This is the continuation of a series of Body, Mind & Soul stories that highlights member student-athletes, coaches and administrators of Conference Carolinas.
“I once was lost, but now am found. T'was blind but now I see.”
-- Lyrics from the popular hymn, Amazing Grace
TIGERVILLE, S.C. — See the ball, hit the ball. Simple, right?
That age-old coaching axiom might be simple advice for most baseball hitters, but not Michael Neustifter. His harrowing journey as North Greenville University’s
slugging third baseman is one for the books.
Let’s start at the beginning.
A highly recruited high school player and Third Team All-American in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton, Texas, Neustifter enrolled on scholarship at Oklahoma State, a
Division I college baseball powerhouse. And he did not disappoint, playing as a freshman and starring in a 2017 NCAA Regional game against Oral Roberts with a
homer and three RBI. The following year, he earned Second Team All-Big 12 Conference with a .299 batting average, 15 doubles, four home runs and 18 RBI in
starting 46 games as a sophomore.
Yet, Michael described his experience in Stillwater, Okla. as “not a great fit,” and he decided to transfer to North Greenville University, a private Baptist college with a
2,400 undergraduate enrollment in Tigerville, S.C.
“Transferring to a Division II school allowed me to play right away,” he said. “Plus, I heard really good things about the coaching staff and that they had created a
fun, winning atmosphere to play the game.”
Neustifter, who was already on the radar of many Major League Baseball scouts as a 6-foot-3, 215-pound power hitter, was expected to thrive at his new school and early signs reinforced that notion. In the Crusaders’ first three games of 2019, Michael batted .500 (5-for-10) with a double and two RBI.
“I could tell he was going to be a big-time player,” said NGU head coach Landon Powell, himself a former Major League catcher with the Oakland A’s. “He had a great
first series, really swinging the bat well.”
But something almost unimaginable was lurking around the corner.
The junior transfer went hitless with three strikeouts in eight at-bats in his next series against visiting Newberry.
“I went home after that last game and knew something wasn’t right,” Neustifter said. “But I just told myself we’ll see what happens the next game.”
In his first at-bat in the next game against Nova Southeastern, he struck out again.
“He was missing the ball by two feet,” Powell recalled. “He came back to the bench after the last strikeout and told me, ‘Coach, take me out. I can’t see. Everything
is fuzzy. It’s like a bad signal on your TV … everything looks grainy.”
“I was scared to death,” now admits Michael.
It just so happened that his mother (Angela) was visiting from Texas that weekend. Dawn Torkelson, assistant athletic director for sports medicine and head
baseball trainer, was staffing the game and she suggested that Mrs. Neustifter immediately take her son—an only child—to the Greenville Medical Trauma Center for
an examination.
After much probing, the on-call physician speculated that Michael had incurred a detached retina. The doctor scheduled a follow-up visit with an eye specialist who
would determine if Michael would need surgery.
Strangely, the local ophthalmologist couldn’t find the detached retina. He told Michael that there seemed to be nothing wrong with his eye and sent him home.
The young ballplayer was understandably confused and frustrated. Through his family physician, he was referred to another vision specialist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He was hopeful.
“After examining me, the doctor told me that I had an extremely rare condition in the United States where the (neurotransmitter) receptors in my eyes were sending
signals to my brain that caused my vision to be blurred.”
If that wasn’t alarming enough, then the physician uttered six words that Michael will never forget.
“He said, ‘There is no cure for this.’”
Michael was devastated.
“I didn’t know what to think. You never think something like this is going to happen to you until it does. It took some time just to process the news. I remember waking up the next morning and thinking I may have played the last baseball game of my life.”
No longer able to play the game he loved, Michael sunk into a deep depressive state. He had trouble sleeping and eating. His grades suffered. And it became almost
unbearable for him to attend the team’s games.
“It was terrible. I would just sit there at games and grow more frustrated. It was the first time I had ever been sidelined. It wasn’t the games themselves that frustrated me. It was the competitiveness of my teammates. They put everything on the line, and I was dying to be out there. I didn’t want to bring bad energy or emotion to the team. Everybody felt sorry for me and it just brought bad vibes.”
After a while, he stopped coming to games.
"You could see him become more and more withdrawn from baseball,” said his athletic trainer, Torkelson. “There was nothing I could do to stop it. When I encouraged him to come out to games, he said it only made him feel worse and reminded him he can’t play.”
Perhaps the one person who could relate best with Michael was his coach. Powell, one of only 22 catchers in the history of Major League Baseball to catch a
perfect game (Dallas Braden, 2010), was also a highly-rated college prospect who endured two reconstructive ACL knee surgeries and then was diagnosed with a rare
liver autoimmune condition that he must manage to this day.
“He and I would have a lot of heart-to-heart talks,” said Powell. “I shared with him that life is not always fair, but you can’t give up. There will be something good that comes out of this. God has a plan for you.”
Neustifter remained hopeful the first month after his diagnosis.
“I thought I might wake up one day and it was cured,” he said. “I still had a lot of hope that my vision was going to be restored. The doctor had told me it was possible.”
But that hope faded as February morphed into March.
“It really started to sink in,” he added. “It was more than baseball. I started to think I was going to have to deal with this the rest of my life. That thought just
overwhelmed me. I’m super thankful for all the love and support that Landon, the coaches and my teammates gave me during a tough time. I look back and wish I might have handled a few things differently. I wasn’t in a very good state of mind.”
In a possible act of desperation, he approached the coaches last April about trying to convert to a pitcher.
“I thought it might be a way to show some positivity and have something to look forward to. Beyond classes, it gave me a reason to get out of bed.”
Meanwhile, his mother Angela, a longtime court reporter, refused to give up on her son. She continued to scour the country and online posts for someone who might
be able to help him.
After a series of consultations with various eye specialists that proved fruitless, she discovered a clinic in her own backyard that might be worth a visit when Michael
returned home for the summer.
When he and his mom entered the Neuro-Developmental Sensory Enhancement Center in Plano, Texas, they were pessimistic and assumed the outcome would be the same as previous doctor visits.
But Dr. Charles Shidlofsky was different.
“After the examination, the first thing he said was, ‘I know what caused this. You suffered a concussion at some time. I know how to correct this.'”
Dr. Shidlofsky told Michael he would have to take treatments and exercise his eyes three times a week over a two-to-three-month period.
“Your vision will be as good as before if not better,” he added.
Michael and his mother were speechless.
“We were in shock,” he said. “When we left the clinic, we just sat in the car for about 15 minutes. My mom said, ‘before we do anything, let’s pray and thank the
Lord.’”
Michael still remembers his first therapy session.
“It was no joke. Having to focus and exercise your eyes for a long, intense period was tough. I was so nauseous.”
But by his third or fourth visit, he started to notice an improvement in his vision. Before long, he joined a local summer league that played games twice weekly.
“Dr. Shidlofsky wanted me to play only one game a week and not take things too fast.”
The first time he came to the plate may have been the biggest at-bat of his life.
“I took the first pitch. I remember thinking to myself afterwards, that’s how a pitch should look! At that point, I knew I was getting better.”
He singled that first time up and flashed a smile to his teammates as he was rounding first base.
Clearly, he had a new zest for playing the game and just appreciating his life.
“You know that saying about playing every game like it’s your last? It’s so true. I take nothing for granted. I enjoy every rep, every practice. I just want to enjoy every minute and have fun. It’s very humbling.”
Yet, it was still not clear sailing for Michael when he resumed baseball at North Greenville this past fall. While his vision had returned to normal—in fact, even better
than his eyesight before, so much so that he dispensed with wearing glasses—he seemed out of sync at the plate.
“I really worked hard in the Fall, but I struggled,” he admitted. “I hadn’t realized that taking five months off would affect my game so much. Coach Powell and the other coaches just kept telling me to be patient and it will finally click.”
Sage advice. Michael banged out three hits (one discounted due to weather) in the regular season’s second game at Lynn University.
“It was the first time I really felt comfortable in the (batter’s) box,” he said.
Then a few weeks later, he served notice to everyone—his teammates, opponents and Major League scouts—that he was officially back. He launched three home runs and drove in 11 runs in a three-game series against Kentucky Wesleyan.
“After that, I just told myself, ‘Here we go!' That series really kickstarted the rest of the season.”
He finished with a .315 batting average, a .641 slugging percentage and seven homers with 27 RBI in only 80 at-bats and 25 games. Michael crowned his remarkable
comeback by hitting a roundtripper in the team’s last game at Newberry before the season was cancelled.
“We got on the bus after the game and started to see news reports on Twitter that the Ivy League had canceled their baseball season,” he remembered. “Then we
stopped at a restaurant for dinner and saw on TV that the NBA had ended its season. At that point, we knew our season was in danger.”
The final telltale sign was when the coach had the players practice in shorts the next day.
“I think Landon just wanted us to enjoy our last practice together before we heard the news. There were a lot of emotions on the field.”
Even more so because the Crusaders had posted a 19-5-1 overall record, were 7-2 in the conference and had been ranked No. 1 nationally in NCAA Division II for
back-to-back weeks late in the campaign.
Not surprisingly, Michael is a changed young man. He views the COVID-19 caused moratorium with a different perspective than many of his teammates.
“After what I had been through, I just put everything in the Lord’s hands. He’s got this.”
Neustifter also voiced his deep gratitude to North Greenville University, his coaches and, of course, his parents (his father, Dan, is a contractor for the Dallas
County Juvenile Development, helping troubled youth).
He still looks back on his mother’s role in his recovery.
"It was a blessing that she was on campus that weekend,” he said with his voice wavering. “She never gave up. There were countless times she would drive me to
Nashville or other towns to see doctors. I’m so incredibly grateful for her.”
Coach Powell believes it was no coincidence that Michael came to North Greenville when he did.
“I think him coming here and to our program was not by accident,” the coach offered. “It was determined from above. This is a school where faith plays a big role. It
was the perfect environment for him.
“He was really in a dark space last year, but it’s so cool to see him back to his old self. You can see that he was really enjoying baseball and life this year.”
As for his plans this spring and summer, Michael said he’ll be watching for where he’s picked in the MLB Draft—assuming it is held this year. It may have a direct bearing on whether he returns to earn his final few units for graduation and play another season for North Greenville or sign a professional contract to realize his childhood dream.
No matter what, it is easy to see that the future is extremely bright for Michael Neustifter.
Bob Rose is a longtime sports public relations executive who has worked for the San Francisco Giants, Oakland Athletics, the NFL Cardinals, Cal, Stanford and other organizations.