BLOOMINGTON – Kyle Schwarber was in Chicago, at breakfast with his wife and former IU teammate Luke Harrison and Harrison’s family earlier this summer, when his phone pinged.
Waiting for him was a text message from IU Associate Athletic Director Jeremy Gray, who’d also included Scott Dolson in the thread. Would Schwarber, Gray asked, have a moment to chat by phone with IU’s AD?
When they connected, Dolson informed Schwarber he’d been selected into the IU hall of fame, in his first year of eligibility.
“I was kind of shocked,” Schwarber said Friday.
Schwarber joins a seven-person class that also includes his former classmate, Cody Zeller, that will be inducted into IU’s hall of fame early next month. Schwarber will defer his induction into the future, as he cannot be present for the Sept. 5 ceremony with Philadelphia’s baseball season ongoing.
That won’t water down the meaning of the moment for a player with a compelling argument as the best in IU baseball history.
“It wasn’t even on the radar,” he said. “Once they tell you, you get the chills. You start thinking back to everything throughout the three years, what we did there, the team that we had, just how special it was.”
From 2012-14, Schwarber helped anchor a lineup that won 125 games under former IU coach Tracy Smith.
In 2013, the Hoosiers reached the College World Series for the first time in program history, and backstopped that with a national seed in the 2014 NCAA tournament. They won both the Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles in Schwarber’s final two seasons.
The Middletown, Ohio native clubbed 40 home runs, driving in 149 runs, with a college career OPS of 1.044. He finished his IU career with 93 total extra-base hits.
The Cubs drafted Schwarber No. 4 overall in 2014, and he was part of their World Series-winning club two years later. Across 11 major league seasons, he’s played for Chicago, Washington, Boston and Philadelphia. His 321 home runs are a record for a former Hoosier.
Now, he’ll be enshrined as the 17th former IU baseball player to go into the university’s athletics hall of fame.
“For me personally, it’s just more about trying to always be in the moment wherever I’m at,” Schwarber said. “Just trying to be in the moment and trying to win is just what I’ve been taught from a young age. A lot of that started young in my life, but I think a lot of that started at Indiana.”
Schwarber has remained active with his alma mater since his departure 11 years ago.
He was among the many attendees at a 10-year reunion of that Omaha team in 2023, and last fall he served as guest picker when ESPN GameDay made its first-ever Saturday morning visit to Bloomington.
It’s to be determined when he will be able to return for his induction, given Schwarber’s career shows no signs of slowing. He’s hit 37 home runs so far this season for the NL East-contending Phillies.
Only once in his major league career has Schwarber watched postseason baseball from home, a continuation of the success he helped achieve at Indiana. The advice he got from a Cubs teammate has served him well, and turned him into one of the winningest alumni, across any sport, in IU history.
“I think there’s expectations on you, but I think the best piece of advice I got in professional baseball, Jon Lester said, ‘How do you get paid? You get to be known as a winner, because if you win, that means you’re doing something good,’” Schwarber said. “Try to win the day. Try to win that game. If you’re doing that, you’re probably doing something good for your team.”
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: MLB baseball slugger Kyle Schwarber elected to IU Athletics Hall of Fame