How To Take Over A High School Baseball Program And Win Early

Opening Tease And Sponsor

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Today on Baseball Coaches Unplugged, you'll learn the secrets to interviewing for a head coaching position, top priorities when taking over a new program, and how to build a winning culture with Granville Garrett, head coach at First Flight High School in North Carolina. Next on Baseball Coaches Unplugged. Fabrication and installation of custom netting for baseball and softball. This includes backstops, padding 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. Netting Pros also work with football, soccer, lacrosse, golf courses, and even pickleball. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707. And you can visit them online at www.nettingpros.com. Check out Netting Pros on X, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects.

Welcome And Coach Introduction

SPEAKER_03 2:07

Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged. My name is Ken Carpenter, and joining me today is Granville Garris, head baseball coach at First Flight High School in North Carolina. Coach, thanks for taking time to be on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it.

First Priorities In A New Job

SPEAKER_03 2:26

Well, you're starting a new chapter at First Flight High School. When you took over, what are the first few things that you um evaluate before you go in and make any changes?

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, I mean, I've I've read a lot of books on leadership, like John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. So you try not to do too much too fast, but I'm also have a bull and a china shop personality. So finding that mix of uh what we want to do. There's certain avenues. I think we just like facility uniforms, fundraising, equipment, gear. Like we're gonna go full steam on that and then just kind of evaluate our people a little bit slower as we go, uh just trying to lay our foundation of what we want and you know, trying to turn a team into a program and just get it to the point where guys want to be working. And I think anytime you're at the, you know, like we're at it on a beach destination, you you have a little bit of that beach mentality where guys are a little more laid back. And I'm a type A person, so you know, just getting the guys to understand that effort, you know, leads to momentum, momentum leads to success. And if we can sustain that, we'll be the program we want to be.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

So well, you've been very, very successful in your career, and if I'm correct, you've taken over three programs.

How To Nail The Interview

SPEAKER_03 3:40

How do you approach that? This is something I I wanted to ask. How do you approach the interview process to sell yourself? Because there's a lot of coaches that are going to apply for jobs and you know, try to get interviews. What has been your approach to the whole interview process?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Yeah, uh that's a really good question. So uh I I know when I I ended up interviewing for this job here at First Flight, I wasn't looking for a job. So sometimes that like kind of takes the edge off where you're a little more laid back. You yeah, I already I had a good job at Carrie. We turned that program around. And uh this has been our vacation spot, the Outer Banks. Um so we just always been there. And the baseball coach at First Flight uh had resigned. He followed me on X, Twitter, whatever you want to call it. I saw that he had resigned. I didn't know him personally, and uh, you know, I just thought, hey, you know, why not? This is the spot we all love being. So applied for the job on July 4th, like literally on July 4th. Uh just reached out to the athletic director, sent me an email. He responded to me on July 4th and was just like, you're exactly what we're looking for, because they were trying to like upgrade their facilities, like upgrade their program. Like just take it, like just push that needle as far forward as they could. And that's what I feel like we've tried to do everywhere we've been. Um I've made a lot of mistakes in my first destination in the mountains, and then second destination. I feel like we we got it right in a lot of ways, and then at Carrie Um just taking over a program that historically was not very successful. Um, it's just one of those things of like, I feel confident this is what we can bring to the program. We can build a culture where people want to be, kids want to be a part of it. We're gonna engage the community, we're gonna have like events, um, and that that's what we're trying to sell them on. And then also we're gonna put a value on academics. Uh, like I said, we've been applying and submitting our work for the ABCA. I think they do a great job recognizing uh schools at all levels for their academic achievements. So, you know, we we we sell them on, we're gonna have over a three, five GPA as a program, um, and like we're gonna make tutoring available to kids if they need it, and that they're gonna be students first. And that's kind of what we try and talk about in the um interview process. And then I try and put together like a slideshow or some type of portfolio of kind of what we've been able to do, how we've done it, where their facilities are, where their programs are at, in my opinion, kind of like a State of the Union pulse check, and like what we feel like we can do partnering together. And and that's what we try and get them motivated on, and just try and sell them on like vision casting. So, like, here's the vision for where I see the program going. Because first flight historically in soccer, lacrosse, golf, cross-country, swimming, very, very good. Baseball and softball have been competitive, but you know, the way that I run programs with out-of-season workouts and lifting really hadn't been done here yet. So I knew when our abilities, you know, continue to get better and guys developed that we could take this program where we wanted to go and push that needle forward.

Using Slides To Show The Plan

SPEAKER_03 6:50

So you mentioned something there that you uh a little slide projection thing. Is that something you say coming into the interview? Do you have this available so I can show you what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_01 7:03

100%. Yeah. So like I feel like and I try and like, you know, get their logo and put that on, and so that it's like we can hand them something. So obviously you're you're everyone has a resume, you're giving them your resume. Um, you're able to communicate what you can do in the classroom. Coaching for me is the outdoor classroom. So, like how we're gonna build relationships, how we're gonna add rigor to our practice, competition, all those things, uh, and try and push the needle forward. But having a slideshow where I can actually show them, hey, this is what we've done at School X, and you know, we were able to do, you know, our halo, or we were able to do a new backstop, or we were able to do new batting cages, or turf the bull pens, and just all these ideas that you know we've been able to do over these three previous places, they were all things that they've been wanting to do here. They

Facility Upgrades Through Community Support

SPEAKER_01 7:50

just haven't had a way to do them. So we come in year one and it's like uh you know, the carpet's on fire. We're getting after it. And we embraced the community and we were able to do an all-new backstop, move the backstop in like 40 feet. It was super deep. It was um it was almost like 65, 70 feet. So we moved it in at 35, 40 feet. Um, we did a center block backstop because we had center block dugouts. We got all the block donated. Uh, we got the the footers dug that was donated by a local contractor. The concrete was donated. We had it formed. We had a mason lay all the block, we painted it ourselves. We just had to pay for the net and we reused our backstop poles. So we did that, and that was kind of dramatic uh effect. I felt like the field needed a warning track. So we asked the booster club if they would go in half of us, and we got a local uh quarry to donate all the stone to us. And I had my buddy uh over at Turf Planner, they do phenomenal work. He came and in two days we had a warning track. Um, and it it it it was again another thing that was a big deal. Just tearing chain link off of the face of the dugout so that you can put you know, netting up and then padding, and just little things that I think make a big change. And we're currently working on enclosing our batting cage, and it had a roof. So like I feel like there were really good bones here. Like I was intentional in that. Um, it's a very flat field, obviously, being at the beach. Uh, it's on a lot of sand. So there is some issues and challenges with the soil, but I mean, we can grow Bermuda um you know pretty well here. Um, so there's just a lot of a lot of good things that they had going on, but uh there was just some things that we were just like we got to address. And the things that I was talking about in my slides, like pictures, because I'd gone up there before uh the interview, and I just took some pictures and I wanted to show them what I was talking about. And and I think that goes a long way when they know how prepared and how thorough you are. So we're not just coming to them and saying, hey, this is what I can do, this is what I've done, here's my resume, um, you know, a couple pictures of some fields I've been in. I can actually say, This is your press box. This was the press box I had at my last school, this is the press box we had at the school before that, this is what we were able to do, this is what we're gonna do to here, this is what we're gonna do to the cages, this is what we're gonna do to the field, this is what we're gonna do to the dugouts. So we were just kind of systematically able to walk around the field that way and kind of show them and just kind of take control of the interview and just kind of let them know that like this is serious. And then, you know, one of the things they said to me, which, you know, I I appreciate, uh, they were just saying, like, we didn't realize how much you were to your word. Like, we didn't realize that you were gonna be like gung-ho on everything. So it wasn't just baseball. I was talking about the classroom and getting grants for the weight room. We applied for two grants here locally, and one was for $1,750, the other was for like $2,000, got both, and like have been able to add dumbbells, uh hex fars, you know, for for lifting, um, bikes that you know for uh the wrestling team wanted, but also we can use it, our athletes can use it. Um those like Schwin Aerodine bikes where you're pumping your arms, and so it's just a lot of things we've been able to add that help all facets of our athletics, and it's just we're just going all in. And that's just kind of our mantra that we bring.

SPEAKER_03 11:06

That's uh that's exactly if there's a coach out there that's a new up and coming coach that wants to make that jump to the be a head coach, there's there's the playbook right there for him, and that's that's fantastic.

Buy-In Starts With Morning Lifts

SPEAKER_03 11:20

I wanted to ask, you know, what are some early signs that players are starting to buy into that culture that you're talking about?

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Uh yeah, so I I think a lot of it is just when you're when you're holding them accountable and you have standards and not necessarily rules, and then they live up to the standard and start kind of policing each other, that's when you know it it's starting to sink in. Uh, we open the weight room before school. We're one of those schools that doesn't start until 8.30. So I came from a school in Kerry that started at 7.18 in the morning or something like that. So it was really hard to lift before school. Um, but here when it's starting at 8:30, you know, you can ask guys to come in. So at first I was gonna be like, hey, from 7 to 8, we're gonna lift. It's open to any athlete. We opened it up. Um, and that was one of the things I talked about in my interview process is we want to grow the whole athletic department. And I feel like physicality is the big difference between high school and college. And uh so we want to make that available. Like if the girl swimmers want to come in and get a lift in, let's do it. Volleyball, like whoever wants it can get it. Uh, talk to the guys about it, and they they asked for 6:30 to 730. Um, and then that way they'd have more time to shower and get ready for school. So I was like, yeah, that's what you guys want to do, that's what we'll do. So we've had wrestlers, uh, basketball players, football players come to our morning lifts, and it's open to all required of none. And we have anywhere from like 20 to 25 baseball players coming pretty religiously every morning in the out of season to lift. And because it's open to all, required of none, all sports are involved, it's not a baseball workout. And uh that to me is a is a pretty good litmus test for you know, our guys buying in. Do they want to be there? They're willing to get up and give up time in the morning uh and trying to get stronger. And then they all start wearing the cutoff shirts and stuff because they're starting to see that they're getting stronger. So it builds their confidence up a little bit.

Accountability Without Burning Kids Out

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Well, you know, the the whole accountability thing, is there uh a special sauce to holding guys accountable without without losing them, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah, I I think uh I think it's a fine line. You're absolutely right. I mean, if if all you ever do is discipline and berate kids and make it like hard, they I don't think they ever really achieve. There still has to be like carrots dangled, I think, in front of them when it comes to accountability. But obviously you have your absolutes. But if if you can work within a compound, like for me, what I do, um, just to give you an example, it if we have any teacher that reaches out to me about the conduct of one of my players, they have three triangles. So we just tell them up front that's how it's gonna be. And what that basically means is they stand at home plate, they sprint from home plate to the left field foul uh foul pole, they jog across the field, and then they bear crawl in from the foul pole to home plate. They have three of those. And uh, you know, they have to do those before they are able to rejoin the team with practice and stuff like that. So if they want to take some breaks in between, I don't care, but you've got three and you're gonna knock those out. The next time I get a complaint from that teacher or any teacher about how you're acting in class, then you're gonna sit at home plate and the team is gonna do three for you. And if that doesn't fix the issue, then you're just at strike three, you're gonna be gone. So I've never had to get to a strike two. So um, thankfully, uh because I think there'll be quite a few uh upset people, but uh usually they see one of their teammates do it once early, and they're like, Man, I am not gonna be disruptive in class. I am not gonna talk back to my teachers, I'm gonna turn my stuff in. My big thing is let's just not make someone's job harder than it has to be. Like, teaching's a very hard profession, and these people are putting everything they got into it. And our job is to be respectful. We're trying to train up young leaders that, you know, are impactful and they make a difference for people. So that's just an easy way to kind of hold them accountable, give them something that they know uh they'll have to do, and it's not putting like the fear of God in them. It's just basically this is what we're gonna do, this is how we're gonna act. And, you know, I ask them when we're in out-of-season workouts and stuff like that, if we're doing baseball after school, and that's a true out-of-season workout. If they can't be somewhere, their job is to communicate with me and let me know, hey, I'm sick, hey, I have to make up a test. Uh, and I'm not questioning them out of season, so it's like there's a trust factor too. It's like we're not really taking a task, we're not supposed to take a task, we're not really doing stuff like that, but we're trying to get better, and everyone's trying to get better. And if you can't be there, you you have to learn to communicate. And we're teaching them that skill so that when they go into the workforce, if they can't be at work, they have to let their boss know. And that's just you know, teaching them how to be an advocate and and accountable for themselves. I don't want to hear from mom and dad, I want to hear from them.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Exactly. Well, I I came across uh your article in Inside Pitch Magazine, which I thought was really good and is uh lays things out perfectly for the whole um for the whole year for a coach who's uh trying to take over a program.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

And um but the the thing I wanted to get into was the practice.

Competitive Practices With Game Speed

SPEAKER_03 16:40

And you know, you talk about competitive having a competitive practice, and what does that look like for your program?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah, for our program, so really anything we can do to make it more competitive, the kids actually respond, I think, very well to it. So even in our catch play, like we want to be locked in. Like we we do dynamic warmups, like everybody does dynamic warm-ups, everybody throws. Um, but it you know, it's like we're not just throwing to get loose. We want to be loose when we we play catch so we can start doing athletic movements, um, you know, and just having our guys compete over throwing. Um, we have a belt that we have made. It was like WWE style belt. Uh, we had it when I was in in Kerry. They gave them out to the wrestlers, every uh weight class that would win at this big tournament they had. So I just went to the trophy company and said, hey, you make me one for baseball and paid for it. And then we just started giving it out for practice. Sometimes it was daily, sometimes it was weekly, sometimes you know, during the season it was player of the game. Somebody hits a big home run, they get the belt, you know, it was something like that. So we're able to pull out parts of practice that we feel like are not being done the way we want them done, and we add a competition piece to it and get, you know, give them some type of carrot, you know, with the belt, ragging rights, whatever, and then we add a little more validity to what we're doing. So that would be one way we do it. Uh, we feel like the pace of play with with how we we train, so we do our everydays after we throw. Uh we we have pitchers working on holds and picks and you know, infielders working on their knees, you know, getting their eyes behind the ball, outfielders doing shadow work and throwing each other fly balls, ground balls, just working on their footwork because that's so very important. And then we go right into team D. A lot of times when we do team D or individual D, we'll run it as like JB running the bases. Uh so they're working on base running. Varsity's in the field. We might switch every 12 outs. So they're working on getting on and off the field pace of play. We'll put a stopwatch on them, say 13 seconds. If you can't get off the field in 13 seconds, we're gonna do it again. We're gonna sprint back out on the field, we'll act like a third out was made, and then we'll have you come off the field. So we'll do that as many times as we need to for you to understand that this is how we're gonna approach getting on and off the uh the field. Um, but but doing like simulate with fungo, like me hitting fungo, 21 outs, any variation of that where we can do PFPs, work out of that. We do our bunt coverage, double cuts, pop-up communication, and and then we'll have varsity run the bases while JV's in the field. They're just kind of switching back and forth. So it's not just, you know, we're gonna take IO every day at practice, and guys get real comfortable in that 10-minute window. We're trying to force them for 30 minutes to run the bases really well, uh, to try and go first to third, second to home, push it, make the team in the field make throws, make cuts. Uh, guys in the field can't sit back on balls, they have to come through balls uh in the infield, they have to, you know, get the ball back in from the outfield to keep them off that extra base. So we feel like that's that's been a way. And then when we do BP, uh a lot of times in our practice, um, at least once a week, we're doing time BP, which is one of my favorite things. And uh we'll do like JV versus varsity, and I'll throw to both teams. I'm throwing fastballs. You get two strikes on you, I'll throw break your balls, they'll have to widen out, choke up, get close to the plate, uh, just try and put the ball in play. And, you know, they're gonna have 15 minutes per team. How many runs can you score? I'll throw slower to JV. I might not throw them off-speed pitches, and they might score seven or eight runs, and I might be harder and attack more holes on varsity and and push them. And they may only score five or six and lose to to JB, and they may have to break down the field and you know put the turtle away and take the bases out. And that's just a way of kind of humbling sometimes if if guys think they're they've arrived, so to speak. But the kids really uh they asked for time B uh time BP because you know everything was alive at bat. And three outs, you clear the bases and you keep going until your time's gone. So guys end up getting five, six, seven at-bats in the 15, 20 minute window, and and it's as close to a game as we can mimic without having to waste arms.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

So I love that. That's uh that's a great way to do things.

What Gets Players To College

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Well, you've uh your coaching style has led to 67 players getting a chance to play college baseball. In your opinion, what separates players who make that jump from those who don't?

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, I I think a lot of it is like you have to love it. Like you I really honestly believe you have to love baseball. If you just like baseball, it's gonna be really hard to be successful and go in college because you know, the college obviously um we try and run our program, you know, like a junior college program. So our we feel like our guys that go JUCO or D3 or something like that, they are very prepared for that style of play. Um and our guys that are uh you know elite and good enough to go, you know, D1, big time D1, um, you know, they love the game and they'll be able to adjust and they'll have we feel like they'll have a leg up physicality wise because they've been lifted for four years with us. Um and and that won't be you know the an area they need to improve on. Um but yeah, I think a big divide is just gonna be you know, do they love the game? Uh do they want to stick it out? Um and I I I think we kind of work our way through that a lot of times between our JV and our. Diversity, the kids that really like baseball stick with it. The kids that just like doing it and their friends do it. Sometimes they don't always see it through. But we we try and if somebody wants to be a part of our program, uh we're trying to grow our program. So we're trying to build JV, and if they want to play, we're gonna give them every opportunity to be a part of it and trying to find a role for them. Um, but yeah, well, I think we have had uh you know a lot of success getting guys to college and finding them homes. And I think that's also a testament to guys wanting to play and realizing, you know, I'm not all just chasing Clemson or you know, Georgia Tech. I mean, there's we've had guys go there. I you know, I had a player go to Clemson start for four years, you know, I had players go to Duke and NC State, and it's like you know, Virginia Tech. So it's like you know, some top programs for sure, but there's a whole wide gamut of baseball. And if you're willing to go somewhere and play, you can get a pretty cool education and you know, stay plugged in and play this game as long as you can. And there have been a whole lot of guys that have bought into that you know, mantra and found a good good level for them to be successful and play.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

You know, I I heard something this morning going scrolling through X, and I think Mike Tyson talked about he said customato would say whatever you hate in your training, you gotta do it like you love it. And that's gonna be the way that's gonna get you to where you want to go. And I think if a lot of high school players could take that approach, it would really, really help

Rebuilding A Losing Program Fast

SPEAKER_03 23:25

them. And um, you know, I I I'd like to keep going back to this, but uh because you've been successful everywhere every stop you've made, if a coach is uh taking over, let's say a struggling program uh tomorrow, what what are the first two or three uh things that they should focus on uh immediately, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Yeah, uh I I would say just making sure you you establish good rapport with the guys you have in your program, uh, and and then try and really I I don't think it matters like how good your players are versus you know what where their skill level is. For us, like even when we played for a state championship, that Monday we're working on PFPs and picks and first and third. So we just get them in routines where they they understand that we're gonna go over fundamentals, and that's what baseball is. Like, how well can you do these fundamentals? Um, and we try and make them competitive to keep their attention and keep them working, but at the end of the day, they have to realize that doing things well over and over again is what leads them to be successful in this sport. So um, if someone's taking over a brand new struggling program, I would harp on fundamentals, really try and pour into the kids that I have, uh, and and word of mouth will travel, and then try and get down to the youth league. So those would be like the three big things. If you can get to the middle school and the youth league, you can start seeing what's coming up, pour into the kids. Like we always do a summer camp, um, and and we try and we have our high school kids work it. We have them go out and try and recruit kids to come to our camp. Um, and we actually use our summer camp, you know, peeling back the curtain a little bit for us, uh, to fund our summer programs. So our goal is for our kids to not have to pay for summer baseball. Um so if they can get you know a couple kids to come to the camp, they don't have to pay for summer baseball. They work the camp, they give back, and all of a sudden you got these eight, nine, ten-year-olds that come to our games in the spring because of that bond that was formed over camp in the summertime. Uh, they learn fundamentals. Their goal becomes to play at the high school, and we start building that community, and I think that goes a long way. Um, because like the program I took over in Kerry, they hadn't been to state playoffs. Like I took over in in 2019, they hadn't been to the state playoffs since 2007 or 8. So they had 11 or 12 years of losing. Some years they didn't win any games. Um, so it was just a matter of, you know, this is how we're gonna do things, this is how we're gonna approach. We kind of laid out as organized the plan as we can um with weight training, with you know, and out of season we're gonna long toss, you know, Mondays and Fridays, we're gonna throw bullpens on Wednesdays in the fall. Uh, we're gonna do like defensive hitting on Tuesdays, Thursdays. So we're trying to like regiment what we do so that we can really harp on getting ourselves more athletic, building arm strength, um, and just building command on the mound. Because if we don't have good pitching, it's gonna be really hard to be successful and turn things around.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

Yes. Well, looking back on your playing career, is there something that you wish you would have done differently?

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Oh, yes. Yeah, that a lot of them. Uh I came from like a small high school. Um, we had never done a PFP. I didn't know what that was. I I I played some infield. Uh, I was being recruited by a lot of the MJAC schools, which is New Jersey, Division III, really good baseball as like a two-way guy. Uh, I wanted to go to Division I sisters were Division I athletes in field hockey. So um, you know, my best opportunity was as a pitcher, and that's what I went as. But I think if I had just taken more um, like I'd never lifted a weight until I got to college. Um, so I was just kind of behind the eight ball. So those are all kind of my big drives now as a coach is getting them in the weight room, getting them working on not just strength, because like I mean, we don't need to be able to, I don't need my guys benching 400 pounds and squatting 600 pounds. We're not we're not a football team. We want our guys to be movers that that can be explosive. So we try and train that way, train smart, get our guys stronger, um, and just you know, work on toughness, because I think being competitive, hating to lose, those are things that like will one day enable you if you're going for a promotion, you and somebody else, you're gonna put in the extra hours, you're gonna come in earlier to work, you're gonna stay later, and that's gonna be noticed by your supervisor. And they're just like, this guy is helping us win. He's he's a good teammate. And uh, you know, and I think we can foster that and develop that with our kids. Uh, for me as a as a college player, um I I I wish I just had had worked more as a pitcher on a changeup at a younger age. So we're trying to introduce that to our guys as freshmen and get them realizing that you can get where you want to go with an elite breaking ball and a good fastball. But if you have that changeup, I mean, when one pitch is off, you can't be a one-trick pony. So if you have a good changeup and you're able to change speeds effectively, that's how you disrupt timing and get quick outs. So it saves your arm, it makes you turn you into a pitcher. Uh, and those are things I wish I had probably learned at an earlier point. It would have made things a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_03 28:31

Well, you you just touched on it a second ago. Hate losing or love winning?

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Hate losing. Uh winning is fun, but I mean, we've won games and I've I've been angry because I feel like we didn't play the way we should play. We're not hustling off the field, uh, we didn't run every ball out. So there's like little things that like if we're not playing with a certain energy and intensity to what we do, I I we can win a game and I'm not happy. And I won't I'm a big believer also in not being super critical after a game's over, uh, not chewing a guy's out. I I'm not one that's gonna, you know, scream and yell a whole lot. I feel like practice is our time where we address what did not go well. We can talk about that after the game, but I I feel like, you know, they know that they did not do well. They understand if we lost the game and we got beat, you know, what it was. And I'll tell them, you know, where our energy was lacking, what we need to work on, where our focus needs to be, what our dugout life was like. Uh, because I'm a big guy into like I don't I don't like all the chirping. I don't I don't like let letting our guys direct stuff at the other team. Um I just think that's Bush, and that that's kind of like a travel ball middle school softball type, uh, you know, adult softball environment. It's it shouldn't be high school or even college baseball. Like you should have great energy, be excited for the game. You know, you can accomplish the same thing if your guy hits an absolute missile yelling laser as you can directing something at the pitcher. Like just focus on your guys. And uh, and you know, when we played teams that are real chirpy and kind of unruly, I always just tell our guys that the fastest way to you know silence them is to beat them. And when you get up 7-8-0, all of a sudden there's crickets over there, and you know, it makes the game fun again. But I I think just kind of I understand, I think maybe why it's happening with coaches. Uh I think maybe it's they want some energy or juice out of their dugout and they're allowing it. But when you allow your players to direct stuff to the other team and make comments, you know, like 65 and flat or whatever to the pitcher, and you know, all these like random comments you hear, it's just like you're taken away from what the game's about. The game is about people competing, getting after it, and really we're not even worried about who we're playing. We're just trying to beat the game of baseball, which means that we're gonna have to hit as well as we can, we're gonna have to grind out every pitch on the mound, we're gonna compete every pitch uh in the field, we're gonna try and dominate routine plays, we're gonna overly communicate and talk because outs are important. And we feel like when we do that and we play with great energy, we're a hard team to beat. And when we don't we don't do that, we we feel like we can get beat by anybody. So, I mean, I feel like we we have some really good teams in and around our area, and we have a tough schedule. So if we don't play at that level and that way, we can lose to anybody.

Travel Ball Problems And Arm Health

SPEAKER_03 31:23

One change you'd like to see happen to travel baseball.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Hmm. Uh, I would like to see more development. I'd like to see more practice. Like I would like I I did one year of travel baseball. I won't say, you know, organization. I think I think there's definitely good organizations. Uh, a lot of people invested. There's a lot of good coaches involved with it. Um, just like there are in high school and college and stuff like that. So we're not, you know, taking shots at anybody or doing anything like that. But I feel like when all you do is show and go and you're going weeks at a time or you know, weekend to weekend in tournaments, a lot of these kids aren't doing throwing in-between starts, or they're not doing the regimented stuff they did during their high school season. And then we see guys getting popped, you know, throw 105 on a you know, pitches on a Friday night, and they they really hadn't thrown a bullpen in a while. It's just like, so I don't really feel like there's any one travel ball showcase event that's that important where a guy needs to be going 105 pitches. Um, we don't let our guys in high school do that. Um we try and avoid that until maybe the end of the season. They get they get near you know triple digits on a pitch count as best we can. It's just I just feel like I wish they would carry more catchers, get more guys into it, and make it a little bit less about the result and more about teaching them how to play the game and keeping guys healthy and just uh just running more people out there. So if you have to piggyback pitching and throw four or five guys instead of throwing two, you know, uh, and and you're you're using more guys and carrying a larger roster of pitchers, I mean, I think that would help you know some of this epidemic. And the other thing that I feel like with the injuries that's taken off is we have a lot of gurus and coaches that people are paying money to go see and work out with, and they're they're doing things like weighted balls. And I've I've dabbled in weighted balls as a player. I just don't feel like there's enough research behind it. Like I understand, you know, drive line's got a lot of stuff. There's underweighted balls, overweighted balls. Um, there's a lot of stuff you can do there, but you know, having guys throw an eight-ounce ball as hard as they can into a screen, how many? Like, how many throws is too much for a 15-year-old's arm? Like, what should the recovery look like? We just don't have enough information on that. And I don't think people have done that enough to know like this needs to be thrown at 60%. And then how do you tell a 15-year-old what 60% actually should feel like and look like? How do you communicate that where they understand? You put a radar gun in front of them, they're gonna throw that thing as hard as they can, max effort. And, you know, baseball is the only sport where the ball does not change, really, from like T-ball to the big leagues, is the basic same weight, same size throughout. Whereas every other sport, the football is smaller, it gets bigger as your hands get bigger and you get stronger. Basketball, same deal. Baseball, it's basically the same size. So we're asking an awful lot of kids 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, who are still actively growing with open growth plates and we're just kind of throwing them to the wolves, and parents in an effort to keep their kids competitive are looking for an edge. And I just wish as a whole, the whole industry we could kind of peel it back and just focus on like let's get good routines of throwing, get on a good throwing program. Long toss is a tried and true method where if you do it a couple days a week, you're able to build strength and build velocity. Every, you know, 30, 40 feet you throw, you can throw a baseball further is another mile an hour of arm speed. So it's like if if if I can go from 270 to 330, I've gained two or three miles an hour in my arm. If I can throw a baseball 300 feet, I should be able to throw it at 86, 87, 88 miles an hour. So it's like there are some measurables that we can hit without having to put a radar gun and make everything high intent and just kind of max effort. I think in in doing the max effort stuff, guys aren't staying healthy, they're not throwing a whole lot of strikes, they're falling behind, and we just developed an era of throwers and not pitchers, and guys don't have a feel for how to pitch. And I think that's also a problem.

A Shutout Story And Final Wrap

SPEAKER_03 35:33

Final question for you. Yeah. Best or most hilarious story from either your playing days or as a coach.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Uh I mean, yeah, there yeah, there's been a lot of a lot of funny moments with players when you coach kids. I mean, you you never know um sometimes what's gonna happen. So I think there's a lot of a lot of humor in that. As a player, there's a lot of stuff um you know that that were interesting as well. Um I'm drawing a blank on just anything that was like probably the most entertaining of them all. Um yeah, I I there's there's there's just been a lot of a lot of good stuff that that that has happened. Um I'll just draw like one story that I I from my mountain days of coaching in there. We had a pitcher, and it's funny to me, maybe not funny to anybody else, but we had a pitcher and we were getting ready to play a team. I'm good friends with the other coach, and he's looking around and being like, man, y'all have lost a lot. And I'm like, Yeah, we did. We we graduated seven starters, like two starting pitchers, seven position players graduated. Our team finished second in the league last year, went to the second round of state playoffs. So we we were turning that program around at Irwin after they had not been to the state playoffs in 14 years. And uh my starting pitcher is right there, and he was a bulldog. And so he's like, we feel like we've taken a step forward, and you guys are taking a big step back. So the coach walks away and the pitcher looks at me and he's like, big step back, we'll see. He went out and threw his shutout, we beat him nine-nothing. And uh I, you know, it was just one of those things that just stuck has always stuck out for me because he was just a great kid. Um when you get the competitive juices flowing in people, he didn't have to say anything, he didn't run his mouth, he was respectful, but to me it was just kind of funny. He he sat there, listened to every last word of it, and then used it as motivation and absolutely shoved on them. And it was just like, wow, awesome.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

So that's uh that's the stuff you like to hear when you're when you're a coach. Well, it's Grimwell Garrett, first flight high school in North Carolina. Coach, thanks for taking the time to join me here on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Well, thank you very much for having me, and I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

Today's episode of Baseball Coaches Unplugged is powered by the netting professionals, improving programs one faculty at a time. Don't forget to tune in every Wednesday. As always, I'm Coach Kevin Carpenter. Thanks for listening to Baseball Coaches Unplugged.