First victory of the Kee baseball season will boost nation's all-time winningest coach Gene Schultz to career milestone of 1,700 victories

A look at high school baseball by the numbers at basically every level will reveal a consistent frequency of Kee High School listed either at or near the top of a great many statistical mountains. So, it should only stand to reason that the man leading that Kee baseball expedition each of the last 42 seasons on the way to those statistical summits should, himself, stand atop his own peak overlooking what has become his domain.
That is exactly where Kee baseball coach Gene Schultz has stood for a good number of years as the nation’s all-time winningest high school baseball coach, and those 42 years of ascent now have him on the verge of reaching another milestone plateau - 1,700 career coaching wins.
That latest in a career full of achievements for Coach Schultz will come with the first Kee victory of the upcoming baseball season, which is scheduled to begin May 21 with a doubleheader at Decorah. Ironically, that season-opening doubleheader is against a team coached by the man who lays claim to the nation’s second most high school baseball coaching victories, Dennis Olejniczak, who, himself, is just a small handful of wins away from his 1,300th career coaching victory as he enters his 50th season of coaching the Vikings.
Despite the ever-growing list of accolades and achievements, it’s with a humbleness not quite expected of one who reigns so supreme with which Schultz answers the question of what such a milestone victory means to him.
“Old age,” was the quick, chuckle-inducing answer to that question when first asked, followed by a much more modest reply. “If you could coach long enough, you should be able to reach numbers like that, and even beyond.”
Perhaps.
But sporting a winning percentage of just over 82%, like Schultz’s, along the way would certainly go a long way to shortening up the tenure required to reach such a standard. Even anyone who would be able to coach an undefeated bee line to 1,700 career coaching victories during a schedule similar to Kee’s - that currently allows for a 40-game regular season and at least half a dozen postseason games - would still require more than 36 seasons to win as many games as Coach Schultz has through his 42 years at the Hawk helm.

SHARED CREDIT
And it’s with equal humility with which Schultz deflects the credit for Kee’s baseball success under his tutelage, pointing to other factors either previously established or beyond his coaching reach.
“Having a guy like Shooky Fink in New Albin certainly provided an early foundation for many of my future players,” Schultz shared. “He’d throw batting practice or hit ground balls to kids as soon as they were big enough to keep a glove on their hand or lift a bat. Everyone knew where their kids were at 11 a.m. each day, because that’s when Shooky would have them at the ball diamond or even in the school gym.”
From Little League to Legion ball and town ball, Schultz gives his “unofficial assistant” full credit for making baseball the activity of choice in New Albin, knowing full well that it was that love of the game and abundance of opportunities “Shook” provided that not only “set the table” for Kee baseball but also set a standard that each new generation would want to strive to be a part of.
With Shooky Fink providing the fuel for that foundation in New Albin, that, in turn, fueled an equal desire in the neighboring community of Lansing which Schultz also credits for his success. “The natural rivalry between the two communities really helped make for some good baseball when the kids all came together on the same team,” he said.
Whether it was that rivalry between the two communities to be the best, or just an overall desire to be the best, Coach Schultz also gives a great deal of credit to the kids for the commitment they’ve made to the Kee program throughout the years. “The kids just wanted to play the game, and they would any chance they got,” Schultz remembers, especially during his early tenure when there was no limit to the number of games a team could play in a season. “We would head to Dubuque to play an afternoon doubleheader and stop in Garnavillo to play a doubleheader there along the way in the morning. And there was also a great amount of pride in families who wanted their sons to play the game, so we would consistently have a good selection of upperclassmen who stuck it out and led a lot of our really good teams, with  younger brothers, cousins or nephews waiting in the wings.”

BEGINNINGS
Coupled with that love of the game Coach Schultz credits Shooky Fink and both the Lansing and New Albin communities with is his own foundation of admiration and respect for the game that he grew up with in his native Winona, MN. “Winona had an ideal situation with youth sports, in general, everything from Pop Warner football to t-ball and Park and Rec ball,” Schultz remembered.
He recalls being the bat boy at a young age for the Winona Athletics, a Class B minor league affiliate of the Kansas City Athletics that fielded such future Major League Baseball players as Dick Howser and Billy Williams. And he also recalls the approach all his little league and park and recreation coaches took that taught the game the way he likes to still teach it today.
“Their whole premise was so basic and fundamentally sound,” Schultz shared. “They always stressed making the simple play. There’s no need to be flashy, just make the plays.”
Schultz adopted that mentality and carried it on through a decorated high school career at Cotter High School in Winona and on to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville for two years before returning to his hometown to complete stellar collegiate careers at Winona State University in both baseball and basketball. A 1969 graduate, Schultz was later inducted into the Winona State University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1990 for his efforts in both sports that he then went on to coach when he secured his first job at Kee High School in Lansing as a Physical Education teacher.
Schultz’s arrival at Kee seemed as if it were almost destined to happen, as a series of events beyond his own control pushed him south from his native Winona, MN into Iowa. “I graduated right when the Vietnam War was going on, and at that time there was a deferment offered if you were teaching in a poverty-declared area,” Schultz remembered. “I had interviewed for two jobs at both Kee High in Lansing and at Durand, WI, and both places qualified me for that deferment. The position at Kee High offered head coaching for both baseball and basketball with it, but the job in Durand only included assistant positions, so that made my choice a little easier.”
Schultz further relays how after his first year at Kee that deferment was pulled, and he was entered into the draft lottery, being tagged with the low number of 46 that surely meant he would be selected as the military draft steamrolled on during that era. However, destiny again played a role in keeping Schultz at Kee.
“Sure enough, I got the call, and I reported for my draft physical,” he explained. “But, as it turned out, an old football injury that resulted in inflamed joints in my toes resulted in a medical deferment, so I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Who knows what would have happened if I would have gone to war.”
In addition to his brush with the military draft, Schultz’s career at Kee had a further ominous start, including an early eye opener that he humorously remembers. “It had all happened so fast and it was late August, and the Superintendent approached me one day and asked when I was going to start baseball practice,” Schultz recalls. “I told him I figured after January we would get a start, and he said, ‘Well, you’ve got games next week!’ I didn’t realize they played fall baseball here when I first got here. So, we had to jump right to it.”
Coach Schultz obviously recovered nicely from that initial fall baseball surprise in 1969, winning two fall State Tournament championships in 1977 and 1978, along with a pair of State Tournament runner-up finishes in 1975 and 1980, before the fall season was brought to an end in the mid-1980s. A spring season and State Tournament in Iowa was also brought to an end early in Schultz’s tenure at Kee, but played out to a summer season that has proven to provide some of the greatest memories and overall success for Coach Schultz and many Kee players, families and fans.

SUMMER OF ‘73
The year 1973 still provides some of the greatest career memories for Coach Schultz, and undoubtedly the greatest memory from early in his career. That summer marked the first season Kee High School officially played a summer baseball season, beginning an era that opposing teams probably wish would have never started as the baseball Hawks won the first of what has progressed into a state-leading nine summer State Baseball Tournament championships, including additional state-leading numbers of 19 State Tournament appearances and 32 State Tournament game victories in 42 total State Tournament games played during Iowa’s summer high school season.
But that initial milestone in 1973 is something that no other Kee High School baseball team has been able to accomplish to that same degree since, and an achievement that only six other teams have accomplished just nine other times throughout Iowa’s high school baseball history - perfection.
A slate of 47 games during the 1973 summer season saw the baseball Hawks go undefeated all the way to their first-ever State Baseball Championship, that coming by virtue of a 5-2 victory over Sioux Center. “In addition to our first State Championship, I think what makes it even more meaningful is the fact that it was an undefeated season so early in my career,” Schultz reflected. “Not many coaches ever do that, much less so early on. There were only two classes back then, so we were playing a lot of schools bigger than us, and beating them.”
Schultz also further reasoned that it was the coming together of both his Kee High team and Lansing’s St. George High School that season that provided the best from both worlds. “St. George had closed in May of that year, so we had their kids come over and play with us, so we really got the best from both teams and I guess that made one perfect team,” he said.
What is believed to make that 1973 team so perfect also stems from one of Coach Schultz’s other great early memories, the final game between Kee and St. George from the previous season. “It was a 1-0 game going into the seventh, but we ended up tying it up and eventually won it in nine innings, 2-1,” he recalls. “Kevin Keenan, a strong right-hander, was on the mound for St. George and we countered with Steve “Babe” Fink, a lefty. Both pitchers took no-hitters deep into the game, it was a classic. The next season we ended up with both of those pitchers on our Kee team, so we had a very solid pitching staff for that 1973 State Championship team.”

HONORING PERFECTION
That undefeated State Championship team from 1973 will be honored in a ceremony that will be one of the many featured events at this season’s upcoming Shooky Fink Tournament scheduled for Saturday, May 25. Further details of that event can be found elsewhere in a shaded box within this week’s issue of The Standard.

BEYOND PERFECTION
But that perfect, 47-0 season ranks just fourth in Kee baseball’s record books for most wins in a season, the Hawks posting back-to-back seasons of 50-plus wins on the way to additional State Championships in 1980 (51-4) and 1981 (53-9). Add to that another 49-4 season in 1986, back-to-back 46-1 seasons in 1991 and 1992, and a 45-2 record in 1990, and one not only has the makings of seven of Kee’s nine summer State Tournament championships but also seven of the top 10 win totals ever posted by a single team in Iowa high school baseball history.
In fact, the Hawks hold 10 of Iowa’s top 15 season win totals, those games totaling up to 467 of Coach Schultz’s current career victory total in less than one-fourth of his tenure at the Kee baseball helm. Iowa’s most recent limit to a 40-game regular season schedule at the high school level has made it impossible for any team to manage a 50-win season, and nearly as impossible for a team to average nearly 47 wins in a single season like the baseball Hawks have done for their coach in those 10 victory-filled seasons.

OTHER MEMORIES
Even though it fell just shy of that “top-10” list for most wins in a season for Kee baseball, the summer of 1989 also gave birth to another of Coach Schultz’s greatest memories in that it was the year of the first of four consecutive State Championship seasons for the baseball Hawks. Kee won three Class 2A State Championships (1989-1991) in that then four-class era, with the 1992 title coming in Class 1A as the classifications changed for that final championship season.
Kip Peters, a 1992 Kee graduate whose name appears near the top of just about as many Iowa high school baseball records as Kee itself, was the winning pitcher in all four of the Hawks’ State Championship games during that stretch, becoming the only Iowa high school baseball pitcher to do so on his way to racking up a state-leading total of eight career State Tournament pitching victories. He also helped lead the Hawks to a 59-game winning streak that was also tops in Iowa high school baseball history until a familiar foe, Martensdale St. Mary’s, bettered that mark to 88 consecutive wins spanning the 2010-2012 seasons on the way to a current streak of three consecutive Class 1A State Championships.
“Four in a row, that was a good era of baseball for us,” Coach Schultz remarked. “Kip Peters should be a lock for the Hall of Fame coming up, he had some phenomenal records during those years, and to win four state title games as a pitcher is unheard of.”
And even though not quite as extensive as that four-year title streak, other eras of Kee baseball have produced their own bit of State Tournament success, adding up to a whopping total of 20 appearances in State Championship games during Coach Schultz’s 42 years at the helm - nearly half of the seasons during his career ending with either a State Championship or State Runner-Up finish to his team’s credit. “We’ve always talked about ‘play for 47,’ which basically means you are in the championship game,” Coach Schultz shared. “If you are playing in that final game, you certainly can’t look back and say you didn’t accomplish anything.”
Among those successful streaks are the back-to-back State Championships won during the fall high school season in 1977 and 1978 that were then followed by back-to-back summer titles in 1980 and 1981 on each side of a fall runner-up finish in 1980. Three more consecutive seasons in the summer title game a bit later produced back-to-back runner-up finishes in 1984 and 1985 before the Hawks won the 1986 Class 2A State Championship.
After the four consecutive titles from 1989-1992, Kee finished runner-up in back-to-back seasons in 1995 and 1996 before doing likewise in 2000 and 2001. Another Class 1A State Championship in 2005 has been the Hawks’ most recent title, with Kee finishing runner-up in 2011 to the aforementioned Martensdale St. Mary’s team for its latest trip to the title tilt.

FORMER PLAYERS REMEMBER AS WELL
Of course, producing those streaks of success and the memories that go with them right along with Coach Schultz have been countless players donning the purple and silver of Kee High School. And it’s with equal admiration between coach and players that many former Kee Hawks remember their playing days.

Doug Bulman was a senior second baseman on that first Kee High State Championship team in 1973, an accomplishment that also lies within his greatest memories. “My greatest memory is seeing the grin on Coach Schultz’s face after we won that state championship game,” Bulman recalled. “He was always one that wouldn’t say much and didn’t show much emotion, so to get a big grin out of him like that, you knew it was a great accomplishment.”
And even though Bulman and his teammates obviously felt a great sense of self-accomplishment with that 1973 tournament title, Bulman admits that feeling of pride for him and his teammates went well beyond just themselves.
“We had such a tremendous amount of respect for him, and he always had respect for his players,” Bulman said. “Sometimes you’ll see coaches berate or scream at their players, but that was never Coach Schultz. If there was any correcting to be done, it was always done one-on-one and not for the rest of the world to see. That’s the kind of respect he had for each of his players, and it was because of that respect he had for us that we wanted to do the best we could, not only for ourselves but also for him.”
It’s doubtful, however, that Bulman or any of his teammates could ever fathom that what they started as members of Coach Schultz’s first teams at Kee High School would transpire into the milestone currently within immediate reach. “I think it’s incredible what he has accomplished,” Bulman shared. “Approaching 1700 wins, it’s just amazing the kind of production that he’s had to get out of kids in communities the size of Lansing and New Albin to accomplish that, but that goes back to him being able to get the most out of each of his players.”
And it’s that approach to coaching that Bulman, and probably many others, feel has been the key to the great amount of success Coach Schultz has experienced. “He taught fundamentals, and we learned the game from the ground up,” Bulman remembered. “I was always amazed at what he accomplished with some of the players on our team. A lot of us had played little league baseball in New Albin under Shooky Fink, but once we got to high school, some of the kids went to St. George and some went to Kee, so we had some holes to fill. But, he always seemed to be able to find ways to do it by getting the best out of the kids that he had.”
Bulman is currently a pharmacist in Oelwein, and he knows full well that what he learned both on and off the diamond from his high school baseball coach played an important role in what he has achieved in his own career. “He is a great coach, and I think of him often in using the life lessons that he taught us in our own daily lives,” Bulman admits. “I don’t know that there’s a person out there who had Coach Schultz who doesn’t have a fond memory of playing for him.”

Tom Imhoff was a pitcher and shortstop for Coach Schultz when the Hawks won their back-to-back fall tournament titles in 1977 and 1978, graduating in 1980 and being a senior for the first of another back-to-back pair of summer titles for Kee in 1980 and 1981. Imhoff’s 259 career hits and 43-game hitting streak during his high school campaign still rank among the top 10 in the nation on statistical lists kept by the National Federation of State High School Associations.
“Seventeen-hundred wins, that’s even hard to conceive,” Imhoff reflected on his former coach’s milestone. “We were so fortunate to get to play as much baseball as we wanted - spring, summer and fall seasons. And I think that’s why we were so good, we played all the time.”
The State Championship memories Imhoff recalls are also mingled with celebration and a great sense of respect for Kee’s coaching leader. “My greatest memory, without a doubt, is winning the 1980 State Championship, 51-4 State Champs,” he said. “Otherwise, overall, what I will always remember is what a true gentleman he is, truly humble, and I’ve tried to carry that over to the way I handle myself. I remember after winning that State Championship game, all of us players were going crazy - like a bunch of kids would with something like that. But when you watch the videotape, Coach Schultz is nowhere around that celebration, but instead, you could see him over consoling the coach from the opposing team - a real class act.”
Imhoff also echoes similar thoughts about Coach Schultz’s keys to the success that he’s had as a coach. “I think the biggest key to his success is that he expects a lot of the kids who play for him, and he gets the most out of every player,” Imhoff reasoned. “He also provides a lot of consistency, especially in his discipline and how he motivates kids. He’s not a yeller or a screamer. If you make an error, he doesn’t yell at you, he’ll hit you another ball, and another, and another, and another, until you do it right. That’s how kids learn the best, not by being yelled at, but by being taught how to do it right and then having the opportunity to work on it until they get it right.”
Being a physical education instructor and coach himself in the Janesville, WI School District, Imhoff says he tries to teach and coach the way he remembers being taught and coached by the one man who’s had the greatest impact on his life. “He’s obviously had a great influence on me,” he admitted of Schultz. “I’ve followed in his footsteps, I’m a Physical Education teacher and I coach baseball and basketball. I try to emulate his manner as much as I can in how I teach and how I coach.”

That trend of carrying on what was learned from Coach Schultz also continued with John Costello, a third baseman and pitcher for the Hawks on teams that won the 1981 summer crown and finished as State Runner-Up in his senior season of 1984. “I coached softball for 19 years at New Lisbon, WI, and I took a lot of the same motivational things that Gene used when we were playing for him and I used them full force in my program,” Costello declared. “I still have some of the hand-outs he gave us as players, and I’ve adapted them to various scenarios I’ve been involved in. We won nine conference championships, advanced to the State Tournament once and came within a game or two of the State Tournament several other times. Gene instilled the foundation of what I used as a coach, and I wish I was still coaching, but the principal position I’m in just doesn’t allow for that.”
Currently the Elementary/Middle School Principal for Southwestern Wisconsin School District in Hazel Green, WI, Costello joins other former players in attesting to the fact that Coach Schultz’s influence went far beyond the ballfield for them. “Had I not had Gene as my coach, I know I would not be sitting in the chair that I am in today because he made me fall in love with the game of baseball and I was able to go to college and play baseball at Winona State for four years, get my degree to become a Physical Education teacher and move on from there to the principal position I’m in right now.”
Costello admits that lessons learned from Coach Schultz weren’t always easy or enjoyable, but still well worth it. “He was strict, but he was fair and he cared about you,” he explained. “That drove me to work harder. That’s something you might not realize as a player, but you certainly realize it looking back, and that’s what has helped motivate me in my own career.”
And just like many before him and since, Costello also has fond memories of what has become a very familiar scenario for Kee baseball. “I remember being part of the State Tournament team in my freshman year, never playing but just along for the ride, and how awesome that was,” he recalled. “And then we made it back there when we were seniors, and those are memories that I will carry for a long, long time and that I hoped my own kids could get to experience. There’s nothing like that State Tournament experience. But my greatest memory of Gene is his commitment to his players and how he challenged each one of us in order to get the best out of all of us.”
It was that seemingly never-changing approach that Costello also sees as being Schultz’s greatest asset in accomplishing the many achievements he has in his career. “Gene provided consistency and treated every player the same way,” Costello remarked. “He had a knack for finding the strength in each player and putting it into play, so to speak. And it didn’t matter if it was a bench player that fit better into a certain situation, or a pinch-hitter who could get a squeeze bunt down better than the next guy coming to the plate, Gene always seemed to mold it all together to make a very solid team. We, as players, accepted whatever decision was made because we knew that we were going to have success because we were playing for Gene Schultz.”

In addition to the fundamental approach to the game, it would be difficult to find a former player of Coach Schultz’s who wouldn’t agree that his mental preparation of his players was, and still is, a prominent factor in his success. The aforementioned Kip Peters can attest to that.
“He really preaches the fundamentals and teamwork, but I think the biggest key to his success is that he always has his players mentally ready to play the game,” Peters shared. “He realizes that everyone is going to make physical errors at some point, but by having his players mentally ready he knows they aren’t going to beat themselves.”
And that’s an approach that Peters benefitted greatly from early on his storied high school career. “The greatest memory for me was him having the confidence in me to pitch in the State Championship game as a freshman,” he admits. “That was unheard of, but he had enough confidence in me to put me on the mound. Other than that, I’ll always remember how much knowledge he has about baseball, he knows everything about the game, all the little things that other coaches may not know or might overlook. His knowledge is unbelievable.”
That early impact Coach Schultz had on Peters is something that he has carried with him well beyond his time spent on the baseball diamond. “The greatest impact he had on me was the confidence he instilled in me as a player,” Peters said. “He made me a much better ball player because of how he believed in me. I played college ball, but I still say that he is the best coach that I ever had. I still have a great deal of respect for him to this day, and I appreciate everything he’s done for me.”

Jason Crane is a 2000 graduate of Kee High School and was a senior third baseman on the Hawks' 2000 Class 1A State Runner-Up team that culminated his four-year high school playing career. With most Kee baseball memories lying within State Tournament experience, Crane remembers most fondly what it took to make those experiences possible.
"My greatest memory of Coach Schultz is the practices, the time spent on the details that other programs ignore," Crane revealed. "There isn’t one memory that stands out, that’s the type of coach he was. This consistency from day-to-day is a reason for his success. You always knew what he expected of you and would do whatever it took to make him proud."
Expanding on what he feels are Coach Schultz's keys to success, Crane further shared, "The way that he treats everyone on the team and the trust that he puts in them are big keys to his success. His ability to get everyone to play as a team, from the top player to the pinch-runners, everyone knows their role and he gets everything out them."
Currently working in the Sports Information Department at the University of Dubuque, where he also continued his baseball career as both a player and then an assistant coach for four years, Crane says what he learned from Coach Schultz has gone far beyond baseball. "He taught numerous life lesson through baseball," he said of Schultz. "He always treated you with the respect you earned and deserved. His love for all sports was something that to this day I still take with me.  His connection to the history of Kee High and the way he talked about the past motivated you to be the best player possible. You wanted your name to be included with all the greats when he told the current team about the past players."

LOOKING BACK, AHEAD
Even with all the credit that these and many other former players would give to Coach Schultz, the legendary skipper is still quick to shine the spotlight elsewhere. “We’ve had a lot of good things happen here at Kee High, a lot of good people associated with the school, the community, with baseball, to keep it going strong,” he said. “It’s been a small, close-knit group of parents, athletes and community members that have kept it alive. And I think Shooky’s still looking down on us quite a bit.”
With the 1,700-win career coaching milestone firmly within reach, Coach Schultz doesn’t hesitate to look beyond, knowing full well that another 100-win milestone like the win he’s about to achieve isn’t impossible but also won’t benefit from some of the 50-plus win seasons he had help from early in his career. “Coaching baseball is still a priority for me, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
Until a time comes to make that ultimate decision, he will continue doing what he enjoys in the place and with the people he enjoys just as much. “I’m happy to be in the situation that I’m in, I’ve been truly blessed to be in this area,” he reflects. “You see so many people in this area who come here to retire. Well, I feel like I’ve been living my retirement by being here. We’ll take it one year at a time.”
That’s obviously what has helped him climb the 1,700-win mountain, and perhaps there are still more summits to reach.