D1 baseball player. Songwriter and producer. Storyteller. Community leader… and Noah Berghammer is just getting started.
When the Minnesota Gophers Sophomore Infielder isn’t in class or on the baseball field, chances are you’ll find him doing something creative. Whether it is writing or performing music, working on his first book or building the Community of Creators; Berghammer has fully embraced the “more than an athlete” mentality.
“Me being able to have outlets outside of the baseball field, to express myself and be able to learn about different parts of the world around me… that just opens a completely different side of me,” said Berghammer. “If I’m the best baseball player who ever lived, I’m going to play till I’m 37 years old, and then what am I going to do? Developing these other sides of myself is important because it allows me to see such a bigger lens of life. It’s always been a big thing that I’ve focused on. It helps that I have other passions.”
Berghammer has always considered himself a creative person, but that side first started to blossom in high school. As a three-sport athlete he was identified as an athlete by his peers. He joined his school’s choir and started to surround himself with new people outside of athletics, developing skills beyond sports.
“Creativity, in its simplest form, is a human birthright. When you are a kid and you’re building legos, when you are drawing on a coloring book, reading, writing whatever it may be. We have creative nature in us, every single person. It’s a skill. It’s a talent. How you choose to practice and funnel that is completely up to you. Whether it be digital marketing, fashion design, writing music… there’s creativity all over the world.”
By finding the confidence to get involved on the musical stage and baseball field, Berghammer began to see how these both activities assisted overall performance. In both, he found confidence was key and this helped with his recruiting process.
“If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, nobody’s going to believe in it,” Berghammer said. “From the time I started getting recruited, I had to show what I was capable of on the field, but also in my character and confidence in the way I carried myself.”
Since being recruited and joining multiple creator communities, as well as building his own, Berghammer has learned a thing or two about growing his personal brand and showcasing his passions.
“Something that I’ve noticed in being a part of a lot of different creator communities is that people love when you’re passionate about what you do. Showing that on the baseball field, that’s what makes coaches fall in love with you. If they can see that you love to play baseball, they’re going to eat that up.
“If people can see that you love the process of making music because it’s not an easy process – and it’s not always glamorous. Sometimes it’s four hours of mixing and mastering by yourself in a room with a pair of headphones on. If people can see behind that curtain and kind of see how much you love the process and how much you enjoy what you’re doing, that only makes them want to buy into your story more.”
These passions outside of the game help him perform well on the field.
“There are definitely people who have so many other passions and interests outside of whatever sport they may play. For me, it’s always been a super helpful escape from the game because we talk all the time about how performance shouldn’t dictate your confidence level and mood.”
Rhythm has played a role in Berghammer’s success on the field. From humming a song, using breathing techniques, or choosing an effective walkup song, finding his rhythm is an important piece of his mindset on the field.
“Baseball-wise, I’m a super rhythmic person, whether it be in music or life in general. It’s something that brings a lot of calming nature to my mental and my psyche.”
At the end of the day, all of these hobbies and passions are what Berghammer aims to do for the rest of his life. He’s a creative at his core and wants to continue to find success in these fields while playing baseball for as long as he can.
“I don’t pick and choose because I think that there’s so much extra time in life that we don’t necessarily grant to ourselves because we don’t want to. I definitely try to take advantage of all of my spare hours and being a student-athlete to continue to push my outside passions further.”
“My career – regardless if baseball works out – I want to be involved in songwriting and producing for other artists… having my own individual artist career, start a label someday, and be involved in a lot of different capacities. I also write, I have my first book coming out this spring. That’s something that I definitely want to do for the rest of my life. I want to continue to write books and tell stories. I want to stay in the creative lane for my career path. Thinking about what I do on a daily basis is setting me up to that next step after baseball or during baseball.
“I don’t pick and choose because I think that there’s so much extra time in life that we don’t necessarily grant to ourselves because we don’t want to. I definitely try to take advantage of all of my spare hours and being a student-athlete to continue to push my outside passions further.”
Berghammer is taking a jump start to his career by founding the Community of Creators, which is a home of creatives to come together and hype up each other’s work. Currently, they are on Instagram and Tik Tok and are working to expand further. Berghammer has many long-term goals for the platform but has seen recent success in growing the Tik Tok to almost 1,000 followers in two and half weeks.
“We live and probably the most efficient digital world ever. Literally at the snap of our fingers could have a video go viral. We could have five brand deals the next day. I mean, people are signing $3 million record deals off of one Tik Tok video of a song that they haven’t even finished. The amount of content out there and how possible it is to make it is something that we want to show people. We want to inspire people and support people to show them that you could do this if you really want to.”
