From The Brink Of Extinction To The CWS - WVU Baseball

Series Finale And Big Stakes

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Today on Baseball Coaches Unplugged, part four of a four-part series of how champions are built. They got the best post-game tradition in all of college baseball. Take me home country roads. My guest is the architect that has turned WVU into a college baseball powerhouse. Even though he's retired, you can find him at every game because his son Weston is playing for the Mountaineers, a team that's making its first appearance in the College World Series. Randy Maisie and his wife Amanda next on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for high school travel and college baseball coaches to want to build better players and stronger programs. Each episode features real conversations about high school baseball coaching, travel baseball development, college recruiting player development, practice planning 15 and 50 development. This podcast showcases the best coaches from across the country with your host, 27-year high school, Coach Ken Carpenter.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged. I'm your host, Coach Ken Carpenter, and Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast that helps equip you, the listener, with strategies to help elevate your coaching. You'll gain practical insights from the best coaches across the country that you can implement with your team today. I was fortunate enough to get Randy Mazey, the head baseball coach at WVU, right after retiring and being knocked out of the regionals against the University of North Carolina. I also wanted to do something a little different. Every uh coach that's out there has a spouse that is in the background and they're the most supportive person that that coach has. And I thought, why not ask Coach Maisie if he would get his wife Amanda to join us? He agreed to do that, and she was all in. They share their journey of nearly 40 years of coaching college baseball. They tell an incredible story about their son Wham, who suffered a near fatal injury on the baseball field and he just now committed to West Virginia University to play. I hope you enjoy this. And if you're a subscriber and you've listened to all of these shows up to this point, I would recommend listening to it again. And if you're new to the show, give it a listen because Coach Maisie and his wife are really good people, and they're what's right about the game of baseball.

Sponsor Thanks And Program Mission

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Before we start, I have to thank Will Minor and his team at the Netting Professionals. They do a great job, and they are the go-to company when you're looking to improve your field and your facilities for baseball and softball. The netting professionals, improving programs one facility at a time. The netting professionals specialize in the design, fabrication, and installation of custom netting for baseball and softball, including backstops, batting cages, BP turtles, screens, ball carts, and more. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches, and cubbies. The netting pros also work with football, soccer, lacrosse, and golf courses. Netting professionals continue to provide quality products and services to many recreational, high school, college, and professional fields and facilities throughout the country. Contact them today at 844-620-2707 or visit them online at www.nettingpros.com. Check out Netting Pros on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. On today's show, you'll hear from Coach Randy Maisie, recently retired WVU head baseball coach, discussing what it took to turn around a baseball program that was on the verge of extinction. You also hear how important a supportive spouse is as we are joined by his wife Amanda. And finally, you'll have to wait till the end to see how a tragic on-field baseball accident to their son is now benefiting families who need the help

Retirement Life And Real Balance

SPEAKER_02 4:52

the most.

SPEAKER_04 4:52

Yeah, you know, you actually gave me the option to have Amanda here with me, or not, and I chose to have her with me. So uh good for both of them.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

He does love me. Great skin.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Well, you know, I when I first did this, I thought I've never had a coach with his wife on the podcast. And, you know, I my wife was almost like an assistant coach when I came home at night. So I thought with Amanda, with your sports background, I thought this is the perfect opportunity to get the two of you guys on.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, it is we've always had this unique relationship because he's always been the coach. I'm the TV sports reporter. So it's uh kind of a cliche that I'm the sports reporter that married the coach. But yeah, that's kind of like always been our unique little connection. And I've always loved sports long before him. So it's it's been fun. It's been it's a unique relationship and partnership. So I've really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

You said it's almost like having an assistant coach at home. She actually has been writing my lineups for the last 20 years. I don't know if people realize that.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

There you go. No, no.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

Now you know she gets all the credit for the wins, and I take all the blame for the losses.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Well, it it's been, I think, a little bit over a month now, and you know, I I gotta ask, how's retirement treating the both of you?

SPEAKER_04 6:21

What, Ken? I I've never realized uh that you could live life stress-free for the most part. You know, it's been 35 years of coaching, and every day you wake up, you're just trying to compete and trying to find a way to be better than your opponent. And uh you don't realize what kind of lifestyle that is until you get out of it. And now the biggest stress in my life is uh, you know, are we gonna get enough rain for my tomatoes down in the garden, you know? And I wake up in the morning and there's us there's a little bit of a sense of freedom, you know. Uh it's early, of course, it's only been a month. And uh if you're gonna miss part of the season hasn't come, the recruiting in the summertime is probably the part you want to miss. So it's going really well so far. We'll see how it goes when the season starts, and the games cut along. And I'm not with the players every day and the staff every day in the office. All the stuff that I really enjoyed hasn't come around yet. Uh so it was so far so good.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

How would you rate his retirement uh starting off?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

You know what? It's actually been pretty nice to have him home and doing things because I'm typically the one that kind of runs the show at home. So I'm I'm the one doing the gardening and I'm doing all of this. So it has been nice. I will say he loves to cook. I hate to cook, hate it, hate it, hate it. So he's in the kitchen cooking, but he doesn't make it easy. Like if it's gonna, if it's a recipe that calls for broth, he's gonna make the broth homemade. So like everything is organic and from the beginning. So I've been telling our friends it's like having a toddler in the kitchen, there's just stuff everywhere and it's a mess. And you're like, okay, this is great, but you're like, oh, this mess. But he's he's enjoyed himself. Um, it's nice to have him not stressed, honestly. So it's it again, like he said, it's only been a month. Talk to me next month. I might be ready to kill him.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

There you go.

Coaching Legacy Built On Relationships

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Well, now that you've had some time to reflect on your career, what has it meant to you for 40 years to have such a huge effect on young baseball players' lives?

SPEAKER_04 8:41

You know, that's the the relationships to me were always the best part. You know, I I was never that guy that when I died, I didn't want it to say on my tombstone how many games I won. You know, I literally could care less about that. And I know a lot of people are that way, but I'm not. Uh, when I retired, I just wanted to have a a network of friends and and coaches that I have relationships with. And you know, just yesterday I was sitting out on the back porch with a drink in my hand, and uh called Dan Finzgerald from Kansas and Pete Hughes from Kansas State, friends of mine that I've built in this profession uh that I can still be friends with. And uh I will leave with that, with great relationships with a lot of people. And in the big scheme of things, like you said, I could care less what my record was, but the relationships with the former players and and uh the coaches, I got a text from a former player literally right before we started this podcast. Uh, his son was born this morning, and he sent me a text, uh, give me his name and his birth weight and all that. And it's just stuff like that that when I reflect back, that I'm I'm proud of what I accomplished off the field way more than on the field.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

That's the that's the secret to coaching, in my opinion, because you everybody I get on this podcast, all the coaches seem to get it, and they talk about the importance of the relationships they have with their players and their assistant coaches and everybody associated with the program. And, you know, Amanda, you've been along for this ride. What has it meant to you to be every step of the way?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

It's been a blessing to see the guys kind of grow up before our eyes. I mean, when he and I first got together, we're about 10 years apart, so I wasn't much older than some of these players and to watch them go from college to the real world and become fathers and dads. Um that's been really rewarding too. So you kind of have like this vested interest in their life beyond baseball. And it's just been really incredible to be a part of a lot of those kids' journeys through baseball, through adulthood, and to see where they are now. And and they come back and we always tell them our house is always open. You're welcome back anytime. If you need us for anything, we're there for you. So we just have like this network of kind of like children out there all across the country, which is pretty special.

Turning WVU Into A Powerhouse

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Well, WVU baseball has changed forever under your leadership, coach. Um talk about I I grew up in Eastern Ohio and right across the river from Wheeling, and I know how the the fan base can be in in West Virginia, they're really passionate, but talk about how the whole state fell in love with your program, and the other side of it is why should a college baseball player out there consider West Virginia as a place to play?

SPEAKER_04 11:53

Yeah, you know, that's there's a there's a real sense of pride too when when I retired that uh the difference in the program now compared to 12 years ago. I I feel like the entire state right now has a program they can be proud of. And most coaches don't get to retire uh when they when they feel that way, you know. It's uh uh a lot of times, I mean, the the amount of retirements that are voluntary in our profession is way less than the forced ones, as we know. But it's it's pretty cool to retire when when you feel like you can be really, really proud of something. And you know, West Virginia is a unique place. I know you know that. And you know, we played at North Carolina in the super regional. In the state of North Carolina, there are 19 or 20 Division I baseball schools. So in the state of North Carolina, all the fans, their loyalties are divided among those schools. Everybody, I mean, Duke, Cavansi State, and Wake Forest all have their own followings of fans. But in our state, as you know, there's only two Division I schools, us and Marshall. And pretty safe to say that we probably have 90% of the fan base uh in the state of West Virginia supporting the mountaineers. So this really means a lot to a lot of people uh that this program is in a place right now that that everybody can be proud of. So that gives me a sense of pride in in retirement. I want to travel the state and stay connected with people, and and I feel like uh, you know, when I go speak at events, regardless of what event I'm speaking at, I always wear my uniform that says Mountaineers across the chest. And uh I do that because that uniform in itself, because of our state, uh makes people listen to what you have to say, you know, and and we've done some great things here. I'm not naive enough to ever think that I did it by myself. Uh, this one beside me had a lot to do with it. My staff, the players, the fans, the administration. It's it's a collaborative effort to get this program where it's at today, but uh really, really proud when I uh did announce my retirement that we left this bad boy in a pretty good place.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Yep, without a

How A Coach’s Spouse Handles Fans

SPEAKER_02 14:27

doubt. Well, you know, the the unique thing about this podcast is having you know the the wife of a coach on. I have had a ton of coaches on, but I've never had a wife. And you know, I I talked to a coaching friend of mine, they made it to the state championship and played a great game, lost by one run. Parents were just very vocal, and knowing that the wife was right there in the middle of all of it, and she was having to hear a lot of this, what would be the best advice that if a coach is listening to this, he could share with his wife when she's having to attend games?

SPEAKER_01 15:09

You know, it's pretty unique because I've had to sit in situations when we're at home. Obviously, most people know that I'm his wife. And and like you said, Mountaineer fans are passionate. And there have been times where they've been yelling at him, and I just know that's part of the territory. You know, if if fans want to criticize him because he sent a runner from third or called a bad pitch, like that's part of it, and I understand that. The thing that I never liked was if they got personal about him or me or us or our children. But even then, I just sort of like let it roll off my back. It kind of had to be like a duck with the water, it just has to kind of like ripple off because you can't engage as much as you want to. It just makes it worse. And I also stay off social media because people love you when they're winning and they hate you when they're losing. And even when you're winning, there are going to be people out there that if you win by 20 runs, why didn't you win by 21? I mean, there were always gonna be detractors, no matter what you're doing. So I just made it a real point to just not engage. And it's hard. I mean, sometimes it's hard because you want to turn around, especially at an away venue, right? Like that's where it's really bad because they're yelling and this and that. And yeah, it's just you just have to have really thick skin and and not let them know who you are. Like I never wanted people to know who I was because then they tend to like turn it up and not, oh, that's the coach's wife. Like, let's really dig in and see if we can get a reaction. No reaction is the best, but it's hard. I mean, this is being a coach's wife at any level, it's not for the faint of heart. You have to have thick skin and you have to be tough and just man, don't don't wear your emotions, you know, and just wait till you're back to the hotel in the car and then you can MF them all in one. Just don't do it to their face. Don't let them

Parenting In The Dugout And Recruiting

SPEAKER_01 17:06

know.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Of all the recruits, coach, that you've recruited throughout the years, there's got to be one I think that stands out among all of them. And your son, you know, is uh West and his uh he's now committed to go to West Virginia University. And um talk about I I know how my experience was with my son being in the dugout, both as a player and as a bad boy when he was younger. Talk about that experience of having your son in the dugout with you throughout these years.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

The fact that he has been in the dugout uh keeps me from having to teach him baseball, you know, first and foremost, because he's around it every day and he watches JJ Weatherholt take ground balls and uh he watches guys like Darius Hill hit. And uh kids are pretty sharp, you know. They they pick up things from the kids around them. So for the first uh 12, 13 years of his life, I literally didn't teach him baseball. I just wanted to let him go have fun and play. He's emulating people's stances and how they field ground balls, and uh fortunately he's around a lot of good players. So and and he's developed a pretty good feel for the game. So now when he's in a dugout with me at his age, he'll actually we'll actually talk about the game and situations, and he'll give me his input. He actually, we were at a regional last year, and there was a play at home plate uh in the regional, and uh we were on defense, and the umpire called the guy safe, and and he told me, he said, Dad, that the guy never touched home plate. He slid into the catcher's foot, you need to replay that. Uh call for a replay. So we called for a replay, and the call got overturned because he pays such close attention to the game, and I think that's uh that really helps him as a player too, because uh physically, like most kids who are juniors in high school, he's undersized and under strength. Uh and but he's got a pretty good feel for the game, so uh the other stuff will come. But I I never wanted to be without him in the dugout. I always wanted to coach him at West Virginia, but I didn't want him to be coached by me. Uh I thought that would have been too much pressure on him. I didn't want him after the game to go back to the apartment with the flaggers. You you know, as a coach, when you write the lineup, there's only nine guys on a team that are happy with you. When you write the lineup, the rest of them would rather push you off of the side of a cliff because they're not in the lineup. So they get back to the apartment, they're gonna tell all their buddies what a uh what a jerk you are. And I just didn't want him to be around that and have to hear that. So I trust the coaches that are here uh to coach him, that they're gonna develop him and teach him. And uh uh unselfishly, you know, I I did not want to put that pressure on him to be coached by me.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

With your son uh being a college recruit commit to a Division I school as parents, how uh how much do you really um emphasize being prepared so when they first walk on when he first walks onto campus, he doesn't get hit with the oh my god, you know, the the the weight room or whatever it is that that really opens up the eyes of uh you know a freshman baseball player, regardless of how good they are.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

Yeah, you know, he's in a unique situation that he has practiced with us in the past and he lifts with our team. So he's not gonna get uh steamrolled with you uh what happened your freshman year because he's he's been through it. But it's a it's a real thing for a kid now. You know, we've started a program called Summer Bridge, where the incoming freshmen come to summer school and take one class and uh start lifting and practicing. So when that first semester starts and all 30,000 students come steamrolling into uh Morgantown at one time, they don't our guys don't get overwhelmed. They've already been here for a month and have made the transition. But life as a freshman baseball player has changed here the last two years, too, because of the portal. Uh, you know, now uh just like him, my son's a rising sea here in high school. He's an infielder. So I think he's gonna be a good player. I don't know that, but he could come here as a freshman and they could have signed two shortstops on the portal. Same year he gets here. So it's changed a lot. The high school kid that was committing to schools early on has changed. The landscape has changed. I have a lot of parents of kids my age that are kind of panicking right now that we don't have a place. You know, we're uh the last three years, you know, you've seen freshmen and sophomores at high school committing to schools, and they changed the rules, you can't do that anymore. And now with the portal, not as many high school kids are seeing the same opportunities as they had in the past four or five years. And my message to them is just don't panic. If if you're a good player, uh you'll find a good place. And uh well the the dynamic is definitely different than it used to be.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Well, I I heard an interview, I believe it was with Nick Saban as he was coming toward his retirement, and his wife played a role with the incoming freshmen. You know, they would have him over to their house and things like that. As a the wife of the coach, have you did you have a similar style? And I believe when he said he talked to his wife about this, his wife would connect with not only the players, but the the parents that would come to of those incoming freshmen. And she said that it's now all they were talking about was NIL money, and he was, you know, Coach Saban can be being a former mountaineer himself as far as growing up in West Virginia. What would did you play any role like that with with uh players throughout the years? So coming by, possibly to your point.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah, so my role in all of that was we we we would always have recruiting dinners at our house and eat the parents. Um we always wanted to make it a homey environment. When we got to West Virginia, we build a house and we built this house. It wasn't just for our family, but it was for the baseball family as well. So we build our kitchen. It's like a nice big kitchen. And so when we have meals catered and we have the team over or we have recruiting dinners, it would it flows. So when we built this house, we wanted to make sure that we had the families over because you can get to know them better in your own home as opposed to going to a restaurant and you're sitting, you know, tables and you don't really have a chance to interact with people. So we've always made it a family atmosphere here at West Virginia. And I, you know, we get to know the parents then, you know, and and they would ask me some questions, but they were more interested in the baseball side. But I always let it be known that if your kid needs anything, if you guys need anything, let us know. If you need, you know, the the mom to come in and do some things. We've had some players who have had, you know, some life situations while they were here. And I never wanted to like overstep my boundary because to me, I'm like, well, I am just the wife, like I'm not a part of the staff or anything, but I always let it be known that if you if you need a mama, I'm here for you. So I always just kind of put the ball in there for it.

Teaching Life Skills Over Baseball Skills

SPEAKER_02 25:05

And that seems like the consensus because from the my research, a lot of the pay players talk about you coaches, you know, you're you're not just a baseball coach, but you know, in some ways, a father figure.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

Yeah, you know, I've always taken pride in the fact that you know, we do a really good job of teaching guys the baseball skills that they need to be successful, you know, how to steal second base or hit a curveball or field a backhand. But those skills, as you know, only last you for a couple years. Uh very few people ever get to play this game beyond their 25th birthday. So spend all this time teaching them stuff they won't use that much the rest of their life. So uh I've taken a lot of pride in trying to teach them the skills that they will use the rest of their life. You know, how to be a good uh husband and father and teammate and co-worker and all that stuff. So we we really would uh uh make a conscious effort to go out of our way to teach those skills. And when they're done playing, uh that's the part that they appreciate the most. Uh the fact that uh we taught them how to be tough and and overcome adversity, and because everybody faces it, you know. So we would have uh meetings every uh every week in our theater and wouldn't talk baseball at all. We would just talk life skills and and uh trying to get guys in a good place mentally and prepare for the rest of their lives.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Is that possibly what separates the really good successful coaches from those who are um you know that either don't make it as a a college coach or or struggle? And you know, if you if you remove the talented players from the the equation, is that like the key you think for high school and college coaches to to be able to get them to under to buy into to what you're saying as far as the the family atmosphere? Yeah, it's kind of a weird uh uh if you think about it.

SPEAKER_04 27:14

What I deem as a successful coach is way different than what uh uh most people not in this profession deem as a successful coach. You know, the fans out there and people not in this profession, they judge you on how many games you win. It's just what they do. And to me, a successful coach is one who does establish relationships with kids and teaches them life skills and ends up attending their weddings and and getting to know their families. Uh if you're inside the profession, that's what that's what you feel is success. It's not the wins and losses. There are there are some that judge themselves of how many games they win because I don't know. You know, it's the nature of the business. I'm just not one of those guys. And I I never wanted to be. Uh it's if you can find a way to combine what I deem as a successful coach and what the fans deem as a successful coach, then you've got the perfect storm. And that's that's kind of how we ended here in the last couple of years at West Virginia. We won a regional this year, played in the super. Last year we won the Big 12. So all the people uh around the state of West Virginia uh deem me as a successful coach based on that. But I've I feel like I've been successful based on the relationships that I've been.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

I've always told Ann Kidden, or I've always told everybody that baseball is what he does, it's not who he is. And there's a difference with that. A lot of coaches, baseball is what they do and it's who they are. You go to their house, they're watching Major League Baseball. It's baseball all the time, and they have no hobbies outside of it. So, and I couldn't, honestly, I couldn't be married to somebody like that. So I've I've always said he has that nice balance.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

So, what are the hobbies that you guys do outside of uh for for your family outside of baseball?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Hobbies would be vacuuming and loading the dishwasher and laundry, so there's a lot of new hobbies on the horizon.

SPEAKER_04 29:21

I tried and do all that stuff once and screw it up on purpose.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

That's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_04 29:28

No, we're we're huge outdoor people. So that's why we love West Virginia. It's the world's largest outdoor playground. We like to hike and camp and fish and and do stuff like that. Believe it or not, I've been spending a lot of time in my garden. It's so peaceful down there. Nobody yells at me when I'm down in there. I can spin my cabbage at my own pace. I I do like to do some woodworking stuff uh and get away from it. It's kind of weird though that I had a lot of hobbies before I met her and before we had kids. But when you have kids in my profession, you miss so much of what they do that I would feel guilty going and doing one of my hobbies and even taking more time away from my family. So for the last 15 years or so, uh, the woodworking has been put to the side and the hunting and fishing has put to the side. Once the kids get out of the house, we'll see how I feel. But it's kind of weird in retirement. I didn't know I was going to feel this way, but I retired, and as soon as I retired, all my buddies would call me and say, okay, let's let's go here, let's go there, let's go elk hunting, let's go trout fishing, let's do this, let's do that. And I'm like, well, I retired to spend more time with my family. I immediately started feeling guilty of it. Well, I'm gonna spend less time with my family in retirement, so I haven't figured that part out of it yet, but uh I'm still working on it. But I'll I'm gonna pick the hobbies back up, I think, and and keep myself busy. You know, we started, we talked about it before we got on the air, we started our own podcast. Uh, Matt and I did called Maisie Days, and we've enjoyed the heck out of that. You as a professional podcaster know that there's a lot that goes into it, but I want to stay connected with the people of West Virginia and the program. Uh, feel like uh we've kind of ingrained ourselves in this community and this faith, and I by no means want that to go away. Uh, it was really nice that in my last year of coaching, we had a good year, and that helps. Uh so yeah, I want to get out there and be visible and and still meet people and get to know the the people of West Virginia, and that's that's kind of what we're passionate about.

Travel Baseball Should Develop Players

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Well, the two of you have experienced travel ball. And from a parent's perspective, and also from your college coach experience, there's so many, there, there's so many good things about travel baseball, but there's also a lot of the you see a lot of the negativity of about travel baseball. What would you recommend since you've been on both sides of it to make uh travel baseball a better experience? And I'll start with you first, Amanda.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

You know, from maybe from like the not baseball side of it, which I know sounds weird since we're talking about travel baseball. I think the one thing with travel ball that I don't like is I feel like it just takes up, no matter what sport it is, it just takes up all the kids' time. Like kids just being kids anymore, it doesn't exist. Like kids going to summer camp. And I like I think that has gotten lost in all of this. And and our kids, they do the travel ball, but also if we have an opportunity to do an amazing experience as a family, like, oh, we have an opportunity to go do something this weekend, we're gonna do it. You know, like one one weekend of him missing baseball is not gonna like take him off the rails. And no coach should punish a child or a family if they want to do something like that because that's important. The travel ball is just turned into a business for kids. Let the kids be kids. I mean, yeah, I mean, you gotta do it. And I know that's like culture now, but I don't know. I just I wish it wasn't so intense in any sport. I mean, somebody's sports are year-round. I'm like, but they're kids. Like, let's just go out in the yard and play kickball or cornhole after dinner. Like, we value, you know, our family time because of, you know, the uniqueness of his business. But um, yeah, I just wish it wasn't so intense and so schedule driven and so much pressure from some of these coaches. I mean, I have friends and they're like, oh yeah, we can't do anything. We have this, this, and this tournament. And I'm like, man, just miss one of those tournaments, you know, but but they feel like they can't because the coach is gonna like punish their child and not play if you're paying all this money. So I don't know. Like, I I I don't kind of like how it has turned into a business for kids. I mean, I mean, like down to like eight, nine-year-olds, I'm like, they're eight and nine, they should be going to the pool every day and they can't go because then they have a game that night. I don't know. So that's that's kind of how I feel about it as far as like the mom side of it and maybe like the non-baseball side.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

I unlike travel baseball. Uh, I think I think it gets a bad rap. I I think it needs some adjustment. I I don't think people understand what the real purpose of travel baseball should be. It it's simple to me. The goal of travel baseball is to develop the kids. It's not to win tournaments, it's not to go meet people 12 to nothing and go 5-0 and and tell everybody that, oh yeah, we put 72 players in Division I baseball. The goal should be to develop the player. And I go to these travel tournaments all the time. One thing that drives me crazy is, and my son was uh on some of these teams. You go to these tournaments that have 400 teams and you have two-hour curfews, you get down to the last five minutes, and the coaches are uh yelling at the kids because my son got yelled at it for swinging at the first pitch in the last inning. There was like three minutes to go before the curfew was up, and they had a one-run lead, and all they had to do was continue batting for three minutes, and the curfew would have come and they'd have won the game. So my son swung at the first pitch to lead off the inning, hit the ball pretty good, it was a deep fly ball, took a green swing, and got yelled at for swinging at the first pitch. And we might have to play another inning now. We might lose this game because you swung at the first pitch. And there aren't a lot of coaches out there that care way too much about winning those games than they do about developing the players. You know, if you look at the the way to develop athletes, the research says that you should practice three times for every game you play. Good luck finding that in travel baseball. They're literally practices. You just go play, and uh the last game my son played, for example, we just watched him this past weekend. He only got two at-bats because it was a four or five-inning game, because the pace of the game was terrible. Pinchers were going slow, kids weren't hustling on the field, so Ailey got two at bats, got walked twice. He only swung the bat one time the entire game, and he played shortstop and got no ball. So during that game, he got to swing that bat once and never got to field with ground ball. Had we practiced that day, he could have swung about a hundred times and taken fifty grounds and became a better player that day. So kids missed the point of the value of practice and development. So, as a parent, your goal for travel ball should be is my son or daughter a better player at the end of the summer than they were at the beginning of the summer? That should literally should be the only goal. Well, winning becomes the most important thing when people's livelihoods are at stake when you don't win. Like ours. Ours. If if we don't win, we don't have a job. But if a travel ball coach doesn't win, he'll still be a travel ball coach. So it's all about the development of the kids, and that's the piece that everybody seems to miss. And I I love travel ball if it's done in a way where the goal should be to match your team up with teams both that are gonna give you equal competition. To go beat somebody 14 and nothing, nobody got anything out of that. The kids that lost didn't have the kids that won didn't learn anything. In an ideal scenario, you would get on a team that wins half their gains and loses half their games. So you've learned how to win and you've learned how to lose, because you have to do both in this sport. So uh part of me wants to start my own organization and do it what I feel is the right way. But every time I think that way, uh it occurs to me that I'm retired now. And I don't think I want to do that. Because it's a whole new lifestyle, you know. But yeah, I would I would like to, in my retirement, if anybody cares about my opinion on stuff like that, I would like to make a positive impact on Travel Ball and how how people view it. Because I like the concept, but the execution sucks.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Totally agree with what you said there.

Losing As A Teacher And Winning Drive

SPEAKER_02 39:21

Since you mentioned losing and winning, a question I ask every guest on the podcast, and I would like both of you to answer hate losing or love winning?

SPEAKER_04 39:32

You know, it's the the best players out there, I think, hate losing. I think that drives the Tom Brady's of the world and uh the goats, as people like to call them. But I guess I'm a little different. I may answer this question a lot differently than most people. I don't mind losing because I see it as a learning opportunity. I think you learn a lot more when you lose than you do when you win. So uh we've had some bad losses in my career here at West Virginia. I see those as unbelievable opportunities to teach kids that, hey man, this is part of life. Life isn't gonna be easy. Uh I feel like I've done most of my coaching or my best coaching in the 24 hours after a bad loss than you do during any of the games. So to me, losing is learning, and I view it that way. You obviously you don't want to do it too much uh because nobody enjoys that. But an occasional loss I think is really, really good for you. So uh I love winning, but to be honest with you, I don't mind losing because it's it's an unbelievable learning opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

I love to win.

SPEAKER_04 40:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

That's all I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_04 41:01

That's what I deal with when I get out of it. She yells at me after we lose a bad game. Yeah, I don't care.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:10

I'm competitive.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Well, if if if you were not a baseball coach, what would you have been? And I'd like to hear both of your answers, see if they're the same.

SPEAKER_04 41:20

I don't know. I would like to uh be a trial attorney where you could get up and and plead your case in front of people. I'd like to, and I'm probably gonna do some of this, do some motivational speaking. Uh because a lot of people look at what transpired here at West Virginia the last 12 years, we literally took a program that was on the brink of extinction. Uh they were thinking about dropping the program. Now all of a sudden we've been ranked in the top 25 in eight consecutive seasons, and a lot of people want to know how we did that. I think that'd be cool to share that message. And as you know, we've had some personal tragedy in our lives with our son being injured, and that's an unbelievable story of inspiration that we would love to share with people. So I would like to hit the speaking tour if people would have me and listen to the message that that uh we can give to people. Uh and uh I'm an outdoors guy. Uh I've I've kind of gravitated to where I grew up loving to hunt and fish and be outdoors. And but it's crazy since my kids were born. Now I can care less really to uh kill my own animals or catch my own fish. To me, it's all about helping other people do that. I get way more satisfaction out of uh my daughter uh catching a fish on a flat rod than I do myself that appeals in comparison to me catching my own fish. So I would love to teach kids how to fish, take kids hunting, give them wonderful experiences because in the big scheme of things, as a coach and a father and a parent, our job is to make memories for children. And I really, really enjoy doing that. So uh I wish I had my own piece of land, hunting property with a trout street and going through it. I would just invite kids to come and teach them how to do that and and watch the joy they get out of that.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Well, Amanda, what do you think he he would have been if he wasn't a baseball coach?

SPEAKER_01 43:41

He's you know what? He's really funny. People don't know about him. He has a really dry sense of humor. I mean, I don't know if he could have like survived as a comedian, let's be honest. But um, I don't know. He's he always connects really well with people. So yeah, the whole like speaking engagements and tours, he's gonna amp up.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

That but um I actually could have been a I I would love to be a bartender for a week. I I would love that guy that believes that everybody has a story. And when I meet new people, that's my go-to line. Hey Randy, this is Jim. Hey Jim, what's your story? I just love hearing people's stories.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

He talks to everybody. We don't go in an airport like where he's not somehow talking to somebody. If somebody's walking through the airport with a fly rod, he's like, hey, where are you going? What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Especially in this world, everything's so impersonal, nobody wants to talk to anybody. This one talks to everybody, which is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 44:41

Even our bus drivers on road trips, the deal the amazing lives that those guys have that nobody knows about, you're just seeing those bus drivers. We had a bus driver in Oklahoma this year that played college baseball at Wichita State, had a chance to play pro, uh, got sent over and did a couple tour of duty in the armed forces, had been shot three or four times. It just fascinates me to hear other people's stories. Other people look at that guy driving the bus. I look at that guy for for the life he's led. So uh people just fascinate me, and and I just love getting to know people.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

Well, I I have two questions to if if you could if you don't mind.

The Funniest Umpire Moment

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Everybody that I talk to about the podcast, they they seem to really love a great story. And in your 40 years of being around college baseball, what is your your best umpire story, or maybe the funniest thing that you've ever seen as a baseball coach?

SPEAKER_04 45:46

Well, dating back 35 years, that's a hard one. I've always had uh try to have a really good relationship uh with umpires. I mean, they make mistakes, but they're they're people too, so I try and I try and talk to all of them, but uh I don't know. That's uh the guy that I played for when I was a coach, his name was Phil Wilho. And he everybody in our profession has a mentor. I'm sure you have as a coach. We all he was my mentor, and and one day he was having an argument with an umpire, and an umpire pulled out uh his umpiring card that he carried with him and said, Coach, I've been I've been an umpire for over 30 years. Look at this car, I know what the heck I'm doing. And Coach Wilhelm reached in his back pocket and pulled out his driver's license. He said, I've been driving for 30 years, but I can't drive worth of crap either. So it's just the the day-to-day, you know, relationships that you build, and and I I try and have a personal relationship with all those guys. Uh it's not easy, but but uh you know, it's just uh like I said, when I retire, I'll be friends with those guys. I saw a bunch of umpires this past weekend at a travel tournament. They were doing a clinic, and and they're coming up to me, and we're talking and laughing and and having a good time, and I take pride in that. But hey, you were an umpire, I was a coach, and we don't hate each other. That's that's that's saying something.

Team Whammer And Turning Pain Into Help

SPEAKER_02 47:22

To finish up, coach, you got the team whammer shirt on, and you know, a lot of people know about this, but maybe some don't. If you could talk about the team whammer and the the whole situation, Amanda, you can jump in here too, and you know what you guys experienced and how you are turning that into a positive.

SPEAKER_04 47:48

Yeah, you know, the for the people that don't know the story, when my son, his name is Weston, we call him whammer. Uh everybody says, why are you calling whammer? Why are you calling whammer? His name is Weston Aiden Maisie. His initials are W-A-M. So we're not rocket scientists. Uh Wham was uh that was his nickname uh from the day he was born, but uh he's always been in the dugout with me, uh, even for all the practices. And we were practicing during COVID in 2021 uh on March 9th, and half of our team uh was out with Covenant. So we only had half the team practicing, and we only had one active outfielder left on the team, and we had games coming up that weekend. So we had a practice where we put all the infielders in the outfield, put some pitchers in the outfield, and we're basically having tryouts in the outfield. It was a live drill. Uh pitchers were hitting batting practice, and we were just playing defense. And I put him out at shortstop to fill in a hole that we had on defense because everybody was in the outfield. And uh one of the pitchers hit a short fly ball in the center field, and he ran back from shortstop to catch it, and he dove for the ball over his shoulder, and the center fielder, who was an infielder, came running in full speed and did a dive. And he kicked Wammer in the head, uh, hit him right in the face with his knee, and I was standing in the ondeck circle at the time. This happens every time, but he was he was laying on the field, and I ran out there, and he was laying on his side, his eyes were open, he couldn't move, and the blood was just pouring out of his ear. And I was that was so we called 911 and they came and cut his clothes off and resuscitated him, and we rushed him to the hospital, and and in the ER. Just like you see on TV in the in the travel room, there's 20 people trying to save his life. And they sent a chaplet over to talk to us. That's how dire it was. And I was like, what are what are we what are we talking about here? 30 minutes ago we were playing baseball. Now you're trying to save his life. So they they rushed him up to give him a CAT scan, see what kind of damage there was. And you know, your first thought is phylal cord injury, and because he wasn't moving, so they came back and said his spinal cord was twisted, but it wasn't damaged. And we didn't know what that meant, but they said they thought that part was gonna be okay, but he had multiple skull fractures. He got hit so hard in the front of his face, all the skull fractures were in the back of his head. Um, that's how hard he got hit. And they said there was some brain bleeding and brain swelling. Uh, there's gonna be the next 48 to 72 hours are very critical. The brain will continue to swell. If it swells too much, we're gonna have to go in and intervene and do something. So it was uh for the next three days in the ICU is just awaiting to see how much damage was gonna be done to the brain. And fortunately, it didn't swell to the point where they had to intervene. And he literally, from March 9th of 2021, until we sit here today, he hasn't had a setback. It's been progress, we feel, from every day. So he spent a week in ICU, transferred him to the children's hospital up here at WVU, and then uh we got a bed at a place called the Shepherd Center in Atlanta that is uh world-renowned for brain and spinal cord rehabilitation. So we airlifted him to uh from Morgantown to Atlanta, and he spent two months relearning a lot of things. The the part of his brain that was damaged was balance, equilibrium. Uh, and he's a hockey player too. Uh, so he had to learn how to balance uh on an ice skate. So, but it was learning how to hit his, believe it or not, he got hit so hard, his eyes were crossed for a couple months, and had to had to do exercises to get his eye sleep back in line. So it was uh it was a tough, tough road to recovery. And Amanda was videotaping every day. Not we're kind of private people, so we didn't have any intention of sharing that. We just wanted to document his recovery. And after he recovered, and we knew things were gonna be okay, we showed one of those videos to a friend, and they said, You really need to share that with people. That is so inspirational that other people need to see that.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

We we wanted for us, it was important to give people hope because when we were going through our situation, we didn't really have a lot of hope because you just don't know. I mean, you nobody thinks they're gonna go through this. So when it was time to share this video, like like I said, we we didn't do it for public purposes, just for us to be able to show and we thought, well, we want to pay it forward and raise money. So we started the team whammer foundation to raise money for the children's hospital who saved his life and the shepherd center who gave him his life back. And we thought we can't ask people to donate and give their hard-earned money if we can't show them how his progress was and they gave other people hope. So we raise money and we help pay for people's um bills down at the shepherd center because a lot of those people have to quit their jobs and we, you know, there's that shouldn't be that extra burden. And here we started a foundation with the children's hospital that if a child needs to be airlifted or however they need to get to rehabilitation, we will pay for that. Um a lot of insurance companies won't pay for that to get that child to rehab and they need to get to rehab. That's the very critical part. But it was um the the worst time of our lives, and we turned it into a positive. And it wasn't easy. We've shed many, many tears, still do. But if you saw Wham today, you would have no idea that anything ever happened to him. And you know, that video, you can go to teamwammer.com. We're always raising money, but you can see the video from day one to day 72 when he got out of his out of the rehab. So um, it's been inspiration, it's a part of our our family story.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

And special thanks to WVU head baseball coach Randy Maisie and his wife Amanda.

Mazey Days Plug And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_02 55:47

So now what's a coach who's recently retired from college baseball do now? Start a podcast. The podcast is called Maisie Days. Amanda is a sports reporter and anchor and is joined by her husband, Randy. They discuss motivation, life experience, and great stories. That's Maisie Days. Check it out. Today's episode of Baseball Coaches Unplugged is powered by the netting professionals improving programs, one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707, or you can visit them online at www.nettingpros.com. As always, I'm your host, Coach Ken Carpenter, and thank you for listening to Baseball Coaches Unplugged.