No matter the sport, Scott Schebler excels

He wore a T-shirt to baseball practice Tuesday that read “Prairie soccer.” Kind of sums it up perfectly for Scott Schebler.The recently graduated senior did so many things athletically at Cedar Rapids Prairie High School there had to be times when he didn't know exactly what uniform to wear.“It was difficult, with homework and everything,” Schebler said. “But I think it was definitely worth it now that it's almost all over. It was fun.”Yeah, things are fun when you do them well, and Schebler did virtually everything well.He scored seven touchdowns as a senior wide receiver and averaged 40 yards per punt in football. He averaged a team-high 18 points per game this season in basketball.He scored 24 goals and led his team to within one game of the state tournament in soccer. He set school track records in the 55 meters, long jump and 800-meter relay this spring, going out for track and field for the first time.“He is a tribute to the multisport athlete,” said Prairie football Coach Craig Jelinek. “And it's not just participating in multiple sports but excelling in them. That's the remarkable thing about Scott. He shows athletes and their parents that they don't have to specialize.”Has baseball been mentioned? That's Schebler's best sport: He's a four-year starter and all-stater who will play next year at Des Moines Area Community College.Schebler had a career in one day last Saturday, hitting three home runs in the first game of a tournament at Marion and for the cycle in the second game. In all, Schebler went 9-for-10 with 16 RBIs.

“How do you do that?” asked Prairie Coach Don Taylor. “That's just a ton of RBIs.”“It hit me right after the (second) game on the bus ride home,” Schebler said. “It was kind of like ‘Wow.' Because when you're in a zone like that, you don't even realize what's going on. So on the bus ride home, I was like ‘Wow, did I really just do that?'”He did. Schebler is hitting over .500 with six homers as one of four seniors in a starting lineup with five sophomores.“I've tried to help turn the program around,” said Schebler, whose team was a competitive 12-13 through Tuesday after years of struggling. “We've been building up to this. I think this is our breakthrough year. So we really need to get after it like we have been. We've been doing a pretty good job of that so far, but we need to keep it up.”Taylor went to Cedar Rapids Jefferson during its athletics heyday of the mid-1960s and coached NFL player Marv Cook at West Branch. He mentioned Schebler in the same breath as the best athletes he's been around, especially in terms of work ethic. Schebler was part of a group of fine freshmen athletes at Prairie that dwindled as others transferred. Though his family lives about five miles from Solon, Schebler stayed put and is happy he did.“Yeah, I thought about transferring to Solon,” he admitted. “But I would have left all the friends behind that I've gotten to know for eight years. I didn't want to abandon them. That's pretty much it. I didn't want to abandon anybody like everybody else did. I mean, they had reasons for (transferring), but I didn't want to.”