Rob Maurer was destined to seize the moment. Andy Benes could sense it.
Dominant on the mound, Benes was blanking No. 1-ranked Arizona State University, and the University of Evansville baseball team was on the verge of a monumental upset if the Aces could only score. Maurer belted a home run in the seventh inning, and Benes made it stand up for a 1-0 victory in the first round of the 1988 NCAA tournament at ASU’s home ballpark in Tempe, Arizona.
“I thought going into the ASU game, he was going to have to do something special,” Benes says. “And he did in a spectacular way — A majestic home run that put UE on the map.”
Benes, a Central High School graduate, was selected by the San Diego Padres as the top overall pick in the 1988 Major League Baseball amateur draft. Maurer, a Mater Dei High School grad, was a left-handed-hitting first baseman drafted by the Texas Rangers in the sixth round.
Maurer was “just a pure hitter with a great stroke,” Benes says. “I was telling the guys during the game, ‘Just one run.’ And our best hitter stepped up in the clutch, and we won the game. That’s all we needed — just Rob being Rob.”
Maurer, who played for the Rangers in 1991 and ’92, passed away unexpectedly at his home in Evansville on Jan. 21 at age 59. “Rob suffered a cardiac event after finishing a workout in his home gym,” says Mike Goebel, who was offensive coordinator on Mater Dei’s football team when Maurer played for the Wildcats. He also served as Maurer’s wrestling coach.
Tributes to Maurer poured in, including from outside of Evansville. Former Rangers teammate Dan Peltier recalled Maurer as his roommate and best friend in professional baseball. “I am devastated by the news of his passing,” Peltier wrote on Maurer’s obituary page on Pierre Funeral Home’s website. “I am blessed that he was part of my life.”
AN ALL-STATER IN THREE SPORTS
Maurer excelled in every sport he tried, earning all-state honors in baseball, football, and wrestling at Mater Dei and later being named a member of the UE and Mater Dei athletics halls of fame. “Rob was a natural in everything that he did; he was such a gifted athlete who made the most of his talents,” Goebel says. “Rob was fiercely competitive, intense, and an unquestioned leader.”
Maurer earned all-state honors as a quarterback/defensive back on Mater Dei’s first undefeated regular season team in 1984; the Wildcats eventually finished 11-1. He broke all of Mater Dei’s passing records to that date, was the team’s leading scorer, was a top tackler on defense, and led the team with six interceptions. In wrestling, Maurer finished third in the 177-pound division of the 1988 Indiana High School Athletic Association state tournament, losing in the state semifinals and ending his high school career 24-1 as a senior in ’85. “Rob was important in setting the stage for Mater Dei’s first-ever IHSAA state title the following year,” Goebel says.
Maurer’s accomplishments in baseball speak for themselves. He led the city with a .514 batting average and, as with football, was chosen to play in the state senior all-star game. Maurer, who batted .396 for UE in 1988, worked his way up the Rangers’ organization after being drafted in 1988. He won Class AAA American Association Rookie of the Year honors in 1991, hitting .301 with 20 home runs and 77 runs batted in for Oklahoma City. Called up to the parent club in September of that year, Maurer played behind then-perennial MLB all-star Rafael Palmeiro.
“Rob’s promising MLB career was cut short by reconstructive knee surgery, which cost him the 1993 season,” Goebel says. The following year, a second knee surgery ended his playing career. “I never heard him mention or complain about his bad luck with injuries and what might have been had he been able to continue to play baseball,” Goebel adds.
True to his character, Maurer came home to Evansville, completed his college education in business administration at the University of Southern Indiana in 1997, and worked at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana for 27 years, mostly as a project analyst, until his retirement in June 2025. He stayed close with friends from Mater Dei’s 1985 graduating class and joined tailgates at his alma mater. Along the way, Goebel says, “Rob focused his life’s attention on his family,” including his wife, Kathy, who he married in 2022, and his three daughters.
A PIVOT FROM COLLEGE FOOTBALL TO BASEBALL
As he tried to build the Aces’ baseball program in the mid-1980s, head coach Jim Brownlee knew he had to land two local players: Maurer and Benes, who hoped to play both baseball and football. However, then-UE football coach Randy Rodgers didn’t want to recruit either player. After Rodgers was fired, Brownlee bent the ear of new UE football coach Dave Moore, who was receptive to the idea of the athletes playing two sports.
Brownlee watched in awe as a rail-thin Maurer hit an opposite-field home run completely out of Bosse Field as a freshman at Mater Dei. “I knew I had to get both,” Brownlee says. “Rob and Andy were in (football) two-a-days in August, and (Rob) had practiced for two weeks and said he didn’t want to play football anymore. He wanted to play fall baseball. He’s one of the best players I ever had.” Moore honored Maurer’s football scholarship that season, and Maurer went on a baseball scholarship the following year.
Maurer had no problems displaying his emotions. Brownlee recalls a Mater Dei game against Harrison High School: After Maurer homered, then-Warriors coach Frank Schwitz ordered his pitcher to walk Maurer in his next at-bat. Maurer responded by yelling, “You’re a coward.” Nevertheless, Harrison walked Maurer three more times.
The most famous home run of Maurer’s college career came using a Central Michigan University bat. Back in those days, aluminum bats were “loaded,” says Brownlee, alluding to their power. In fact, the UE team used the same three Easton aluminum bats so often they were almost “flat as a pancake,” he says. Before the NCAA tournament game against Arizona State in 1988, umpires ruled that UE’s bats did not pass inspection.
Brownlee quickly talked to Central Michigan coach Dean Kreiner, a good friend, whose Chippewas were playing in the game following UE-ASU. “Can we borrow three or four of your Easton bats?” Brownlee asked Kreiner, who obliged. “Rob Maurer hit that home run with a Central Michigan bat.”
Inextricably linked forever through that game, Benes says he was just thankful to be Maurer’s teammate. “Gone too soon,” Benes says. “Rest in peace, my friend.”
In addition to his wife, Kathy, Maurer is survived by daughters Ashton Maurer and fiancé Michael Volkman, Madi Chaykowsky and husband Zack, and Ali Maurer and her fiancé Andrew Schoettlin; a stepdaughter, Grace Doane; and two grandchildren, McKenna and Cole Chaykowsky. In a final nod to the place where his talent first took off, memorial contributions may go to the Mater Dei Athletic Department.
