CALUMET – Cody Thiessen has a coaching philosophy that may seem harsh on the outside at first, but if you follow Calumet High School’s baseball team long enough, you’ll see it’s a proven winner.

“There’s a method to the madness. It’s always funny when people come to me and say, ‘Hey, man, you just seem to be doing a really good job of being calm these last few games.’ Well, that's because I kind of have an idea of what I’m doing.

“It’s not my first rodeo, but it’s (coaching style) a little different. I kind of have an old-school way of coaching that’s not used much these days,” said Thiessen.

His style may see him early in a season yelling at players, even his own two sons, Konnor and Kaleb, for mistakes made both in the field and at the plate. Not that he’s mad at any player, deep down inside, it’s just his way of making teenagers open up their eyes and think fundamental baseball.

“If you can be in the right place with the right people, that will let you do what you know how to do, it tends to work out,” said Thiessen.

It worked his entire career with two trips to the state finals at Binger-Oney (2013/2014), one at Lookeba-Sickles (2016) and now five at Calumet. He’s won four state titles, two as an assistant, with the latest being the 2025 Class B Fall State Championship with the Chieftains.

Winning never gets old.

“It’s really sunk in over the last couple of days, with everything that goes on after you win it. The ring people start texting you and email you and then everybody starts talking about T-shirt sales and fundraising. It’s all that good stuff. 

“And then somebody asked me, when are you going to the Capitol? I thought, you know, that’s another thing you get to do,” said Thiessen.

All from a tough love style of coaching that Thiessen says backs off by season’s end.

“There’s a time to coach and there’s a time to back off and let them (players) use the coaching that they’ve had and see what they can do for themselves and can’t do for themselves,” said Thiessen.

It showed in the state tourney as Calumet outscored its opponents 25-6 off a .367 team batting average. The Chieftains had at least one run from nine different players, led by Kaleb Thiessen with seven, Wyatt Cox and Talon Arnold with four each and Kingston Arnold with three.

Kaleb Thiessen (.538) closed state with seven base hits, followed by the Arnold brothers with six each off .500 or better averages. Cox added four hits from his .500 average.

Even in the few times the Chieftains trailed, there never seemed to be a sense of panic among players or coaches. A battled-tested team from a staggering regular-season schedule.

Calumet went 22-8, with 20 of those games coming against ranked opponents including a two-run loss to eventual Class A state champion Okarche. The Chieftains closed the season on an eight-game win streak and were victorious in 13 of their final 14 outings.

The lone loss in that stretch was to Class 2A’s third-ranked Silo, a state semifinalist.

“I think I attribute a lot of that to the schedule that we played. The games that we got beat were against very high quality teams and in those games we just didn’t have something go our way.

“I was pretty tough on the guys because we kind of had some letdown moments, or maybe just some moments that we just didn’t really fight back,” said Thiessen.

When the Chieftains needed to be rock solid in the comeback against defending state champion Fort Cobb-Broxton in the title game, Calumet leaned on those experiences.

The team turned two double plays for state against the Mustangs, while throwing out a runner at third and another at first base off a bunt - each play halting FCB scoring threats.

“We had a lot of leadership and a lot of the guys on the bench talking to each other, keeping each other up. Like I said, I'm a big proponent of being hard on those guys early in the season, especially the young ones, and then when you get to the playoffs, back off and let them play,” said Thiessen.

Play they did as the defense logged 58 put-outs en route to a .976 fielding percentage against just two errors.

Pitchers combined to strike out 18 batters versus eight walks en route to a 1.05 earned run average.

“We had drilled it into their head and now we had to let them go to work. Whenever you get to the playoffs, the attention spans get tighter and the kids are more focused and I feel that’s what we did,” said Thiessen.