Although baseball was his best sport, Kyle Schwarber was also a football star from Ohio with college offers.
He was excited for his first IU football game as a college student in Bloomington.
But Schwarber soon faced the reality of the program most Indiana students came to know in the decades prior to 2024.
“Freshman year, you’re all excited,” Schwarber said Monday on the Pat McAfee Show. “You’re like, college experience, here we go. The tailgates are packed. Get done with baseball practice, like, we’re going to go to the game. Then we show up. We’re like, man, those fields are packed still and the game’s going on. Why is there no one there?”
Schwarber was at IU for the 2011 through 2013 football seasons, which coincided with the start of Kevin Wilson’s tenure as head coach. The Hoosiers went 1-11, 4-8 and 5-7 in those three campaigns.
“It was no offense to the guys back then,” he said. “We always had a good offense but it just never worked out. And to see where they came now, like wow.”
Schwarber came with them.
In 2024 he was the guest picker on ESPN’s College Gameday when that show came to Bloomington for the Washington game.
In 2025 he was the honorary IU captain at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
As a 12-year professional athlete, Schwarber knew his role on that night. He said he’s not yet met the maestro of the program turnaround, head coach Curt Cignetti, and he wasn’t about to interrupt IU’s focus just before the national semifinal game.
“I haven’t got to talk to him actually,” Schwarber told McAfee of Cignetti. “I’m like a guy who, I stay out of the way. Like I’m not here to be a distraction by any means. And like hell, I was out there for the Peach Bowl. I got to go be the captain that stands behind them and I see these boys walking in. I’m like, ‘I’m not going to say a word to these guys. These guys are locked in.’ So, I just stood there and dapped them up real quick. I just stood there behind him like I was invisible. And, good thing I was because they went out there and absolutely smacked them (Oregon). First play, pick six.”
Schwarber knows what it feels like to be on the game’s biggest stage. He has played in two World Series and helped the Chicago Cubs end a 108-year championship drought in 2016. He had some big minutes in that Fall Classic. He recorded seven hits, including one double, two RBI, and one stolen base while batting .412 and maintaining a .500 on-base percentage.
He also played in the 2022 World Series, and even this week was the runner-up in Monday’s Home Run Derby, and the current Major League Baseball leader in home runs will play in his fourth All-Star game Tuesday evening.
So Schwarber knows big-time moments when he sees them.
What does he think about IU quarterback Fernando Mendoza’s 4th quarter dive into the end zone in the national title game?
“Hopefully they built a statue for the guy,” Schwarber said. “Just build a statue for the guy out there at Memorial Stadium.”
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