian Green said. “Runner’s at second base, two outs — he tends to be one of our better guys in that scenario.”

Aside from what gets put in the box score, Livingston and Green agree that Millan is one of the team’s most vocal and tough players, while not wavering from who he is.

“He is as team-first of a guy as I’ve ever coached,” Green said. “He’ll play hurt. He never complains — it’s all about the team. He’s a fantastic, tremendous teammate. He’s going to be a huge success in life.”

A kid from West Texas

Before Millan ever picked up a baseball, he traveled a lot with his family. His dad was a pastor and took trips away from their home in El Paso.

Millan said he remembered going on those trips with his family until school and sports became more serious. Even though he wasn’t with his dad for those times, his mom still made sure to keep his faith intact.

“They kind of instilled that into me at a young age. And all my siblings,” Millan said.

During middle school, Millan played just about every sport he could. He dabbled in track and field, soccer and basketball. He even won second during a state wrestling meet during his seventh-grade year.

“(I did) a little bit of everything,” Millan said. “But I would say football and baseball were the two sports I stuck out.”

Millan’s passion for baseball and football comes down to his older brothers, who played at a collegiate and professional level.

His oldest brother, John, was a pitcher at Cameron, a Division II school in Oklahoma, and went on to play in the Mexican League.

“Just watching him play and travel around the world and going to his tournaments and stuff,” he said. “It was just pretty cool watching that.”

Millan’s second-oldest brother, Jonathan, played fullback for UTEP. His career was cut short due to injury.

“But I knew I wanted to play a sport in college when I was with or watching them grow up,” Millan said. “I just thought baseball was more appealing to me, and I thought I could legitimately play Division I baseball at some point in my career.”

‘Mo is Mo’

While Livingston describes Millan as “tough” as a player, he also said he’s “loving” as a person. The dichotomy of the two statements adds to what makes Millan unique.

“He’s like Batman and Bruce Wayne,” Livingston said. “He can be one person; he can be another person. But at the end of the day, Mo is Mo.”

Millan said that aspect of his personality comes from the two father figures in his life: his dad and grandpa.

“They’ve done a tremendous job of, like, setting a really good example for me,” Millan said. “Not only me, but all my siblings.”

Through some of this season’s rough patches, which included a 3-9 start in the first 12 games and the program’s third-longest losing streak of nine games in April, Millan has elevated his vocal presence and has been there to keep the locker room intact.

Most importantly, he’s filled this role without changing who he is at his core.

“You don’t want to see a guy (like Millan) change in a moment of weakness,” Livingston said. “That’s kind of what he’s been — he’s been the same person as he was last year … Nobody deserves to win and to turn this thing around more than he does.”

Another unique thing about Millan is his pregame routine. Athletes at all levels have them.

Lebron James tosses chalk at midcourt, New Zealand’s rugby team performs a Haka and even former Jacksonville Jaguar John Henderson was known for getting pregame slaps to the face.

The first time Millan comes across home plate during a game, he writes four different letters of five characters into the dirt: I-J-N-I-P.

“In Jesus’ Name I Play,” Millan said.

It’s an homage to the faith he’s grown up with and a reminder for him to enjoy the game he’s always known — and not feel such a great weight on his shoulders.

“When I go up to bat, too, I’ll just do a cross,” he said, gesturing to his chest. “Just to be like, ‘Okay, this game is bigger than yourself. It’s not all about you, just go out and enjoy the game.’”

He’s been doing it for as long as he can remember.

“Honestly, probably (since) middle school, Little League baseball,” Millan said. “And then it kind of carried over into high school and then at El Paso Community College … So it’s been going on for a while.”

Even though he’s been doing it for so long, some teammates at WSU haven’t noticed what he does. Livingston said this epitomizes Millan’s consistent nature.

“It’s just become a normal thing for him and for everybody else,” Livingston said. “We kind of just acknowledge that it’s going on … That’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to do the same thing every time.”

Me’MO’ries

When Green became WSU’s head coach before the 2024 season, Millan, a junior at the time, had the opportunity to transfer away to continue his playing career elsewhere.

But for Green, there was one moment that he knew Millan would stay. When he was hired as head coach, Green had three players on the team. With a couple of months before the season started, he knew he needed to recruit — and recruit quickly.

During a phone call between the two, Green said Millan brought up a moment the two will now never forget. 

When he was coaching New Mexico State, Green hosted Millan’s Little League baseball team for a game in 2016. When the game was over, Green rounded up the entire team and gave them a tour of the stadium and locker room.

“He (Millan) goes, ‘You have no idea what that meant to a kid from El Paso, Texas,’” Green said. 

Millan then sent Green the photo they took that day and added, “I’m coming back to Wichita State.”

A few months later, their relationship came full circle when Millan hit an RBI single to walk off the game against in-state rival University of Kansas.

“He was really the first big commitment of returning to the program in this new portal era where you’re constantly rerecruiting your players,” Green said. “And then next thing you know, you’re playing KU, our rival, and he walks (the team) off when we had scuffled against midweeks.

“That was the first full-circle moment. The guy that we really wanted back more than anything, to be able to do that was pretty special.”

The same season he walked off against KU, the Shockers made the American Athletic Conference tournament championship game. The team lost that game via a Tulane walk off, and afterward, Millan approached Livingston with tears in his eyes and embraced him with a hug.

“He’s (Millan) like, ‘Man, I appreciate what you did and how you stayed with it. Nobody deserved this more than you,’” Livingston said. “I mean, that just goes to show who he is. (That was) the worst moment of all our lives, baseball-wise, and he came up to me, like, right after the game was over.

“I’ll never forget that.”

Legacy and future

As Millan’s time at WSU winds down, he will be remembered most for his leadership.

“He played hurt, played banged up and was solid in every manner of the game,” Green said. “And he gave this program everything he had. I think his legacy is that he was one of the old school, Coach Gene (Stephenson) type-Shockers and we need to get more of him.”

Millan’s future is ultimately up to him.

He’s currently completing his master’s degree in sport management and has dreams of staying with baseball by either coaching or opening up his own facility. Teammates and coaches, however, could see Millan doing anything he sets his mind to — from coaching to becoming mayor of Wichita.

“Just kind of depends on how the year finishes and then what kind of doors open up,” Millan said.