Go Inside the Dugout with the Coaches Box

I think the main influence for me was the game of baseball itself. Growing up, it was the one thing I wanted to do all the time. My daddy and I would get in the floor and play with baseball cards when I was really young. That turned into him pitching to me in the yard. He continued to throw bp to me all the way through me playing in college and even the year of pro ball I played. He was the one that introduced me to baseball and helped me fall in love with it. When I was little and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always say I want to play baseball for as long as I can and then I want to coach. I just have ever been able to see myself without baseball in my life. God has really worked in setting me up in my career. Things have always fallen into place it seems, and he’s had my right where I needed to be each year.  

First and foremost, I feel it is my responsibility on this earth to make sure I can introduce as many people to Jesus as I can. I have always kept large rosters for all levels of my programs (to a fault sometimes) just so that I could have the opportunity to try to lead some of them to Christ. I don’t force it down their throat, no one gets any special treatment for listening, and they all have the opportunity if they’re uncomfortable with those conversations to let me know. It is always voluntary.

On the baseball program side of things, I feel like culture, which has become a big buzz word the past few years, is extremely important. It is really hard to change it, it takes a lot of work to keep it, and it is really easy for it to slip back into old and negative habits. 

I’ll choose to be extremely honest in this article and give personal examples that won’t always sound pretty or buttoned up. Maybe there are some coaches that read this going through some of the same things I’ve had going on the past few years. When I got to Mary Persons, the culture was extremely bad. There was a lot of negativity surrounding the program that I was pretty oblivious to starting out. I spent the whole first year building relationships, working through those negative things, and we saw success. We won the school’s second region championship ever in my third year there, and our culture was incredible. We had huge expectations in 2020, we were ranked number 1 in the state when the season was cut short. We had an incredible group of seniors that upheld the culture that were leaving, and they were going to be tough to replace. 2021 and 2022 were both great years in terms of success and wins, but the culture was beginning to slip back into what it was before. I got away from my own philosophy of coaching. I became more concerned with winning no matter the cost. We would have bad practices, but we would keep winning, so all was well. We got put out the first round of the playoffs after winning 27 games in 2022, and that was a huge wake up call for me. We went back to work all summer and fall to get the culture back to where it needed to be, and even though there weren’t a lot of expectations for our team in 2023, we were able to win 22 games and get to the second round. It was a great year with the culture trending back to where it needed to be. Good and positive culture, as cliche as it sounds, is vital to successful program. We have to spend as much time working on culture as we do working on baseball stuff. A good culture will always leave a program better than it was when you took it over. Mary Persons baseball program is definitely in much better shape in 2023 than it was in 2017. 

One of the most challenging parts of being a head coach, especially starting as young as I did, is coming to the realization that it is not about you. There are so many things in coaching that we get caught up in. It’s easy when you run a program to think that you are something special. When I first got the opportunity at MP, I thought that was just the first stop. Every year there would be bigger schools calling asking if I was interested in those jobs. That made me feel like I was really something special.  The truth is that it is all about the kids. Every high school baseball job in this state is replaceable. It feels good to think that you’re a big time coach and that you’re something special, but the truth is every school can find someone else to fill your shoes when you’re done there. BUT leadership matters. That’s why we all do this job. We are leaders and we want the opportunity to lead young men. We want to make them the best they can be at baseball and in life. The challenge is to make sure it is always more about our leadership and what we can do for the players/program and not what we can get out of this job. There are a lot of things about this job that make it challenging, but it can be rewarding if we keep everything in the order it’s supposed to be.

Another main challenge has been the last seven years of travel. When I took the job at MP, we didn’t move. We stayed here in Taylor, so I have been driving 50-55 minutes each day to work. No complaints, we chose that and I loved my time there. We did a lot of great things and had a lot of fun doing it. My family would load up and make the trip to as many games as they could. My two boys are getting older though, and the past few years I have missed out on a bunch. My parents never missed any of my games, but I have already missed countless games and practices that my kids have had. That is one challenge that we are thankfully on the other side of. We are all thankful to finally be in the same system together. 

I will give this piece of advice to young successful coaches that feel they are ready for that next job. Before you take it and move, or don’t move, make sure you know what you’re going to miss out on. This job takes what it takes already, and we are thankful to do it, but make sure it is what is best for your whole family. I always said, “ I’ll never take a smaller classification job again.” I didn’t know how wrong I was. If I had known being back home together with my family would be this good, I would’ve done it a long time ago.  

If you asked me then, I would have told you no way. I felt like I had it figured out. There are a lot of things that you learn the longer you do it no matter where you are. There were some things I had to get used to. At Taylor the first time, we had a middle school team that was completely separate from my high school program. I had nothing to do with it, as that was just the norm. We barely had enough for a jv back then either. We would only play 3 or 4 games. I got to Mary Persons, and the program was 6-12. I loved that, and ran with it. When I got there, there was one middle school team, a jv team, and our varsity team. We added a second middle school team, and built up a ninth grade team to the point that last year they had an 18-20 game season all on their own. There were a lot of players in the program playing games all season. I wasn’t prepared when I got there for all of the new responsibilities, but I am thankful for them. 

Some of the very things that I said in the last question. I have already for the program set up to be 6-12. We don’t have the same number of fields and facilities that I had there, but we are going to make it work. We will all practice at the same facility each day, so there have been a lot of things to plan for and organize all summer/fall, but it is going to be a great thing for our program and for our community. If you can get enough coaches in your program, you’ve got to let your guys play as many games as they can at the sub-varsity level. 

I honestly spent the last two years really trying to humble myself and work on me. There are always going to be things to learn. I have had to be honest with myself about the things I needed to be better at, and I am thankful to have spent these few years doing this because the move back home is going to be that much better. 

Most, if not all, high school baseball coaches can teach all of the things that all teams have to know. We all teach them the coverages, calls, and signs that they need. In my opinion, toughness is the most important thing for any athlete to have. Physical and mental toughness are two of the hardest things to teach, as kids can only learn these through failure most of the time. High school baseball is full of failure. These are kids. They are going to fail a bunch, even the good ones. I like the bring the boys in before school during the fall. Some shared suffering in some workouts or challenges is good for them to get tougher for sure. If you take a player who is tough with less ability than a great player that isn’t tough, he is going to have more success in high school because of that toughness in my opinion. These types of toughness are the things that are going to last through life as well. Baseball and life are both hard, so toughness is something we need to be equipped with.  

My practices have changed a lot over the years. These days, I spend a lot of time making a plan for each day. I like to have everything mapped out before we get going. This year having 6-12th grade all at the same facility is going to be a challenge, but we are going to make it work. I want kids to fail at practice early in the year for sure. As the year goes on, I like to find ways to help develop confidence in them at practice.

Again, I spent the last few years working on myself, and I am excited to get back into a practice setting this January.

This is one of those things that I think separates coaches. There are a lot of intangibles in the relationship making part of coaching. I have always felt that I had an ability to build relationships with my guys. I like to earn their trust. I get in their business. You have to show them that you’re willing to work too and not just supervise. A good win-loss record doesn’t hurt your cause at all, but the relationship part is going to outweigh that every time.  Once you have built the relationship with them, they will want to work hard for you. When you earn their trust, they feel safe and confident that listening to you and working for you is going to work out positively for them. There are some coaches that may be extremely knowledgeable with a great plan for success, but if they lack the ability to relate to the guys, they’re going to have a hard time reaching them beyond the field. 

I have alluded to this previously in other questions, but my advice to younger coaches is to make sure to keep your family first in your decisions. Don’t let the allure of bigger and seemingly better schools and opportunities pull you away from the things that matter the most. We are replaceable. Someone can always do the “job.” They won’t do it the way you do it, but they’ll do it. Every situation that looks and sounds better is not always better once you’re in it. My family has had to sacrifice big time for the last seven years, and I am so thankful and content to be back home. I know that the experiences that we have had in these years have made us “tougher,” but it is time to give them as much time as I can. Love God first and then love others. You can never love too many people. This job will not always be fun, and there are going to be some really hard times. It will all be worth it if you keep your priorities where they need to be.