Baseball life takes Schott from California to Culver Academies, Columbia U.

BY STEVE KRAH
http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Hayden Schott traded West Coast sunshine for education and direction in northern Indiana.
He is now shining on the baseball diamond as an Ivy Leaguer and has already got a future spot in Texas.
A native of Newport Beach, Calif., Schott opted to follow a family tradition and attended high school at Culver (Ind.) Academies, graduating in 2018.
Hayden’s mother Darcie as well as an aunt, uncle and grandfather on that side of the family all attended Culver.
Darcie and Paul Schott’s children — Josephine, Hayden and Mitchell — all had the option of going there.
“I was really hesitant at first because I loved surfing and playing baseball in warm weather being a kid in California,” says Schott. “Once I visited the place it blew me away and it was a no-brainer for me.”
Schott lived in a dormitory with students ranging from 14 to 18.
“My first year I was barely 14 and was living with no parents and a roommate who I had just met. It taught me really quick I need to be responsible and have some discipline on my own.
“I wouldn’t have learned that without going there. It’s helped me in college because living away from home and parents was pretty normal to me.”
Hayden says his parents — including former Bryant University lacrosse player Paul Schott — knew that he would learn from the experience, but did not force it on him.
“At a place like that you have to want to go there,” says Schott. “If you don’t you resent the whole process. You rebel against the system or the whole military thing. You definitely have to buy in if you’re going to go to a place like that.”
Kurt Christiansen is head baseball coach at Culver Academies with J.D. Uebler as varsity assistant.
“They were instrumental in my mental space for baseball — enjoying myself, letting me do what I’m good at out on the field and also teaching me some small-ball stuff that I may have never thought about before that I could translate to the next level very well,” says Schott. “They gave me that freedom while also being there to instruct me and constructively criticize me when I needed it. For a 15- to 18-year-old baseball player that was huge.”
Schott grew up as a catcher and moved to the outfielder in high school. The righty thrower and lefty swinger was selected for the 2018 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association North/South All-Star Series in South Bend.
A redshirt in 2019 at Cypress (Calif.) College, Schott played in 18 games for the Anthony Hutting-coached Chargers and hit .317 with one home run and 18 runs batted in before the COVID-19 pandemic shortened the 2020 season.
After his junior college days, Schott transferred to Columbia University in New York, N.Y., and did not play in 2021 when the Ivy League opted to take another COVID year off for athletics.
In his first full collegiate baseball season, Schott set a single-season Ivy record in league league play for at-bats (88) and tied marks for home runs (8) and total bases (88) while being named to the all-conference first team.
Primarily a right fielder, the 6-foot-2, 215-pounder started in 49 of 50 appearances in 2022 and hit .320 while leading the Brett Boretti-coached Lions in homers (12), RBIs (55), total bases (117), hits (63), at-bats (197) and slugging average (.594).
Heading into Columbia’s 2023 home opener Wednesday, March 22 against Manhattan, No. 3-hole hitter Schott is batting .397 (25-of-63) with four homers, 10 RBIs, 14 runs scored and a .441 on-base percentage.
The Lions are 6-9 and have played at Power 5 schools Virginia and Alabama with a win against the Crimson Tide.
In his third academic career at Columbia, Schott is scheduled to graduate this spring with a Psychology degree. It’s a field that also interests his brother. Hayden says he can see himself pursuing something related to men’s mental health in the future.
“I love psychology,” says Schott, who turns 23 in May. “I listen to psychology podcasts. I like to listen to clinical psychologists talk about neuroscience, how the brain works and why our behaviors are the way they are.
“My other major is baseball.”
Since Ivy League schools do not have graduate school athletes and Schott is entitled to another year of eligibility, he was able to land a spot with Texas A&M in 2023-24 and has hopes of playing pro ball. Anderson (Ind.) High School graduate Michael Earley is the hitting coach for the Aggies.
“I’m super excited and I think it’s going to be awesome to play in the SEC,” says Schott, who expects he might pursue masters degree related to business. “But my current head space is Columbia baseball. That’s all I’m focused on.
“I’ve had a weird journey in my baseball career. But I’m very grateful for it. I’ve been to a lot of spot and met a lot of great people. I wouldn’t change it for the world because it brought me here.”
Like Culver Academies, Schott has seen his share of wintry weather in New York.
“It’s good,” says Schott. “It teaches you resiliency. We practice sometimes when it’s sleeting or snowing.
You can appreciate when you play on a warm field with a real surface. I’m grateful for having played through that for sure.”

Hayden Schott. (Columbia University Photo)

Hayden Schott. (Columbia University Photo)

Hayden Schott. (Columbia University Photo)

Hayden Schott (22). (Columbia University Photo)

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Nuest statistical attachment to Kouts baseball spans half century

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Andy Pafko and Hank Sauer were stars in the Chicago Cubs outfield, South Bend’s Bob Rush was the top pitcher, Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch was the manager and Bert Wilson was the radio play-by-play voice for the North Siders when Keith Nuest started keeping score for baseball games in 1950.

Nuest was 7 and living in Kouts, Ind., which is 12 miles south of Valparaiso in Porter County.

More than seven decades later, the 78-year-old Nuest has scored and tabulated numerous sporting events for the Kouts Middle/High School Mustangs.

This winter was his 53rd season of keeping the book for boys basketball (he has not missed a game in that span and tracked the digits for the IHSAA Class 1A state runners-up in 2020-21) and the 43rd for girls basketball. He compiles stats for basketball, baseball, softball and track and field.

Much of what Earl Mishler has on his high school baseball website — ETPearl.com — came from Nuest.

His interest in the sport and numbers once had Nuest scoring Chicago Bulls and Indiana University games on the radio. 

The 2020 season would have marked his 50th as statistician for Kouts baseball. But he doesn’t count that one since the COVID-19 pandemic took the season, making 2021 the half-century mark for that job.

But it’s not really a job. Nuest has never taken any pay for scoring or coaching baseball and minimal for basketball over the years.

It’s about helping the community and being close to things he enjoys.

“I’ve always had a love of numbers,” says Nuest, a 1961 Kouts graduate who went on to work 39 years in the financial department at Midwest Steel in Portage, retiring at 60. “Math always came easy to me.”

About five years ago, Nuest completed a 40-year run of coaching Kouts in high school summer ball. He ran the area league — which at various times included teams from Culver, Kankakee Valley, Knox, Renselaer Central, Wheeler, Valparaiso and beyond —  for about 25 years, scheduling all the games.

“I always tried to make it fun for the kids,” says Nuest. “Just being around the kids was enjoyable for me. I watched them grow and improve as individuals.”

In the spring, he has worked under 11 head coaches. Don Spoerner was the first. Jim Tucker is now in charge of the Kouts baseball program.

“I really love the game of baseball,” says Nuest. “I love the strategy that goes into it. Anything can happen on any given pitch. 

“People think bas ball is boring and slow. But you never know what’s around the corner.”

As a scorekeeper, Nuest came up with a way of doing it and stayed with it.

What makes it unique?

“I don’t know that there’s any specific thing, but you should be able to read it like a book,” says Nuest. “You should be able to tell  batting average and earned run averages of your team and your opponents.

“It all flows together. It you leave something out it’s like you left out a page.”

This spring, Kouts named its baseball diamond in honor of their longtime contributor.

“It’s a wonderful community,” says Nuest. “I was never a teacher at the school and never an official coach.

“It was kind of an overwhelming honor at the time. I’ve donated hours and hours of work. But I certainly never expected anything like this.”

Nuest was born in Valparaiso and except for a few years in Lake Village when he was in school and two years in Valparaiso when he married second wife Lana, he has resided in Kouts.

Keith and Lana were married 46 years and had a blended family of five. Lana Jeanne (Lawrence) Nuest died Aug. 6, 2020 at 77.

The 2021 Kouts Mustangs head into play today (May 10) at Keith Nuest Field against Covenant Christian (DeMotte) at 11-7. Kouts is in the 1A Washington Township Sectional.

The Kouts (Ind.) Mustangs baseball team plays at Keith Nuest Field. (Steve Krah Photo)

Keith Nuest in a familiar place — the baseball dugout for Kouts (Ind.) Middle/High School. He counts the 2021 season as his 50th as scorekeeper for the Mustangs. The 1961 Kouts graduate coached summer teams for 25 years. (Steve Krah Photo)

Baseball coach and instructor Christiansen developing leaders at Culver Military Academy

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Teaching baseball and other skills in a college preparatory school is what Kurt Christiansen does in his roles as head baseball coach and humanities senior instructor at Culver (Ind.) Military Academy.

Christiansen has been at the school since the fall of 2008 and has led the Eagles baseball program since 2009 in all but one season, when he was finishing graduate school.

A 1997 graduate of Center Grove High School in Greenwood, Ind., Christiansen played for Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Dave Gandolph and was a top-notch football receiver.

His diamond teammates included two players selected in the 1996 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft — A.J. Zapp (in the first round to the Atlanta Braves) and Nick Jamison (in the 31st round to the Detroit Tigers).

After earning his undergraduate degree at Indiana University, where he did not play sports, Christiansen did some student teaching in Australia. He then was a teacher and coached baseball and football for two years at Carmel (Ind.) High School.

Pamela Christiansen, Kurt’s wife went to law school at Valparaiso University, and got a job in South Bend, bringing the family to northern Indiana. Kurt was a teacher and coached baseball and football at NorthWood High School for four years before pursuing the opportunity to teach at CMA.

Christiansen describes the humanities as a combination of Language Arts and Social Studies in a traditional school.

“It’s pretty wonderful,” says Christiansen. “The kids are learning to read and write and think in a pretty interdisciplinary setting.”

Culver Military Academy offers what its website calls “a leadership approach that develops young men into leaders of character who are poised for global success in any career path.”

There is also a Culver Girls Academy. Together with CMA for boys, they form what is known as the Culver Academies.

Students come from far and wide.

While seven players had hometowns in Indiana, Culver’s 2018 roster featured athletes from Alaska, California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas and Washington as well as Korea.

Hayden Schott, an outfielder from Newport Beach, Calif., participated in the 2018 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association North/South All-Star Series in South Bend.

Schott plans to attend Cypress (Calif.) College. The junior college has a tradition of sending players on to NCAA Division I and professional baseball. Among those are former closer extraordinaire Trevor Hoffman (who will be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown this weekend) and former big league third baseman Brandon Laird.

In recent years, CMA graduates Connor Bartelman (University of Chicago), Kyle Bartelman (Columbia University in New York), Shane Comiskey (Grinnell College in Iowa), Zach Moffett (Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind.) and Perley Provost (Denison University in Granville, Ohio) have gone on to play college baseball.

Culver Academies has a college advising office, which helps students make connections at the university level.

“Ideally, a Culver kid is using baseball to help them find the best academic fit for them,” says Christiansen. “Baseball is part of what got them to the school. The end benefit is a world-class education.”

Christiansen knows that college coaches have often seen players through video, scouting or camps and they are calling him to fish out the story.

“One of the big benefits about being at Culver is that I know my players,” says Christiansen. “I see them on and off the field quite a bit. I have a pretty good sense of who they are.”

Christiansen says Culver Academies students are attractive to colleges not only because they are strong academically, but they’ve also learned to develop independence.

“They’re at a boarding school far from home and they’re figuring out how to take care of themselves,” says Christiansen. “All of that’s done before these colleges get them and that’s a real big bonus.”

It’s not a cookie-cutter approach taken by Christiansen and his fellow instructors.

“Like any school, kids are kids,” says Christiansen. “Each kid is a little bit different. So you’ve got to find ways to connect with them and teach them. But it helps that we’ve got kids who are committed to the mission of the school.

“How do I leverage baseball to deliver on that mission? That’s a question that the staff constantly asks of ourselves — not just to put kids in a position to compete and win baseball games and develop as athletes but develop dispositions and mindsets that will serve them in life.”

With no feeder program, Christiansen often does not know who he will have on his baseball team until school starts in the fall, though he does sometimes find out who has a baseball background during the admissions process.

“In almost 100 percent of the cases I’ve never seen them throw or hit,” says Christiansen. “I have to work pretty hard to recruit our own campus because there’s so many interesting and wonderful opportunities. Kids grow up playing Little League and they get to Culver and decide they want to try crew or lacrosse.

“I have to identify the baseball players and make sure they still want to come out and be part of the program.”

The school’s mission includes a wellness component and students not in a sport must do something to get exercise.

“Not all of our kids are premier athletes,” says Christiansen. “Hockey and lacrosse programs are elite. They’re really, really good — some of the best in the country.”

Baseball, which plays on Wilkins Field, is restricted by school policy from playing more than a couple of games during the school week with other contests on Saturdays. This means CMA schedules around 20 to 23 games or less than the 28 regular-season contests allowed by the IHSAA.

The Eagles went 10-9 and played in the IHSAA Class 3A Mishawaka Marian Sectional (along with Jimtown, John Glenn, New Prairie, South Bend St. Joseph and South Bend Washington) in 2018.

“We want to make sure our kids have plenty of time to study and they’re not out until 9 or 10 o’clock at night four or five nights in a row,” says Christiansen.

Being an independent, CMA often gets bumped when other schools must make up conference games.

Christiansen’s coaching staff includes three other senior humanities instructors — J.D. Uebler with the varsity and John Rogers and Andy Strati leading the junior varsity.

Kurt and Pamela Christiansen have three children — Jack (11), Sarah (10) and Joey (5).

Culver (Ind.) Military Academy head baseball coach Kurt Christiansen with Hayden Schott at the 2018 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association North/South All-Star Series in South Bend.

Kurt Christiansen is the head baseball coach and a humanities senior instructor at Culver (Ind.) Military Academy. He played high school baseball for Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Dave Gandolph at Center Grove. (Steve Krah Photo)