Blue-Collar Blueprint for Baseball Players

Welcome And The D1 Workload Myth

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged. I'm your host, Coach Caden Carpenter. Joining me today is Keegan Holmstrom, first baseman and pitcher for Wright State University. King, thanks for taking time to join me on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Well, you first joined the show as a high school senior. And you know, I kind of wanted to for any listener, whether it be a coach or player, for them to get an understanding of what your experience has been like from going into your freshman year of college to now. And I mean, talk about a transformation. You are you're definitely getting it done. But looking back, what is the biggest misconception you had about Division I baseball coming in as an incoming freshman compared to now?

SPEAKER_01 1:03

I would say the biggest one for me was obviously we all know, like everybody talks about like how much more work it's gonna take. And then I think for me figuring out like as the two-way, like you gotta be on top of your stuff because the moment you fall a day behind, the you're a week behind. You're there, no catching up. So I think that was the biggest thing for me learning how to handle everything from the school aspect, from the sports, from the lifting, from eating right, taking care of my body. That was the biggest thing was just staying on top of it because as soon as you fall behind, or say even like you got sick for two days or something, you feel like you're playing catch up the rest of the fall, or you feel like you're playing catch up for a month. So, yeah, it's just being as proactive about that stuff as you can. I think that's been the biggest thing. Getting ahead of

Leaving Ohio State Finding Fit

SPEAKER_01 1:48

that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Well, take me through your experience, concluding with that you had an incredible high school career, and then you you played elite travel baseball. Your career was played under Ryan Alexander, who's now working with USA baseball. And you go into your freshman year, you're committed, I believe, since you're a sophomore, to the Ohio State University, and now you're at Wright State University.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah. So yeah, played for Coach A. Obviously it was a blast. I mean, Koach A's the man. Everybody that knows Coach A says that. But then yeah, went to Ohio State for the fall. New coaching staff, my it was my third coaching staff there, actually, from who recruited me, who stayed there during my recruitment, and then when I actually got to campus. So just wasn't, wasn't, I wasn't there meant to be. Like I wasn't, I wasn't their guy, and they kind of weren't, we kind of just weren't eye to eye. And that's no fault to them, no fault to me. It just kind of was how it was, and they wanted their guys, and I can't fault them for that. So the end of the fall came around, spent that fall just throwing, so then got in the portal, and Coach Cairo, who had been the longtime PBR director in Ohio, so obviously I had a prior relationship with him. So when I got in the portal, he had reached out, wanted me to start hitting again, wanted me to be ready to do both. So yeah, then I went to Winterwright State for that spring, technically gray shirted. So wasn't a lot around the team, couldn't do team events, was really just kind of there hiding behind the scenes, kind of doing my stuff outside of practice and doing my stuff on my own. And one of my roommate now who we came in together at the same time, we were kind of on our own figuring it out. But yeah, so gray shirted there, actually got my elbow cleaned out, a little bit of impingement stuff in January of that year, so it kind of worked out, and then played a month of summer ball down in Springfield with Champion City Kings, pitched there, and then hung out the rest of the summer, then went back for the fall, hit, threw, didn't really know what my role was gonna be per se. We kind of thought I was gonna throw a lot more than I was gonna play the field, and that was kind of what I was preparing for. And then the the way college baseball is you roll with whatever's working, and so we got there that third weekend of the year and got my first start at Campbell or fourth weekend of the year, I think. But either way, first start at Campbell, and then didn't look back since then, played first base pretty much every day from that point on and had a blast. Now

Portal Reality And Teammate Competition

SPEAKER_01 4:38

we're here.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Well, the transfer portal has changed recruiting across the board. And if you could give your best advice to a current high school player who is very fortunate if they get a chance to go from high school straight to the Division I roster.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah, I just think like one, don't ever kind of blow any opportunity off because you never know where somebody's gonna end up or where somebody's gonna come around to, or who where you're gonna be two years down the road now. Like, and then as far as like the guy graduating high school that kind of maybe he doesn't end up exactly at the Power Five school, whatever, wherever he planned on going. It's a state of college baseball. You can go there for a year and you show that you belong and you're gonna get an opportunity. So I think it's never being never feeling like you're stuck somewhere now because I feel like there's so much fluidity throughout everything, throughout the process, is like you go show that you are like you can play and that type of stuff, and some bigger school per se that you want to go to is going to take a chance on you.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Well, you talk about you know, you're a competitor, and there's there's no other way around that, but talk about competing with your teammates, because you're all fighting for a starting position, but how you're doing everything you can to win that starting position versus that relationship with your your teammates.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a tough, I think it's a tough situation because like for us like as a call as a college program, like we spend all fall competing against each other, especially like pitchers and hitters just in general, like you're live at bats, like inner squads, all that stuff. And like, but I think it's being able to stay competitive with one another while at the end of the day, we're gonna go back to the apartments together and go hang out. So it's like, how can we we're gonna do what we need to do in between the lines, and whoever's gonna win the job is gonna win the job, or whoever's gonna have success is gonna have success. And then it's how can everybody else kind of put their own ego aside and kind of rally around, like, all right, how can I make sure this guy's ready to perform, right? Say I didn't win the job, or say I was the backup or I lost the job, right? Like, okay, how can I make sure the guy that did win the job is ready to do anything that he needs to be able to do here? So I think once you can put your own ego aside, like that's when a team can have real success, I believe, I believe. But as long as somebody's sitting there on the bench moping because they're not the one playing and they think they should be the one playing, then the team is never gonna, the team's never gonna flourish to where it could, just because guys can't kind of get out

Why Not Us Underdog Mindset

SPEAKER_01 7:30

of their own way.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Well, talk about Wright State in particular. They you know, they're not a power five school, but you guys aren't afraid to play anybody. And when you guys roll into some of these big power five schools, you know, you guys, you guys are a regional team, you know, you're making the the tournament at the end of the season. Talk about the mentality of a team that, you know, you're not the the the cream of the crop, you're not the the power five team.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah, yeah. Well, one, we're not scared to play anybody. You kind of, I mean, we we truly believe anywhere that we go, like wherever we go at the beginning of the year, whether we go to the SEC, the ACC, whatever it is, we truly believe like we are good and we uh we belong here. And I think that's the first part, like you have to believe it within yourself. It doesn't matter what anybody else says, or whatever the pregame story is, or whatever the storyline is. Like, if you don't believe it within yourself, then it doesn't matter. Like you're not you don't have a chance. But yeah, I mean just a bunch of blue-collar dudes that kind of we put our own head down and we have what we need and we take advantage of what we have, and we don't allow the fact like for us last year, like we opened up at Georgia and we hadn't been outside for a single day until we got down there that Thursday before and had practiced outside. But that didn't matter to us because at the end of the day, there's we're gonna play nine innings and we're gonna we gotta get 27 outs before they get 27 outs and score more runs than they do. So I think it's just being relentless and like truly believing that like why not us? Like, what what do we have? Like, what do they have that we don't have? Like we can go play with anybody, and I think a coaching staff really instills that too. It's like who cares? So what that it's gonna be 35 degrees until opening day down here, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Well, you know, you're you're a player that high school there wasn't anything you couldn't do. Then you go to Ohio State and you know you're you're facing a huge adversity, you know, and and uh you're now looking to go to right state. Talk about the adversity, how you overcame that adversity, and then when you get to right state, you don't get to be with the team in practice, and then to start the next season, you're not in the starting lineup, but talk about that not give up attitude, basically.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yeah, again, it comes from kind of believing in yourself. And I I did I love I lost that for a while at the end of that fall, my first fall, like I was down. I felt like I was down on my luck and everybody was out for me and nothing was going up. But but as soon as you kind of get over yourself and kind of move on a little bit to like, all right, here's where we're at, this is where we go. And you gotta be a little honest with yourself sometimes. And I did leave that fall, like, man, like what happened? Like, what is going on? But yeah, as soon as you kind of move on from that and you're like, all right, I'm fine, whatever, is what it is. Wasn't like that's not in my control, that's not in anyone's control here. So, like, all right, I gotta control what I can control and see what happens. And I think the the biggest thing is for that is like not creating expectations for yourself because all expectations do is put pressure on yourself. And so, like, once I was searching for a new place to play, like all I was thinking about was like, all right, well, I gotta do this, I gotta do that, I gotta do this. And I think that was one of the biggest things, one of the most important things for me with the gray shirting deal was like there was no expectation for me there. Like it was like, all right, get your body right, take care of what you need to do. Like, we're not expecting any performance level out of you. We want you to find yourself and be ready to go. So I think it did, it definitely made me stronger mentally as far as just being able to like have myself under control before I went and played in the summer. But yeah, I think you can lose yourself really fast in this game, too. There's so much failure, and like when it hits the fan, it can hit the fan fast, but you gotta be ready to pull yourself out of it because you're gonna get another opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Well, like you said, before you started the before the start of the 2026 season, you weren't in the starting lineup, and by the end of the 2026, this past college season, you know, your first team all horizon league. Talk about I guess were you expecting that?

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah, no, I wouldn't say I was expecting that, but I think that was the part of I think that was the part that helped me at the same time, too, is because I was like, I would like let's play free and let's have fun. But yeah, like the first couple weeks I was pitching and I was throwing, I was throwing the ball alright, but I was like, all right, like, and then we started seeing more opportunities come around at first base, practice, whatever it was, and then I was just ready to go. They knew we had talked about me being a coming in defensive replacement, so they knew that I could play defensively, and then it was just a question of whether I was gonna hit or not. And then kind of the balls fell where they fell, and uh I mean we had we got sick, a couple guys got sick. We got all this virus stuff down at Campbell, and then it worked out, and I was playing first, and then once I got the opportunity, I kind of never looked back.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

So well, that's uh you know, it's just a great turnaround, you know, going from the situation you started out with at Ohio State to first team all horizon league. And like you said earlier, coaching is so important in how a coach can one coach can see one thing,

Coaching That Builds Trust

SPEAKER_00 13:18

and then another coach can see something totally different. Talk about the head coach Ali Sogard and and his staff and what makes Wright State so successful.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah, yeah, it starts with Soggy. So he's the man, he family man that cares about you as a person. That was the biggest thing that stuck out to me. Meet with you once a week about anything except baseball. We'll talk about life, we'll talk about our family, we'll talk about what we're up to, what we're cooking, our favorite thing to cook, anything like that. And I think he's a good role model for everybody. Brings a family around, and the kids are his kids are always around, they're awesome. And it really just shows you like one, that there's more to this game eventually, and like as long as you like have your family and like you trust those people, and like you're gonna have success. And then the rest of the coaching staff just believes in you. And they believed in me as a person, they believed in me as a player, and they push you, and they push you to where they believe you can be. They're never really complacent with where we're at as a team. That's Sogie's biggest thing. It's like we're never we're never gonna be comfortable where we're at because we're never we've one, we've never won a College World Series, like we've never been to Omaha, we've never won a super, never been no super. Like, there's plenty of things we still have left to accomplish. But we're gonna go about our business the same way every day to get there. So I think Sogie's the man. And I'll say that, and I compare Sogie a lot to Coach A, just as far as the like knows when to be laid back, knows when to love on his guys, and knows when we need to get a little bit more out of ourselves, and then we have a little bit more to give out of ourselves.

Weekly Prep Pitch Shapes Film

SPEAKER_00 14:55

I want to get into your your mental side of your approach to baseball. Walk me through game week practice at Wright State, and what is a specific drill or training routine that translates to success in the game?

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah. So a regul a typical week this week would have, or a typical week during the season last year would have been an off day on Monday. Wherever we got back from would have been off Monday. So that would have been normally like just a lift, whatever. If I wanted to hit, I could have hit. By the end of the year, I wasn't hitting a lot on Mondays, was just hanging out a little bit, kind of letting the body kind of catch up. Midweek on Tuesday. So we'd early hit, do all our prep for whoever we were gonna face, and then play the game, obviously. Which pregame I feel like is a practice on its own. So we'd get all our stuff in, get all our work done there. And then I'd say Wednesday, we'd really turn our focus to the weekend, whoever we were gonna see. So Wednesday and Thursday, early hitting would be prepping, we'd be simulating the arms that we were gonna see, which I felt like was really helpful for me this year, just as far as like pitch shapes go and understanding pitch shapes. But yeah, then we'd have practice, do all our team defense, our indie defense. Thursday night, we would watch film. That's our film, film nights, whether we were on the road or whether we were at home, we'd watch all this all the arms, everybody that we thought we were gonna see, any tendencies or anything like that that we saw. Yeah, and then Fridays we'd go over the starter as a team, we'd go over the team as a whole, uh like how their defense, how they're how they run, and that type of stuff, and then we'd roll. So, yeah, I would say a lot of the stuff that we did in early hitting, learning about like preparing for the pitchers that we were gonna see was the most helpful part for me this year.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Talk about dunting, as far as you know, to me, it's the one of the most important things as an offensive player. Do you have a certain approach to your bunting style? And is there a way that the coaches there at Ray State want it to get done?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, we got a lot of freedom as far as if we want to like bump for hit and you'll very important. Obviously, we take our hits when we can get them, and if we can force the third baseman or the first baseman to come in, we open up more ground for ground balls to get through. We do a lot of stuff with fake steals, bump 40 bunts, 50 bunts, so bunts to second, once to third. Yeah, I would say a lot for me. I got pretty good at the push, the push to second with the lefties. Once you learn that a lefty, once he gets through, he faces third base. You just all you gotta do is basically put it right back at him. So that those were where a lot of mine came from this year. And then a couple was early in the year when there was no kind of scouting report on the air or whatever. I got this nice pull side shift. So I just took free couple free bunt singles to third base, just hit ground balls to the third baseman, basically. But yeah, there's so much data and like video in the game today. Like, what you get away with it a few times, and then they're like, all right, we gotta quit doing this. Or like you get the they'll clear out once you get to one strike and you'll do it again, then you'll never see it again. So there's definitely a balance as far as like, all right, I gotta know when I'm gonna pull this one out. Like I know it's gonna work, but I don't want to burn

The Mental Game Under Pressure

SPEAKER_01 18:28

it.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Well, hitting is uh just a constant game of adjustments. If you strike out looking in your first at-bat, how do you flush that so it doesn't affect future at-bats? And a lot of times when someone maybe strikes out looking or has a bad at-bat, it carries on to the field.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah, you almost kind of kind of gotta be a little bit of a psycho, a little bit like, all right, like I just punched out, but uh, all right, I saw those. Like, are you guys you gotta like almost trick yourself a little bit? That's kind of how I go about it. It's like, all right, I saw those. We're good. That's not uh that's all right. Like, whatever. Like, I'm good. I'll just give me that again. Like, throw that again. You kind of almost gotta trick yourself out a little bit because you can. You can think about it and you can take it with you. And once you take it with you to defense, you're gonna get three crown balls hammered at you, and you're gonna boot all three of them. It's just how the game is. But yeah, I think you like because it's it can happen so fast, and you can look you can feel like you've lost it so fast. We played at Dayton at Day Air this year. I went RBI single in my first F-bat, and I was like, all right, yeah, we're rolling. It was it was packed, it was jumping, like it was cool. Then I go three punches my next three at-bats. I'm like, oh no, all right, we can lose this. Here we go. But so then it's the next couple days of prep. It's like, all right, I gotta completely forget about what happened there. Like, all right, we gotta completely eliminate them. And it's way easier said than done. But once you get to that point of like the like almost kind of like a who cares kind of feel is like, ah, whatever, like who cares? Once out three times, but who cares? Another day's gonna come, another bat's gonna come, but the worst thing you can do is take it with you.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

100%. Let me ask you this throwing and pitching right now. There's a lot of guys at the college level that just bring a lot of velocity. What would you rather face? A high velocity guy, you know, 93, 95, or a guy with great hawk that could not or you know, changes speeds.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Oh, I'd rather face the velocity guy. It's easier when you just gotta be on time for one thing. When you just gotta go get the one timing window, like you gotta, it's way easier than when you're stuck playing with when you're stuck in between timing windows. We talk, we say that's the the worst place we can be is having a guy that's gonna say he's gotta throw fastball change ups into like a big looping 12-6 curveball. Like you got three different timing windows, and the worst case scenario is worst thing you can do is try and like guess or be in the middle of all of them and you hit none of them. So yeah, I think it's way easier to time up the bullet per se than sit there and try and get stuck in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Well, you're a rare college player, you know. You you pitch also there at right state to go with your your time playing first base. What would if what would be the scouting report from another coach on on how you pitch?

SPEAKER_01 21:38

On how I pitch.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Well they what are they telling their their their team to the point of view?

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Well, shoot, this year for a while it was hunting anything over the middle because I was doing that for a while. But no, normally I would say it would be to try and see see everything that I throw up, would be the idea with the change up uh Gonna fade and the sinker that's gonna play down. Like for me, like it. I have success when I'm getting chased down. Like if I'm throwing stuff below the zone, just below the zone, like, and that's where I'm getting my swing and miss from. That's when I know that I'm gonna have success. When they're leaving that stuff forcing me up a little bit, that's when I can kind of have a tendency to get hit around a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Let's talk mindset. Baseball humbles the best players, and you you've clearly said that. How do you shift your mindset from playing not to lose to playing to win?

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yeah. Well, I think I think we even had this problem a little bit this year, just because there's so much expectation around us every year. All right, we're gonna win the harassment, all right, we're gonna go to the conference tournament, all right, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. And you start pressing, you get tense, everything like everybody kind of gets a little like, oh no, like here we go. And as soon as you kind of tense up, that's when you start losing sight of like what's really important because you're like, all right, how can we not give up a run here? All right, how can we how can we make sure that we don't do the wrong thing? And you end up playing so tense that you kind of lose sight of the big picture. And again, I think it's the expectation deal. Like, if you create all these expectations for yourself in your head, then you're automatically gonna feel like the pressure of not succeeding. And as soon as it starts to creep into your mind, it kind of takes over it. So for me, like for the first 75% of the year, I was really good about it. And it's like, all right, whatever, who cares? Whatever happens, happens. We're gonna keep going, we're gonna keep swinging part of it. And then I think for the last 25%, like I was like, oh, okay, I gotta, I I have to get something done here. Like I have to do this, and that's when it kind of that's when you kind of lose sight of it a little bit, that's when it goes downhill.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Now are you someone who reads books on mental toughness or maybe listen to podcasts, or what what would what do you do to kind of get yourself ready, you know, like this time of year? Is that do you spend time doing stuff like that?

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Uh occasionally, yeah. I've tried to get more into reading. I think it's very important to kill it. It's kind of been a little bit lost as as my generation has gone older. But yeah, I think reading the podcast game is huge. Now there's I mean, you can find a podcast on anything you want to listen to. And anything that you feed your brain is what becomes established. I mean, you can there's so much information out there, there's so many different outlets and media types to get your information from. And it's all what you're feeding yourself. Like it's it's the same thing as what you eat for lunch. There's a lot of rat poison, is what Soy says. We call it rat poison anything that like seems great on the outside, and then once you figure it out and once you really understand like what it is, it's not as good. But yeah, it's all about what you yeah. So I'd I would say I've definitely tried to put more focus on reading, kind of slow, and I think it helps to slow myself down too. You can do like all the all the new school, like watch YouTube videos and stuff, but I think the reading is the important one that kind of slows you down and really like makes you focus.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

All right, I'm gonna put you in a game situation. Runner on second and third with two outs, it's late in the game, and you're down by one. What's your approach at the plate? And what is your self-talk walking up to the plate?

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah, um, all right, so second and third. You said two outs, down by one. Okay. Well, for me, my approach isn't gonna change because at the end of the day, I gotta hit a ball as hard as I can. Like, there's no like sack situation, there's none of that. So for me, my approach all year was hit a ball as hard as I can at the shortstop's ankles, help me kind of stay down through the baseball. So that would be my approach. I'd probably be hunting for I'd probably be hunting like fastball, middle of the way, depending on who the pitcher was and any tendencies there. Like if he was 75% heater or something or 75% breaking ball, I priced it on that early. But yeah, though, I mean the mindset walking up to the play is just that I'm the baddest. Like, I like there's no like I am getting a knock here. I am going to hammer a baseball and I'm gonna win. Because as soon as you let anything else on your mind, you it all falls apart. So that was a big thing that I learned this year too. And Garrick Englin, who was our infield coach and did a lot of our mindset stuff from this past year, he kind of instilled that in us. Like, you have to be fortified in your own thoughts to have a chance in the game, right? Because at the end of the day, the pitcher on the other half is gonna be doing the exact same thing. Right. And if you're not up there talking to yourself and you're not up there believing in yourself, then you have no chance.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Do you do breath work as far as you know, either between pitches or prior to walking up to the plate?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Yeah, I'll do a lot of breath work, and I I train a lot of that stuff this summer and like this time of year, just slowing myself down, trying to slow my heart rate down. I'll play trying heart rate control myself, just see how slow, how fast I can slow myself down. Because at the end of the day, like the game can speed up again. Like you boot that ball in the sixth, and you're gonna get another ground ball three pitches later. Like, if you're still focused on the one, you're still freaking out about that one, you're gonna do the same thing. And then you're gonna you're gonna be in high pressure situations. Like, you're gonna be playing defense in the ninth in the third game at Georgia, and it's your first time out of first base all year. And if you're going all crazy, you're gonna get the first routine ground ball to you, and you're gonna boot it. So, yeah, it's just about being under control. And I think it starts there. Starts with your breath, starts with your heart rate. How well can you control your heart rate and slow yourself down?

SPEAKER_00 28:07

What has baseball taught you?

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Everything. I don't my I I don't know what I would do without baseball. But I think baseball's taught me that one, I think like nobody, like nobody knows your limits. Nobody like your limits are as high as you want them to be or as low as you want to be. I mean, you can control that, and only you can kind of find that. And just that you can you can be whoever you want to be. As soon as you kind of let something creep into your mind or let a thought creep into your mind that you're not worth it, or you're not, you're not as good as you think you are, then that's when you start to shut yourself down. But as long as you keep believing, you can keep going, going.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Hate losing or love winning?

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Oh, love winning. I I hate losing too, but eventually once you become you can't. I'm always like a glass half full instead of a glass half empty. Like we're uh I I live on the hill of like win at

Team Culture And What Players Need

SPEAKER_01 29:08

all costs instead of like be scared to lose.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Share a funny or memorable dugout bullpen on the road that best describes your team's personality.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Man, we just mean the bus rides get a little crazy sometimes for good and for bad. But I would say, yeah, we definitely had some crazy like mafia games on the bus that were just like turned a little haywire, and they got and there was a couple guys that had gotten into it, and I think that's part of it. But I think that's like that again goes back to like the competitiveness and every competitiveness and everybody. Like it's 11 o'clock, and we're on the way back from wherever we were on the way back from playing mafia. And it's like, all right, like here we go. These dudes are about to get into this. But yeah, it's funny and it's fun, and that comes from I think like believe and like having a ton of trust in your end teammates, too. Like, if you don't know the guy that you're about to get into it with at mafia, it might get a little awkward. But as long as we know everybody, like as long as you trust that guy and like you trust everybody like we did, then whatever. You're gonna get into it and it's all fun and you're gonna move on from it. So I would say those are the pretty good ones.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Final question for you. For every coach that's listening to the podcast. What starting, you know, early in your career as a high school player to now, what do you want from a coach?

SPEAKER_01 30:45

I would say a coach that's gonna find out and really understand me on a personal level. I think there's obviously the game is so important and we care so much about the game, but at the end of the day, there's so much more to an athlete's life, like to a person's life that I think can go kind of un unnoticed at times. And I I mean, we're all like guys, and we're we all gotten really good at like masking like anything else, on like anything, all the personal stuff, especially like we always talk about leaving it at the pillars, and there's one day a week where we're not allowed where we're not allowed to leave it at the pillars, which that's the day that we talk to Sogie, and we have like our one-on-ones. And and yeah, I think it's just caring about the athlete as a whole. And I know that obviously at the end of the day, we all want to win and we compete, and that's what we do, that's why we do what we do. But at the end of the day, I think like for myself as an athlete, I'm gonna be willing to compete and be willing to like find my limits more for a coach that really like cares about me as a person.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

If I could, I I said last question. I want I want to throw one more based on what you just said right there. You're not in the starting lineup at the beginning of the season, and you're having that discussion with with the coach. What how is that coach communicating to you knowing that hey, you're you're not you're not a starter in my mind right now. What is he what is he telling you?

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Yeah, well, again, it goes back to the I think the reason that we all like love Soggy so much is he's honest with you. Whether it's what you want to hear, whether it's what you need to hear, he's gonna shoot you straight. And that meeting before opening day was like, hey, you're gonna pitch, we kind of we like you defensively a lot, like we think you're gonna play defensively, and we don't know where you can hit, or we don't know like how well you can hit, we don't know that you can hit yet. And I was like, All right, yeah, I agree. Like, I'm on that, that's where we're at, we're on the same page. And he's like, But at the end of the day, like you go show me that you can play and you show me that you can get the job done and you're gonna play. He's like, We're all here to win, and we're here to do a job. And he's like, So you're not we're not there yet. And he's like, But that's not to say that we won't be there by the time opening day rolls around, or by the time the second week rolls around, whatever that was. So I think he's a good he's a really good motivator, just as far as like he's never gonna shut you down and he's never gonna turn you down, but at the same time, he's gonna push you a little bit and like he's gonna kind of get at you a little bit and he's gonna force a little bit out of you that you kind of didn't know you had

Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 33:25

until you till you have that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Well, it's Kegan Holmstrom, first baseman and pitcher for Wright State University. Kiggs, thanks for taking the time to join me here on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.