Latest / Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball / Meet Keith Glasser — EMD Baseball Co-Owner on 16 Years of Coaching, the Hard Lessons & What He Knows Now | Ep. 184

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Meet Keith Glasser — EMD Baseball Co-Owner on 16 Years of Coaching, the Hard Lessons & What He Knows Now | Ep. 184 · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:02
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• 1:10
  Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Podcast. I'm Andy Kira Kidis, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How are we doing today?
• 1:19
  Speaker A: Great. How are you?
• 1:20
  Speaker B: Well, you better be great. You better be dialed in because we're flipping the script on the folks again this week. I'm going to interview you, so I'm going to give you an introduction here. Coach.
• 1:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I, I've thought long and hard about my, my answers because that you had the benefit of going first. So I don't, I don't want to give the same answers if you want. Even if, even if I agree with a good portion of yours. I do have. I gave this a lot of thought and I have different answers.
• 1:55
  Speaker B: All right. All right. Well, maybe I'll ad lib it and throw. Throw. You throw the proverbial curveball at you. Let me, let me give our.
• 2:03
  Speaker A: It's like when we do this, let
• 2:04
  Speaker B: me give our, our guest here a quick little introduction. You all know him well. He former Division 1 player, former teammate of mine at Marist, now Marist University, moved on to go coach at West Alabama Sienna College, rpi and then was the head coach at RPI for his final stop on the coaching circuit. He was number 21 in your media guides. He's number one in your hearts. He's as good of a friend as there is in the world. He is my partner in business with EMD baseball fired up to put him on the hot seat this week. We got Mr. Coach Keith Glasser with us today. How are we doing, sir?
• 2:49
  Speaker A: Oh, great. What a. What an intro. I don't think anyone's given me an intro ever in my life, so I appreciate that.
• 2:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, give, you know, the drill. Give the. Give the folks a little bit of a rundown on how you got to where you are. Sure.
• 3:06
  Speaker A: Gosh, you know, I. I grew up in East Greenbush, New York, born and bred, little town right outside of Albany in upstate New York. I went to Columbia High School, A State Championship, NBD 2004. For those of you that want to do math, we had a really good high school team. We ended up having, I think there was nine guys on that team that went to college. Baseball, which is rather impressive if you think about it, for. We were double A at the time, but nevertheless, there was a lot of really good guys that I played baseball with growing up. I loved baseball from an early age.
• 3:48
  Speaker B: Obviously.
• 3:48
  Speaker A: I started playing when I was six. I believe I skipped T ball and, you know, kind of went from there. I. I was a wrestler. I also played football growing up. You know, so I had a pretty diverse athletic background. As I got older, I never really specialized in one sport. I didn't, you know, I took seasons off. I, you know, when it was football season, I played football. When it was wrestling, I wrestled. And when it was baseball, I played baseball. And obviously baseball was. Was what I did the overwhelming majority of the time, you know, so I ended up getting recruited, coming out of high school, handful of schools, but ultimately I ended up landing at Marist College. I'll never forget Coach Rakuya calling me. He was recruiting me at Mason at the time. And then I don't. This is probably frowned upon, but I remember calling me and being like, hey, I'm not at Mason anymore. I'm at Marist College. And I was like, I don't even know where that place is. Never heard of it. He's like, well, I have news for you. It's in your backyard. And I was like, gosh, really? Like, I have a pretty good understanding what's going on around here. I've never heard of this place. Lo and behold, it was an hour and a half away. I went on my official. I stayed with Tom Chickarone. And on that official visit, I was looking at pictures that.
• 5:08
  Speaker B: Hence your commitment. You did it with.
• 5:14
  Speaker A: Hung out with Moose.
• 5:17
  Speaker B: And.
• 5:17
  Speaker A: But on that visit, laying in. In champagne, looking at the. The wall, there was a picture of Tom Chickarone playing a summer baseball game for the Diamond Jacks. He was playing the South Troy Dodgers. And I was catching behind the dish in that picture, which, you know, small world, obviously, you go on a recruiting trip, you don't necessarily expect to see yourself in a picture on the wall of, you know, a potential for future teammate, you know. But I ultimately committed shortly thereafter, if not on the spot, when coach offered me. Spent my four years, obviously, at Marist College. I caught all four years. I was a captain my senior year once, you know, for Coach Healey. And then upon graduation, I was hired to be the second assistant in the now defunct Clark Griffith League. It was a summer college league in the Northern Virginia area where you live now. I was with the McLean Raiders. Tommy Shanley, who was our assistant coach at the time at Marist, was going to be the head coach. And Eric Smith, who was an assistant at Mount St. Mary, was the first. I was going to be the second. Shanley ended up getting bumped up at Marist and couldn't do the job because he was going to be recruiting. And me and Eric Smith were the. He was the head coach, I was the top assistant and I had no idea what I was doing. It was trial by fire. And we ended up having a decent year. We went to this big tournament in Pittsburgh. I think we finished second the point. I don't know if you've ever been there in Pittsburgh, but there's a giant tournament there. It was pretty cool, right? Awesome experience. I got a bat that I still have. It says runner up, but it was an awesome experience. From there. I Heels got me in touch with Mike Jones, who from the University of West Alabama. He was the pitching coach at the time. He's since moved on. He's an associate athletic director at Westow now, but he had pitched for Walt and Heels and Billy at UNO and then played in college or played pro ball for a while, then got into coaching and Heels called me and was like, hey, you want to go to West Alabama? And being 22 years old and you know, yeah, I'll go to West Alabama. I talked to Jonesy, he was like, hey, your Heels guy, I'm going to go to bat for you. I don't hear anything back for like a week. And Coach Rundles, who is the head coach at West Alabama, called me the day before the championship game at the Point and was like, hey, we start school on Monday. How quick can you be here? And it was like Thursday night. And I was like, I'm like, in Pittsburgh, we have a game tomorrow. I gotta drive back to Albany and then drive to West Alabama. I could probably be there by like, Tuesday. I drive, do the whole thing. Drive 19 hours. I lived in a trailer it was a single wide in a. In rural Alabama. It was an unbelievable experience for me. It was obviously a little bit of a shock to the system, having grown up in upstate New York my entire life and moving to rural Alabama. But I was fortunate enough to start with Coach Rundles, who, you know, he's won a ton. He won a ton of games. He's since retired, won a lot of games, won a bunch of championships at West Ally and at Carson Newman College in Tennessee. And I walked in and I remember him being like, have you ever coached outfielders? And I was like, nope. He's like, you're the outfield coach. I said, okay, figure it out. So end up coaching the outfielders. And I was the first base coach for that year, so I got some experience on coaching bases and kind of seeing what was going on. Our top assistant at the time was David Steed, who played AAA baseball for a very long time in the Dodgers and Tigers organization. He was very knowledgeable, but get to see, like, how guys who had been around the game for a long time coach bases and did those things and kind of went about how they coach a lot of stuff was. Was invaluable to me. After a year, I had anticipated staying for two, and the Siena College assistant job opened up. Heals called Coach Rossi. He said he'd be interested. He said, get there as early as you possibly can. So I told Coach Rossi I'd be in the office at 6am I showed up in a suit, which was completely, completely overdressed for the situation, but nevertheless, I did it. And Coach Rossi offered me the job about a day later. And I spent two and a half years as the hitting coach there with Coach Rossi at Siena. We set a ton of records my first year, not necessarily anything to do with me. I was blessed with having not recruited any of the players, and they were really good. They just, you know, bought into kind of what we were doing and we did some stuff. It helped that we had some guys on there that, you know, a handful of guys ended up going and playing professionally. But Coach Rossi, same thing. I was 23 years old and he handed me the keys to an offense and was like, yeah, go ahead, do whatever you want. Figure it out. And it was, you know, I think if I hadn't had that opportunity the year before West Alabama, I probably would
• 10:28
  Speaker B: have struggled a little bit.
• 10:29
  Speaker A: But, you know, I. I had already gone through a year of just trying to figure everything out on the fly. So, you know, the biggest thing for me was the recruiting piece and having A guy like Jimmy Jackson obviously was at Maryland. We were together for two and a half years. And then Coach Rossi, who, I mean, God bless him, this is. He was there for 55 years. Like that dude's forgotten more than I will ever know about this game. So, you know, I learned a lot there. And then from there I got a. I left CN after two and a half years. I spent a summer coaching at the Saratoga Brigade. Think we were in the nacbl. The one year flash of flash in the pan any CBL team we had in the the New York. And then I got to RPI after our good friend Kyle Meyer and former teammate that I grew up with and played high school baseball with and college baseball with, he had left RPI and I took his job with Carl. And I spent my next 10 years there, five as an assistant working in the admissions department there. Shout out RPI Admissions. And then my last five years I spent as the head coach. In 2022, I stepped away. My wife was offered the head women's lacrosse coach job at Brockport, which is obviously for those of you that don't know the, the New York State geography. It's about four hours from. From all from Troy. So we had any. Our son was 18 months old at the time. We, we weren't going to be able to coach spring sports at the collegiate level on opposite sides of the city state. So I stepped away. Admittedly, it's probably the one thing that I wish I could probably go back and do is change the way that that happened. If any of my former players are listening, I wish that we kind of handled that a little bit differently. But it is what it is. I wish that I was able to be a little bit more forthcoming about what was going on at the time, but nevertheless, I stepped away and started doing this with you. And Coach Falcon has taken over at RPI and they won a championship in 2024. Yeah, they won 2024 and went to the NCAA tournament. And he's done a phenomenal job there carrying on what, what Carl started. I shouldn't say started. That program's been around since like 1824. But what, what Carl was able to do over the last 37, 40 years building that program to what it is. And he's done a great job continuing that legacy on with, with the RPI guys. So now I do consulting with you. I was fortunate enough that you were in my ear about, you know, wanting to do this. And I've been doing this for four years, almost four full years now. And Podcasting and being a full time dad and everything else that goes with doing this. So that's my brief. It's probably too long of an intro, but that's my brief history of how I've landed in this hot seat tonight with 16 years of coaching and being a head coach and recruiting and all the things. If you're the parent of a high school baseball player with college aspirations, you already know the recruiting process can feel overwhelming. Endless showcases, nonstop emails and big promises with very little clarity. That's why we recommend Diamond College Showcase Camps, the nation's premier academic baseball showcase. At Diamond College showcases, every college coach in attendance is there with a purpose to coach, instruct, evaluate and recruit. Every player is seen, every player is engaged, and every family leaves with a clear understanding of where they truly stand. This is not a mass camp. College coaches run the drills, evaluate every athlete, and provide honest professional feedback that you can trust. Diamond College Showcase Camps are built for serious student athletes who value both baseball and and academics. If you're looking for transparency, clarity, and a recruiting experience that respects your time and your players future, Diamond College Showcase is the place to be. To learn more, visit diamond collegeshowcase.com it
• 14:37
  Speaker B: always, this always hits me every time we talk to another coach or we do an interview. It's just how, in a good way, this whole business is like so incestuous. Right. Like you talk about heels, is willing to make a phone call for you because you did well for him as a player. He trusted you as a person to go and go to a place like West Alabama and then that connection with him and Walt and Billy and, and then you've got Tom Shanley tied in there. And then you replace Kyle Meyer, who was a high school teammate who I played in the middle infield with my senior year. It's just, it always, it always amazes me how tight the circle actually ultimately ends up being. When you, when you start to backtrack all the stuff, it's like, oh, yeah, yeah. There's all these connections that are. Sometimes you don't even realize it until you start to unpack it and you. It's just a web of people that have all touched each other in some way or another. Yeah. Careful.
• 15:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I think that it's, it can be a good and a bad thing sometimes, but I, I think that ultimately, you know, if you do right by people and you're good, you know, I think that it's going to lead you to more opportunities than not. And, you know, I'm, I'm Forever indebted to Heels for, you know, I'll never forget and heels. And I talk about this frequently, but I'll never forget standing in the locker room with him and he was like, you don't want to do this. And I was like, but I do. And he was like, you don't look at me. And it was my senior year. We did not have the best senior year. We didn't have the best year. My senior year. We ran out a lot of freshmen. You know, I was. Me and Meyer and, you know, Kenny were really the only upperclassmen that played a substantial amount. And McDonough, but, you know, like, the overwhelming majority of guys on that field were freshmen. And it's hard to win at the Division 1 level with six, seven freshmen starting games, including on the bump. And we didn't have a great year. And you Fast forward to 2025 or excuse me, 2009. I'll never forget driving back from west all and I stopped at practice and it was. I felt like I was watching a lion tamer in heels with a bunch of just zoo animals running around the field. Like, no one was in matching stuff. No way. It didn't matter what you wore as long as you had Maris baseball on. Like, all the stuff that we didn't do, right? And I remember sitting there having a conversation, he's like, yeah, no, like, I stopped caring about the stuff that, like, does it really matter? And I was like, well, it mattered two years ago when you yelled me about the laundry not being done.
• 17:36
  Speaker B: Right?
• 17:36
  Speaker A: Like, but this point, like, we sat in that a very long conversation. But, like, I'm forever indebted to Heels for making that phone call and jumpstarting my career. And I think, like, that was his, like, looking back on it, I think that was his moment of, like, testing me about whether or not this is what I really wanted to do. And if I wavered, I don't know, I think he still makes the phone call, but I don't know if I get the job right. Like, then there's a difference in that. Like, I think if I wavered and been like, well, you know, maybe I don't. He'd be like, I'll, you know, I'll make phone calls, but I don't know if he really wants to do this. And I was like, no, this is what I want to do. Like, I want to coach, I want to be able to do this stuff, and I want to figure this out. Maybe I don't want to do it in five years. In my Mind, like, but let's see what's going to happen. And, you know, I think for coaches who listen to this, like, younger, like, I was willing. I'd never been to Alabama in my life. Like, I was willing to go anywhere to do this. And who knows? Like, if I had stayed there for two years, maybe I'm still in the Southeast and doing stuff. I don't know. Like, life took me in a completely different direction. But those connections, you know, have. Have been, you know, how I was able to get my foot in the door on jobs, right? Like, you know, and I think sometimes in this business, a lot of times it's people think, you know, it's obviously who you know, and I think a lot of people lean sometimes towards, like, it's not what you know, it's who you know a little bit more than they probably should. Because I think, at least in my case, and I. Maybe I'm a unique case. And I'm not saying I'm the best baseball coach in the history of the world. You can't fool a Tony Rossi. You can't fool a Carl Stefan. Like, they've seen it all, right? Like, and they. They taught me a lot, and. But I think it was more the, you know, I was willing to learn and not, like, think that I knew everything there was to know about everything. And don't get me wrong, like, you have an end of the. Like, Coach Rossi does end of the year meetings with players. He does end of the year, end of the year meetings with coaches. Like, he sits you down in the office and tells you everything it was that you did wrong and how you can correct it, and he'll do it on the fly. But, like, you have an end of the year meeting where, like, it's no different than when you're a player, and it can be intimidating. But I remember, like, I remember my first one, he was like, you have to stop saying dude. You call everyone dude. Coaches don't do that. And I was like, heels called me dude all the time. What do you mean? I mean, I think he's pretty good, but, you know, but it's little things like that. And I think that, like, you know, to your point, like, it's, you know. You know, and even that connection with Coach Rossi, like, Billy played for him, you know, and it's. You start getting, you know, inner that. That web starts to intertwine quite frequently the longer that you're in this business.
• 20:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, heels is a common point for me. New heels gave me.
• 20:30
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 20:31
  Speaker B: Gave me mine. He opened up his, he had a couch that I could sleep on and he knew that like money was going to be super tight for me. And that guy went above and beyond one to open up his apartment and be like, hey man, I know it's not much, but like you can stay here when you're not working. Like you can stay at my place. He didn't have to do that. He's a Division 1 head coach. Right. And he opened it up to me and did everything he could to try to give me opportunities to make a little money on the side. Like guys like him pay it forward. And like, I remember that. I know you remember that and like you try to do that for other
• 21:13
  Speaker A: people, but I think you know what it is too. And like, I don't, I don't want to sound old in before we get into this hot seat questions, but I think that it's something where that generation of coaches, and in some respect, in a large respect, our generation of coaches, like you had to pay your dues. And I don't, I don't mean to say that negatively, right. Like, but there was no, you weren't getting paid in this business unless you stuck around for seven, eight, nine, 10 years. You know what I mean?
• 21:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 21:56
  Speaker A: Like, think about it. Like think about how many jobs there were and this speaks to how big and how great college baseball has become where you have a lot of Mid Major, Division 1, Low End Division 1, Division 2 and Division 3 programs that have fully funded full time assistants that have benefits. Like that was not a thing 20 years ago. Like that didn't exist. And in some places it still doesn't.
• 22:25
  Speaker B: Right.
• 22:26
  Speaker A: But like, oh, like unless you were a power five conference or you were at some one off, like super high end academic school that didn't exist. Like you had to, that's why those jobs were sought after. But you had to, you had to go out there and you had to prove that you were, you could stick around, that you could recruit, that you could do these things. And you know, but I think that to your point of like heels paying it forward, like you knew what it was like, you know, guys like that didn't forget what it was like being, you know, shoot, I don't, I don't forget what it was like, you know, Coach Rossi, I'll tell the story quick before we move on. We had to save every dollar of recruiting when I was at Siena, like we barely stayed overnight. Like you had to be the first guy there and we didn't stay over the night before. So if we were going to be a Diamond Nation. And first pitch was at 8. I had to leave my, I had to leave at like 4am to make sure that I got the Diamond Nation by like 6 so that I could be the first guy through the door to sign my name because someone was going to take a picture of it and send it to Coach Ross and you'd be like, fifth guy there, huh? What were you doing? And I distinctly remember I was in Worcester, Massachusetts and it was the, what event was I covering? It was the very start of nabc. It was an NABC tournament, but they were using a couple other fields scattered around. And I stayed in a Motel 6 for $59 a night. Now you can use your imagination and think about what a 59 night a hotel is like. And I remember coming back and turning my receipts in and coach being like, that's the cheapest hotel you could find. And I was like, the AC didn't work. They didn't have soap in the shower. Like I showered with just water for two days. I spent, let's call it 120, $130 on two nights of hotel that I like. I was afraid to sleep in the bed and it was like, couldn't have gotten cheaper and like that was just like, that was just what you had to do and they just, you just had to get over it and try to figure it out, you know. So like I remember those days. I remember Motel Sixes and you know, driving back at 3 o' clock in the morning blasting any type of, you know, rock metal music that you could listen to to just stay awake and getting home at four in the morning and sleeping for two and a half hours and getting back in the office and probably leaving later that night to go somewhere else, you know. So like I remember those days, but I think that you like, you know, those, those days used to exist. I don't know that they necessarily do
• 25:26
  Speaker B: anymore, but it's kind of a badge of honor. I know there's always some good stories that come out of it. Guys sleeping in park lots and. Yeah. Living out of their car for the summer and.
• 25:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, but it, but it was like, it was what you had to do 20 years ago. And you know, and I think it's great how far we've come and this isn't, this isn't a pound my chest moment. Right? Like, it's not because I'm not the only one who did this. There's plenty of, there's plenty of guys out there still coaching that did this, and they can tell you just as many stories, but like, it's just what it was. Like that was just the accepted mode of what we had to do in order to be, you know, to be successful and find as many players as you possibly could.
• 26:11
  Speaker B: Good times, stuff like that always leads to good stories. Looking back on it, for sure, speaking of good stories, were almost 20 years, you're almost 20 years removed from being a college baseball player. What, what do you appreciate now that you didn't as a player, looking back on it, about your college experience? I think
• 26:47
  Speaker A: my best answer is how hard it was. And I don't necessarily mean hard in the sense of it was hard to be a college baseball player.
• 27:00
  Speaker B: Right.
• 27:00
  Speaker A: Like, I think that that's something that is inherent to being a college athlete. Like it's not going to be easy, right? Like you still got to be, you know, you got to be a student. You know, it's going to be hard. There's going to be long days and travel and all that stuff. But I think looking back on it, like how hard the entire journey was and how, how meaningful I think it, it ended up becoming and, and the things that you had to go through that set you up to be successful once you leave college, you know, I don't think you realize in the moment the things and the, the adversity that you're facing as an 18 to 22 year old man or woman. It's going to shape a good portion of how you respond to things as you get older, you know, and I think that it's, it's not just the college experience, right. When I say that it's hard, I think it's the, the entire journey to getting to that college experience and then living that college experience and realizing, you know, as you get old, because in the moment it doesn't seem that hard, right? It doesn't seem that hard to wake up at six in the morning on not a lot of sleep and go lift and start your day and go to the cafeteria and go to your 8am class and your 10am class and then, you know, maybe have an hour or two of downtime and then go to practice at 1, get out of practice at 4, shower, go eat and then hang out for the night because you're young, you can do it, you can handle it. But I think the adversity that you face through it, whether it's in school, whether it's trying to get on the field, the weight room stuff, the travel, the relationships, what led you to that point? I think that it comes easy for the overwhelming majority of people who do eventually go play in college. Right. And I say that broadly, but, like, you know, I think if you're going to be in that 8% or if you're going to be in that 1.8% that play Division 1 sports at the, you know, for baseball, excuse me, if you're in that 1.8%. Like, I think some of those things do come natural and do come relatively easy for you, whereas as you get older, I think you start to kind of look back on things and realize how hard it actually was and what you were capable of doing. And, you know, I think you do sometimes look back with regret that you probably could have done a lot, a little more. But I think you appreciate, as you get older, how hard it was and how that entire experience sets you up for what you are going to face once you actually get out into the real world. You know, I'm not going to get into it tonight, but, you know, we've had some, as a family, some serious, serious heartbreak and hard times. And I would be lying to you if I told you that I didn't reach out to our coaches and people that I played with and, you know, to thank them for the stuff that they did that allowed me to be able to handle the things that we went through. And I think that I. That was always probably going to be my answer. But I think that over the last couple of years, that the appreciation of what, how hard it was and what you went through that, like, it's. There's not much that life's going to be able to throw at you that you're not going to be able to figure out because you, you know, how to put your head down, go to work and figure out a way for you to come out the other side better than you were on the front side, you know. So I would say that for me, it's the appreciation as I've gotten older is how hard it was. And again, in the moment, it doesn't seem that hard. But I think when you look back on it and you reflect and you meet other people who maybe weren't athletes and you understand what their college experience was like, and it is a complete 180 of what yours was. So you kind of start to appreciate, like, hey, you know, maybe I'm not, I'm not a special person, but I did some special stuff when I was in college, you know, when, I mean, we won championships, we played in tournaments. Like, we won a lot of big games. Like, there's there's something to be said about that. And like, the, the workouts and the, the, the running and the, I mean, gosh, how many Punisher runs did we have? Like, you know, you realize that, like, I can do this and this isn't, this isn't as hard as I think it is. But you look back on it, it's like, I don't know how many people could actually last through that. And you gain an appreciation for that. You gain appreciation for the people who helped you through that, you know, and told you the truth. Right? Like, the other side of it is like, it's not easy, like I just said, but like, you're going to be told things that you don't want to hear, you don't like to hear, but you got to hear them. And it frames what you can, your response and how you can, you know, figure things out as you get older.
• 32:16
  Speaker B: I like that answer.
• 32:18
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 32:18
  Speaker B: I'm gonna throw a slight curveball at you. So derivative of the question that I was gonna ask, but I'm gonna ask it slightly differently. If you could go back to the day before classes start, what would you tell 18 year old Keith Glasser ahead of you starting your college baseball career?
• 32:47
  Speaker A: I would tell him that the next four years are going to fly by faster than you could even possibly imagine they're going to go. I look back on it now and it's, it's funny because I feel like, you know, it's obviously been almost 20 years since I graduated college, but I have so many fond memories of, of our team, of my college experience, of teachers like Eric. And I still joke about teachers that we had, but not in a bad way if they're listening, but things they would say and things that we would do. And, you know, I think that when you're in the moment and you're, you know, you commit or you show up on campus, which a lot of kids are doing right now, right? Over the last week or two, showing up on campus for your freshman year and it's, I think it's a daunting task, right? And I think it's relatable, right? Like, my son just started kindergarten and I think I'm struggling more. My wife is struggling more than he is, but at the same time, like, it's a, it's a big undertaking, right? Like, you know, he takes the bus and he's on his own and all this stuff where, you know, you go to college and you're on your own for the first time for the most part. You know, you got to feed yourself. You got to feed. You're out laundry. You got to make friends. You have to have a social life. You have to play baseball. You have to do all these things, and you got to go to class. You got to get good grades. Excuse me. And I think that in that moment, and I remember this. The reason I say this is I remember this so distinctly. My freshman year, we're in the weight room, and it was probably right before Thanksgiving break, and we had just walked into the weight room. Moose, Travis Mousoff was right next to me. My locker. His locker was here. My locker was right here. So Moose and I became very close instantly on day one. But the. We were talking, and I was like, hey, man, like, what's. You know, what's the season like? Like, what does that look like? Because we're, you know, I'd never gone through a college baseball season. Like, what is that like? And I remember Moose looking me dead in the eyes and being like, dude, we're gonna get back and start practice in January, and you're gonna feel like we blinked, and we're gonna be playing in the conference tournament. And I was like, what? How? And he's like, I don't know how to explain it other than like, this is what it's gonna like. That's just what it feels like. And we went through. We went through the season, and it felt that way, like we got back on campus. Now, back in those days, we could start when we. We got back on campus. So, like, we started right away, and then. So we started team practice, like, what, Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend, and didn't. Didn't open until February. Ish. So you had, like, four or five weeks inside. So I remember talking to Moose and him being like, you're going to blink in the season's over. And I didn't really comprehend it at the time. And back in the day, when we were in college, you could start right when you got it back on campus. So we would start that second week in January and just roll it through until we started playing. And I remember getting in the conference turn and being like, yo, I can't believe that it's. Were in the tournament. Like, you stay on campus after school ends. You had to move dorms, and then you're, you know, you're playing the conference tournament, then we go to a regional. You know, we didn't get off campus until, you know, end of May, June. And I remember thinking, you know, reflecting back in my freshman year and being like, yo, that Went super fast. Like, my gosh, I can't, I can't believe that that was as fast as, you know, it was, you know, and I, I think looking back now, just those four years fly by, it seems like a daunting task when you set foot on campus in August or September of your freshman year of like, wow, four years. Like, it's a really long time. And what's this going to be like? And before you know it, you know, you're walking across that stage and you've played four years of college baseball and hopefully you've done a lot of cool stuff, but like, just the sheer shortage of time, I don't want to say shortage because that's not the right word, but the feeling that time was so fleeting.
• 37:15
  Speaker B: Right.
• 37:15
  Speaker A: Looking back on it, like, those four years go so fast and I wish that that was probably something that I was able to recognize in the moment and maybe take stock of a couple more things as I, you know, went through my college experience. But, you know, it just goes so fast. It's the one piece of advice that I try to give freshmen when, when they were, you know, played for me. And I look back on it now, it's just like it is gonna fly by. You're gonna meet some of the best friends of your life and you, before you know it, you're gonna be job searching and looking for what's next. And it doesn't seem like that right now in September of your freshman year, but before you're gonna blink. And it's going to be, you know, April 25th of your senior year and you have two weekends left, there's a playoff push, and you're like, wow, I can't believe I got this far. You know, so to that point, I think that it's, you know, it's that, that time that goes so fast and it feels fleeting. So don't, don't give it away. Do everything you can to make the most of your four years of your college athlete experience.
• 38:29
  Speaker B: It is such a, I mean, if you think about it like you're basically sprinting nine months out of the year and you're jogging at a good pace the other three. Because once you, yeah, like once you roll around January, it's a seven day a week sprint until you finish up the irregular season. And people be like, oh, we're supposed to get an off day. Like, you don't really get off days. You do, but you don't. Like, you don't practice, but like on Monday you're doing something like, if you're not hitting if you're not in the training room, if like whatever it is, you don't really get a break. And then you get one days for
• 39:08
  Speaker A: me were cold pool.
• 39:10
  Speaker B: Maybe a week. You get maybe a week before summer ball. And that is legitimately six days a week of playing games for seven weeks. You get at best three week break before you come back on campus.
• 39:28
  Speaker A: Oh yeah, at best.
• 39:29
  Speaker B: And then a full fall and then you settle into like a competitive jog pace in the off season where it's five days a week. You know, it's a little bit different, but yeah, I mean it's a lot.
• 39:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean you don't really get a break unless
• 39:47
  Speaker B: summer was the thing
• 39:48
  Speaker A: that people might be controversial for me to say to an infielder, but like really only the pitchers, the outfielders and the infielders get breaks.
• 39:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. Catchers don't.
• 39:58
  Speaker A: No, because like you're, you're catching bullpens and indies. You still got to hit and do your defensive stuff. Like you're, like, you're, you're on quite a bit.
• 40:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, you don't. Catchers don't get breaks, so you guys don't. Catches don't get enough credit for all of the stuff that they have to do. Everybody thinks they just catch on game day. And as a coach, I didn't recognize it as a player as much because there's just so much going on around you. But as a player, distinctly remember thinking about like we have to load, manage our catchers because they don't. They have to participate in everything. There's no portion of the game that they can't participate in. It's just. And you need them to do everything functionally, team wise. Like if you're going to do anything as a team, the catchers have to be there. You can do a lot without outfielders, you can do a decent amount without position players that aren't catchers. It just. But they don't get a break. Your indoor days were like we would just do live pitching. It was easy as an infielder because you didn't do anything but play catch that day and then hit. Catchers got to do everything. You got to go catch the bullpen, then you got to bring that guy into the cage and then you're taking foul balls because you can't see off of the backdrop. You know, like it's such an underappreciated position. And I think it's not about the underappreciation of game day. I think it's the Underappreciation of the work, the time, the effort. That is the bare minimum if you're going to catch in college. Like, what you have to be able to deal with physically and mentally as a catcher is far beyond what you have to do at any other position. I don't think it's particularly close in baseball. No. What. What do you wish you. Obviously, things have evolved quite a bit in a variety of different ways since we played. What do you. What do you wish you had access to that we. What do you wish you had access to that we didn't have access to as players back then that most kids have access to now?
• 42:13
  Speaker A: I think the most obvious one is Trackman. I might take it in a different direction based off of what we were just talking about, where I think I would have liked to have had and been in on the conversations of the data breakdown of our arms and what their pitches are doing. You know, I think as catchers, if you want to be really good at your craft, you need to understand all the guys that you're catching and what they do well, what they don't do well, their strengths, their weaknesses, how you can handle them. And I think being able to have access to that data now, I. I have to imagine, would allow catchers to have a better understanding of what guys do when they're going well and what guys are doing when they're not going well.
• 43:05
  Speaker B: Right.
• 43:05
  Speaker A: Like, you have so much access to that. That data to say, like, hey, when, you know, this is what his breaking ball does when he's getting tired and getting under it. Right. Like, if I see that as a catcher and I, like, I can have a conversation or I can have a cue from myself to the pitch to be like, hey. Or to the pitching coaches, like, hey, like, we're. We're really getting under this breaking ball, these last four or five pitches. Like, it might be time to get someone up in the pen. Or, you know, I think about a guy like George who could really run it and sink it, like, being able to know, like, what that pitch does to. Where I can get to that ball and beat it to the spot so that I can make sure that I can present that as a strike more times than not, instead of, you know, getting beat by the ball and getting my thumb down and getting thumbed, things like that, where, you know, what does, you know, Puckley is one that comes to mind. Like, Buckley, you know, scraped the ground, you know, underneath. Like, what does that look like? Right. Like, I think being able to have access to that as A from a defensive perspective, for me as a catcher, I think would have been, you know, something that I wish I would have been able to have access to or at least be able to have conversations about. Right. Like, hey, you know, this is what happens with this is what his, you know, his arm side run. Like he's got, you know, this horizontal break going this way. Like this is how much it's average is going on. Like that gives me a frame of reference of where I need to start to set up and where I'm going to expect that ball to run. You know, it gives me an idea from there. So I think that that's probably the, you know, I think the obvious one we track man of like, oh, I'd love to know my offensive metrics. Like, I was as average to below average as you could possibly be, you know, but I think defensively it would have. It would have made me an even better catcher to be able to handle guys. And I think I did a fairly decent job of being able to do that throughout my career, you know, but I think I really enjoyed the, you know, what your craft of catching is and how to be able to present balls and get umpires on your side and steal strikes and do all of those things. I think that would have elevated what I was capable of doing behind the dish if, if we had access to that 20 years ago.
• 45:28
  Speaker B: I like that I wouldn't have tied it necessarily back to trackman. But as a catcher, that's just such important information to have. Like the trust you have from a pitcher, it just gives you a better chance to build that rapport because you just have a bet, you have a more information to solidify their understanding of exactly what a guy does.
• 45:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you know, and I look back now, like there were a lot of dudes that we played with that were tough to catch. Like George was tough to catch. Traz, believe it or not, was not easy. You know, Puckley was tough. Rob Gocki with the knuckleball, that was hard. Was tough. You know, there's a decent amount of guys that, that we played with and. Or you coach that were not necessarily the easiest to handle. And I think being able to have that information would be, you know, would help you a handle them better, but also make you a better catcher at the same time because it allows you to understand what their trying to do, what they need to do, you know, what their reference points are. You know what I mean? Like, I think some of those things and like we, you know, I. Pitchers pick out Reference then catchers bodies. Like sometimes like we had that big E because we wore Easton right in the center of our chest. Like sometimes guys, you know, you had to sit still so that they could focus on that E and start whatever it was there, you know. But you know, Robbie Ryan, not easy to catch, you know, but having an understanding of like what their pitches do and what they're, you know, what that variation might be, right? Like to give yourself the most prepared spot of like okay, like this ball could literally land right down the middle. It could also spike at 58ft or you know, it's going to run in on right handed arms from you know, 12 to 16 inches. This slider is going to wave from right handed hitters from, you know, 24 to 26 inches. Like whatever it might be, but it gives you a frame of reference to be like, okay, this is where we're gonna live in this area. It gives me an idea of being like, okay, this is where I have to be to be to, to be successful with this guy. And I think it gives the pitchers more trust. Right. Like ultimately you talk about this all the time with when, when you're coaching, like if you want to catch like the pitchers of the old, like not that they're the ultimately the ones that have to say, but like they have to trust you that you're going to be able to, you know, they can throw whatever pitch they want and it's not going to get past you. And if it does, like there's some crazy thing that happened and you put every effort on your end to, to stop that baseball, you know. So I think that it gives you the ability to make yourself better and understand your arms but also grow your craft to what is going to be best for you.
• 48:31
  Speaker B: Those movement profiles. It's really interesting to look at it from a catcher's perspective because you haven't played shortstop and looked at it from that view. You don't. Pitchers need to trust that you're not going to lose them strikes. Just understanding a movement profile a little bit better can help you catch a ball to get a strike. If there's nothing worse. Like I've watched it where like catchers are clanging balls and you're going, if you just got that a little cleaner, like that's a strike. And margins are so thin and pitchers confidence is super important for them to be able to like really attack the zone and throw their pitch with the movement and the arm speed and the life that they need to throw it with. And like I think of Like a guy like George, who's a kind of heavy sinker with that arm side sink. And if you weren't dialed in to catch him, like, he could make you look bad easily.
• 49:30
  Speaker A: And just really my freshman year.
• 49:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's. I wasn't good enough to handle.
• 49:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, good enough yet. But it's, you know, I think that it's like you're going to drag things out of the zone and like that if there's a moment of doubt in their mind that they can't throw the pitch that they need in that spot.
• 49:50
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 49:51
  Speaker A: It's either going to get hit or it's going to be a ball. And it goes. It doesn't necessarily show up in the box score, that it's on you, but it's on you. Like, you'd rather show up in the box score. Same thing. It's not going to show up in the box score, but you'd rather it be a backwards K in a big spot than a ball that you drug out of the zone that led to a walk. Like, and it, it's never going to show up. No one's going to know. And that, like, that's the, the wild part about catching is like, no one's going to know. The only one that's going to know is the guy who threw the pitch. And you know, as coaches, we know, but like, you stick that ball like three, four inches off the plate and get that strike three call because you stuck it for seven straight innings and you get in that big spot with runners on first and third in a one run game and two outs and you get that hop and toss it back to the mound. Like, that is an awesome feeling. It is a horrible feeling when you get beat by a ball and it clips off your glove or you catch it and you drag it out of the zone and it's just an automatic ball because it just.
• 50:55
  Speaker B: Just didn't do a good enough job handling trackman, too. There's a lot of accountability for catchers there because especially if you get in game situations where you actually have a ball or strike call, you can track that too. And you can really quantify, like, how good is this guy getting that French pitch? How many pitches are we losing in the strike zone because this guy's not doing a good job handling them. And like, there's an element of coaching there where, I mean, it's just, it's just more information and yeah, I could see that being super valuable. I'm glad you brought that up. What do people think matters, ultimate matters, but ultimately doesn't when it comes to the college experience, give me something controversial.
• 51:46
  Speaker A: Okay, this is what I've thought about and I wrote this down because I wanted to make sure that my thoughts were. I didn't write anything else down, but I wrote this one down because I wanted to make sure that my thoughts were clear. Playing time. I think playing time is widely overvalued in the recruiting process because I think that there's way more that goes into you getting on the field than just your raw athletic baseball ability, right? Like you got recruited to that program, you're going to have an opportunity to showcase yourself, to get yourself on the field. The reality is that there's a lot of things that you need to do in order to prove that you're capable of being that everyday shortstop, that everyday third baseman, that everyday catcher, outfielder, whatever it is. And it's understanding, it's having a higher baseball iq, it's being able to do it day in and day out, right? Like, I think a lot of younger kids who go through this process, you don't, you're not, you're, you will have never practiced as much baseball as you will at the collegiate level. Like the majority of it is probably, you know, and it's not to disparage high school baseball or travel baseball, but how many travel baseball teams are out there practicing, you know, if you're playing, you know, seven games on the weekends, how are you getting after it on, you know, giving Monday off and practicing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday before you get back into it for two and a half, three hours? Because you're probably not like high school baseball. You're playing what, two, three games a week? Most I would say probably play like Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday type model, maybe with a Saturday non league mixed in, depending on what it is. Like your two, you know, your 90 minute practice where probably 60 of it is BP, it's not, it's not a collegiate practice. And you, you know, you need to bring it every day. You need to make plays during live bp, you need to be able to understand bundes, you need to be able to stand first and thirds, you need to be able to stand cuts and relays, double cuts. You, you need to be able to run the bases, you need to be able to understand, you know, the sign system. You need like there's so much that goes into it and it's not to say, it's not to scare people and say that like, you know, freshmen don't play like they do go look, they do, but if you're only concerned about playing time, and I've heard this a million times in my coaching career of like, well, if I just had a couple more opportunities, like, yo, we inter squatted 17 times. You have zero. And you also made four errors. Like, how many more opportunities do you want? There's your opportunity right there. And I think that the playing time thing gets so hung up on of like that's the most important thing. And ultimately, yeah, man, everyone wants to be on the field, but you're competing against your own teammates to figure out or to prove, not to figure out, to prove that you're better than them. And you have to go in and be the better baseball iq, the better guy on first and thirds, the better guy on bunt is the better guy in situational hitting, the better guy with bp, the better guy in game guy who can go first and third on a single to the outfield, the guy that can go second to home on a double or on a single with, you know, the guy that can go first at home on a double with two outs. You have to be able to do an overwhelming majority of those things in order to earn your, your place on a field. Now that being said, like, you could be really good defensively and work your way into the field in the eighth inning because yeah, we can sacrifice one at bat or zero at bats and have a better defensive player, but that's going to ultimately lead you to like the things you've done before that are you've proven that you can play defense, you've proven that you can understand the game here. And you know this stuff, we just got to bring the bat along. So I think that the playing time thing, it matters. Do not get me wrong, right? Like, no one really wants to go play in college and like sit the bench, right? Most coaches aren't going to want to recruit a guy that wants to do that anyways. But I think the, the playing time thing is solely focused on gentle being on the field on game day. And that's what is most important. When really it's all the behind the scenes stuff. It's the extra swings in the cage, it's the taking your batting practice seriously, it's taking your throwing progressions seriously on the front part of practice, when getting your arm loose and not just walking out there, like, you know, hey, let's just get our arm loose out to, you know, 60ft and whatever. Like, feet, it doesn't matter, but like getting your arm loose, what does that look like? Do you Move your feet, can you catch the ball? Can you get out of your glove fast enough? All of those things, all those little tiny details matter. Taking your base running seriously during bp, during base running stuff, you know, understanding where outfielders are, all those behind the scene things matter way more than the actual playing time. Because that's the reward, right? Like the reward for being able to do all of those things that no one is ever going to see. But your teammates, that's their reward. And I would probably argue that 95% of kids, if you ask them, like, they probably agree with the lineup that's being run out there because they know and they've seen, like, that guy puts in the effort. That guy does more. He's better at this than I am. It might be hard to admit, but, like, while the playing time thing is important, the more important thing behind all of that is all the stuff that leads up to you having your name on that lineup card and being posted in the dugout so you can go play, right? Like, it's not just, well, I want, I want to play. Like, yeah, man, I got 35 guys that want to play. But who's going to do all the things correctly? Maybe not correctly. Who's going to do all the things the best way that they possibly can that give us the best opportunity to win? And it's not just, can I hit the ball hard and I throw the, can I get out, Can I move runners, can I cash in runs, Can I hit in pressure situations, Can I defend? Can I defend in the eighth inning with a runner on second base and one out? And if I sell this, we're tied, right? Like, can you do that? That's what gets you on the fields. And being able to do that every single day, day in and day out, it sounds boring, but if you can do that day in and day out, you're going to find yourself with more opportunities than not. I think that, I just think that the playing time thing to me is it matters way more than the having the ability to understand that your opportunity comes every day and what you need to do in order to earn yourself that playing time that it's not everyone's going to tell you, yeah, man, you're going to have an opportunity to play. It's what you do with that opportunity. But that opportunity, for most kids, it takes them a year to realize, like, oh, this is, this is an everyday. This isn't just game day, inner squad day. Like, this is an every day, I gotta bring it and be better than everyone else out there so that I can earn my chance to get out there and show what I can do. And the flip side to it, too, Andy, is like, once you get that opportunity to go play, like, you gotta do it. Yeah. If you get the ball, you got to go get outs. Because if you go out there and give up 12, probably ain't getting the ball anytime soon. You go out there and punch out five times, probably not going to be, you know, probably not gonna be in a lot. Go out there and make four errors. Games too fast, probably not ready for it.
• 59:52
  Speaker B: Right.
• 59:52
  Speaker A: And you're back to the drawing board and then back to the adversity piece and stuff I talked about earlier. Like, that happens way more than people think.
• 59:59
  Speaker B: Right.
• 59:59
  Speaker A: Like, it is a reality of this game, you know, So I just. That the. The playing time piece is, I think, is. Is oversold versus the, you know, what that opportunity, like what your opportunities are and what you do with them and how to be done day in and day out.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker B: No, I couldn't agree more. I think, I think a lot of times the cart goes before the horse. And we hear this in the recruiting process, too, where you're trying to make decisions on, well, I think the opportunity, you know, or like, playing time. Playing time. Like, if you think you're walking into a college program and you're just going to get handed playing time, like, you're sorely mistaken. Like, oh, well, they've already got three catchers on the roster. Like, yeah, what do you. Like, you think they're running. You think they're going in there with one? Like, oh, well, they've. They're returning four infielders. Well, yeah, it's your job to go in and be better than those four guys.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker B: Like, that's what, that's what you sign up for. Like, that's the, you know, that's the filter that creates something competitive. And competition forces guys to separate themselves. And I'm glad that you framed it that way because I think that playing time is the obvious answer to, like, well, what's your goal? I want to play well. Okay, but, like, let's back it up and what do you need to do to actually achieve that? And I think that a lot of times that gets overlooked. It really does get overlooked that there are so many. There are so many things that you need to do, specifically in a sport like baseball, where your secondary season prefaces your primary season. So you. You have this window of time to go in and prove that you belong in that lineup, whether you're a freshman, sophomore, Junior it doesn't matter. Like every September it resets to a certain extent and there's an opportunity that you have to separate yourself from your peers and your peers are wearing the same uniform as you. So I'm glad that you brought this up because I think it's, I think it's a lot of, I think it's something that a lot of people need to hear either in preparation for being a college athlete or I think there's a lot of kids who are going onto campus right now that could use that message. I think there's a lot of kids who are on college campuses right now that need to take a step back and really think about how much ownership they have in it and like you could still be awesome and still come up short because the dude ahead of you is just better. Like that's the reality of it too. And I think that that's scary for some kids is that the fear of failing gives them an easy cop out, like I was just better than me. But no, I think it's a great point. Great point. Yeah.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker A: I just think that it's, it's the behind the scenes stuff that matters more and the, the daily, you know, I mean, shoot, you're going to play, say you play 56 games. Like you're probably going to have 70 plus practices, plus Indy, you know what I mean? You're going to practice and prep way more than you're going to actually play. So the practice and prep stuff means just as much if not more than because that earns you the opportunity. The reward of all those opportunities is you being written into the lineup. And I think a lot of people just kind of you look. I think a lot of people, a lot of younger kids view the lens, view the game through the lens of high school of wow, you know, you probably were able to legitimately just out athlete 98 of people you've played against to this point where you're going to get to a college campus and you might be able to out athlete 10% of the of the roster.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker A: Like you're playing with the waters get deep. You're playing with a lot of really good athletes and it doesn't matter if they're arms or position players. Like there's dudes all over those rosters that are unbelievable athletes. And you know, you have to be able to turn that compete factor on and you know, be better than the guys that are in front of you and continue to be better than the guys that are behind you to give yourself that opportunity to do so,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker B: all right, last question. Inverse of that. What. What matters more than people think when it comes to your college experience?
• 1:04:36
  Speaker A: So I've thought about this a lot, right? I said this at the top. I've thought about this a lot. I have two, because one is going to cross over with you. And I do think the people matter way more than you might even initially think that it does. The coaches you're going to play for, the people that you're going to meet, the guys that you're going to play with, they matter, right? Like, some of my best friends are guys that we played college baseball with, and even guys that, you know, I might not speak to as. As much as I would like. You can still pick up where you left off, you know, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine years ago, because you went through it kind of like I talked about at the top, where, like, it's hard. Like, you go through stuff that. That's difficult with other people. It forges a bond that you do not forget very quickly. I think the other one is the sacrifice that you have to make to do this. And there's going to be plenty of times in your college career that you're going to have to sacrifice one thing for the other. You're gonna have to sacrifice that robust social life on a beautiful May Friday night when it's 70 degrees and you want to hang out on the green and, you know, do what college kids do on a beautiful Friday night in the spring, because you got a game tomorrow morning, you got to be at the field at 8am
• 1:06:17
  Speaker B: you know, you're
• 1:06:18
  Speaker A: gonna have to sacrifice that stuff. You're gonna have to sacrifice vacations. You're gonna have to sacrifice time with family, time with friends, and it's not for everybody, right? Like, you know, I was thinking about this when you were doing this, and I've thought about it ever since. But, you know, like, I didn't go on a vacation until I was, like, 36. From the time I was probably 12 or 13, you know, we probably went on some long. But it was. It was full till baseball. From the time I was, you know, 12, 13 years old, all the way until I stopped coaching, right? Like, I never went on spring break. I didn't go on a long extended family vacation. You know, all of my vacations were always centered around baseball. And even some of the ones I went on maybe earlier than that. Like, you're talking two, three, four days. Like, you know, I went away for a week, and I was like, what do I do? I'm Used to being on the field or being recruiting or you know, things of that nature. And I think that it's, that sacrifice is what it takes to, to be good. And it's not that. Again, I'm not going to sit here and tell you I was the best baseball player or the best coach. But you know, if you want to better yourself and you want to better your teammates and, and the kids you coach and the people that are around you, like there is a semblance of sacrifice that you're gonna have to make. I'm not saying that, you know, you have to be in the office at 6:00am and leave the office at 8:00am, 8:00pm and you know, grind it out as everyone wants to say. Like you can have balance and still be a husband and still be a father, do those things and not miss, you know, all these things and milestones in your kids lives. But like you're going to miss some stuff, right? Like it's going to happen and that's the sacrifice it takes to be good. And it's the same thing in college. Like there's, you're not going to go on vacation. You know, you just ran down what that 12 month kind of looks like January to August. You might have two weeks off in there. You're not going anywhere. You know, you're, you're prepping. You pack your, your house or your dorm up and go home for three, four, five days, see some of your friends and then you're shipping off to wherever you're playing college baseball. Then you come home and you're getting your stuff in order so they can get back to campus and you ain't leaving then, right? Like, you know, maybe if you have the means, you can go away over Christmas, you know, over the winter break, but that's really the only time that you're going to be able to do anything. And Lord help you if you come back out of shape after that month and not in good enough shape to be able to play because you're going to put yourself behind the eight ball of being able to play. You know, so there is, I think that sacrifice is something that is huge in this. It matters a ton and you have to be, you have to be willing to, to do it. Like if you're going to step into this environment, this uber competitive, hyper, you know, I want to win type place. Like you have to be willing to sacrifice things that other people are not. And you might never play pro ball, you might never win a national championship, but I would argue that you're Setting yourself up as a human being to be able to handle a lot more and understand the capabilities of yourself to find success in whatever it is that you're going to do moving forward. Because you. You have the discipline in order to be able to sacrifice things and say, I don't need that right now. I don't need to do that right now. I need to go do this. You know, I. I don't need to sit on the couch and have a bowl of ice cream. I should probably go to the gym. You know, things like that that I think ultimately matter, right? Like, you. You learn them young, and if you can continue those habits, I think that it's going to ultimately lead to your success in whatever it is that you do. And when you face hard times, like, you know, the people that were there then will be there when it's tough, and the sacrifice and the discipline and the things that you were able to build will show up to where you're. You can convince yourself enough in those moments that you're going to make it through.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker B: And
• 1:10:51
  Speaker A: more times than not, you're going to make it through. And to make it full circle, if you're close, those people are going to pull you along to get you there, you know? So I think that those two things matter way more than anyone really gives them credit for.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker B: I like that. I like that. Any other closing thoughts here, Coach?
• 1:11:19
  Speaker A: I don't think so. That was fun. I think that there was. It was different, right? Like, it's different being in this seat. Gain a little bit more appreciation for the people that we grill. But I think that it's. You know, I think everyone has a. I think the interesting thing, being in this seat, gaining some appreciation for it is like everyone has a different story and a different path. And I think you can pull those threads and figure out why people do what they do or why they're as successful as they are and why they are in the spots that they are. And I think that it's, you know, you have people that are listening to this that, you know, shoot, in five, six, seven, eight years, they might be coaching after their careers are over and, you know, see what. Hear what it was like and what it is now and what it takes to be successful, you know, so be good, treat people with respect. You'll get it back and work your ass off. Good things come to those types of people.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker B: Well said. Well said.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker A: Well, it was a pleasure, as always.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker B: Tune in next week, everybody. We'll talk to you then. Thank you. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram @EMD Baseball if you want to find out what me and Keith to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker A: Check in with you next week.