Having thrown out a remarkable 45 percent of attempted base stealers this season, senior catcher Chad Noble is regarded by coach Paul Stevens as one of the “best catch-and-throw guys as there is in the nation.” He was also put on the watch list for the Johnny Bench Award, given to the best backstop in the country. Adding to his skills behind the dish, Noble is hitting .356 and has recorded 69 hits in the regular season, 16 of them extra-base knocks. The Daily’s Christine Todd sat down with the Rockwall, Texas, native to learn about his food of choice in Evanston, his favorite professional sports teams and his love for Monster energy drinks.

Excerpts:

The Daily: Let’s start off with an easy one. What’s your favorite movie?

Chad Noble: Let’s go with “Out Cold.” It’s a movie that’s set in Alaska, in a small snowboard town. It’s a comedy.

Daily: How about your favorite song?

Noble: I’m going to go with “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus. I love Miley Cyrus. She gets me jacked up. It’s embarrassing, but it’s great. I don’t get super pumped. A lot of it is kind of a joke with everyone on the baseball team. I like it, but I don’t love it. I just joke around with it a lot of the time.

Daily: What’s your favorite Evanston restaurant?

Noble: I’m a big fan of Chipotle. I love Chipotle. I don’t do it every day, but I love it. I’m a pretty healthy eater, and you can eat pretty healthy there, and I like Mexican food a lot. I’m from Texas and there’s a lot of Mexican food there. That’s the closest they have up here to Mexican, I guess. And I like D&D, getting the buffalo chicken wrap there.

Daily: What has been your favorite class at Northwestern?

Noble: I actually have two. One is in my major. It was behavioral economics with Eric Schulz. Two was Swahili with Richard Lepine. I took it for two years. It was my foreign language requirement. It was a great class. It wasn’t too hard, but the teacher loved what he did and he knew so much about it. The reason I took it was … I was going to take Spanish, but I took it in high school and stopped sophomore year in high school. So I would have had to have been put in advanced placement, and I didn’t remember a thing. So I decided to take Swahili.

Daily: What’s your favorite professional football team?

Noble: The Indianapolis Colts. My mom’s from Indiana.

Daily: What about your favorite professional baseball team?Noble: Atlanta Braves. I know, I’m kind of all over the place. My mom’s from Indiana, so I’m a Colts fan. I was raised as a Braves fan because her sister lives in Atlanta. Her sister’s husband plays golf with John Smoltz and Jeff Francoeur. When Jeff Francoeur was on the Braves, they lived next to each other, so they would send me all these baseball cards. I would only have Atlanta Braves baseball cards, so I was always a Braves fan.

Daily: How about (Braves right fielder) Jason Heyward? Isn’t he amazing?

Noble: I love Jason Heyward, I love him. I’m getting (his) jersey in a week. Daily: Your walk-up music used to be a song called “Scatman” by Scatman John. You told a Daily reporter two years ago that “Scatman” was here to stay. But it’s a different song this year. What’s up with that?

Noble: I was going to keep it this year too, but we went to Stetson and there was this guy that had this plate song that I really liked. It started out with violins. It was actually a Christian rock song. I’m Christian, and I fell in love with it. Every time he went up to the plate, I would turn around and be like, “I love this song!” Literally every single time. So I ended up taking that one. It’s called “Comatose” by Skillet. I was sad to see “Scatman” go, but I loved this one so much, so I just pulled the trigger on it.

Daily: I heard about your love for Monster energy drinks in high school. Do you still like it now?

Noble: I love Monster, I have to drink Monster. Not before games anymore, though, because I can fail a drug test if I have too much caffeine before a game. So I have to drink it three or four hours before the game. I love Monster. It’s not before every game, but I like to have it on most games. It’s the best-tasting energy drink that I’ve tasted. I don’t drink coffee. I hate coffee, I can’t do coffee. I feel like I’m the only person in the world that doesn’t drink coffee. I’d rather have an energy drink. [email protected]