Beth Vander Wilt (left) and Amy van der Meer, Spanish teachers at Greene County High, show off some of the Iowa Cubs gear the school will take with it as gifts to the baseball-crazy Dominican Republic. ANDREW McGINN | JEFFERSON HERALDThanks to Paton-Churdan grad Nate Teut (far left), assistant general manager of the Iowa Cubs, the 38 Spanish students and six adults from Greene County High School will have a few bags’ worth of free I-Cubs gear to give out to host families next month in the Dominican Republic. ANDREW McGINN | JEFFERSON HERALD

I-Cubs very very good to high school Spanish students

Team donates gifts for school’s Dominican trip

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

For a high school Spanish student, a trip to Latin America is like being called up to the big leagues.

But after nearly 20 years in professional baseball, both on the mound and in a front office, Paton-Churdan grad Nate Teut had a word of warning last week for the 38 Greene County High School Spanish students set to visit the Dominican Republic in March — they’re going to be up against a wicked fastball.

“The Dominicans speak the fastest out of all of them,” Teut informed the students, who had assembled in the auditorium.

Considering that about 10 percent of all major league players on opening day rosters in 2015 were Dominican — not counting Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Venezuelans — it goes without saying that Spanish is commonly heard in U.S. clubhouses each summer.

“If you can speak their language, you’ll form a bond that you’ll have forever,” said Teut, 39, who retired from playing in 2005 and is now executive vice president and assistant general manager of the Iowa Cubs.

Junior and senior Spanish students in Jefferson have been taking trips to Latin America every other year since 1994.

Mexico has been a frequent destination, but the high school also has visited Costa Rica, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

The students traditionally give gifts from Iowa to their host families.

Baseball is looming large in the high school’s first-ever trip to the Dominican, March 20-27, simply because baseball is so popular in the Caribbean nation.

Longtime Spanish teacher Beth Vander Wilt reached out to Teut, a 1994 P-C grad, to inquire about buying I-Cubs gear to give out as gifts.

“Since baseball is huge in the Dominican Republic,” she said, “it just made sense.”

The I-Cubs instead donated items — everything from T-shirts to squishy balls — for the students to give out.

“It’s great marketing for the Iowa Cubs,” Teut reasoned during his visit to drop off the gear, “in addition to just being a good neighbor.”

In 2015 alone, he said, the nation’s 160 minor league baseball teams donated $32 million in charitable giving.

“We see a lot of Greene County people at the ballpark every year,” he said.

More major league players hail from the Dominican than from anywhere else outside the U.S.

For all they know, the students will hand a squishy I-Cubs ball to the next Juan Marichal or Pedro Martinez.

“A lot of them don’t have spikes or bats, or real baseballs or gloves for that matter,” Teut said. “They don’t have all the things we have. They have to rely on their skills.

“That’s why they produce such great players.”

For Vander Wilt and Spanish teacher Amy van der Meer, who will be accompanied by middle school Spanish teacher Kristen Heupel, getting to immerse their students in the language is actually secondary to exposing students to a different culture.

“They will definitely learn to appreciate what we have,” Vander Wilt said.

During the trip — which this year coincides with spring break — students will do a community service project one day at a school.

“I like to see the reaction of the kids when they see things they haven’t seen before,” Vander Wilt said. “Some of them have never been out of the state of Iowa.”

Teut, a pitcher who was drafted out of Iowa State in 1997 by the Chicago Cubs, said that even at the I-Cubs’ Principal Park in Des Moines “the language barrier gets broken throughout the season.”

He made his major league debut in May 2002 on the mound for the Florida Marlins in a Saturday game against the Milwaukee Brewers televised on Fox.

Teut took Spanish in both high school and college.

“I don’t remember a lick,” he confessed after all the students left the auditorium.

“I remember all the cuss words,” he added.

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