Latest / From the Coach's Mouth / Re-Release: Lauren Haeger

Transcript

Re-Release: Lauren Haeger · From the Coach's Mouth

• 0:00
  The higher levels and not even everyone in Division One.
• 0:02
  Like it's not normal to throw 65.
• 0:04
  Like that's not super common. I think that social media can
• 0:07
  make it feel super common but it's not like.
• 0:09
  And what's your game speed? It's probably different from
• 0:11
  what you just posted on Twitter anyway.
• 0:13
  But changing speeds and hitting your spots literally will keep
• 0:16
  you successful every single time at.
• 0:18
  The field in your car or on the couch.
• 0:24
  Get your basket from the coach's mouth.
• 0:39
  Welcome to the From the Coach's Mouth podcast with your hosts
• 0:44
  Jay Bolden and Ken Krause. Welcome everybody.
• 1:02
  Thanks for tuning in today again.
• 1:04
  Once again joined by my man, my good buddy Ken Krause.
• 1:08
  Ken, how you been doing? Doing great Jay, how you been
• 1:11
  doing? Not too bad, not too bad.
• 1:14
  Just got back this Sunday from Iowa.
• 1:15
  Had games all weekend. Excited to do this podcast here
• 1:19
  from the coach's mouth. So again, thanks from for
• 1:21
  everybody tuning in today. We've got an awesome guest
• 1:23
  today. Cannot wait to get and talk some
• 1:25
  pitching today. So Ken, how was your weekend?
• 1:28
  Pretty good. Yeah, it was pretty good.
• 1:30
  It was real busy, a lot of lessons.
• 1:32
  I was pretty tired. And then on top of it, my wife
• 1:35
  and I, I had to run like right from lessons.
• 1:38
  I got changed there, ran over to a thing called Whine About
• 1:41
  Winter, which was, it's a thing in the neighboring town of
• 1:45
  Libertyville where you go in, you get a little glass and then
• 1:50
  you go from shop to shop. You know, these, all these
• 1:52
  little shops and stuff, each one of them will give you a little
• 1:55
  pour of different wines and you kind of walk around the shop.
• 2:00
  As you can imagine, there weren't a lot of XY chromosome
• 2:04
  people there, so that was kind of funny.
• 2:07
  It was mostly, mostly women, but I managed to get through it.
• 2:12
  You know, you get enough of the wine going, it feels pretty
• 2:14
  good. And then we joined up.
• 2:15
  Just the wine alone sounds like a good time.
• 2:18
  Yep. And then we joined up with a
• 2:19
  couple of other couples. So, you know, it made it a
• 2:22
  little bit easier. So at one point we were walking
• 2:24
  around and the guys and I, you know, we're all going like, you
• 2:27
  know, woodworking, you know, bow hunting, just same manly things.
• 2:33
  OK, awesome times right there buddy.
• 2:37
  So do you want to do us a favor and give some background on our
• 2:40
  awesome guest today? I sure do, all right.
• 2:44
  Well, we feel fortunate to have the opportunity to speak to
• 2:47
  today's guest. A native of Peoria, AZ, she was
• 2:51
  a 2011 NFCA First Team All American and ESPN Rise Under
• 2:56
  Armour All American in high school who accumulated 413
• 3:00
  strikeouts and an .044 ERA her senior year, while also tying
• 3:06
  the Arizona career home run record.
• 3:09
  She went on to have a stellar career, playing for Florida for
• 3:11
  four years as a pitcher and a first baseman, culminating in a
• 3:15
  Women's College World Series title in 2015.
• 3:19
  In that same year, she earned many individual accolades
• 3:22
  including being named the Honda Award winner for Softball, the
• 3:25
  USA Softball National Collegiate Player of the Year, the SEC
• 3:29
  Female Athlete of the Year, the Women's College World Series
• 3:33
  Most Outstanding Player, the SEC Pitcher of the Year, and All SEC
• 3:37
  First Team. She's also a two time NFCA First
• 3:40
  Team All American and was twice nominated for an ESPY Award.
• 3:46
  Additionally, our guest holds the distinction of being the
• 3:48
  only NCAA fast pitch player to win 70 games as a pitcher and
• 3:53
  hit seventy home runs, a feat equalled by only one athlete in
• 3:58
  history, a guy you might have heard of by the name of Babe
• 4:01
  Ruth. After college, she played in the
• 4:03
  National Pro Fast Pitch League for four years as a pitcher and
• 4:07
  1st baseman with the Dallas Charge and later the Scrap Yard
• 4:11
  Dogs, earning all NPF honors for three of those four years.
• 4:16
  She is currently a private coach in South Carolina with her own
• 4:19
  business, The Softball Project, where she offers pitching and
• 4:23
  hitting instruction, and as a travel team coach.
• 4:26
  I could go on and on about her many awards and accomplishments,
• 4:29
  but then we'd never get to speak with her.
• 4:31
  Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Lauren Hager to From the
• 4:34
  Coach's Mouth. Hello.
• 4:38
  And North Carolina, not South Carolina, but that's.
• 4:42
  OK. Charlotte.
• 4:44
  Charlotte, Yeah, we're real close to South Carolina, but
• 4:47
  it's about 10 minutes from the border.
• 4:49
  But. OK, see Charlotte.
• 4:51
  North Carolina. That's what I get for looking at
• 4:54
  Google Maps. Or Wikipedia.
• 4:58
  No, I think it was on Google Maps.
• 4:59
  Just the way it was showing up. The must.
• 5:01
  I must have seen the South Carolina part instead of the
• 5:03
  part literally right? It's 10 minutes away at the
• 5:05
  border is so that makes sense my.
• 5:07
  Favorite part is that you took offense to that, Lauren, that's
• 5:10
  fantastic. I love that.
• 5:12
  I love that listen. Listen, don't put me there.
• 5:14
  I love Charlotte. I found love this city six years
• 5:17
  ago and I haven't left yet. So yeah, I do love it here.
• 5:21
  How'd you wind up in in Charlotte?
• 5:24
  So I was playing professionally and when I stopped playing
• 5:30
  professionally, so actually the owner of the facility is Kelsey
• 5:34
  Bruder. So she played at Florida as
• 5:37
  well, but she played four years before me.
• 5:40
  And so she had moved here randomly years ago, like years
• 5:44
  before I did, started giving lessons and then opened up the
• 5:47
  softball project. She had asked me, you know, what
• 5:50
  I was going to do. And I was like, well, I'm, I was
• 5:52
  working for scrap yard at the time when I was playing for
• 5:55
  them. So a year later when I stopped
• 5:57
  playing, I reached back out to her and I was like, can I give
• 6:01
  lessons at your facility? And I just randomly moved to
• 6:04
  Charlotte. And I have fallen in love with
• 6:06
  it here. All right, Lauren, we're going
• 6:08
  to get into it. Are you ready?
• 6:10
  I'm ready. Awesome.
• 6:11
  So if you can, can you give us a little bit of of background on
• 6:15
  like where your softball journey began, what age did you start,
• 6:19
  those kinds of things? Give us a little bit of your
• 6:21
  journey. I think it started, you know, my
• 6:23
  journey started just like everyone else's.
• 6:25
  I was a little kid who just loved sports.
• 6:27
  I had an older brother, so whatever.
• 6:30
  We're only 15 months apart, so I wasn't too far behind him, but
• 6:32
  whatever he was doing, I wanted to do my my parents both played
• 6:36
  college sports. My dad played college football
• 6:39
  and my mom played college volleyball and tennis, so no
• 6:42
  softball in there and no baseball in there.
• 6:44
  So when my brother was playing T-ball, all I wanted to do was
• 6:47
  play on his team and I would practice with them and stuff,
• 6:50
  but I obviously was too little to play.
• 6:53
  And then eventually I got into my own T-ball coach pitch
• 6:56
  situation and ever since then, I think I was 7 or so when I got
• 7:01
  on my first real team. And ever since then I haven't
• 7:04
  stopped playing. I played a couple years of Wreck
• 7:06
  and then, you know, started travel ball when I was 10 and I
• 7:10
  just never looked back. Awesome.
• 7:12
  What, what high school did you play for?
• 7:14
  Because you're, you're out in Arizona, correct?
• 7:16
  Is that where you grew up? So like what high school did you
• 7:18
  play for out there? Or maybe some travel teams that
• 7:20
  you started out along with when they were around back then?
• 7:23
  Yeah, there. I went to Deer Valley High
• 7:26
  School. My dad, I wasn't actually zoned
• 7:29
  to go to Deer Valley High School, but my dad had taught at
• 7:31
  Deer Valley High School since I was born, so I was going to go
• 7:35
  there. And so I got to be around that
• 7:38
  school all the time and all I wanted to do was play varsity
• 7:40
  sports at Deer Valley. I thought it was like the
• 7:42
  coolest thing ever. My dad coached football there
• 7:44
  and coached so many sports and so many of those coaches I had
• 7:48
  known since I was literally three days old.
• 7:50
  They induced me so he would have missed his football game on a
• 7:53
  Friday night. And I went to the football game
• 7:56
  at my high school three days later.
• 7:57
  So when I was born, so that's kind of a funny story, is all I
• 8:02
  wanted to do was play varsity, you know, sports at Deer Valley.
• 8:05
  I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
• 8:07
  And so I played for a couple of travel ball teams, but I ended
• 8:12
  my last four years of travel ball with the Arizona Hotshots.
• 8:15
  Nice nice. So what when did you when did
• 8:18
  the pitching thing start? Did you start at 10 U and just
• 8:21
  stay with it the whole way or was it like actually?
• 8:24
  No, I was a catcher and I was really short and I was going
• 8:30
  through my growth spurt and all the things.
• 8:31
  So when I was 10, I was a catcher and I started having
• 8:34
  some like foot problems. It's a knee problems and I had
• 8:37
  to be on crutches and I had stress fractures because I was
• 8:40
  growing all the things and my dad and my mom and dad were
• 8:43
  like, no, we're not doing this. You got to pick something else.
• 8:46
  So of course I picked pitching the other.
• 8:48
  I just wanted to be involved every pitch.
• 8:50
  So I was like, let's do pitching.
• 8:51
  And so I was actually really late.
• 8:53
  I feel like to pitching. I took started taking it serious
• 8:57
  around right before I turned 12 probably.
• 9:00
  So I mean, I was pretty late to the game.
• 9:03
  And when I told people that they're like, oh, and I'm like,
• 9:05
  yeah, your daughter's 10. It's not a big deal.
• 9:07
  Like it's not a big deal. She's way ahead of where I was.
• 9:10
  So that's I think a little bit shocking to people is that I
• 9:14
  was, I was really 12 when I really started pitching in games
• 9:17
  and stuff like that. It's.
• 9:18
  Probably shocking to people, too, to hear that you were late
• 9:20
  to the game at 12. You think, you know, most of the
• 9:23
  time for activities like that, you know, kids aren't really
• 9:26
  going to find their way until a little bit older.
• 9:28
  But yeah, these days a lot of kids start at 8 so.
• 9:31
  Right, especially pitching, I would say like people really,
• 9:34
  you know, think that oh, she's just starting out and they're 11
• 9:38
  and I'm like that's normal. It's not normal.
• 9:40
  But they have kid pitch now at 8 U and so I think that that's
• 9:44
  they didn't have that when I was younger.
• 9:46
  So that's good for our game, but it's also like stresses people
• 9:49
  out sometimes and I'm like it's OK.
• 9:51
  Yep. What about some instructors out
• 9:53
  there in Arizona? Who did you, who did you see for
• 9:56
  pitching out there or, or some of the ones that really had a
• 9:59
  big influence on you when you did get into pitching?
• 10:02
  So I actually started taking lessons from a gentleman named
• 10:08
  Dallas Coleman. He had given lessons to a few of
• 10:12
  the girls that I used to play with, but he was the pitching
• 10:15
  coach at Phoenix College for a while.
• 10:18
  He was older. So towards the end of my
• 10:21
  pitching career and only a few years after I left for college,
• 10:24
  he retired and he had a farm in Kansas and stuff.
• 10:27
  So he kind of moved back there. But to be honest, I didn't take
• 10:30
  a ton of lessons. I was a really athletic kid.
• 10:36
  I think that that was really helpful.
• 10:37
  I played club volleyball, 3 varsity sports in high school,
• 10:40
  like I really my whole life was sports.
• 10:44
  And so I think that really helped me a lot, but I actually
• 10:48
  didn't, it wasn't very successful as a pitcher early
• 10:51
  on. I had a lot of people cut me
• 10:54
  from travel ball teams because I was, I wanted to pitch and
• 10:56
  they're like, you're going to be our 4th pitcher.
• 10:58
  All the things, you know, she's just not going to pitch here.
• 11:01
  So I really had to work hard on my own.
• 11:04
  And my dad, obviously, he invested so much time on the
• 11:07
  bucket, it's not even funny as most pitcher dads do.
• 11:10
  I've hit him so many times I can't even count.
• 11:13
  But I think that I just worked really hard and I had my
• 11:17
  lessons, you know, every once in a while with Dallas and he would
• 11:20
  teach me new things and I would go and I would actually practice
• 11:23
  them, which is crazy. But what a concept, right?
• 11:27
  What a concept. So just 1/2 an hour a week is
• 11:31
  not going to do it. No, it's not.
• 11:34
  Anyway, so that's kind of like my little bit of a pitching
• 11:37
  background, but I did get cut a lot because I wanted to pitch
• 11:40
  and they were like, she's not going to pitch here, but I
• 11:43
  wanted to do, it's like I'm doing it.
• 11:45
  I think that that's that's a great message though, too.
• 11:47
  I think this is really important for people to hear that you
• 11:51
  didn't start out being Lauren Hager.
• 11:53
  You know, you were just, you know, this girl that wanted to
• 11:56
  pitch and that there were so many people who weren't willing
• 11:59
  to say, give you the opportunity because perhaps they thought,
• 12:03
  well, we can win more games if we use this kid.
• 12:05
  We're not going to take the time to develop somebody who's a
• 12:08
  beginner. Yeah, I also just, I also feel
• 12:12
  like I had genetics on my side a little bit.
• 12:16
  My dad was an offensive lineman and my mom played college
• 12:18
  volleyball, so I at some point you knew I was going to grow.
• 12:21
  I was like 5-2 in 7th grade with huge feet.
• 12:25
  It was a really weird time in my life, but I think me growing 8
• 12:30
  inches until freshman year really helped me out that I feel
• 12:34
  like pitching kind of like came to me a little bit easier just
• 12:37
  because I was a bigger, stronger kid.
• 12:40
  So I think that that really helped my development and gave
• 12:43
  me more chances than I think it would have if I just kind of
• 12:47
  stayed the same. Any any, any great memories that
• 12:52
  you might have from playing in your younger days, maybe even
• 12:54
  high school or travel that just kind of still stick with you and
• 12:57
  resonate with you through even even now?
• 13:00
  Yeah, absolutely. I was lucky enough to play in
• 13:03
  three state championships in high school, 2 for softball and
• 13:06
  one for volleyball. Women's sports at my school are
• 13:09
  very good and I will never forget those.
• 13:13
  You know those times I lost the state championship in softball
• 13:16
  and then I won my senior year. It was kind of a really big
• 13:20
  storybook ending. But to be honest, I don't, I
• 13:23
  don't even feel like we were the best team all the time, but I
• 13:26
  had so much fun. My I when I was a freshman in
• 13:31
  high school, I, I made varsity and at my school at Deer Valley,
• 13:36
  that wasn't super normal. We had a full freshman team, a
• 13:39
  full JV team and a full varsity team with cuts at all three
• 13:42
  levels. And in North Carolina, that's
• 13:44
  not a thing. And so when I, when I talk about
• 13:47
  that, it's kind of crazy to think it was normal to me just
• 13:50
  being from Arizona. So when I made varsity as a
• 13:53
  freshman, I, I really wasn't treated very well.
• 13:55
  So I made sure that when I was a senior that I, that wasn't going
• 13:59
  to happen to anybody else. And we just had so much fun.
• 14:01
  We were all best friends. It was such a fun time in my
• 14:06
  life and it was such a fun year. So I'll never forget like just
• 14:11
  high school sports in general. I loved my high school
• 14:14
  experience. I was really, really lucky.
• 14:16
  My travel ball coach my last couple years and was my high
• 14:19
  school coach. So that kind of made it easier
• 14:21
  too. So just winning the state
• 14:24
  championship my senior year was kind of like a storybook ending
• 14:27
  to my entire career there. Yeah, that must have been
• 14:31
  exciting. And I would imagine, you know,
• 14:33
  there's always that cliche thing or the meme thing that goes
• 14:36
  around that you won't remember the games, but you'll remember
• 14:39
  the people. I mean, do you feel that way or
• 14:40
  do you still have the memories of some of those games, good or
• 14:43
  bad? I don't recall any of the games
• 14:46
  my freshman year, actually. I just remember, you know, kind
• 14:50
  of like how people made me feel. So it is so true when people say
• 14:54
  that. I think when I, you know,
• 14:56
  started to turn into my 30s, those kind of things really
• 14:59
  stand out in your mind because you can't remember the games you
• 15:01
  played when you were a freshman. That was 15 years ago at this
• 15:04
  point. But I do remember there is a
• 15:09
  personal story from that game my senior year was that I hadn't
• 15:13
  given up a home run all year. Like that was just not something
• 15:16
  that I that happened to me. But we were playing a team from
• 15:19
  Tucson and I didn't really know any of the girls on the team.
• 15:22
  But I remember this girl came up to bat.
• 15:25
  Apparently she was committed to Baylor.
• 15:27
  So there's that. And I had no idea.
• 15:29
  She took me hard. So we were down 3, nothing in
• 15:32
  the state championship and we didn't score a ton of runs.
• 15:34
  Like I told you, we weren't, you know, the most talented group of
• 15:37
  girls that were just like mashing and stuff like that.
• 15:41
  But whatever reason, for whatever reason, we crawled our
• 15:43
  way back to making it 33. I don't know how we did, but we
• 15:47
  did in the top of the 7th inning, I LED off the inning and
• 15:52
  I hit a home run to take us up 4:00 to 3:00 and then I struck
• 15:55
  out the side in the bottom of the 7th.
• 15:57
  So it just made it even sweeter coming back to win that game
• 16:01
  because I was like, Oh my God, did that just happen?
• 16:03
  Like I didn't. I really didn't think we were
• 16:05
  going to come back and win, but I'm so happy my team had my back
• 16:08
  at that moment. That's great.
• 16:11
  You know, those are, again, always fun stories to hear.
• 16:15
  So what would your recruiting experience like?
• 16:18
  Were you heavily recruited, given that you were doing so
• 16:21
  well? Or, you know, Yeah, it was
• 16:24
  really. It was a really fast process for
• 16:28
  me. I did play on a really
• 16:30
  competitive travel ball team in Arizona and so that was easier
• 16:36
  for me. But you know, we did the
• 16:37
  Colorado trip, we did nationals and back then their PGF didn't
• 16:40
  exist. So it was just ASA nationals
• 16:42
  that we went to. And I think it was like first
• 16:46
  year 16 new nationals, I think we're playing in the middle of,
• 16:51
  Oh my gosh, I don't even know Tennessee or I don't know,
• 16:54
  somewhere so random in the middle of a cornfield, to be
• 16:57
  honest. And I was, you know, getting the
• 17:02
  start of a game that where we were playing a team called the
• 17:05
  Southern Force in Illinois and the Renfro sisters were the
• 17:09
  pitchers of that team. Jerry and Glasgow was on that
• 17:13
  team. Like it was loaded, right?
• 17:14
  So this is going to be a really big game and I'm just some girl
• 17:17
  for I didn't really, to be honest, I never even knew who we
• 17:21
  were playing. I just was like so excited to
• 17:23
  play and I'm so competitive, so it didn't really matter.
• 17:27
  But I remember looking up into the stands and looking to see
• 17:32
  that there was not a single seat for like a regular person.
• 17:35
  It was full of college coaches and I'll never forget looking up
• 17:39
  and seeing that. And we ended up winning 3
• 17:41
  nothing. And I remember at the end of
• 17:43
  that game, my coach just had a stack of business cards because
• 17:47
  business cards was a thing. And emails really just started
• 17:51
  to be a thing, to be honest. And so we took that stack of
• 17:54
  business cards and we talked as a family and I called some
• 17:57
  schools. I ended up, you know, going to
• 18:00
  visit 5 schools, which was Florida, Georgia, Tennessee,
• 18:05
  Texas A&M, and Oklahoma State. I, my family's a huge college
• 18:11
  football family. My grandma had tickets to ASU
• 18:13
  football games for 40 years or something crazy.
• 18:17
  I've been growing up going to college football games.
• 18:19
  So college football was a big part of what I wanted my college
• 18:22
  experience to be. So with those five schools, I
• 18:25
  thought I could probably make that happen as well.
• 18:28
  Texas A&M had just been in the national championship with
• 18:31
  Amanda Scarborough at Texas A&M that year, and Florida had just
• 18:37
  made it to the World Series the first time that year.
• 18:40
  So I kind of narrowed it down. We talked to them all on the
• 18:44
  phone. They had all offered the same
• 18:46
  amount of money. And so we just took my college
• 18:49
  fund that my parents had, you know, saved for me and we went
• 18:52
  and took unofficial visits to all 5 schools.
• 18:55
  And yeah, it just happened. I think, you know, they saw me
• 18:58
  in the summer of my freshman year going into my sophomore
• 19:01
  year, and then I was committed by March of my sophomore year.
• 19:04
  So it really went really fast. That's not everyone's story.
• 19:10
  Yeah, that's that's right. That was back in the day when
• 19:12
  they were recruiting 8th graders.
• 19:14
  True. Not quite yet.
• 19:16
  I think I was right before the 8th grade, but I mean, in high
• 19:20
  school, yes, like an eighth grader hadn't committee, I don't
• 19:23
  think. But like 9th grade, like even
• 19:26
  sophomore year was kind of early.
• 19:27
  People were like, oh, he committed as a sophomore like
• 19:30
  back then. And I was like, yeah, but I
• 19:32
  think pitchers were always a little bit more early than
• 19:34
  everybody else. Pitchers, catchers, shortstops,
• 19:37
  that kind of thing. But then it then it got crazy.
• 19:41
  The 6th grade thing as well. So are you glad that they
• 19:44
  changed the rules that you know, that you know, at least at the
• 19:48
  D1 level, they can't recruit you till September 1st of your
• 19:52
  junior year. Do you think that's a good?
• 19:54
  Thing so I I think I've seen more I think I've seen benefits
• 19:59
  and where it's just allowed the girls to develop more if we if I
• 20:02
  was getting recruited so I didn't even pitch some 12 like I
• 20:04
  feel like you know I feel like I have been left behind so far if
• 20:08
  it had gone to that stage when I was getting recruited but.
• 20:12
  I do feel like now it kind of creates a panic sometimes where
• 20:15
  people have feel like they have to because they're almost done
• 20:18
  with their junior year and they're not committed somewhere.
• 20:20
  So I think there's really good things of it.
• 20:22
  But I see a lot of stress from it too, from the coaching side.
• 20:26
  But I do just think it's a better way of, you know, these
• 20:30
  girls maturing mentally. They know what they want more.
• 20:33
  They're looking into schools more as an adult than they are
• 20:36
  just as a softball player. And I kind of appreciate that
• 20:39
  more. Yeah, for.
• 20:40
  Sure, definitely is. Yeah, I would agree with you.
• 20:42
  I think just, you know, I would. I almost felt like when they
• 20:46
  were recruiting, you know, 7th and 8th graders, that's more of
• 20:48
  the parents decision instead of the player's decision.
• 20:51
  And I didn't know. What I wanted 7th grade, I was
• 20:53
  like, what do I I I was so all over the place.
• 20:56
  No 7th grade girl. Who's that?
• 20:58
  True. Yeah, true.
• 20:59
  Oh yeah. Well, I mean, Jay still doesn't
• 21:00
  know what he wants to be when he grows up, so.
• 21:02
  This is true, I'm still working fine.
• 21:04
  I still don't know there, so it's all good.
• 21:07
  OK, so so you pick Florida, you play 4 years at Florida, you win
• 21:11
  the national championship in 2015.
• 21:14
  Can you share some memories from, you know, that special run
• 21:17
  in 2015 or even prior to that, some of the things, the UPS and
• 21:20
  the downs and how did it start for you there?
• 21:23
  Did you pitch every game your freshman year or did you have
• 21:25
  to, you know, work and wait and wait and work?
• 21:28
  Yeah, it was. It was quite a journey, I would
• 21:32
  say. When I got there my freshman
• 21:35
  year, I think they were expecting more out of me than I
• 21:38
  was ready for. When it came to the pitching
• 21:40
  part, I had always thrown really hard.
• 21:43
  So the pitching aspect of being a college pitcher, I was not
• 21:48
  ready. Like I was just not.
• 21:50
  I threw really hard growing up, so it really didn't matter if I
• 21:53
  missed. You mean you're throwing 70 at
• 21:54
  16? Like it doesn't really matter
• 21:57
  where you throw the ball at times, but when you get to that
• 21:59
  next level, it really matters where you throw the ball when
• 22:02
  you throw that hard. So I think I I was good, but I
• 22:06
  wasn't great. I couldn't get through a line of
• 22:09
  three times. I didn't have a really great
• 22:10
  change up. But luckily we had Hannah Rogers
• 22:14
  in front of me who really kind of stepped into that role of
• 22:16
  being the number one pitcher. And I would start Saturday, she
• 22:20
  would start Friday, I would start Saturday, she would start
• 22:24
  Sunday. We pitched a lot by staff my
• 22:28
  whole entire career there, to be honest, right up until the end
• 22:31
  of my senior year. I feel like we pretty much had a
• 22:35
  really good rotation going on. That was kind of unusual then,
• 22:38
  too, wasn't it? I mean, didn't a lot of teams at
• 22:41
  that point still kind of rely on one arm to get them through the
• 22:45
  entire season? I would say yes, I think people
• 22:48
  had two, but people didn't have three or four.
• 22:52
  People didn't couldn't rely on three or four arms, but we
• 22:54
  definitely had three at least all the time, which is kind of
• 22:58
  nice. And we were all really
• 22:59
  different, which I also liked. So my journey up until my junior
• 23:04
  year was I hit a lot. I played first a lot and I
• 23:08
  pitched when they needed me to. That's how I kind of felt how it
• 23:11
  was, but I felt like I was really bouncing around all the
• 23:15
  time. When I'm early to practice for
• 23:17
  my bullpen, I'm, you know, now I'm now I have to switch to be
• 23:22
  defense and like have all the defenses in my head.
• 23:25
  Not that first base is super complicated, but with Coach
• 23:28
  Walton's defense, it's very structured, it's very clean.
• 23:31
  It's very the way that he wants it.
• 23:33
  So you do have to remember more than what I was used to at first
• 23:35
  base. And then we'd go to hitting and
• 23:38
  during hitting, the pitchers probably could leave early, but
• 23:40
  not me. I was there having to do the
• 23:42
  whole, you know, hitting thing. So that's kind of how our
• 23:46
  practices were structured. And I felt like I was being
• 23:48
  pulled a lot in different directions.
• 23:50
  And I, I did whatever I was told.
• 23:53
  I did the amount of reps that I was told.
• 23:54
  But it was hard for me to like do more and I needed more at
• 23:58
  pitching for sure to really get it together.
• 24:01
  But then my junior year comes around and we were OK.
• 24:06
  We were doing OK. I mean, we didn't lose a lot of
• 24:09
  games. So when I say we're doing OK, I
• 24:11
  look back at like all the rings that I have in our, in our, our
• 24:15
  records are on there. And I'm like, we only lost nine
• 24:17
  games the whole year. Like, that's insane to me.
• 24:21
  But like, my junior year, we got swept for the first time in my
• 24:24
  in my career. Tennessee just whooped our butt
• 24:27
  three games in a row. I've never seen Coach Rocha
• 24:29
  break a clipboard like she did in my whole life.
• 24:32
  No pitcher could keep it in the yard.
• 24:33
  And from that moment on, our Hannah Rogers just like turned
• 24:37
  into a different human being. And she worked so hard.
• 24:41
  So we ended up, you know, winning in 2014.
• 24:43
  And I started a lot of those games, but not the big ones, you
• 24:48
  know, and Hannah did. But then this is just such a
• 24:53
  there's so much detail that could go into these stories.
• 24:55
  But four years feels like it feels like a lifetime when
• 24:59
  you're in it, to be honest. But, you know, I go into my
• 25:02
  senior year and I'm supposed to be, you know, I just, I guess I
• 25:05
  just assume that I'm going to be the one, right?
• 25:07
  All the things. And I go into Coach Walton's
• 25:09
  office December, our exit meetings into Christmas break.
• 25:13
  And at that point, our staff was me, Alicia Ocasio and Delaney
• 25:16
  Gorley. And he's like, yeah, I see you,
• 25:19
  you know, as our kind of like our third string right now.
• 25:22
  And I was like, what? Like I I was very taken aback by
• 25:27
  that. But when I look back and I think
• 25:30
  about that conversation as a coach now, I'm like, he's right.
• 25:34
  Like I couldn't get through a line of three times.
• 25:36
  Like I just couldn't. My change up was so average.
• 25:40
  It was not great. And without my off speed, the
• 25:43
  third time through the lineup I was just, you know, getting hit.
• 25:46
  He's like, I just can't give you the ball every Friday and know
• 25:48
  we're coming up with a win every time.
• 25:50
  And I was like, bet. So I, you know, I went home and
• 25:55
  I thought about it. And then in January, we talked
• 25:57
  about it again and we decided that first base, we're just
• 26:00
  going to take it out because I just needed to.
• 26:03
  We had a better first baseman than me.
• 26:06
  She was a lefty. She didn't hit as well as me,
• 26:08
  but she was a she loved infield and I did it.
• 26:10
  To be honest, it was fine. But pitching and hitting, I
• 26:14
  mean, I ended up letting that be my career.
• 26:15
  But if I could have just done that for my whole life, that
• 26:17
  have been so nice. Anyway, so January of my senior
• 26:22
  year, Coach Rocha and I hit the bullpen and we try 47 different
• 26:26
  change UPS, probably 147 to be honest.
• 26:29
  Like every way we could think about slowing the ball down
• 26:32
  because I just went so hard. I did not know how to do that.
• 26:37
  And so we figured it out. January, I got a change up.
• 26:41
  February season started and it literally changed my whole life.
• 26:44
  So. If I can, Lauren, what change up
• 26:47
  did you end up going with? It's just like a variation of a
• 26:51
  flip change. Like I think that I'm, I'm
• 26:54
  flipping my hand over and I'm spinning the ball backwards.
• 26:56
  Like that's really all it ended up being.
• 26:58
  It was something I didn't have to slow down for.
• 27:00
  It was something that with how fast and how powerful I was
• 27:02
  going, I had really good control over.
• 27:05
  So I just ended up being like turning my hand over really flat
• 27:09
  fast, flipping it and using my fingers to spin it.
• 27:12
  And so all of that work to go back to something like that.
• 27:15
  It's kind of funny, but it, it really ended up changing my, the
• 27:19
  trajectory of my entire senior year.
• 27:21
  I, I can't even stress enough how much I'm passionate about
• 27:24
  change UPS after that. So.
• 27:25
  Well, that's a funny thing. Yeah, that's a funny thing too,
• 27:28
  because of course, everybody's obsessed with speed, speed,
• 27:30
  speed. And I certainly, you know, like
• 27:33
  to promote my kids. And you know, I've got had a
• 27:36
  couple kids hit a new personal best last night and all excited
• 27:39
  to tell their stories. But you know, it's, it's funny
• 27:43
  just to hear that for you, the life changing thing wasn't
• 27:45
  throwing 70 miles an hour. It was being able to not throw
• 27:48
  70 miles an hour and look like you were doing it. 100% I also
• 27:53
  like there's nothing wrong with people wanting to get the most
• 27:55
  out of their speed like and reach their ceiling of what
• 27:58
  their body and everything is capable of.
• 28:01
  But at the end of the day, when you're watching these college
• 28:03
  softball games, to me, the the girls that are, if you're not a
• 28:06
  Nigeri Kennedy, if you're not a Geordie ball, so many of these
• 28:10
  programs, they're best pitchers who are getting the best people
• 28:12
  out are pitchers who change speeds, who are not hitting the
• 28:16
  64. Like it's incredible what these
• 28:19
  spin, these spinny pitchers are doing right now.
• 28:22
  And I'm just so envious of them and how much people are really
• 28:25
  are going to their Staffs and like changing because at the end
• 28:28
  of the day, So everyone Division One, right, like the higher
• 28:31
  levels and not even everyone in Division One, like it's not
• 28:34
  normal to throw 65. Like that's not super common.
• 28:36
  I think that social media can make it feel super common but
• 28:39
  it's not like. And what's your game speed?
• 28:41
  It's probably different from what you just posted on Twitter
• 28:43
  anyway, but changing speeds and hitting your spots literally
• 28:47
  will keep you successful every single time.
• 28:49
  I don't. I don't.
• 28:51
  I have no room to argue it. That argument to me is just what
• 28:54
  it is. You can throw as hard as you
• 28:55
  want, but if you cannot put it where you want and you can not
• 28:58
  throw a change up, you won't be the best pitcher you could be.
• 29:01
  You will not get an argument from Ken or I on that.
• 29:04
  That is absolutely for sure. We are 100% in line with you
• 29:07
  there. So that's why I was so excited
• 29:09
  to have you on this podcast. I know you've been doing lessons
• 29:11
  and I want to get into some mechanics here shortly.
• 29:14
  I just, I do want to ask you a little bit though about your
• 29:17
  experience in the National Pro Fast Pitch.
• 29:19
  Give us a little bit of it doesn't have to be super long or
• 29:22
  it could be as long as you want, but tell us.
• 29:24
  Tell us what you know, your experience there, and how are
• 29:27
  the hitters there compared to even, you know, college.
• 29:29
  Well, I flew to Dallas three days after the national
• 29:33
  championship, so hey, I was probably exhausted.
• 29:37
  Let's be real. I pitched so much like my senior
• 29:39
  year and that season is so long, and I literally made it to the
• 29:43
  very end. It could ever like possibly be.
• 29:46
  And so when I got there, we were playing the Pride for my first
• 29:50
  game and they really promoted the whole like Lauren Hager.
• 29:52
  But the other pitcher that was pitching was Kat Osterman.
• 29:55
  So my whole life, obviously there was so many of these girls
• 29:58
  I had looked up to. Kat Osterman was still playing
• 30:00
  for Pride. Natasha Watley was still playing
• 30:02
  for Pride. Kelly Kretchman, Andrea Duran,
• 30:05
  like all these names is just insane.
• 30:07
  Like, and I'm, you know, a 22 year old who thinks her crap
• 30:11
  don't stink because she just got done with the national
• 30:13
  championship and being on the highest of high and now she has
• 30:16
  to pitch against, you know, these girls in the MPF where
• 30:19
  there's no bat rules. There's no like, nothing like
• 30:21
  that anyway. So I'm pitching in my first.
• 30:25
  I go up to bat against Kat Osterman for the first time.
• 30:28
  I think I struck out on three pitches.
• 30:29
  I had never in my life seen a ball do that ever.
• 30:33
  Never. Not once.
• 30:35
  And so that was my experience. So I think Andrea Duran hit a
• 30:39
  home run off me. I was like, that's awesome,
• 30:41
  thanks. And then I don't know, we ended
• 30:43
  up losing like 6 to 3, but I got a hit off cat later on in the
• 30:46
  game, which was really cool for me when I joined the league, USA
• 30:50
  softball, like you softball wasn't in the Olympics.
• 30:53
  You couldn't play both like they did not have a good situation.
• 30:57
  So I denied my USA tryout because I I I can't play USA and
• 31:02
  not make any money like I I had my family didn't have like that
• 31:06
  either. So I had to make sure that I was
• 31:08
  doing something to make money. So I.
• 31:11
  Changed the NPF. Not that the NPF was paying big
• 31:13
  bucks by any means, but it was more than nothing.
• 31:16
  It was enough, you're right, Like it was enough for the
• 31:18
  summer and then I could, I had to go back to Florida anyway, so
• 31:20
  it was a summer thing. I can't say that I I enjoyed my
• 31:26
  softball time in the MPFA ton like going I have a back injury.
• 31:32
  I you just don't have the resources and stuff that you had
• 31:35
  in college. Could I have done it better?
• 31:39
  Yes. Could I have worked out more and
• 31:41
  all that kind of stuff because I kind of stopped.
• 31:43
  I just, I could have done better with taking care of myself, yes.
• 31:48
  But I do think that the league as a as a whole just wasn't good
• 31:53
  when it came to all of that stuff.
• 31:54
  So that really hurt me. The structure of it was OK.
• 32:00
  Like I was, you know, stretching behind a dugout on A4 Field
• 32:04
  Complex. People are coming up and
• 32:06
  touching me like it is the the highest high of like who I was.
• 32:10
  I was getting recognized and we go out to dinner and because my
• 32:12
  stuff was just getting played on ESPN over and over again.
• 32:15
  And so there was just no boundaries either.
• 32:18
  It was really weird. I with people following me to
• 32:20
  the bathroom to change before the game, like that kind of
• 32:24
  stuff was weird. I didn't love that very much.
• 32:27
  But I will say that the people that I got to play with and the
• 32:32
  the fun times that we had in the MPF are 100% like irreplaceable.
• 32:37
  Like I met some of my best friends in the MPF who playing
• 32:41
  in college, I hated their guts and I got to be on the same team
• 32:43
  with them and love them dearly to this day.
• 32:46
  So and I got to play with some some of my idols.
• 32:49
  I played against Monica Abbott all four years.
• 32:51
  Like all these things I've gotten to do travel everywhere
• 32:54
  to play. So my experience in the MPF was
• 32:57
  worth it. But I'm glad I stopped when I
• 33:00
  did. AI was hurt but BI just.
• 33:04
  It was my time to be done. What do you what do you think
• 33:07
  about the Athletes Unlimited? How do you feel about that?
• 33:10
  I. Think it's awesome.
• 33:11
  I think that any professional softball league I'm a fan of, I
• 33:16
  sometimes just get discouraged when there's so many
• 33:19
  professional softball. Really, I want to be the biggest
• 33:23
  fan, but I just feel like it's just who's going to be the head
• 33:27
  honcho all the time. Like this league, this league,
• 33:29
  and over all these years. I'm not even just talking about
• 33:30
  the ones now, just there's a hundred different leagues, 100
• 33:34
  different people running the leagues and I'm just like,
• 33:38
  what's it going to give to where we just get to 1?
• 33:40
  Because when the MPF stopped, it was heartbreaking.
• 33:43
  You know, when the racers are done and all these teams with
• 33:46
  such history playing a professional softball, like all
• 33:49
  that stuff, it made me sad. But hopefully one day we in my
• 33:54
  lifetime, I see a league that I can, you know, look at and be
• 33:57
  really proud of and be excited to watch.
• 34:01
  I, I, it's so exciting to watch now still because there's so
• 34:03
  many girls I still know and play and it's just fun to watch them
• 34:06
  do their thing. But as a whole, it's just, I
• 34:08
  just wish we could just come together as one and just really
• 34:12
  make one that does everybody good well.
• 34:15
  I think one of the smartest things that Athletes Unlimited
• 34:17
  did was they recognized, I'm going to get my soapbox a little
• 34:21
  bit here, but I always felt like NPF, the biggest problem they
• 34:24
  had was their most, you know, their best audience or their
• 34:30
  most natural audience was always playing at the same time that
• 34:34
  the NPF was playing. So you've got these kids that
• 34:37
  are going to tournaments, especially, you know how it got
• 34:39
  to be every weekend playing tournaments every weekend.
• 34:42
  They're they are, you know, sometimes starting Thursday or
• 34:45
  Friday, they go all the way through Sunday.
• 34:48
  And so they're not available to go to the NPF games.
• 34:51
  And then even if there's a Sunday evening game, by that
• 34:54
  time, the families are tired, parents have to get ready to go
• 34:57
  back to work and all that kind of thing.
• 34:59
  So you're leaving out your biggest potential audience most
• 35:03
  of the time. And I think that Athletes
• 35:05
  Unlimited, I think they kind of finally recognize that and tried
• 35:08
  to more work around the summer travel season so that they
• 35:13
  could, you know, draw the kids that are most likely to want to
• 35:16
  come to see a game to begin with and build that audience.
• 35:19
  Absolutely, I the TV like they get ESPN now and all that kind
• 35:24
  of stuff. That obviously makes a huge
• 35:25
  difference just getting, you know, so people can actually
• 35:29
  follow the players they followed in college.
• 35:32
  Like there's that too. And continue that, you know,
• 35:36
  audience following these players that they fell in love with in
• 35:40
  the MPF. We did, you know, do a couple
• 35:42
  times in the summer, go to some bigger tournaments and play just
• 35:46
  like we went to Colorado and played there.
• 35:48
  We played a bunch of games in Colorado.
• 35:50
  We played some in Kansas City. So the last couple years I was
• 35:53
  in, we had full stadiums of girls, which was cool.
• 35:56
  But you're right in that perspective.
• 35:59
  I'm not like a business lady by any means.
• 36:02
  So when it comes to strategy and stuff like that of that, I don't
• 36:05
  know. I that's not for me.
• 36:07
  That's someone else's job, but I just, I just think that the more
• 36:13
  eyes you can get on it, obviously the better.
• 36:14
  And TV's the best way to do that right now because that's what
• 36:18
  everybody watches anyway. So whatever their strategy is, I
• 36:21
  hope it works because I'm ready to be a full on fan.
• 36:26
  Absolutely. I think we all are.
• 36:27
  So after your playing days, if we can talk about your
• 36:32
  transition into coaching, now you're doing both.
• 36:34
  You are a travel ball coach and you are an instructor, So what
• 36:38
  were some of the challenges when you first started out as you
• 36:41
  know, travel ball coach and instructor?
• 36:44
  Challenges for me when I first started coaching.
• 36:47
  So when I was done playing, I was still giving lessons in the
• 36:50
  offseason. So I started giving lessons.
• 36:52
  I mean, now it's almost been a decade probably, but at first it
• 36:57
  was hard because I just didn't understand why you couldn't do
• 37:00
  that after I told you to do it. There's that like you're because
• 37:03
  you're an elite athlete and it's something I was always able to
• 37:06
  do. And then I was like, you need to
• 37:08
  get your leg up higher. And then she couldn't do it.
• 37:10
  I'll never forget it. And she was like, well, do you
• 37:13
  have like a drill to like get my leg up higher?
• 37:15
  And I was like, no, just like get your Lego higher, right.
• 37:17
  So I didn't really, that was hard like to learn how to, you
• 37:21
  know, teach those things to people who can't feel them was
• 37:24
  hard for me. But over time, just be getting
• 37:29
  to be creative and learning how each kid learns has been such a
• 37:33
  fun, creative thing for me. But it there's that part of
• 37:39
  giving lessons that was kind of hard for me.
• 37:42
  You know, dealing with parents at first was hard for me just
• 37:45
  because you're younger, you're a young woman in this, you know,
• 37:49
  this field. And so there's a lot of dads and
• 37:51
  everything that I think take advantage of that and you're
• 37:55
  kind of scared to kind of stand your ground.
• 37:57
  But it took me a couple years, but once my ground has been,
• 38:00
  it's there like we're not going to talk about this.
• 38:03
  You didn't do this, I did. So it is what it is and not in a
• 38:06
  way that's crazy, but you do have to be firm with the things
• 38:11
  you're talking about sometimes. That was hard at first.
• 38:14
  It's hard for every girl, I think entering into this.
• 38:16
  And then the travel ball aspect of it was just, you can't talk
• 38:20
  to these kids how maybe your college coach talked to you.
• 38:23
  And so I think that was a little, I'm just like, I don't
• 38:26
  go to it. Like, why do you not want to win
• 38:28
  every time? Like I, that was really hard for
• 38:30
  me, but then I kind of had to step back and realize kids are
• 38:34
  different than the kids that I was and, and I played with and
• 38:38
  all that kind of stuff. So you kind of have to grow and
• 38:40
  change when it comes to the generations that are coming
• 38:43
  through too. So I'd say those are three
• 38:44
  challenges that I went through for sure.
• 38:46
  Are you coaching elite level travel or a level B level?
• 38:52
  Yeah, so I've coached with the same head coach Kevin Hind on
• 38:55
  team and C Hind for five years. So I've coached with him only in
• 39:00
  travel ball. He is the most calm, positive,
• 39:05
  kind human and coach ever. Like he's the best man ever and
• 39:12
  I wouldn't be able to coach child well anyone else.
• 39:14
  So he's really helped balance me out.
• 39:16
  I think I've helped him and he's helped me in so many different
• 39:18
  ways as people. He's also just turned into like
• 39:21
  one of my greatest friends. But I the team that I play net
• 39:26
  like coach it's I started when they were for first year
• 39:30
  fourteens and it's taken a long time to get to this elite level
• 39:34
  that we are. But yes, we're all of our girls
• 39:36
  are committed to Division One schools.
• 39:38
  I think we have 5 committed to North UNCLSU, Florida State.
• 39:44
  Like we have some, you know, really big programs.
• 39:47
  There's so many I just can't even think about right now.
• 39:49
  We just graduated from to Tennessee and to, you know,
• 39:52
  Louisiana Tech and all these schools.
• 39:55
  So I think that it's taken a while to get here, but we're
• 39:59
  here now and it's it's been really fun.
• 40:01
  So it sounds like they weren't always an elite thing.
• 40:04
  You kind of had to grow them. Yeah, I mean, we started out
• 40:08
  with the team. Most of the girls were 2020
• 40:10
  threes and and when we were 14, but the head coach's daughter
• 40:14
  was a 2025. So we had a full team of 2020
• 40:18
  threes and then Anna. And so we had to, we got the
• 40:21
  girls through the 2020 threes, all the thing.
• 40:23
  And then we had Anna. And so we kind of had to build
• 40:27
  over the last two years like a roster that's going to, you
• 40:30
  know, keep the level of travel ball that we want to around
• 40:33
  Anaheim. She's going to Florida State.
• 40:35
  So she's very, very good. And so we kind of have to build
• 40:38
  a team around that level to keep going.
• 40:41
  And so she's a senior this year. So as the end of her travel ball
• 40:45
  career and we'll see what happens next.
• 40:48
  How how important do you think it is as a coach to continue to
• 40:52
  learn? I mean, it'd be very easy to
• 40:54
  say, hey, I want a national title.
• 40:56
  I did all of these wonderful things, so I know what I'm doing
• 41:00
  and I'm just going to teach what I was taught.
• 41:02
  I don't think that's a definition of a good coach at
• 41:04
  all. Like I, if you're not evolving
• 41:07
  with the times, then you're just someone who's stuck where you
• 41:10
  were. I just never want to be that.
• 41:13
  I feel like I've, you know, coached around this area with
• 41:15
  people that are that way. And I'm like when you turn on TV
• 41:19
  and you see her pitching like that, like and you're paying
• 41:23
  someone to teach you something and that's not that.
• 41:25
  Like, I don't get how you can't evolve.
• 41:27
  And we don't have slow motion video back in the day, but now
• 41:30
  we do. Like it's right in front of your
• 41:31
  eyes. So try to feel like you can
• 41:33
  evolve a little bit with it. I think if any elite college
• 41:37
  coaches had to say the same thing, if you know coach Walton
• 41:40
  or coach you know Patty 517, Natty Patty is coaching the same
• 41:45
  wish he was like back in the day.
• 41:47
  They wouldn't have been so successful all these times.
• 41:49
  But you, you have to evolve. I think great coaches do that
• 41:53
  so. Awesome.
• 41:55
  Keep up. I couldn't agree with you more.
• 41:57
  I mean, we're going to get into the mechanic side now if you
• 42:00
  don't mind, Lauren, because you I want to talk to you about a
• 42:03
  post that you made in February of 2019.
• 42:05
  It is absolutely resonated with me and some of the other
• 42:07
  pitching coaches that Ken and I collaborate with and it's stuff
• 42:11
  that we see when we still like you just talked about it.
• 42:14
  We have slow MO video, but yet we're still seeing things that
• 42:17
  are being thought. They think that they or they're
• 42:20
  teaching the way that they think they're doing things.
• 42:23
  Do you remember that post that you made?
• 42:24
  It was more feel versus real. You post yourself can explain
• 42:28
  that to to some people like wrist flicks, things like that.
• 42:32
  Why should the ball be facing second base and snapping up?
• 42:34
  Can you get into that a little bit for us?
• 42:36
  Yeah, I just like didn't under because I mean, these are things
• 42:40
  when I was taught when I was 10 and that was 22 years ago.
• 42:44
  Like we have got to realize that softball is evolving every five
• 42:49
  years. It's so different and it goes
• 42:52
  through trends and phases of like, we'll call it trends of
• 42:56
  like what's popular at the time. But at the end of the day, like
• 42:59
  we have this resource of slow motion video and you have a girl
• 43:03
  who's warming up a certain way and I'll watch her warm up and
• 43:06
  I'm like, but then she goes to throw and she doesn't do any of
• 43:09
  those things. And so I'm just kind of like,
• 43:11
  you know that you don't even do that, right?
• 43:13
  And she's like, what? And just because it's been a
• 43:15
  routine that's been there for years and years and years, and
• 43:18
  it's like we can adjust our warm up and our K's and our snaps and
• 43:23
  all those kinds of things to kind of match what we're doing
• 43:25
  because that can only help you, right?
• 43:26
  So I guess when I started coaching in, you know, giving
• 43:31
  lessons and stuff and moving here specifically, I made that
• 43:34
  post a year after I moved here. Pitching was 10 years behind
• 43:39
  here when I moved here. It was, I mean, this isn't no
• 43:43
  offense to anyone in the room, but there was like an old man,
• 43:46
  89 year old man, you know, still giving pitching lessons a couple
• 43:50
  hours away, which is great. Like I'm so, but I at the end of
• 43:55
  the day, like there are some things that were being taught
• 43:57
  that I was like, he's 89, you know, like we got to turn or
• 44:01
  just like you turn the TV on, you watch your favorite girl
• 44:03
  pitching and then you're going to pitching lessons and you're
• 44:05
  not doing that. It doesn't make sense to me.
• 44:08
  But then there was like a couple other pitching instructors in
• 44:10
  that they never even, you know, they didn't pitch in college,
• 44:12
  that kind of thing. So it's not a knockout.
• 44:15
  I'm so happy that they were, you know, coaching.
• 44:17
  That's I hope there's always girls coaching in this, in this,
• 44:21
  you know, sport and all the things.
• 44:24
  But that kind of really inspired that post just because of where
• 44:28
  I was at the time and how far behind pitching was.
• 44:31
  And every time someone came to lessons, it's almost like they
• 44:33
  looked at me like what, because they were so used to a certain
• 44:37
  way and there's a few that I think scared away.
• 44:40
  They always they came back and I had them for six years and now
• 44:43
  we joke about it now, but at first it was shocking because I
• 44:45
  was basically like everything you're doing is not right, you
• 44:47
  know, but I and the easiest in trying to be, you know, ease on
• 44:51
  to that as much as possible. But that's what kind of inspired
• 44:53
  that post. Well, and it's funny that you
• 44:55
  tell that story because not too long ago I had a girl that was
• 45:00
  starting with me. She had been taking lessons from
• 45:03
  someone who had attended AD. One local D1 school had been in
• 45:08
  the Women's College World Series.
• 45:09
  Actually the year I happened to go there for the NFCA Coaches
• 45:12
  College for the, you know, analysis and all that stuff.
• 45:16
  So I actually had video of her former instructor who decided
• 45:20
  not to give lessons anymore. So I asked, you know, what did
• 45:23
  you learn? And, you know, it was the usual
• 45:24
  wrist flicks and turn the ball towards second base and pull
• 45:28
  your hand up and all those other things.
• 45:30
  And I said, OK, well, let's take a look at what your pitching
• 45:33
  coach actually did. And I just kind of went through
• 45:36
  the video and said she didn't do any of those things.
• 45:39
  You know, so this is what I want to teach you is I want to teach
• 45:42
  you what she was doing. And, you know, kind of how that
• 45:45
  works. But it always shocks me that
• 45:48
  there are so many who don't never go back and apparently
• 45:51
  look at a video of themselves and how they're pitching.
• 45:54
  So I think that that's really great for you to be able to say,
• 45:57
  yeah, well, I was taught this. But, you know, really, when I
• 46:00
  look at it, I didn't use any of it.
• 46:02
  And yeah, I want to teach what worked rather than just kind of
• 46:07
  blindly repeat whatever I was told when I was 10 years old.
• 46:11
  I'm grateful for my athleticism in that way too, because what I
• 46:14
  was taught when I was 10 would not have given me the foundation
• 46:19
  to be who I was in college. And I think that your body
• 46:23
  pitching, I, I always say this, this is like pitching is hard,
• 46:27
  but it should never feel hard. Like nothing you're doing should
• 46:31
  ever feel like you're going against what feels good or feels
• 46:35
  like it should feel easy. Like it's not emotion that
• 46:38
  should hurt. It's not emotion that should you
• 46:41
  know everything you do should feel good.
• 46:43
  So. Shouldn't feel forced.
• 46:45
  No, nothing should. And so and, and when you're
• 46:48
  pitching and going, it doesn't even look like you're trying to
• 46:51
  be honest. Like so many of these pictures,
• 46:53
  they don't even look like they're trying because
• 46:54
  everything's just so in sequence and it just looks so pretty,
• 46:57
  right anyway. And so I think I'm so grateful
• 47:01
  for my athleticism that just kind of did that.
• 47:04
  But that's not the case for everybody.
• 47:06
  There's things that I have to teach all the time that I'm
• 47:08
  like, I never had to learn that because my body just did it.
• 47:11
  So that's been kind of fun, but it's also been challenging at
• 47:14
  times. I feel like too sometimes, you
• 47:17
  know, these coaches are teaching the teaching the athlete out out
• 47:22
  of them with some of the things that they're forcing them to do.
• 47:25
  And I feel like they're so restrictive in, in some of the
• 47:28
  movements that they're making these kids do.
• 47:32
  And so I feel like what you're talking about letting the body
• 47:34
  move and, and, and letting it be efficient and transferring
• 47:38
  energy, things like that. Like I feel like I'll get some
• 47:40
  of these kids that come in. I'm sure Ken will tell you the
• 47:42
  same thing, that they've just coached the athlete out of these
• 47:45
  kids and, and it's like we got to let things move the way
• 47:48
  they're supposed to move and your body do the things that
• 47:50
  they're supposed to be doing. That that a lot of times for me,
• 47:52
  I'm I the first thing I asked him is how did that feel?
• 47:56
  Like? I feel like if if that doesn't
• 47:57
  feel good, it's probably not going to be something that we
• 48:00
  want to continue to do. So I feel like, you know, so
• 48:03
  it's just we got to stop coaching the athlete out of some
• 48:05
  of these kids. So.
• 48:07
  Yeah. And I think there's, there's
• 48:09
  obviously levels to that, like when they're so young, like they
• 48:12
  don't know what they're doing anyway.
• 48:13
  So there's a lot more structure and a foundation.
• 48:15
  I think that. But as they get older, once
• 48:18
  they, you know, hit those absolutes that kind of have to
• 48:21
  happen in a pitching motion. And those things that are
• 48:23
  important to keep you safe, important to keep you efficient,
• 48:27
  like those little movements when they're younger, once they hit
• 48:30
  high school, I'd give them more freedom.
• 48:32
  Like it's not like you have to be in this cookie cutter thing,
• 48:36
  but there are some things, things that we need to have
• 48:38
  control over. But at the end of the day, like
• 48:40
  once they get older, it's really just maintaining those things
• 48:44
  and then learning new things to go along with it.
• 48:47
  Yeah, We tend to call those core principles, you know, just the
• 48:50
  things that you really need to do.
• 48:52
  But even within that, there's a range.
• 48:54
  It doesn't have to be exactly one way.
• 48:56
  Yeah. It's funny, when I see a girl
• 48:58
  who's stiff, a lot of times I just look at her and I go, I am
• 49:01
  a robot. Jokes left and right here.
• 49:07
  No doubt they they only get better.
• 49:08
  Let me tell you, they only get better real quick.
• 49:14
  What do you how do you feel about some of these instructors
• 49:16
  teaching the full on leap right now?
• 49:18
  And I'm I'm not talking about, you know, the being airborne
• 49:22
  right and landing on the front foot and throwing the ball.
• 49:24
  I'm talking about jumping off both feet in the air, landing on
• 49:27
  the back foot, getting possibly a secondary push or replant if
• 49:30
  you will. There are people that are having
• 49:32
  kids jump off of boxes. How do you how do you feel about
• 49:36
  that? So my personal experience when I
• 49:40
  went into the league I was like this thing is legal.
• 49:43
  Now I want to try because internationally crow hopping was
• 49:47
  legal, which is 100% different than the Leap in my opinion.
• 49:52
  But, and so I tried it once. I literally almost tore my ACL.
• 49:55
  It was a horrible idea. So I tried it once and I said
• 49:58
  never mind, everything's fine. So there's my personal
• 50:00
  experience with trying it. And at the end of the day, once
• 50:05
  I turn the TV on and you have the best pitcher in the nation
• 50:09
  doing that, that's when I'll give it a chance.
• 50:12
  But until that day, the Leap rule was not put in for that.
• 50:17
  The leap rule was put in. So if a girl's back foot
• 50:20
  literally left the ground this much, it wasn't a legal pitch,
• 50:23
  right? Once you start changing the
• 50:25
  mechanics and jumping and all that kind of stuff, like I can't
• 50:31
  even get girls to like drag me straight.
• 50:34
  Like I could not even imagine trying to teach a young girl
• 50:38
  something like that and not expecting them to get hurt or
• 50:42
  whatever. But at the end of the day, that
• 50:44
  rule was not put in for that. That's not what it was for.
• 50:47
  I now don't have a single issue with if a girl's back foot and
• 50:51
  mechanically look right, but she leaves the air a little bit like
• 50:54
  it's legal, like fine, but we're not going to turn our hips and
• 50:57
  turn our foot and land like this, like we're not changing
• 51:00
  that. So I that's kind of my opinion
• 51:03
  on it. I don't think that it's, it's
• 51:07
  there to what people think it is yet like in college softball,
• 51:09
  like where are those girls at? I don't see them.
• 51:11
  They're not there. So I, I'm not going to change
• 51:14
  unless the whole world changes at this point.
• 51:17
  And I, I talked to some of my pitching friends that are very,
• 51:20
  you know, well known in the pitching world and we send, we
• 51:22
  send things to each other all the time.
• 51:24
  And we're like, what is that like?
• 51:27
  Can't you throw strike or no, like at some point it's like,
• 51:31
  what's more important here? But anyway, I think everyone
• 51:34
  could kind of go on and on about it.
• 51:36
  Yeah, yeah. That pitching coach group that
• 51:38
  Jay and I are a part of, we do a lot of that, too.
• 51:41
  You know, we'll see either a, you know, crazy drill being done
• 51:44
  that seems to have no purpose, or you see something in game.
• 51:48
  Yeah, yeah. It's just, you know, to get
• 51:51
  TikTok clicks and all of that. I always say the internet's a
• 51:54
  hungry beast and you have to keep feeding and stuff and
• 51:57
  pretty soon you're feeding it junk.
• 51:59
  Truth. So yeah, here's like kind of a
• 52:03
  controversial question as well. I think that there's, you know,
• 52:06
  I certainly hear about pitching coaches and I'm sure you do too,
• 52:08
  that who claim to be teaching 8 pitches to a 10 year old.
• 52:13
  I mean, how many pitches did you use in college and how many do
• 52:17
  you think a pitcher really needs are?
• 52:19
  There 8 pitches in pitch in softball.
• 52:20
  I don't even think there is. It's not controversial to me at
• 52:25
  all because I am very passionate about this question in my
• 52:28
  lessons and everything. And it's this is one of those
• 52:31
  things that I at the beginning when I started giving lessons
• 52:34
  that I had to be really firm on and learn how to be really firm
• 52:38
  on and just say that is not my style.
• 52:40
  Like that's not what you're going to get from me.
• 52:43
  If you want a solid foundation and to understand that this is a
• 52:45
  marathon and not a Sprint, like I'm your girl.
• 52:48
  If that's not what you want, like it's, it's just not going
• 52:51
  to work. But I had four pitches.
• 52:55
  I had a back door, I had a curveball, I had a rise ball and
• 52:58
  I had a change up and that was it.
• 53:00
  I, that's all I threw. I could put them wherever I
• 53:03
  wanted, which makes it look like it's all these other pitches
• 53:05
  when it's literally not. You're just hitting different
• 53:08
  targets with it a little bit. I think I had a really great
• 53:12
  pitching coach in college, Coach Rocha, Obviously Jen Rocha,
• 53:15
  she's a pitching coach at Oklahoma now.
• 53:17
  But even Coach Walton with his pitching experience, he was
• 53:20
  like, at the end of the day, I need you to throw to the area
• 53:23
  that I give you like that is called like it's not that crazy.
• 53:27
  Like we have to, you know, hit our spots and all that kind of
• 53:30
  stuff. But I, the way that I kind of
• 53:34
  structure it is like, you know, when, if I get him at 10.
• 53:37
  So now that I've been doing this long enough, I've had girls from
• 53:39
  literally 10 and now they are committed to play in college.
• 53:42
  So like we've gone through the whole process together of
• 53:45
  learning these pitches. And at once our foundation is
• 53:49
  set and we can throw a fastball to every location and we can
• 53:54
  throw a change up in any count that is consistent.
• 53:58
  And I don't have to tell you anything anymore.
• 54:01
  Then I know it's time and I'm not opposed to teaching 10 year
• 54:05
  old like people who are still 35 feet with a small ball pitches,
• 54:08
  but I just feel like it all has to change anyway when you move
• 54:11
  back 5 feet with a big ball. So I have probably taught 210
• 54:16
  year olds the start of a curveball ever in my entire like
• 54:20
  once we get back to 12 you and you're getting used to the big
• 54:23
  ball and you're getting used to 40 feet and you're still able to
• 54:26
  hit your spots and you're still able to throw your change up,
• 54:29
  which probably needs to be adjusted with the big ball
• 54:30
  anyway because it's a whole thing.
• 54:32
  Because some of them are still really small, you know, like
• 54:36
  then we talk about our first pitch and you know, people give
• 54:39
  me a hard time about it. And they're like, we want it.
• 54:41
  And I'm like, how can I, I feel like I'm doing you a disservice
• 54:46
  if I'm giving you this thing that I know in my heart you're
• 54:49
  not ready for. And my goal is a pitching
• 54:52
  instructor is to make your life easier, not harder.
• 54:55
  This will make your life harder if we try to do this right now.
• 54:57
  And you will get more frustrated.
• 54:59
  So it's just not time. Yeah, and I'm just curious about
• 55:03
  it because I know I, I get this, I'm sure Jay gets it as well,
• 55:06
  where you've got a kid who's 10 or 11 and, you know, the parents
• 55:09
  come in and say, well, you know, this other girl on her team, you
• 55:14
  know, she's, she can throw a screwball and she can throw a, a
• 55:17
  rise ball and she's throwing this and throwing that.
• 55:20
  And I mean my reaction to it always is let me see the spin.
• 55:24
  Well, it's just do the I said they all just do the same thing.
• 55:27
  They're just basketballs at all these patients.
• 55:29
  They're not real. They don't even know to use
• 55:30
  their fingers yet. Like I you just the connection
• 55:33
  with their brain and their fingers isn't even there yet.
• 55:36
  Like they don't know and they're not putting in enough practice
• 55:39
  in to even learn a spin and they're just not ready and
• 55:43
  pitching is such a marathon. So I would say on average it's
• 55:47
  between six months and a year with the girls that I'm like
• 55:52
  working with. Were they even learn another?
• 55:56
  It's like almost they're working on something for six months to a
• 55:59
  year depending on their athleticism and how much they're
• 56:02
  practicing because that's obvious.
• 56:04
  You come into lessons like if you practice that week, but till
• 56:08
  they even learn another one. Like it is such on the pace of
• 56:12
  all the girls I've been giving lessons to like by 8th grade
• 56:15
  they have everything probably but their rise ball because at
• 56:19
  the end of the day, sometimes like it's just they don't have
• 56:21
  enough speed to like really make it for real, for real.
• 56:24
  So, you know, moving into high school, they probably have one
• 56:27
  more pitch to learn and it's only four.
• 56:29
  Like it's not 7. I don't even know what those
• 56:31
  seven are. I don't even know how to teach
• 56:33
  those. Like I don't you can't even hit
• 56:35
  your spot. So like why?
• 56:36
  Why? Anyway, I could really say with
• 56:40
  y'all kind of go on and on, but I've found that finding a group
• 56:44
  of people who actually like believe in that and the ones
• 56:47
  that have are so thankful now that they've been with me for so
• 56:50
  long. And we joke about it all the
• 56:52
  time. And it's just it's been really
• 56:55
  fun to see those people who've bought into that process instead
• 56:57
  of just like wanting, wanting, wanting so fast comparing
• 57:01
  themselves to others. All the things I said, but do
• 57:03
  they hit their spots? No.
• 57:04
  Do they actually spin it right? No.
• 57:05
  Do they have a good change up? No.
• 57:06
  So then I'm like, why are you comparing yourself to her
• 57:08
  anyway? Like whatever.
• 57:10
  Right. That's so good though, Lauren,
• 57:12
  and people need to hear that more, right?
• 57:14
  I think, again, it's like it's the great race.
• 57:17
  And I feel like sometimes, you know, people are doing these
• 57:20
  kids a disservice by trying to just keep them there and teach
• 57:24
  them 8 pitches that none of them spin correctly at all.
• 57:27
  And, and I think that's what really separates, you know,
• 57:30
  really good coaches like you've talked about is like really
• 57:32
  being able to break it down. Is the ball spinning correctly,
• 57:36
  right? Are, you know, are we being
• 57:37
  loose? Are, are, are we being
• 57:39
  resistant? Like is our, like you talked
• 57:41
  about your, your core, your stability, your foundation, Is
• 57:44
  that their first? Because without that foundation,
• 57:47
  those pitches aren't going to move the right way anyway.
• 57:49
  Nothing. 'S going to work anyway, so I
• 57:51
  yeah. And the other part of that, that
• 57:53
  I talk about them too, is like when I get these girls, I kid
• 57:57
  you not, I had somebody come to me that said they had 11
• 58:00
  pitches. She was 15.
• 58:02
  That's a record. Backdoor dropped, I got off
• 58:06
  speed backdoor drop and they all just look like dropping and now
• 58:10
  like it wasn't. And I like with in the nicest
• 58:13
  way possible was just like, please do not walk into a
• 58:16
  college camp and say that like just I, I want you to be taken
• 58:21
  seriously when you walk in there.
• 58:22
  When you say you have that, that's not real and they all
• 58:25
  look the same, that's not real. I want you to throw a curveball
• 58:27
  and the coach be like that's a curveball.
• 58:29
  And then you say I have a drop ball and they watch her drop
• 58:31
  ball and it's a drop ball and a change up and all these things.
• 58:36
  Because we go in there and if you say you have 6 pitches in
• 58:39
  your 12, like they're not going to take you seriously.
• 58:41
  They're just not because they know that that's not usually a
• 58:44
  thing anyway. So I can't say it's impossible
• 58:47
  because I'm there's some freaky girls out there that can do some
• 58:51
  things. Like there's just some
• 58:52
  tremendous athletes out there that learn things quickly and
• 58:55
  all the things, but it is not normal to have that.
• 58:58
  Yeah, I remember being at a tryout, you know, with the
• 59:02
  program I was at and they were measuring, gosh, I think it was
• 59:07
  about a 16 year old measuring her with a Rev fire and they
• 59:11
  were all ooing and eyeing about how fast her curveball was
• 59:14
  spinning. She was getting these tremendous
• 59:16
  spin rates and I just looked at these guys and I, you know, I
• 59:20
  didn't know them that well, but you know, I looked at them.
• 59:22
  I go, has anybody actually watched the ball?
• 59:25
  That thing is spinning over the top.
• 59:27
  It's not a curveball. Doesn't matter how fast it's
• 59:29
  spinning. You know, if you're trying to
• 59:31
  throw a curveball and spinning 12:00 to 6:00, that's not a
• 59:34
  curveball. That's not a curve.
• 59:35
  Yeah, I like did that teaching them even how to recognize that
• 59:39
  on their own. I'm like, did you watch it spin?
• 59:42
  And they're like, I can't see that.
• 59:43
  And I said pay attention. Like you can watch and be able
• 59:47
  to adjust on your own just by looking at the ball that after
• 59:50
  you threw it. Like there's so much of that.
• 59:52
  I don't even feel like they even look at that, right.
• 59:55
  So we have to talk about that too.
• 59:58
  And it just helps them when, you know, I'm not standing there.
• 1:00:00
  Like I want to give them all the tools that they know when I'm
• 1:00:03
  not there. I don't even want to be there.
• 1:00:04
  Like I just. Want you to be able to do all of
• 1:00:07
  this on your own too. Yep.
• 1:00:08
  Be your own pitching coach. So my dog is.
• 1:00:11
  No, you're fine. You're fine.
• 1:00:13
  He's like getting antsy. He's like, so.
• 1:00:15
  I don't want to take up any more of your time because we could
• 1:00:18
  This could go on for days and I can't.
• 1:00:20
  I, I can't thank you enough for being on here today.
• 1:00:23
  This is amazing. I definitely wanted to pick your
• 1:00:25
  brain. Just if you can, what what's
• 1:00:28
  some future plans? Is college coaching something
• 1:00:31
  you're thinking about? Are you still doing clinics with
• 1:00:34
  with Amanda Scarborough? I know she's had had you with
• 1:00:37
  her a couple times I believe doing some clinics.
• 1:00:41
  Tell us what the future holds for you.
• 1:00:44
  So I'm kind of in that point in my life where I am kind of like,
• 1:00:46
  what do I want to do when I grow up?
• 1:00:48
  I know that lessons aren't going to last a lifetime, but I, I
• 1:00:55
  don't know about the college thing.
• 1:00:57
  I really love living in Charlotte and to be honest, you
• 1:01:00
  know, when you're a college coach, you move around every
• 1:01:03
  year like you're always trying to up and get do something
• 1:01:06
  better for your career and that kind of thing.
• 1:01:08
  And I just, I don't know if that's the life I want to live
• 1:01:11
  right now, But so I'm not really sure.
• 1:01:15
  But I love like teaching younger kids like I really do the 10 U
• 1:01:22
  to middle school. I love middle schoolers.
• 1:01:24
  They're my favorite age that I coach.
• 1:01:26
  They they don't get enough credit.
• 1:01:27
  I think they're hilarious. They don't know everything yet,
• 1:01:30
  but they know things so you can kind of talk to them and they're
• 1:01:33
  just funny. They're still innocent, almost,
• 1:01:35
  but. But they're still, they're
• 1:01:36
  starting to get that little bit of sass to them, you know, Oh.
• 1:01:39
  They're hilarious. They are hilarious.
• 1:01:42
  I I just love them so much anyway.
• 1:01:45
  I was just going to share. I, I have a couple of, you know,
• 1:01:47
  a couple of girls that started with them when they were
• 1:01:50
  probably about 12 or so, 11 or 12.
• 1:01:53
  And, you know, at that point the parents kind of dominated and
• 1:01:55
  told them what to do. Well, now they're, you know, 16
• 1:01:58
  and the parents says something and they just snap back and it's
• 1:02:01
  so funny. Don't listen to it's.
• 1:02:03
  Yeah, they're, I have a couple that are sassy, but they're
• 1:02:06
  they're fast. I'm like, how do you come up
• 1:02:08
  with that? You're so fast?
• 1:02:09
  How are you're like 11? Like, how do you even know how
• 1:02:11
  to say that to me? And I genuinely just die
• 1:02:13
  laughing. They're they're hilarious.
• 1:02:16
  But I definitely want to stay in youth sports.
• 1:02:19
  Where am I going to be for the rest of my life?
• 1:02:21
  I don't know, I love Charlotte, but my whole family's in Phoenix
• 1:02:23
  still, so who knows in 10 years we'll end up.
• 1:02:26
  But I think working in youth sports is kind of where I want
• 1:02:29
  to stay. I love it.
• 1:02:32
  I don't know if I'm going to coach travel ball for the rest
• 1:02:34
  of my life either, but as of now, I really like where I am
• 1:02:38
  and I do feel like a new chapter is probably coming at some point
• 1:02:42
  soon in the next 5 years, but we'll kind of see where that
• 1:02:45
  goes or what that looks like or where I am.
• 1:02:48
  I don't even know, unfortunately.
• 1:02:51
  I wish I knew, but like, do we ever know?
• 1:02:53
  No, no. You know, entering my 30s, I've
• 1:02:56
  had a really interesting entrance to my 30s where I've
• 1:02:59
  had to change a lot of things about my life.
• 1:03:02
  A lot of tragedies have happened as of lately in the last three
• 1:03:05
  years. Not to like take it down, but
• 1:03:07
  like my parents passed away, my grandma passed away last week.
• 1:03:11
  Like I just have a lot of things happening in my life where who
• 1:03:15
  knows where my next shift is going to be.
• 1:03:17
  So I don't know. Do does anybody know?
• 1:03:21
  No, no. No, no, no.
• 1:03:23
  No, you know, I'm, I'm pretty old and I'm still taking it, you
• 1:03:26
  know, day-to-day, week to week. Just see where the wind blows
• 1:03:29
  me. We're still trying to figure.
• 1:03:31
  Out quotations equals no disappointment.
• 1:03:32
  So here you are. Yeah.
• 1:03:36
  Awesome. So go ahead, Ken.
• 1:03:38
  Oh, I was just going to probably ask the same question you were,
• 1:03:40
  which is so people who are, you know, in that Charlotte area,
• 1:03:44
  people who listening or maybe they want to, you know, travel
• 1:03:47
  to see you now and then where can they get information about
• 1:03:50
  you and getting lessons set up and all of that?
• 1:03:53
  So you can visit thesoftballproject.com where
• 1:03:57
  you'll be able to sign up for lessons and that kind of thing.
• 1:04:00
  My social media is something that you know, anyone can follow
• 1:04:04
  at L Hagar 17 on Instagram, on Tiktok, on Twitter, and then any
• 1:04:14
  DMS or anything about lessons or online lessons or not.
• 1:04:17
  A lot of people ask because I guess they just don't assume.
• 1:04:20
  But when people ask, I very much say yes, a lot.
• 1:04:22
  That's how I started coaching travel ball and but and all of
• 1:04:26
  those platforms, you can get a hold of me.
• 1:04:28
  Awesome, Lauren, thank you again so much for your time today.
• 1:04:31
  We absolutely appreciate all the wisdom and and information you
• 1:04:35
  shared with us from your career on to the instructional stuff.
• 1:04:38
  Is there anything you want to close with or give any anybody a
• 1:04:41
  shout out or anything like that? I mean, no, I just want to close
• 1:04:47
  with it's, thank you so much for having me.
• 1:04:49
  I love getting to talk about this stuff.
• 1:04:51
  Transitioning from player to coach is something that, you
• 1:04:54
  know, you don't really realize it's happening, but when it
• 1:04:56
  happens, you look back on playing and have such a
• 1:04:58
  different perspective. So that's been really fun.
• 1:05:00
  So thank you for letting me talk about some things I'm passionate
• 1:05:03
  about on a platform where hopefully it reaches some folks.
• 1:05:07
  Well, we really appreciate it for sure.
• 1:05:10
  And yeah, it's that transition from player to coach.
• 1:05:13
  You go back, I always think everything is reversed in life.
• 1:05:16
  You know you should really be a coach 1st and think of how much
• 1:05:19
  better of a player you would have been if you knew what you
• 1:05:22
  know now as a coach I. Didn't know anything.
• 1:05:26
  I thought I knew everything. You don't know anything.
• 1:05:28
  There's that. And they really can tell if you
• 1:05:30
  practiced or not. I thought that was a hoax.
• 1:05:32
  I thought that was fake. I say they don't know.
• 1:05:35
  Yeah, they do. Yeah.
• 1:05:38
  That's all fake. All righty, Jay, you want to
• 1:05:41
  take us out? Ken, I'm going to let you take
• 1:05:43
  us out. You got the radio voice, buddy.
• 1:05:47
  All right, Well, I at least I take it pretty well.
• 1:05:49
  So anyway, yes, Lauren, thank you so much on behalf of the
• 1:05:53
  From the Coach's Mouth podcast. We appreciate everybody
• 1:05:56
  listening. If you have questions, put them
• 1:05:58
  in the comments. You have thoughts, you want to
• 1:06:00
  add anything along, We certainly want everybody out there to
• 1:06:03
  participate. Have a great week, have a great
• 1:06:07
  weekend, and we'll see you soon.