One Game to Survive: Coaching When the Season Is on the Line

Welcome And Partner Spotlight

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged. Today I get rare inside access to head coach at Eastern High School, Chris Stewart, in Ohio, hours before playing in the district championship. Coach Stewart breaks down lessons learned where every decision is magnified in the single elimination state tournament and what it's like to coach high school, travel, and Legion baseball, and also are today's players overcoached. Next on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

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Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for high school travel and college baseball coaches who 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, teaching and winning development, and building a winning baseball culture. If you're a baseball coach looking for practical ideas on running better practices, developing players, navigating the recruiting process, and leading a successful program. This podcast showcases the best coaches from across the country with your host, 27-year high school, Coach Ken Carpenter.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Today's episode of Baseball Coaches Unplugged is powered by the Netting Professionals, improving programs one facility at a time. Will Minor and his team at the Netting Professionals specialize in the design, fabrication, and installation of custom netting for baseball and softball. This includes backstops, batting cages, BP turtles, screens, ball carts, and more. They also designed and installed 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. If you enjoyed today's show, please be sure to share it with a friend. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button, rate the show, and leave us a review. As always, thanks for tuning in every Wednesday for a new episode here on Baseball Coaches Unplugged. But if you're looking to add a new podcast to your rotation, check out Coaching Life Podcast with my next guest, Chris Stewart, head baseball coach at Eastern High School in Ohio. Hello and welcome to

Meet Coach Chris Stewart

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Baseball Coaches Unplugged. I'm your host, Coach Ken Carpenter. Joining me today is Chris Stewart, head coach at Eastern High School here in Ohio, and also the host of Coaching Life Podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Thank you, coach, for having me. I and also thanks for that little plug for our podcast as well. Appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Here in

Coaching For Single Elimination Pressure

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Ohio, the district tournament play has begun. Has your approach changed over the years when it comes to the single elimination state tournament?

SPEAKER_01 3:15

I would say that it has.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Keep it simple. Control the controllables. Has there been a coaching mistake that you've made or you've seen made in the tournament where you thought maybe that should have been handled a little differently?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah,

A Pitching Choice He Still Replays

SPEAKER_01 4:58

you know, I there are there are a couple things that I still think about to this day. Um, you know, one that comes to mind is, you know, my I had the I had the real awesome honor to coach my son in high school as well. I cut coached him for four years in high school and obviously coached him before that as well. But um when when when he was a a junior, we made it to the regional final. I was coaching at Athens. I'm not the same school uh today. I'm coaching at Eastern High School today. Um, but uh when he you know he grew up in Athens, I was coaching him there, and we made it to the regional final his junior year, and then we made it back his senior year, playing the exact same team in the exact same game in the Elite Eight, Stupanville. And we also played some of the same two of the same teams in the district. Um, you know, we played uh Marietta his junior year in the district final. Well, then his senior year, the the brackets lined up differently, and we we we came across Marietta in the regional semifinal. And the year before, his you know, in 2016, that game was a pitcher's duel, just an absolute uh just just an incredible game, you know, maybe maybe was an hour and 20 minutes. It was a one-nothing game. We won on a on a on a wild pitch, and uh it was it was just incredible. Well, the the next year, his senior year, uh we we approached that game a little differently. We felt pretty confident in our in our offense. And so instead of starting our our one, I started our two and and uh worked out okay in the for the first five innings. Whenever they scored, we answered back and we tended to be able to keep keep the lead, but there was a lot more scoring in this game. And we we get to the sixth inning, and I could tell our our guys running out of gas. And so, okay, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and bring in our one. He can close this thing out if he can stay under 50 pitches, because this was the very first year, I believe, for the pitch count, 2017, I think. Um, or the first or second year. And uh I'm like, if he could stay under, you know, we got one day of rest, and then he'll be he'll be able to throw that that uh that regional uh final game, the regional championship game. And they tie it up and we end up going nine innings. He throws, he throws about 80 pitches as well. And so we we burned our one and our two. And uh, and and you know, it's not that we didn't have a decent three um who had had some innings, but he, you know, he pitched in games that weren't as high pressure situations throughout the year, some of the league games that we kind of knew we, you know, we had a good chance of winning going into it. Um, and so I made a decision to pitch to start a position player. I started our shortstop, who was a great athlete. He had pitched a little bit and you know, he had pitched in previous years, but but not that year, he was pretty much an everyday shortstop. And I just kind of went with him instead. And uh we got down four to zero right off the bat, and then I put our three in and he held them right there. We lost that game four to one in in a regional final in 2017. And so that's a game that I think I think about all the time. You know, because my my my number three, you know, he and his family, they were mad at me, you know, obviously, because I made a decision to to start him, and it was the wrong decision, I think. And so I'm I'm you know, not too not too big to admit that.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Coaches like players aren't perfect. Sometimes you make a decision and you go with it, and it doesn't work out. But you

Coaching Your Son Without Favoritism

SPEAKER_02 8:24

touched on something a few minutes ago about coaching your son. Best advice you would give to a head coach who's about to coach their own son at the high school level.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Well, I'll tell you, it it it's it's it's one of the greatest things I've ever done, and it's one of the hardest things I've ever done. Because I what I've always told people is if you are if you when you're when your son comes up through your program, and a lot of guys do. I mean, you know, we have you know, we we're married, we have children, and if you want to coach a long time, you're eventually probably gonna coach your kid. And and what I noticed is that your son, if he is in the top five or ten percent of just the absolute stud of an athlete, or the the bottom five or ten percent, where you know he's just not everybody knows that okay, he's not very good. That's that's the best scenario. Because, you know, if he's if he's obvious, if it's if it's just obvious, this is what he's gonna go play Pro Bowl. I mean, this, you know, it's it's easy. Yeah, no one's gonna complain that you started your son every day since he was a freshman. And if he's one of the lowest and you never play him, the only person you got to attend with is your wife at the house, right? His mom. So, so uh, because you know, everybody knows and he knows I shouldn't be playing. But if he's in that middle 80%, he's got to work his tail off every single day. And he's got it, he has to, he has to be better and he has to work harder and he has to prove himself. And that's that's something that I know that I I actually communicated this to my son. I communicated this very principle to him. I said, I'm, you know, it and it's not this is not fair for me to put this on you. It's not on you, but I said, I'm I'm gonna say it because I want you to work hard anyway. I want you to be the best you can be, and I think this will help you. Um, but I'm just letting you know that I this is something that I know that I'm gonna receive feedback for, criticism for. Um, if I believe that you can help us win, I'm gonna play you. And um if I believe you're one of the, you know, you're one of the best players that that should be in the lineup, you're gonna be in the lineup. And if if, you know, it doesn't matter how hard you work and how how good you are, there's gonna be criticism about that. And there is. There was, there is, you know, and um, and you just gotta you gotta wear it, I think. And uh, but I think it's one of the, you know, it's one of the things I noticed when I stopped coaching him, um, and I continued to coach. I didn't continue to coach actually when he grabbed, he played college ball. And so I went, went, I, I decided to resign from coaching at Athens because I didn't want to miss seeing him play in college. And so I took, I took, ended up being three years off. My plan was four, but uh there was there was an opportunity to coach uh at where I'm at now um that I didn't want to miss miss out on. And so uh that's why that's why I jumped back into it, his senior year of college. But when I now that I'm not coaching my own kids, there is a different kind of feel to that. It's it's I you're not as tense. You're not it, you know, you you know that there's no there's no question about, well, uh, you're playing that kid because he's your own. I mean, you know, there's still questions, obviously. There's still, you know, it's still those criticisms, but it's it's it's not because of that, at least.

Baseball Humility And First-Time Advice

SPEAKER_02 11:46

As a coach, you look back and you, you know, do the what if game and you wonder what if something would have happened differently. And I remember coaching my first year as a head coach against Bishop Watterson High School powerhouse team, and we lose the game at the end on a pitch that is we throw and it hits the front of the plate and bounces over the backstop.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Oh my goodness. Yeah, just when you think you've seen everything in baseball, there's something that you never would believe that you would see in that caliber of a game, too.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Baseball can humble you really quick. You know, the irony of that is that was my first game as a head baseball coach at Divorcy Level, and my very last game, my son's senior year, we have bases loaded, two outs, and we're playing Gehanna Lincoln, and they're star players, a Division I player of the year, and he hits a pop-up and it's right in front of the first base dugout, and our player reaches over the protection fence to catch it, and I brought a JV player up, and he reaches out with his glove and knocks it out of his hand. Next pitch, base hit game over, season over. And to take it one step further, my son signs to play college baseball at the field where we played that last game on Ohio Dominican University. So I had to look at that field and look at that dugout for the next four years.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

You know what? Our uh our our sons played against each other. My son went to Alderson Bratis. He was a catcher at at A B. So and while he was there, they were in the G Mac for two years. And then when a spot opened up in the MEC, they switched over to MEC to the MEC. Your son would have played with a guy named Tim, Tim uh Zeller, Timmy Zeller, who my my son Brock played with uh uh in Summerball.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Yes, he was a solid pitcher, played the infield, and swung the bat really well. Staying with tournament talk here, what would be one piece of advice you would give a first-year head coach heading into the district tournament?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I would say just be be who you are. You know, it's really easy to look around and see all the other guys and all the other teams and how they're doing things and to start start questioning what you've done and what you've done to prepare. I mean, by the time you get there, if you're at that game, then you are who you are. Your team, I mean, you've you've got them prepared. They've they've done the work, you've done the work, and you should just be able to enjoy it. Just take it all in and enjoy it. Now, obviously, there's still gonna be some coaching to do, but you know, that's one of the things I told our guys the other day, you know, I said, you know, here we are, you know, you've never played at Ohio University, you know, our district tournament was at Ohio University, you never played at on this particular field before, so you're gonna you're gonna take a look around and and take a deep breath. But you've played on nice fields, you've played in stadiums before. You you you understand. And what we're doing is the same thing that we've been doing all year. And and there's no reason to to to think more about it than that. It's baseball. It's throwing, it's catching, it's running, it's hitting. And I, you know, and I just think that sometimes the moment takes over your imagination a little bit and and you you start maybe making decisions, you know, trying to do a little bit more than you would on a normal, uh, in a normal game, you know, a regular season game. And I just think that that, you know, that would be just my advice is is just just be just be who you are. Just be who you are. Just bring that to this game too.

Building Coaching Life From A Blog

SPEAKER_01 15:22

It's just baseball.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Well, I I hope you don't mind with this uh next couple of questions. But uh let's talk about your podcast, the coaching life podcast. Tell us a little bit about it and how has it helped you to become a better baseball coach?

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah, I thank you for asking this. I probably need to go back and tell you how it started. You know, the during those four years, or I guess three years that I stepped away from coaching, I was exactly like when you explained to me that you're not able to coach anymore, and but it's still I I understood the feeling. Like you're you're saying to me, it's gotta come out. Like I've I'm gonna burst if I don't do something to keep coaching. And so you started a podcast, and now you're able to speak to coaches and and still share like your stories and your your coaching wisdom as well. And I had the same feeling, like I didn't know it was gonna hit me like that because I I didn't want to step away, but I also didn't want to miss seeing my son play. And I just, you know, it's just it was just a personal decision. I'm not not, you know, not saying everybody should do the same thing, but I I I you know I knew we still had good talent coming up and we had a good chance of going right back to the regional again the following years, but I'd already made the decision even before that season. The moment he committed, I said, I'm just this is gonna be it until he's done. And so as soon as that summer came and I, you know, as when we were done playing, and all of a sudden I no longer had an offseason, I no longer had anything to prepare for, I'm like, this is driving me insane. Like I don't know what I'm gonna do, you know? And and so I I uh I started writing. I started, I started writing. I I just I I you know back then, you know, blogs were still kind of a they're store sort of you know going away, but you know, because podcasting had already begun. And and uh, but I just I'm like this, I'm just there's an outlet for me. This is an outlet. And so I started writing a blog where I would just make article posts essentially about all the mistakes I'd made, you know, as a as a father, as a as a dad coach, as a as a baseball coach, you know, in in younger levels up to high school levels. And my thought was if I could write something that somebody else will read who has not yet experienced these things and help them, you know, and be useful to them, then this would be something that um, you know, that a good outlet. It's coaching, essentially. It's I'm helping people. And and so after, you know, 20, 30, 40 of those blog posts, my, you know, some of the people that were reading those, one of those being my brother, he, you know, they they reach out to me, they say, why don't you combine these? Why don't you, why don't you do a book? Why don't you write a book? And so I basically did. I I I'd never done, I'm like, I kind of always had a dream to want to write a book. And so I I took those articles and and honed them, you know, change, you know, made them more readable for uh in a book form and did some research on how to self-publish a book. And then I work here at the College of Communication where a lot of people who are working on their, you know, who are a lot of other faculty members have written books and things. And I just kind of, you know, uh kind of got got some advice from them, you know, on how to just self-publish. And and I did that. I just it turned out, you know, it was about a year-long project in in 2018, 17 to 18, um, ended up publishing a book called Building Champions. And it's just basically in three parts. Uh I wrote it to three different groups of people, players, coaches, and parents. And um, and it's you know, the all the chapters in those sections deal with something specifically related to my own experiences and and uh uh and and just you know advice I might give if if I were doing it again. And so from that, a a friend of mine who works here at Ohio University as well, who's also a high school baseball coach, Pat Martin, who coaches at Meg's High School just down the road, he and I would get together for lunch at BW3s every Tuesday or so, and we would just solve all the world's problems in youth baseball, particularly youth baseball. And uh, you know, his kids were really young, and my kids were growing up. I also have a daughter who um was is two years younger than my son, so she was still in high school. And I was able to, that's another reason why I stepped away too. I had never gotten to see her play a game. So that was a big, a big part part of it as well, because they always played on the same time, same day, different location. And so I just never got to see her play in high school. So it was really good to see her play for two years. Um, but back to you know, meeting with Pat, and you know, basically Pat got a copy of my book and he's like, Hey, can we just sit and chat about this? I'm like, Yeah, and so we did. And he and I started talking back and forth about um, you know, the just some of the ways the game is changed was changing because of the the systems around the game. You know, you got the travel system, you've got the recreational league system, you've got the high school system, you know, these are all of our developmental systems. And just how are these developmental systems being detrimental, I guess, to the game? You know, and that's what I mean by solving all the problems. And so we just kind of had a we had an idea. We said, what if we pitched to just like our own local recreation leagues, an idea of, hey, you you do not have to send your kids away, you know, spend $2,500, you know, to go to the top travel team or whatever. There weren't a ton, there weren't a ton of travel teams around in our area at the time at the time anyway. But so if you were doing that, you were still traveling an hour and a half to go play. And um, so I I we just came up with this idea for a player development program where where we would bring people, you know, we'd bring teams and do uh uh like weekend games and and you'd spend more time practicing, you know, at the beginning of it, especially to help develop kids and things like that. And it's just a whole it was sort of a whole uh kind of an outline thing. But to make a long story short, at the same time, here at the College of Communication, I'm in charge of our podcast studio. We built this podcast studio right around the same time. And we were trying to sort of build, we built a podcasting certificate here at the at the uh at the college as well. And we we were wanting to encourage people to participate, you know, uh start a podcast, you know, you know, research a little bit, try to figure out what it what this is, what this medium is. And so Pat and I one day at lunch, I I just looked at him, I said, you know what, we need to get this down. You know, and I've got we got a little bit of it in written form, but why don't we preserve it by creating a podcast? And our idea was to create like a three to seven, you know, part Episode series, just kind of outlining our idea for a player development program, and then just sort of send that out to different people and say, Is there any chance that you might want to do this? And and uh so it started out as seven episodes. And after that, some of the handfuls of people that were listening, mostly local people at the time, said, Hey, why don't you guys just keep going? You know, we had decent chemistry together, just a conversation. And and so what we did was we took the chapters from my book and created episodes from there. So like the first 50 or so episodes are chapters from um Building Champions, and then I followed it up with another book called Coaching Life. And so that's kind of that was what the uh um the kind of sort of became the title of our podcast, the coaching life.

Parents, Perspective, And Vested Interest

SPEAKER_02 22:44

So what has been the most challenging topic you faced as a coach, parent, player, and podcast host? And how have you learned to deal with it?

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Well, you know, one of the one the challenging topics are always the ones that get the most downloads because they're used, you're usually talking about something that everybody experiences, but nobody really wants to talk about out loud. And that's one of the things that that's one of the ways that we pitch ours show is that we're we just we're gonna decide that we're not afraid to talk about these things out loud. And at the time it was easier because I wasn't coaching. I wasn't, you know, I could talk, I could say whatever I wanted, you know, but now I'm coaching. And so a lot of times when we're talking, we're relating experiences that we had last week, you know, and trying to do it without naming names and just saying, you know, in in general, this is something that could happen in a game and and everything. But um, you know, we we we we had Mike Deegan on, who, by the way, is having incredible success. My goodness, with Denison. Um, so but during COVID, we had him on because it was right after he he wrote his book, um, Let It Rip. And he had a chapter in his book that ironically was exactly like one of the episodes that Pat and I had recorded in our podcast in, you know, prior to us even knowing that he had this book. And his he titled his chapter Parents Are Crazy. And uh we we we had had an episode that was similar to that. It wasn't the same exact title, but we talked about, we just said, we're just gonna talk about some of the some of the things that are really bizarre that happened, that if you if if you did not have a personal vested interest in the game, I I guarantee you it would not happen the same way. You know, I I actually wrote a chapter in my book where I said it it became this became really an epiphany for me. Um when I I was out of town. I think either my family was on vacation or something, and it was during the time when my son was 13 or 14 years old, was in the thick of coaching him in youth ball. And I would lose my mind, you know, sometimes about about things when I didn't feel like he was given the kind of effort that that you know that the game deserved and that, you know, are the effort that his parents, you know, gave, you know, give, um, the money we spend, you know, and all the things that we do. And so you'd lose your mind as a parent on some of those things. And then you'd go to a game and something would happen at a game, and you just lose your mind on an umpire or an official or a coach. And and I I remember being in this place and just taking a walk, and it was in the evening, and there was a game. There was a game going on at a ball field, like a little game with like a pretty good competitive game. And I just walked around and stood on the outside of the center field fence and just watched. I did not know even the names of these teams. I didn't know a single player on either of these teams. I did not know the umpires, nobody. And it was amazing to me how much better the umpiring was in that game than any of the games my kids played in. It was amazing to me how much smarter the coaches were because I could tell, yeah, these are the best players on the field right here, than than than the coaches that you know that that my kids play for. And I and I and I realized, you know what, the biggest issue is is that we are we all love our kids. We love our kids, we love them to death, and we want the best for them. And and so as much as we want to support the team, we're still gonna support that individual that we birthed, you know, or that we had a hand in it. We're gonna support that person more than the team. There's just, there's just no way around it. There's just, I mean, and and and and it hurts when a team decision has to be made or something goes against my child and and and I am naturally gonna react differently. And I just told people, I said, just if if you really want to see what the what the difference is, you know uh how things actually work in your mind and in your heart, go to a game sometime that you have no in, you have no vested interest in at all. You've got no kids playing, no relatives playing, and watch and see how much better the officiating is. Guarantee it's gonna be better because you don't care. You you don't care if that if a call goes against a team or not, because you don't have anybody there that you're rooting for. You know, you're probably gonna watch and enjoy the game and enjoy and and appreciate the team and what the team brings to the court or the field, regardless. Um, but but we see with very limited view lenses when we have our own kids on the field. And so I I would say those topics are sometimes the most difficult ones to talk about. And they'll they will they will uh they'll they're gonna garner some uh some responses, and some of those responses are, you know, people say, Yeah, yeah, I'm guilty of that too. And some of them people get defensive about it and say, well, you know, you know, that's just the way it's gonna be, you know.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

You're

High School Vs Travel Vs Legion

SPEAKER_02 27:46

one of those rare coaches, and by that I mean you've coached high school, travel, and Legion baseball. Can you compare the the three of them and and your take on how they're affecting the game?

SPEAKER_01 28:01

You can look at any one of those three and see flaws, you know. But all three have a purpose and and serve that purpose, I think, well. And I would, and honestly, I I'm I'm a Legion guy too. I grew up playing Legion ball, and I would love to see American Legion baseball make a strong return. And I don't know what it's gonna take for that to happen, but I but uh, you know, we've tried to rebuild it in our area, and there's some years it it helps, but it it it you can't get away from the fact that we used to have a number of you know, 30-some districts, and you know, and then a state tournament. Well, now we have what, eight regions and a state tournament? And then so that means that they're fewer and fewer teams. And um one of the things I love about American Legion Ball is that you're still you're still in a contained geographic location, but you still have, but you also it's best of both world both worlds, right? Like you got kids from different high schools, but it's only a few different high schools, and they're all neighboring kids and neighboring schools, and so they still know each other. Whereas if I go play for a travel team, there might, if there's 15 kids on the team, it might be 15 different high schools, 15 different locations, and I'm I'm making new friends the first day that I show up. And a lot of these kids on Legion teams, they were rivals just a month ago, and now they're teammates. And so that first, those first few practices and those first few days together, they're kind of navigating this new feel of, okay, I like this guy now. I'm supposed to like him this summer. And then when we get back into the high school season next year, I'm I'm gonna hate him again. No, and I'm kidding about that, but uh, you know, just that the the different the different feel there of the rivalry. Uh and I just I don't know, I I really, I really like, I like that um that you still have a lot of local development going on. Um you know, and it's it's uh it's a valuable, you know, uh American Legion baseball has a lot of pride as well. I mean, pride in your country, pride in your, you know, your family, the people that you're with. And I I I I we value that our program values that as well. And I just, I just, I, I love that about it. And I think there's, there's, it's closer to the high school game. You know, the the high school game, you know, comparing it to the travel game, one of the things that I try to tell kids is, is, you know, if if you if you truly have a desire and a dream to go and play college baseball and you have the work ethic for that, because you can have the goal, but you got to have the habits in order to reach the goal as well. If you don't have the habits, then I'll just tell you right now, you're not gonna reach the goal. You got one thing's got to change. Either the goal's got to change or your habits have got to change. And so we'll tell kids that off the bat. And then if they say, no, I seriously, I'm gonna, I'm committed to this. One of the things we might recommend to them is, okay, you might want to start playing, looking for a higher level program to play with just to get the exposure. But also you don't have to. I really believe you don't have to. I think, you know, in today's world with the with video and technology and field level and all the different ways to reach out to a coach, and you know, there's some different dynamics with, you know, transfer portal and it's harder for high schoolers and things, but we can still help them. You know, I think if if you really want to play college baseball and you have the ability to play it, you can find a team to play for. You can find a school to go to and get a good education and play. And so we'll help anybody that wants to do that. But that's, I think, where that's the niche that travel baseball has really been able to help with in particular. But one of the things I tell kids about high school ball is high school ball is really, really special because it builds a pressure that you will never feel in the travel game. In a travel game, I'm playing a tournament every weekend. And so if we, you know, you got pool play, and then you've got bracket play, and then you work through the bracket, and that it mounts, you know. But if we lose this particular tournament, that's all right. We're going to another one next week. High school, everything is building to this, like this feeling that I have today as we get ready for our district championship. I've I've never had that in any of the years that we coach travel ball. And and American Legion has that as well with the state tournament, and then moving on from there as well. You had it has that same feel. And um, and I I love that. And and the other dynamic I think that high school baseball brings, at least in our area and with our schools, you know, and the size of the schools that we have in our area, and you know, knowing that our athletes are playing multiple sports, you know, very seldom do we have a kid that only plays baseball. Uh that's a rarity. You know, most of our kids play at least two, and we have a lot that play three. And so we realize that on a high school baseball team, on our high school baseball team, we may have three or four kids that just eat, sleep, drink. They love baseball. This is their sport. It's their number one sport. But the majority on that same roster, they like baseball, you know, but they all but they love football or they love basketball. And sometimes it's frustrating to those kids that really, really love baseball because the other ones just don't seem to care as much or they may not work as hard. But we need those guys to be successful because they're great athletes. And one of the things I've always told them, you know, this, those baseball lovers is, you know, this is the dynamic of a high school baseball team, of our high school baseball team anyway. And so we've got to learn how to love that and to harness that and to and to build upon it. And um, and so we we tell them, you know, hey, what you're doing right now is really, really special. And I want you to love football, and I want you to love whatever it is, these other things that you love. And you know some of our some of our kids hunting, you know, or fishing or doing, you know, doing other things. And, you know, but but while you're here, if if you would just give everything you've got while you're here for this, that you know, whatever it is that we're doing in training, you know, with weight room, whatever it is, uh, we believe that you're gonna you're gonna create some memories that you'll never forget. You'll look back on this time and and it will be, you know, and and it may not even be on the field, but you're gonna create some really great memories and you're gonna love it. And so we just try to build that that family feel to it. And um, yeah, and it's I don't I don't know how I got off on that on that, but in answering your question, but uh yeah.

Overcoached Hitters Need Better Decisions

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Let's get back to your podcast, Coaching Life podcast. You talk about in episode 206 that players are becoming overcoached. Do you feel the excessive instruction lessons are changing how players play the game today?

SPEAKER_01 34:30

I do. Um you know, I I I have had kids that when they when you see them, you know, I'll just use like like hitting as an example of this, because you know, you a lot of guys either go to hitting instruction or pitching instruction. And you know, you'll see kids in both of those phases of the game who look really, really great. They've you could tell they've worked on their skills, their mechanics, and and that's certainly not a bad thing. I don't, I don't, I don't want to to downplay that because the you know the the more skilled you are and the better mechanics you have, the more opportunity you have to have success. Um, but you got to compete. And and I and I think that sometimes the overcoached or the the you know the the one who gets a lot of instruction assumes that this is what I need to be successful. Well, the problem is a lot of that instruction you're getting is you know, it is either off a T, off a front toss, off of a off of VP pitching, or maybe even off a hack attack and you know, or something like that. But even still, it's gonna be the same thing. You know what's coming. You know, now you get in the box and a pitcher's trying to get you out and he's competing against you, and now you have to make a decision. You have to, you have to have good vision, you have to understand how to, you know, how to select what pitch you're gonna hit. You have to have an approach. What lane am I looking for, and what pitch am I looking for when I get in the box? And I just think that a lot of that gets left out. I think I think it's it's coming into, I'm hearing more and more instructors teach like this. I love Kevin Wilson. I love, I love his approach to hitting instruction because he just asks questions and he wants hitters to think about okay, what am I seeing when I look out at the pitcher? What am I focusing on? Well, how do I feel when I swing? Can I duplicate that? And those kinds of things. And I and I just I've seen kids who don't who got no instruction whatsoever. Um, their swing, yeah, you may look at it and say, Oh, I'd like to fix a couple things in that. But then you put them in the batter's box in the game and they've got this look in their eye, and that, and they just they find a way. You know, they just they they just fight pitches off and they they they're successful and they're just gritty. And and then I got, I've seen kids who, man, they look great. They you know they look their swing looks fantastic. And they get in the box and they and they make bad decisions and they swing, they don't swing at a pitch that they're really, they're really sitting on, and they pop up a lot or they strike out a lot, and you, and they don't have as much success. I'm like, if you're asking me which one I'd rather have, I'd rather have that kid that if you hand him a shovel or a hoe, he'd still hit a baseball with it, you know, um, because he's just gritty, he'll do that, you know. And and um, and that's those are the honestly the kinds of kids that we've got to have in our program because we don't quite we don't have the time. We can't develop good great hitters. Um, if they're not doing a lot of work on their own, well, in the fall they're playing football. In this in the winter, they're playing basketball or they're wrestling, and then they come to us and play baseball in the spring. And then as soon as they're done playing baseball, all of a sudden summer comes and all three of those sports are vying for their attention in those two months, you know? And and so we sometimes have to realize that we cannot spend a ton of time coaching a lot of these individual things because we don't, we've got to, we have to prioritize our time, I guess I should say. And so, um, but yeah, overcoaching has is a lot of different variables to that as well. You know, uh kids in the box trying to trying to hit, and you're down in third base coach's box giving them instruction there. I just you know, I'm that's I'm not about that either. I think I think that's that's that's another uh form of overcoaching. You know, they hear it from the stands as well. They that you know, mom or dad you know is up there coaching them as well. We talked about it in a lot of those different ways that they get a lot of voices.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

I can recall attending a Division I state championship game in Ohio, wasn't playing in it, but the pitcher ended up getting drafted and was a great pitcher. But during the game, I just happened to notice that his older brother, who was no longer in high school, was standing in the stands directly behind home plate, and I could see him flashing signs on what pitch he thought his younger brother should be throwing in the game. And I was just stunned. I couldn't believe it. Here's

Rapid Fire Picks And Fun Stories

SPEAKER_02 38:48

the point in the show where I like to switch it up a little bit. Gut feeling the bracket just came out yesterday for the college baseball world series. Who do you think is gonna win it all?

SPEAKER_01 39:01

It's it's I I tell you, I love college baseball. It is it is my uh this time of year while we're playing and then get home at night and I turn on Esp N Plus and there's game on every night. I it it's just it's it's awesome. And I I yeah, I I've I'm gonna have to go, I've gotta go with UCLA. And it's and and it's and it's often not that easy to pick, I don't think. But but again, it's baseball. Anything, you know, anything can happen. There are teams that you see in the tournament every year that are not in it though, you know, and it's it's it's the beauty of it, I think.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Do you hate losing or love winning?

SPEAKER_01 39:38

I love winning. I love winning. Yeah, I it's I and I think I I I answer it that way quickly because I tend to try and to not build a philosophy or a mission based on a negative. And so as much as I do hate to lose, um, and you know, I I hate the immediacy, the feeling and the immediacy of it. I can't sleep that night. I can't wait to get back on the field again. You know, that's I hate those things. But one of the things I've noticed is there's a an aspect of losing that I actually love because we don't just lose. We we learn. We got, you know, if it we create a really challenging schedule for our guys, and we've got 10 losses this year. And I think, I think, um, I think it's because we we purposefully create a challenging schedule. We tell them at the beginning of the year, we are gonna lose some games. You know, it's hard to be perfect in the game of baseball, and we got to just expect that. But what we need to do is to to have a goal of obviously winning every game, but when we do lose a game, we are gonna use it. We're gonna use that loss to get better. And so I as much as I hate to lose, knowing that a loss makes me get better and helps me to win later, I just think winning is the higher priority. Uh, you know, and even that is tough because I love winning, but winning doesn't love you back. So I mean, you know, you could win, you could win a championship today, and then tomorrow you're on the bottom again and you got to fight for it again. It's not like you know, having a wife where you you can love her and she's gonna love you back. Winning just doesn't winning doesn't care. I mean, winning is is uh you gotta fight for winning every single day.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

If you could interview any coach in baseball history, who would it be and what would be your first question?

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Skip Bertman, LSU. Um, I love I I I cannot get enough from Skip Bertman, Coach Bertman. I I I would love to sit down and pick his brain. I, you know, I he there was a book um that came out a couple years ago uh about him called Everything Matters in Baseball. I bought it right away. I wish he would just write his own book and tell his own stories. Uh, you know, uh he's had other guys you know write those stories down for him, which is great. Um, years ago, I got a video VHS tape called Winning the Big One and watched it. And and now they sort of play a lot of clips from that on SEC storied on ESPN. And every time I flip through on ESPN 2 or whatever it is, and that and that is that program, it's a 30-minute long program, is on. I sit and watch it again. It just gives me chills to hear the way he coaches and to hear his players tell stories. And I think the the question that I would ask him is, you know, he he's a big everything matters guy. There are no small things. A lot like John, you know, uh Coach Wooden, you know, I'd love to sit with him as well. Um I think I would say what matters most if you if you had to say which one, which which aspect of of coaching or or the game matters the most, what matters most. I'd love to hear what what Coach Burton would say about that. Um, but man, yeah, I I I I value that guy.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Name one stadium that you would like to watch a game in, and you got great seats, and the other part of it is what are you having from the concessions?

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Well, I'll tell you, coach, I had this dream was fulfilled for me already. Um, so I gotta I gotta create a new one, uh Charles Schwab Stadium in Omaha. I I I got to go there a few years ago. I, you know, I have a I get to build a lot of great relationships in the roles that I play. I'm not I'm not just a baseball coach. I you know, obviously I work here at the college, but I'm also the the chaplain for the Ohio University football team. And so I I've got a lot of kids that as you know, students, men who, you know, while they're here, you know, they'll get engaged and they'll say, I want to we want to get married, and they'll move back home and they'll they'll ask me to do their wedding. And so a few years ago, I did a wedding out in Nebraska, and it just so happened that the weekend of the wedding was the opening weekend of the College World Series. And I had always had a dream to go to the College World Series. And I'm like, I told my wife, I said, I he they're flying me out to do this, this wedding. I've got a little window of time. I'm gonna go to a game. And so I went to A game. I sat way up in the nosebleeds and uh just took it all in and I made a decision right then and there. I'm coming back here as much as I possibly can. And so the very next year, well, you know, because these, these, some of these, so uh Ohio University for years had Frank Solich as the as the head coach here at our football program. Well, Coach Solich is a legend in Nebraska. He's a legend here at in Athens now. And a lot of the players that he recruited came from Nebraska. Uh and so they a lot of these families that that we've gotten to know, they live in the in the Omaha area. And so now I've got connections there. The most expensive aspect of going to Omaha is the lodging. And uh, and so now I I have the ability to text a couple of these guys and say, can I crash on your floor and uh buy the tickets and go out? So the next year I went out and I actually watched all of the opening round games. Um it was the year Tennessee won. And you know, that that first opening round game they had with Florida State was just unreal. And I got to sit, and I and you I chose different seats. I I sat right behind home plate, I sat in the outfield, I sat, and I I think I really enjoyed the outfield. I enjoyed sitting out there and there were a lot of other kids and teams, you know, youth teams out there and everything. And uh the concession stand, brisket, barbecue. When I smell smoked meat, I I walk to it and I buy it.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

You know, I my son, when he played travel, I found a tournament in Omaha, Nebraska called Slump Buster, and it included tickets to the World Series game, and there's not a bad seat there. Yes. Yes. Final question What is one story that you always look back on as a coach and it makes you laugh?

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Wow, there are several. This one this one isn't it isn't it isn't good, but I'm gonna I'm gonna tell it because it is it is funny. And then I won't obviously not gonna mention names, I'll be very, very vague. Um, you know, we we talked about we talked about how um you know parents are crazy, you know. And uh um and it's a little sad, but it's also it ended up being a good story. Uh we had a guy I was throwing in a game, and he uh he uh was doing really well. It was the first year for the pitch count, and it was a league game, and he had uh uh a shutout going, maybe only he'd only given up a couple hits, and he was reaching his pitch count. And so I I got another pitcher warmed up, and I and I I I put put this other, I go to take him out, you know, because he's right around 123 pitches. So I'm like, this is your last uh that was your last guy. Take him out, put this this pitcher in to finish the game. Well, as soon as I take the ball from him to go to the next guy, I hear this shouting. And it's I'm like, what is that? And it's and it's it's his dad. And his dad is he's intoxicated and he he is shouting just profanity. I can't believe you're effing taking him out of the game. He's got a shutout going. And and and everybody is going, what is happening here? And he ended up having to get escorted out. And and I and I I I went back, you know, we had a a film of that. We put our put our uh little GoPro up on the fence, and he happened to be standing right underneath it, and all the things he was saying, we just had to laugh about it. But um, I said it's sad because it's embarrassing to the child. But I I I stood with that child, that that player in the dugout and just put my arm around him, and and he's just shaking his head because a lot of this had happened all throughout his his childhood, and uh, and uh he said parents just don't get it, do they? And I said, How about that? I he he the kids get it, and sometimes the parents don't. And uh yeah, yeah. But that's it's it's definitely it's funny to look back on and laugh about because I thought just when you think you've heard everything, uh you you might actually get a worse, a worse response sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

So

Thanks, Sponsor, And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_02 48:19

special thanks to Chris Stewart, head baseball coach at Eastern High School here in Ohio. Baseball coaches Unplugged Podcast is proud to be partnered with the Netting Professionals Improved Programs, one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707 or visit them online at www.nettingpros.com. Be sure to tune in every Wednesday for a brand new episode. As always, I'm Coach Ken Carpenter. Thanks for listening to Baseball Coaches Unplugged.