By Michaela Bankston
Photos by Kristal Kizer
On the night a Mets scout from Alabama sat in the stands at one of Jeff Mauldin’s high school games to see the centerfielder, he happened to be the one on the mound. The scout took note of Mauldin and made a call to Jim Case, who was the pitching coach at the University of Alabama at Birmingham at the time. Growing up in Virginia, Mauldin did not know what UAB stood for, but that did not stop him from taking their call.
“They offered me a scholarship and never saw me pitch on the word of Joe Mason, the Mets scout,” Mauldin said.
On his visit to UAB, Mauldin bought into their schedule, playing teams such as Alabama, Auburn and Mississippi State.
“I wanted to pitch against people like that,” Mauldin said. “I wanted to play against the best.”
With that, he made the decision that UAB would be his next stop on the way to fulfill his dream of playing professionally. In his second year there, he met his future wife, Chrissy Mauldin.
Chrissy admitted she did not even know how to read the scoreboard, but she enjoyed hanging out with her neighbor, whose husband played collegiate baseball. She simply told him she would not mind dating a baseball player. The neighbor, also a pitcher at UAB, connected the Mauldins, who have now been married 27 years.
“[God] sent me to UAB to play baseball 10 hours away from my home, and it was to meet her,” Jeff said.
Later in his collegiate career, Jeff blew out his shoulder and had to sit out more than a year for two surgeries.
“During that year, I started seeing a different side of the game because I wasn’t playing and spent a lot of time with Coach Case,” Jeff said. “It started me looking at the game in a whole different way, and I fell in love with that part, the thinking part of it.”
He returned to the field for his senior season, but he knew he would not play professionally. Jeff spent the following year as a graduate assistant coach before landing his first full-time coaching job at Clay-Chalkville Middle School for the 1998 season. In his second year there, he was joined by Assistant Coach Jeff Schrupp, who had just retired from professional umpiring.
“I was blown away with the concepts and the preparation and the things that were being taught to seventh and eighth graders,” Schrupp said. “The kind of things that you would typically see in college programs that he was teaching the seventh and eighth graders. That was my first impression.”
After a year together, they moved up to the varsity team and a few years later experienced their first injured player. Jeff said you obviously never want a kid to get hurt, but in that moment, he began to understand his path.
“I realized God put me in that situation of getting hurt to go into coaching, and even now, if a kid gets hurt, it’s like God reminding me, ‘You went through this years ago to help this kid go through it now,’” Jeff said.
A few years later, Pelham High School wanted to hire Jeff as their head baseball coach, and he had one request—Assistant Coach Schrupp.
“You’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with, and he’s a hall-of-fame teacher, hall-of-fame coach,” Jeff said.
Despite not having an opening, Pelham found a place for Schrupp, and six years later, so did Hewitt-Trussville High School. After 27 seasons together, they have clearly found a way to work well together.
“[Jeff] is more than willing to dole out responsibilities and then rely on you to be really good at what you do, which has always made me feel just very grateful because I didn’t have a desire to handle all the day-to-day things that a head coach has to do,” Schrupp, who spends his hours away from the field as an AP History teacher, said.
On the contrary, Jeff, who has an education degree, said he decided in college to focus his efforts solely on coaching without the extra task commitments teachers have.
Beyond the game, both men were newly married when they first started working together and have grown close over the past 27 years.
“I’ve watched his three children all grow up, and they’re all now in college,” Schrupp said. “We just got old together.”
All three children spent a lot of time around baseball growing up. Chrissy said they made the choice for her to stay home with the kids even when it was difficult. Because of that, she and the kids were at most every game even late during the week because it was important they see their dad.
“They grew up on the baseball field, but they grew up with their daddy,” Chrissy said.
Of those three children, the oldest, Tyler Mauldin, played baseball at Hewitt-Trussville before playing in college. As far as coaching his son, Jeff recalled a mix of emotions.
“On one hand, I loved every second of it and miss it still,” Jeff said. “On the other hand, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as a coach.”
The other two children, Sara Grace and Caroline Mauldin, spent many games in the stands behind home plate cheering for their dad’s team and getting in the heads of opponents.
“I think coaching-wise, not life, but coaching-wise, I think coaching Tyler has probably been his greatest joy, and for me, my greatest joy has been watching him coach Tyler and watching him watch the girls be the best fans in the world,” Chrissy said.
Along with all the joy, there is obviously a competitive component in sports, which the entire family embraces.
“We like to win in our family,” Chrissy said.
And win they have.
When Mauldin first arrived at Hewitt-Trussville, he was asked what one thing he needed. His answer: middle school baseball.
“I feel like we have to do different things like that to close the gap with the bigger schools that we’ve got to compete against,” Jeff said.
Hewitt-Trussville ranks 26 of 32 7A schools in terms of enrollment. That is more than 1,000 students less than the school at the top.
Despite that gap, Hewitt-Trussville has seen great success under Jeff’s leadership, including its first state championship in 2016.
Personally, Jeff currently sits with 755 wins and a winning percentage above .760. Just last year, he became the sixth all-time and youngest Alabama baseball coach to reach 700 wins.
“You could have put him anywhere, and I think he would have probably attained that,” Schrupp said.
Later that year, he was inducted into the Alabama Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
Jeff has won two state championships with seven appearances. His teams made the final four nine times and won their area 16. He has seen more than 120 players go on to play in college, 11 players drafted into Major League Baseball and eight former assistants transition to be head coaches.
“He’s without question the best I’ve ever seen,” Schrupp said. “There is no doubt in my mind he could go tomorrow and succeed at both the college level and professional level. He’s that good.”
Even still, Jeff’s message to his players goes far beyond wins and losses.
“God’s already determined who’s going to win and lose this game,” Jeff started. “All we have to do is honor him and go play our best. He’s blessed you with the ability to play. He’s blessed you with the ability to be in this program, just go honor Him and go play hard.”
He also acknowledges that, at some point, baseball will end for each of them, and he aims to prepare them for life after that.
“He truly prepares players to be godly husbands, godly fathers,” Chrissy said. “He’s teaching them how to work in the workforce, how to be responsible, how to have some accountability when you make a mistake.”
Because of that, Jeff and Schrupp both said their favorite part of the job is when players come back. Some come to work out during breaks, and others stop by practice to introduce their babies or send invitations to milestone events.
“Whether you win a state championship or area championship or whatever, we want them to win in life,” Jeff said. “When you see them come back, it’s like a nod like, ‘Hey, job well done.’”
