By Sammi Carpenter
Staff Writer
When you think of music, you probably think of Taylor Swift, The Beatles or Zach Bryan. But when Hutchinson Community College thinks of music, it may think of one of its own … Scott Wolverton.
Wolverton, a Seward, Nebraska native, is in his second year as an assistant baseball coach at HutchCC. Wolverton was a catcher for the Blue Dragons under former coach Ryan Schmidt in the 2017 and 2018 seasons, and then continued his baseball career at Morehead State University and eventually at the University of Central Missouri.
Alongside playing baseball, Wolverton found that he had another passion – music.
Wolverton started making and producing his own music in 2022 through a recording studio in the Kansas City area. His first single he put out is called “Dreamer”.
Wolverton’s love for playing music started young when his mother signed him up for guitar lessons at age 10.
“I kept playing through high school,” Wolverton said. “When I got to college, I played for myself in the bedroom to pass time. The singing thing just naturally came along, and when I got done playing baseball, I played for my buddies and tried to get gigs around town.
“How I book gigs is through social media. I’ll email, DM, or text places, sometimes I won’t get a reply, which is fine. Another way is word to mouth. I’ll have a lot of people call me that have heard me before or that have friends that have heard me.”
While some musicians have music written for them, Wolverton writes his own songs.
“My writing process kind of depends on the situation,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll have a thought or I’ll hear someone say something and I’ll think it sounds good, so I’ll type it in my notes or write it on a piece of paper and then I’ll go back and try to write something up with it.”
Once Wolverton gets the lyrics down, he puts the musical score to the song with his guitar.
“Another process I go through to write my songs is that I’ll have a chord progression that I play around with and if I like it I’ll sit there and ad lib until something flows or comes out,” Wolverton said “I go through that process the most so it stays very true and authentic. If it flows off the tip of your tongue then you know you are gonna have something good.”
Since returning to HutchCC as an assistant coach, Wolverton has played several local gigs and has sung the “Star-Spangled Banner” at Hutchinson Monarchs’ games this past summer at Hobart-Detter Field.
“Performing my own songs in front of people is a lot of fun,” Wolverton said. “It’s a very cool experience. It’s even cooler when they sing along or know the words because that means they have an interest in my music already which is cool to see. It’s definitely an adrenaline rush.”
The Blue Dragon players are well aware of Wolverton’s singing side-hustle.
“It’s a cool thing to say that you can listen to your own coaches’ music at practice. I like listening to Scotty’s music. He has a good voice and a great fan base that is growing.” Cody Gunderson said.
More Blue Dragons had positive things to say about their assistant coach’s music.
“Country isn’t something I listen to a lot, but I like his music,” Blue Dragon sophomore catcher Colin Cymbalista said. “I’m a fan of all his songs but the ones I listen to the most are ‘Seasonal Depression’ and ‘Let it All Go.’”
Tyson Vassart said he appreciates the balance Wolverton shows between baseball and music.
“When he is on the field, his focus is 100 percent on baseball. I only found out a couple weeks ago that he makes music and I really enjoy listening to him.” Vassart said.
Wolverton continues to work on finding that magic balance of coaching the Blue Dragons and working on his music.
“Time management is a major factor of trying to balance music and coaching at the same time,” Wolverton said. “Coaching is my first priority right now, I want to be able to give everything I got to our players and the rest of the coaching staff. Music is something I do in my free time as of right now.
“Once the spring season starts it is going to be harder making and performing music because we are on the road more and we play around 5-6 times a week. A lot of the stuff I’ll do in the spring is record music and play on TikTok live to still be able to perform.”
Wolverton played for the Blue Dragons in the 2017 and 2018 seasons. He played 71 games for the Blue Dragons and had a career .296 batting average with seven home runs and 47 RBIs, Defensively, Wolverton was one of the best defensive catchers in team history with a .989 fielding percentage and he threw out 22.5 percent of would-be base stealers.
After spending one season at Morehead State, Wolverton transferred to NCAA Division II Central Missouri to play for former Blue Dragon coach and Quarterback Club Hall of Famer Kyle Crookes. In his final year of eligibility in 2020, Wolverton hit .391 with six homers and 26 RBIs. Wolverton and the Mules advanced all the way to the 2021 NCAA Division II championship game.
Now, Wolverton is looking to add to his musical portfolio while continuing to coach for the Blue Dragons. Wolverton is also soon adding merchandise and other stuff to grow his brand. He thinks that if he keeps releasing music and growing his brand, he has a shot to grow in the music industry.
“That’s what I’m working on right now. I want my platform/community to grow and have more people listen to my music,” Wolverton said “One place I really want to play is at my hometown county fair show. I think it would be cool to play at the place I grew up at. Another dream venue to play at is Red Rocks.”
Wolverton’s music can be found on any streaming platform and fans can follow Wolverton’s music on Instagram and TikTok.
His most popular song ‘Let it all Go’ is from his first studio album ‘Chasing a Simple Feeling’. The song has over 300,000 total streams and he now has 19,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
