Football: North Newton, Schultz entering spotlight

Updated: May 9, 2012 9:57AM

Anyone want to take a guess as at who leads the region in rushing this football season? Mason Zurek? David Yancey? Austin Brown? Nope — it’s the quite lesser-known Chad Schultz of North Newton.

You can be forgiven for not knowing much of Schultz as North Newton lies out past some fans’ geographical comfort zone. But the Spartans are members of the Lake County-centric Greater South Shore Conference. And North Newton is one of just six Northwest Indiana teams still playing in the tournament, so football fans should become a lot more acquainted with the Spartans this week.

“We’re sandwiched halfway between Lafayette and Lake County, so we don’t always get a lot of press in the region newspapers,” said North Newton coach Pat Brown. “There’s good and bad to some of that. Some of our opponents might not be as prepared for us, but our kids sometimes don’t get quite as noticed as they would otherwise.”

At 6-5 and in the sectional final, North Newton is coming onto the radar. The Spartans haven’t made it this far in the tournament since winning a sectional title in 1993 and have had a winning record only once since that 1993 team (6-4 in 2004). And the team is starting to gain some respect from inside the school, also.

“This is definitely different than any of us have ever experienced before,” said Schultz. “Some of the kids at school used make fun of the football players, but not now.”

Schultz has rushed for 1,614 yards and has scored 22 touchdowns this season. In last week’s sectional semifinal victory over River Forest, the 5-7, 165-pound junior rushed for 216 yards, scoring four times in the process.

Schultz has now fully emerged from the large shadow cast by former Spartans standout Jake Schuitema. Schuitema rushed for a school-record 2,145 yards last season, and was named to the Class 2A all-state team. As Schuitema’s backup last season, Schultz accumulated 442 yards of rushing and receiving and he played a little varsity as a freshman, primarily on kick returns.

“We’ve had a really good offensive line the last two years and they open a lot of holes,” said Schultz. “Jake was more of a big, powerful runner. I’m more of a ‘get to the outside and go’ type of runner, rather than someone who carries it up the middle a lot.”

Schultz started his football career as a second grader in Pop Warner and has been a running back since Day One. He remembers the thrill he used to get from watching the varsity team as a little kid and thinking he couldn’t wait to be there himself some day.

“Now the Pop Warner kids are high-fiving me and yelling my name and going crazy when I score a touchdown,” said Schultz. “It’s a great feeling.”

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