When the IU Board of Trustees approved the $19.8-million proposal to build a new IU baseball stadium in August 2011, it didn’t realize the boom that was about to rattle IU sports.
Standouts Dustin DeMuth and Joey DeNato were just freshmen. Current big leaguer Micah Johnson was a sophomore.
World Series Champion Kyle Schwarber hadn’t worn an IU uniform yet.
Construction began in 2012 and ended in 2013, as Sembower Field was replaced with Bart Kaufman Stadium just in time for the program-altering season that was 2013.
“Like most historical events, it wasn’t just one thing,” IU associate athletics director Jeremy Gray said. “When you marry together an improved stadium, the best Indiana team in 30 years and the four best players in 140 years, it was bound to happen.”
Gray, who broadcasted for IU baseball between 2009 and 2013, said he remembers the days when “around 200 people” would attend IU baseball games. Those days were even after the four consecutive seasons — 2004-2007 — the Hoosiers finished 10th in the Big Ten.
The 22-year reign of former IU Coach Bob Morgan came to an end, and Tracy Smith took his place in 2005.
IU hadn’t won a regular season Big Ten championship since 1949, and it had never made a College World Series appearance.
Then came the 2013 boom.
DeMuth hit .377, Schwarber hit a team-high 18 home runs, and Scott Donley and Sam Travis led the team with 61 and 57 RBIs, respectively. Starting pitchers Aaron Slegers, Kyle Hart and DeNato combined to go 28-6 on the season.
The Hoosiers won the most games — 49 — in a single season in program history and advanced to the College World Series, where they were defeated by Oregon State in the second round.
The thought of IU in the College World Series was merely in jokes about the program and false hopes in most preseasons, but suddenly, Kaufman Stadium was selling out, and people in Bloomington were talking about the IU baseball team.
“Now I have people following me on Twitter just for the connection I have and used to have to IU baseball,” Gray said. “When you look at northern destinations, IU is becoming one of the best for baseball culture.”
Three years removed from the historic season, Tracy Smith has taken a job to coach Arizona State, the Hoosiers have hired current IU Coach Chris Lemonis, and Schwarber has become a national representation for IU baseball after he helped the Chicago Cubs to their first World Series Championship in 108 years.
Schwarber has become one of the most identifiable IU alumni. He was an honorary IU basketball captain at the IU-North Carolina game, featured on the scoreboard at IU football games as an IU graduate and pictured on a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune that IU funded to congratulate him on his World Series.
At the same time, Lemonis and the Hoosiers are in Bloomington trying to reclaim the prestige they had in 2013.
In Lemonis’ first season, IU finished sixth in the Big Ten and then third in 2016. Both seasons came after IU won the Big Ten in back-to-back seasons for the first time since the tournament began in 1981.
With the Big Ten Tournament coming to Bloomington for the first time in May, Lemonis and the Hoosiers are seeing some of their labors produce fruits since the 2013 season.
“We inherited a really talented group,” Lemonis said. “The goal was to keep the program moving forward, which we feel like we have.”
