Latest / From the Coach's Mouth / Episode 38: Joe Kinsella

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Episode 38: Joe Kinsella · From the Coach's Mouth

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  If you can get a group of people or individuals, you know, one
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  individual to understand and agree to a standard and then
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  just ask them to meet that and call them out when they don't.
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  And you don't have to be unkind about it, but you.
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  But I do think that it comes down to having a shared
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  expectation, a shared understanding of this is how
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  this is how this program is going to work.
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  Whether you. Live northeast, West or South.
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  The best fast pitch info comes from the Coach's Mouth.
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  Welcome to the From the Coach's Mouth podcast with your host Jay
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  Boldman and Ken Krause. Hello everyone.
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  Yes, welcome to the From the Coach's Mouth podcast.
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  Ken and Jay here again to pontificate and share thoughts
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  and speak with a very special guest.
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  We're happy to have him in here today.
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  Jay, how you doing? Not too bad, Ken.
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  It's been, it's been a good couple weeks.
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  Not a fan of the time change though, I'll tell you that.
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  I feel like it's 10:00, you know it when it's like 430 now.
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  So trying to catch up on my sleep.
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  They always say you get that hour extra sleep and I don't
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  know, for some reason I don't feel it just yet.
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  So maybe that's going to happen next week.
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  But how about yourself? Yeah, I'm doing well.
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  You know, it's been a good week for me as well, just enjoying
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  what we're doing and going to be going down visiting one of our
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  former guest, JD Kosiarski, going to be working with some of
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  his kids today. And yes, Jay, I do have my
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  athletic pants on so. Good, good.
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  That's that's great. Well, you are doing an athletic
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  sport. So I think that's a, that's a
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  very good idea that you have athletic mobility.
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  It's just about mobility, Ken, you know?
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  Yeah, well, I don't know. At my age, I don't have a whole
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  lot of mobility no matter what pants I'm wearing, but I at
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  least try to look the part. Yeah, very true, very true.
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  And I even have a polo shirt with my softball success logo on
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  it. I see that.
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  It's nice. Yeah.
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  You just, you're just all about that branding now.
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  I I man. You betcha.
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  Yeah, you know, and it was nice I was able to find that online
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  just, you know, place it would do a one off shirt like that.
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  So you know, it's it's always exciting when you can do those
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  sorts of things and look like you actually know what you're
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  doing. Absolutely.
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  At least till I open my mouth. Do you have, I want to ask you
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  can do you have any kids down playing in the Scenic City
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  showcase this weekend? Or there's the other one, the
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  Alliance. I think there's a qualifier down
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  in Missouri getting I got a ton of kids down there.
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  So my game changers has been blowing up the last couple days.
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  Yeah, I have one down at Scenic City.
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  Saw that she just, I had 11 strikeouts in her game.
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  So yeah, one walk, 11 strikeouts, no earned runs.
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  So yeah, she did pretty well. Good, good.
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  Yeah, it's a it's a big, big recruiting tournament down
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  there. So excited for some of my kids
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  to get out there in front of those coaches for a couple more
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  times this this fall, so. Yep, maybe a couple of our kids
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  will meet each other because, you know, there's nothing like
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  travelling all that way to go play someone that's, you know,
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  half an hour away from you. Yeah, exactly.
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  And actually I think that happened twice already on
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  Friday. I was like, oh, travel all the
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  way there just to play a team from your hometown, but that's
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  kind of how it goes. But Yep.
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  So enough, enough about us rambling on here.
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  We can go on forever. Why don't you give some
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  information about this awesome guest that we have joining us
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  today. I'm super excited to talk to
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  this person and have worked with this person in some camps many
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  many years and glad he decided to join us today.
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  All right, well, looking at the early background of today's
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  guest, you would expect he'd be doing an interview on a football
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  podcast instead of one that focuses on fast pitch softball.
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  A four year letter winner at Illinois Wesleyan University in
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  Bloomington, IL, including the 1992 season where his team won
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  the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin
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  championship. He launched his coaching career
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  at Resurrection High School in Chicago before returning to his
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  alma mater as a residence life professional and assistant
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  football and softball coach. After two seasons there, he
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  moved to Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, SD,
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  where his career path took a turn when he became head
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  softball coach. He then moved on to Millsap's
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  College in Jackson, Ms. where he split his time between his two
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  coaching passions, serving as head softball coach as well as
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  assistant football coach, eventually rising to the
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  position of defensive coordinator for the majors.
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  As head softball coach at Millsaps, he took over a team
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  that had gone one in 26 the year before and directed it to 3
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  Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference W Division
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  championships, one league title, and an NCAA 3rd place regional
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  finish. But Illinois was never far from
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  his heart and in 2000 he returned to his home state to
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  take the head coaching job at Lake Forest College where he
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  continued his winning ways. In nearly 20 seasons with the
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  Foresters, he has accumulated more than 400 victories, giving
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  him more than 500 over his total career with eight Midwestern
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  Conference titles over the last eleven seasons while advancing
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  to the 14 tournament. Every year.
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  Since he took over the program, his teams have had numerous
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  conference leading performances in areas such as batting on base
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  percentage, slugging percentage and many other categories.
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  Not surprising since he's also a well respected hitting coach and
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  his 2015 team won the NCAA Division Three Regional, earning
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  an appearance at the Super Regional.
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  We're very excited to have him here with us today.
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  Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm From the Coach's
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  Mouth podcast. Welcome to the one and only Joe
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  Kinsella. Welcome, Joe.
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  Thanks guys. I appreciate you having me on
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  this is this is a great thing you're doing and honored to be
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  honored to be invited on. Well, we're definitely excited
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  to have you here. You know, Jay and I both known
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  you for a few years and you know, we've been trying to get
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  the schedules, all the line up and everything.
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  So that's great that you were able to join us this morning.
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  Yeah, no, I, I'm glad. I'm glad this all worked out.
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  Us too. So I'm going to ask you, how
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  come you're not out recruiting this weekend, every weekend I
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  see you're always out there recruiting today you're just
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  kind of you just made some time for us or are you just staying
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  more local this? Weekend.
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  I'm just here for you guys this weekend.
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  This weekend is all about you. No, I'll be honest.
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  Sweet. It's, uh, do you know how it is?
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  You're out on the road recruiting and obviously there's
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  things you have to take care of back at home.
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  Plus, our men's and women soccer teams are both hosting concert
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  championship games today. Our women's team is undefeated
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  on the season and our men's team is a one loss on the season.
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  So that's really exciting. But there's small colleges,
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  there's always, there's always, always a need for us all to chip
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  in. And Lake Force is a neat place
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  where we more than anything, we really support each other.
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  So it's great to be there for those, those two teams, programs
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  and coaches that have that have been coaching with for for a
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  long time and get out and support them as they, you know,
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  their success. They've always supported me and
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  I'd like to look out for them too.
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  That's great. So you're going to be working at
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  the tournament today. I think today I get to just
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  cheer them on, so I'm excited about that.
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  I'm sure somebody will pull me and ask me to move something
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  but. Well, you know you got to go
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  where your talent lies, right? Exactly, exactly.
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  It's hired muscle. Yeah.
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  All right. So I have to ask you, was it
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  always your plan to become a college coach or is that
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  something you kind of fell into? No, I figured I'd coach my kids
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  Little League team someday. The I grew up and I played, I
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  always played for great coaches. And you know, like any coach,
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  there's, there's things you learn, the things you you want
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  to mirror and things that you want to avoid.
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  And I think that got that with any coach you you coach for.
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  But athletics was always something that was around by
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  myself, my family. My brother was definitely on the
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  coaching path. He's two years younger than me.
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  You get that brother who's two years younger than than you that
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  you want to be more like. And so I think that I think
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  probably a little bit of that factored in.
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  Yeah, I just, I fell into it by accident and you know, it's it's
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  obviously served me well. And hopefully I've, hopefully
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  I've served, served the sports well that I've been been had my
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  hands in. So how, how did that happen?
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  I mean, how did you end up coaching?
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  Well, first of all, what were you planning on doing with your
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  life? And then how did you end up in
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  coaching? I wasn't sure exactly what I was
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  going to do. I'd studied, you know, just in
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  college, you pick a, pick a degree sometimes by default with
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  the classes that you're doing well in and enjoy the
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  conversation. And I always enjoyed the
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  wrestling with the, the ideas and philosophy classes and
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  religion classes and political science classes.
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  And so I came out of college and that's how I ended up at
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  Resurrection High School. I started teaching and I think I
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  saw myself in in the classroom and also really always had in
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  the back of my mind. I'd had a lot of opportunities
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  just throughout my education to be involved in a lot of
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  leadership workshops and leadership opportunities and
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  different venues. Not always in athletics.
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  I was, I was, I was, if anything, I was rarely A-Team
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  captain. I was, I was no stellar athlete,
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  but I was, I was, I was, I was on the team, but on the team for
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  A state championship and on a football team in college that
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  were right there in the country. And so I was around greatness a
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  lot, I think, but always outside of athletics had a lot of
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  leadership opportunities that I saw myself really gravitating
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  toward being in that conversation and training people
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  on a lot of those sorts of skills.
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  But what, you know, as a 21 year old, you know, you don't
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  necessarily know what that looks like professionally.
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  Yeah. But teaching at Resurrection
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  High School, you know, you kind of fall into things and, you
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  know, just having been an athlete, they ask you about,
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  hey, can you, you know, with crowd control at the basketball
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  game. It was all girls Catholic school
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  in Chicago. So you just you get asked to
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  volunteer for everything. Now we say you work at a
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  Catholic school. Don't, don't buy a truck because
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  they'll put a plow on it for you.
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  So you can so just help out. And one day I just, you know, I
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  got, I got asked to helped the track team and so I started
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  coaching, you know, and then two weeks after I joined as an
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  assistant track coach, the track coach quits and now I'm the head
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  track coach, which makes you the cross country coach.
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  And so, but that first spring I, they asked me to drive the van
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  over spring break to take the freshman softball team.
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  And I'd played so for some really good baseball coaches and
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  just being part of good teams. I hadn't, I don't know that I'd
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  seen a fast pitch softball game at that point.
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  And so the first game, my first fast pitch game, I saw I was
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  coaching third base and, and driving the van and, you know, I
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  got dumped. But the women come off the field
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  and girls, everything. They're all thirteen years old
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  of that 1314 years old at that point.
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  And they but just little things like huddling up, huddling up
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  before you take the field, those sorts of things.
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  Those are things that I knew and I just kept adding like, hey,
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  have you guys ever done this? No.
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  Do you want to try? Sure.
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  And that group really just took to, you know, just little things
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  that I asked them to to engage with because they were all new
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  at being athletes. And I think I think a lot of
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  times with young, young players, you need to teach them how to
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  how to beat be athletes. I think coaches all want to
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  teach hitting and you know, at some point and you have to teach
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  them how to stand in like this is how you stand in line for a
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  drill. And I think we skipped that
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  sometimes. And then we don't know why
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  they're not focused and why they can't, you know, why the
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  practice didn't run well because you were too worried about the
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  hitting and not enough on just develop like making teaching
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  them to be an athlete, how to how to be part of a team.
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  So that worked well. And you know, one thing leads to
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  another. I had all the stipend money for
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  track and indoor track and cross country.
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  And I told the athletic director she and I were out that fall.
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  I said, hey, out next year. I want to, I want to, I want to
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  help with the softball team. Like you want to be a violent,
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  you want to give up all the biggest stipend we have on
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  campus to be the volunteer varsity assistant softball
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  coach. Like, no, I want to be the
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  volunteer assistant JV coach. And you know, they always say
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  things happen for a reason. I'm a moron and that's a lot of
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  my, a lot of my coaching turns, you know, just being too dumb
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  to, to make the intelligent decision.
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  So, yeah, it's been, it's been a long ride.
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  But I still that first group of, of women that I, I coached,
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  gosh, almost 3030 years ago, they more than 30 years ago
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  that, you know, I still get invited every once in a while.
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  Hey, we're going out for so and so's birthday and I still stay
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  in touch with a handful of those those women.
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  Wow, so. Is that that's what that's the
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  start for you. You played football football in
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  in college. So did you find any?
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  You know, we, I always, I always hear this and I firmly believe
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  this. I believe that kids want to be
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  coached, right. So where you as hard on those
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  girls in your first couple years there as you were when you you
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  know, the football coach, you said you had a lot of great
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  coaches. I'm sure your coaches were tough
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  on you, Joe, back in the day, right?
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  So I I think we go ahead. You always hear that the coaches
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  that the the girls want people to coach them up hard, just like
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  they're that you're coaching boys and men.
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  Do you agree with that stand Just something I want to throw
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  out there because I feel like we need to talk about that.
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  People are afraid like, oh, we're we're coaching girls.
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  We've got to walk around on age cells with them and we got to
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  right. And I I feel like not all of
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  them want that. Like I've it was funny.
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  We are playing this fall, Joe and and I had a kid in the fall
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  and and last year she's like, Oh yeah, I remember that.
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  That's Coach J. That's where you kind of lit me
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  up because I didn't go for the ball and I'm like, oh, sorry.
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  You know, I'm I'm like, maybe I shouldn't have done.
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  She's like, no, no, I needed that because I needed someone to
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  to get on me because I was slacking that day.
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  Like I do you feel the same way? Was that any anything you
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  experienced when you first started out?
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  Like, hey, I'm just going to coach them up hard and let it
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  fall where it may? Or was it like, did you take
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  take it a little easier? I I think and, and I think it
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  was probably a little harder coach then than I am now just
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  but, but I think that I think that that was not knowing any
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  different. And at that point, other than
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  I'd known, you know, my mom talked about being an athlete,
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  you know, as a as a kid, and this is back before, you know,
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  and she was no longer an athlete by the time she got to high
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  school. It was more playing in the yard.
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  But but I always, it was something that she took pride in
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  and took seriously. And I think that a little bit of
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  too dumb to know any different. I coached the way I wanted to be
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  coached. And I think it was at some
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  level, there's a you can coach them hard, but I think that
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  anybody, if you can get a group of people or individuals, you
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  know, one individual to understand and agree to a
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  standard and then just ask them to meet that and call them out
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  when they don't, then you don't have to be unkind about it, but
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  you. But I do think that it comes
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  down to having a shared expectation, a shared
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  understanding of this is how this is how this program is
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  going to work and this is how things get done.
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  You know, I think that good coaches are collaborative with
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  their athletes. And, you know, I think that's
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  there's a lot of questions and answers that go to that.
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  And, you know, but you know, certainly 30 years ago, I don't
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  know that I had that much nuance to it, but I, but I do know that
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  my best coaches were the ones that we all understood the goal,
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  you know, that, that there was an intent to be successful.
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  And, and at some point, it's not about being a coach being angry
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  or, or mean or any of that. It's a matter of, Hey, we all
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  said that this is what we're trying to do.
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  And that being said, this is, this is how that gets done.
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  So, and I think, I think I've found that women respond to that
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  as well or better than men do. Do they all?
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  No, I coached football. I coached college football for
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  six years. Do all the men handle it well?
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  No, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't think that men and women
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  are the same. But as far as how you accomplish
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  things and how you get the job done, you know, I think, I think
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  it's all, I think it's all on the spectrum.
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  And there are people who who respond well to the hard, hard
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  thing and other people you have to be a little softer with and,
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  and have that conversation with. And that's, and I think you
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  coach individuals more than you coach a team.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree.
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  And you know, I think I found that in my experience too, that
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  people just assume that, you know, you can just yell at the
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  boys and they'll respond or they'll ignore you or whatever.
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  But you know, it is, it's about the individuals and, and each
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  person is going to approach it differently.
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  They're going to take it differently.
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  And the mark of a great coach is understanding, like you said,
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  that you're coaching if you have 12 people on the team, you're
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  coaching 12 different ways depending on what each one of
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  those individuals does in order to bring out the best in each
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  one of them. And I think, and I think I, I
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  think it's if you can look at this as selfishly as you want,
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  if, if we all want the same thing, I don't, I don't need you
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  to hear me the way I want you to hear me.
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  I just need, it's my job to help help you help us.
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  And if that's a pat on the back, if, if giving you a pat on the
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  back helps us, if, if you need a pat on the bat, if you, if
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  you're our number one pitcher and you need a pat on the back
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  instead of a kick in the butt, how am I helping the team if I'm
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  kicking you in the butt? You know, we tell everyone on
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  our team has one, has one job, and that is to find ways to help
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  us win. And, and that includes me and me
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  yelling at a kid that doesn't respond well to that doesn't
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  help our team win. So I think that I think the
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  standards for performance and standards for character and all
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  that can be hard standards. Right.
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  But right. But it doesn't have to.
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  How you how you accomplish those standards is less relevant.
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  Yeah. And I think that I've also heard
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  the thing, if you say establish the standards and then you have
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  to come down on somebody later on, it's not you as the coach
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  that's causing the punishment. The player understood what the
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  forbidden behaviors were and what the consequences were.
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  And if she chose to ignore that, then she punishes herself.
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  Correct. Yeah, I would completely agree
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  with you, Ken all. Right.
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  So you mentioned playing baseball, you know, we know you
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  played football and you were pretty, pretty high level for
• 19:30
  that. Did you play any other sports?
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  I played baseball in high school briefly and I was AI was a
• 19:38
  hitter that thought he was a catcher and you know, and just I
• 19:43
  was at AI was at a school where baseball and football were both
• 19:48
  really competitive, you know, Julia Catholics with strong
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  football program and state champions.
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  And I was had the opportunity to be on A state championship team,
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  but our baseball team probably comparable.
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  But I remember going in as a freshman where I'd only played
• 20:03
  rec ball. I'd never played anything other
• 20:06
  than rec ball. My parents hadn't grown up
• 20:09
  playing competitive sports and so I went to high school, 120
• 20:13
  guys trying out for a 20 man roster, freshman's baseball
• 20:17
  team. And I played Rep wall and you
• 20:20
  know, I show up and I make it. It's a week and a half of cuts.
• 20:23
  They're cutting 10 guys a day. I make it to the I made it the
• 20:26
  last day and got cut as a freshman, came back as a
• 20:29
  sophomore, you know, and ended up DP ING on the, on the
• 20:33
  sophomore team and the DH ING and being a bullpen catcher.
• 20:38
  But those that's I play all the coaches I played for in high
• 20:41
  school. I don't know if you know what
• 20:42
  Gordy Gillespie, you know, legend, legendary baseball,
• 20:46
  football coach. I didn't play for him, but
• 20:49
  everyone I played for played for him.
• 20:51
  And so just a lot of great, great men that I had the
• 20:56
  opportunity to play for. So I think I learned a lot about
• 20:58
  coaching in a very short stint of as a high school baseball
• 21:02
  player. But yeah, it was, you know, I, I
• 21:04
  threw shot put as a freshman. You know, it didn't make the
• 21:06
  baseball team went and threw shot put.
• 21:08
  Never done that before. I think just trying to keep my
• 21:10
  hands and stuff and stay out of trouble.
• 21:12
  Joe, I want to talk a little bit about your, your coaching
• 21:14
  journey here too, Like one of your stops at Millsaps College
• 21:18
  in Mississippi. You had that, that team of God
• 21:20
  won in 26 the previous year. And then you, you take them on
• 21:24
  to the great success, right? Like, so how did, how did you
• 21:27
  turn that program around? What was your philosophy on
• 21:30
  that? Like what, what's the, what was
• 21:31
  the thing there? I mean, A1 in 26 program means
• 21:34
  you didn't, you didn't probably have a lot of talent.
• 21:35
  You come in and, and all of a sudden, now that you know, you
• 21:38
  turn that, that team around. So what was, what was the goal?
• 21:41
  And, and what lessons did you take away from that experience
• 21:45
  that you, you know, may have used later on throughout your
• 21:48
  coaching career? Although I think it's probably,
• 21:50
  it's probably nice because not a lot of pressure there, you know,
• 21:53
  not too hard to beat one in 26. Oh yeah.
• 21:56
  Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, at that point I
• 21:58
  didn't have a whole lot of resume to go with.
• 22:00
  So those, you know, a one in 26 jobs, a lot easier to get.
• 22:04
  Yeah. I don't know that there was any
• 22:08
  magic. I think at that point I was very
• 22:10
  much, I'd never been an assistant softball coach and
• 22:14
  really I had one year of of college head coach under my
• 22:17
  under my belt. I, you know, was, was around the
• 22:20
  game a little bit. I guess I was a a volunteer
• 22:24
  assistant for the JV team back at the at Resurrection High
• 22:28
  School for a year. But it was, I think I just went
• 22:32
  in and a little bit of trial and error, but it was, you know, I
• 22:36
  think the way you build any program is it starts with the
• 22:41
  recruiting. You know, you have to, you have
• 22:43
  to go out and get get players. You know, I think jokingly, of
• 22:47
  course, but I would say it's my best coaching skill.
• 22:50
  I cross my side. I say this is my best, this is
• 22:52
  my coaching style. And I cross my fingers because,
• 22:58
  you know, at the end of the day, I'm, I'm a big believer of teach
• 23:01
  people in practice and then you put them on the field and get
• 23:04
  out of their way, especially at the college level, you know, you
• 23:08
  know, I'm coaching grown women who have played, played softball
• 23:11
  for, you know, 15 plus years for me.
• 23:15
  If anything, I spent, I think I spent a lot of time with my
• 23:18
  athletes now trying to get out of their way but more it.
• 23:23
  But I don't have a hard time with that.
• 23:25
  I think so many of them are not used to being in a position to
• 23:29
  make decisions on their own. You know, I think athletes are
• 23:32
  micromanaged at a very high level.
• 23:34
  I think, you know, and that starts with an understandable,
• 23:37
  their schedules are ridiculous growing up.
• 23:39
  They're moving from one thing to the other.
• 23:41
  But hey, mom scheduled a lesson for me on Wednesday and then mom
• 23:45
  scheduled my PT on Thursday. And I go see my strength coach
• 23:49
  on Friday. And they just get in the car and
• 23:51
  go to the next thing and get in the car and go to the next
• 23:53
  thing. And they do what they're told
• 23:54
  when they get there, which that sounds like a dream, but, you
• 24:00
  know, it's one of those, you know, that freshman who they're
• 24:03
  standing on first base and the ball gets hit in the left center
• 24:05
  field and and they come around second base looking at me to
• 24:09
  tell them what to do. Like you're looking at the same
• 24:12
  thing I am, you know, you know, like, Coach, should I have gone
• 24:17
  to 3rd? Would?
• 24:18
  Well, would you make it? Well, yeah.
• 24:20
  Well, then you probably should have gone to 3rd, you know, and
• 24:23
  kind of the point here. Yeah.
• 24:25
  You know, and I but. But I think they're so many
• 24:28
  athletes are coming from from situations where they weren't
• 24:31
  encouraged to make those decisions on their own.
• 24:33
  And in and in some places they weren't encouraged and in other
• 24:37
  places they were actually punished for making decisions on
• 24:40
  their own. And, you know, coaching that out
• 24:43
  of college athlete, I think it is, is is one of the biggest
• 24:47
  things that we do here. And I think when I got to
• 24:50
  Millsaps pulling, pulling in really good athletes and and
• 24:54
  getting them all on the same page.
• 24:56
  I remember that, you know, me trying to just get them all.
• 25:00
  Hey, we're all going to dress like this at practice.
• 25:02
  This is back before we had teen, you know, that we had you have
• 25:05
  to wear this color shirt for practice period, you know, and
• 25:09
  that we are new didn't have the budget for team practice gear,
• 25:13
  you know, so it was just trying to get them all on the same
• 25:16
  page. And I remember one time we were,
• 25:19
  we were on the road, we're heading to San Antonio, TX to
• 25:22
  play 12 hour bus ride. We stopped halfway to practice
• 25:26
  one of our players at her high school and said, hey, go get
• 25:29
  changed. Practice gets done.
• 25:31
  I said go get changed in the locker room we're on.
• 25:34
  We're in a different town on a high school campus.
• 25:38
  There's other teams around instead of what go in the locker
• 25:40
  room get changed. But don't you, I want you to all
• 25:43
  come out together to get on the bus.
• 25:45
  I don't want people wandering around, just everybody staying
• 25:48
  there until everybody's ready to come out and then come out.
• 25:50
  So I come out and half the team's on the bus.
• 25:55
  And so I said, I said, like I told all of you to stay in there
• 25:59
  together and come out together. And I send that group back in
• 26:02
  and, and, and they're, you know, they're frustrated because I'm,
• 26:07
  you know, it's a little thing. But, and I said, no, this, no,
• 26:10
  we're doing this, we're doing things as a team.
• 26:12
  So I send them back into the school and they come out in
• 26:15
  single file, left hand above their head, you know, right,
• 26:19
  their index finger on their nose and the right hand and single
• 26:22
  file walking to the bus. And they were kind of sticking
• 26:25
  it to me a little bit. And it, but the reality is, is
• 26:31
  everything changed after that. And then, you know, is a little
• 26:34
  bit of, you know, we're going to we're going to make fun of your
• 26:36
  coach a little bit and tell you we think this is a little bit
• 26:39
  stupid, but we're on board now, you know, and I think that, you
• 26:44
  know, I I don't think that I think once you get that, then
• 26:48
  you can loosen things up a little bit, you know, but I
• 26:51
  think you have to get a team there.
• 26:53
  And I think that was the biggest thing I wanted when I got to Mel
• 26:56
  saps. Sorry that was a long winded
• 26:58
  answer, but. That's great.
• 26:59
  I mean, I want to know the background, man.
• 27:01
  Yeah, for sure. Yeah, no.
• 27:03
  And, and it's funny how, you know, here they think they're
• 27:05
  sticking it to you, and yet they did exactly what you wanted them
• 27:09
  to do, which was to all act as a team.
• 27:12
  Yeah, yeah. You know.
• 27:14
  And if that's the price that you know comes along, who cares,
• 27:17
  right? As long as you get them all
• 27:19
  rowing in the same direction, you guys are going to move a lot
• 27:21
  faster. No doubt, no doubt.
• 27:23
  You know, you mentioned this just before about how you pretty
• 27:26
  much jumped into the head coaching role.
• 27:28
  That's a pretty big leap of faith, especially at the college
• 27:31
  level. What gave you the what's the
• 27:35
  word I'm looking for? I know the word I'm going to
• 27:37
  say, but I don't want to say that one.
• 27:38
  But what gave you the nerve for the confidence to just jump
• 27:42
  right in? Was it being young and foolish,
• 27:44
  or did you have you know more to it than that?
• 27:48
  I think, I think young and foolish is certainly part of it,
• 27:53
  but I do and I, I, I laugh sometimes, you know, because
• 27:58
  Lake Forest College is a great small liberal arts college.
• 28:02
  And you know, at the end of the day, we all want them to have
• 28:05
  careers. But you know, one of the pitches
• 28:07
  of the small of the liberal arts colleges that hey, we're going
• 28:10
  to train, train you to communicate well, and we're
• 28:13
  going to train you to work with other people well and
• 28:16
  leaderships, you know, and just, you know, we're not going to
• 28:20
  give you a career. We're going to give you the
• 28:22
  skills to go do whatever you want to do.
• 28:24
  You know, so I laugh a little bit sometimes.
• 28:26
  I have a great liberal arts degree.
• 28:27
  They said I could, you know, I could do whatever I want with
• 28:29
  that. And so little softball looks
• 28:32
  fun. And so, but you know, and it,
• 28:36
  and at some level not having any significant contacts in the
• 28:40
  industry and not really having a grasp of how to go about
• 28:45
  becoming a college coach, I was at Resurrection High School and
• 28:48
  I've been, I've been there three years, middle of my third year.
• 28:52
  I have a class full of high school girls.
• 28:55
  Mr. Gonzalo, are you going to, are you going to teach here for
• 28:57
  the rest of your life? And I'm like, I have no idea.
• 29:02
  Like everything's going fine now, but I have no idea.
• 29:05
  And she asked what, what would you do if you weren't doing
• 29:08
  this? And I said I really love
• 29:10
  teaching and I really love coaching.
• 29:14
  But if anything, I don't feel like I'm doing either as well as
• 29:19
  I could if I was just doing 1. So if I wasn't doing this, I
• 29:23
  think I would see if I, if I could coach full time, that
• 29:26
  would be really something special.
• 29:28
  And I had a player in my class come up after me, come up
• 29:32
  afterwards and after class like Mr. Gonzalo.
• 29:35
  I've got my sister is a graduate assistant softball coach at
• 29:41
  DePaul and she gets the NCAA newspaper back when it was an
• 29:45
  actual newspaper, right? And I know the the Backpage is
• 29:50
  all want ads for classified ads for jobs like she's not planning
• 29:55
  to stay in coaching. Would you want me to bring that
• 29:57
  in for you every time she gets it?
• 30:00
  And sure, that would be great. And so this sophomore in high
• 30:04
  school starts bringing me the NCAA newspaper and, and, and you
• 30:08
  read the read the AT in the back and it's, you know, how do you
• 30:11
  get a coach at full time coaching job?
• 30:13
  You need 2 years of you need, you need 2 years of full time
• 30:16
  coaching experience to get a full time coaching job.
• 30:19
  So it really, it really kind of fell into it was, it was really
• 30:25
  organic like that. And when I went from there to
• 30:28
  Saint Patrick High School, where I was where I coached football
• 30:30
  for a year, you know, the whole time kind of kept, you know,
• 30:34
  stayed interested in softball. And I'd already started
• 30:37
  coaching, you know, some of those girls from Resurrection
• 30:39
  high school, they had a little a little travel ball team that it
• 30:43
  was, you know, just, you know, most of them, most of the girls
• 30:46
  Resurrection at the time had played some pick up 16 inch
• 30:50
  softball was their experience with softball before before
• 30:53
  starting. And I think I think a good coach
• 30:56
  can coach anything, you know, but it's, you know, it's VHS
• 31:00
  tapes on how to teach pitching and VHS tapes on, you know, and
• 31:05
  the clinics and the the Chicago clinic up in Rosemont.
• 31:08
  And you might be Andrea speak and you know all that was, you
• 31:14
  know, that's heck, that's how I learned to coach hurdles when I,
• 31:19
  you know, as a 21 year old as you know, that had zero
• 31:23
  experience in in track. I think you go out and you ask
• 31:26
  people who know more than you do and you beg, borrow and steal as
• 31:30
  much as you can. I think it's fascinating.
• 31:33
  Yeah. So Joe, you've, you've been at
• 31:37
  Lake Forest for almost 20 years, you know, and in a profession
• 31:40
  where coaches, you see it all the time, like there's so much
• 31:42
  movement nowadays with coaches either moving up the ladder or
• 31:47
  getting different jobs. Like, so what's, what's been
• 31:49
  your secret there for having such longevity at, at Lake
• 31:52
  Forest? Like what's what's, what's the
• 31:54
  story for you there? I think the the Lake Forest is a
• 31:58
  great place, you know, and obviously we've had a lot of
• 32:02
  softball success here. But you have good softball
• 32:04
  success. Well, yeah, but.
• 32:07
  It's my business, softball. Softball success.
• 32:09
  There you go. But the it's really, it's really
• 32:14
  a special place and there's a real family atmosphere and you
• 32:18
  know, as everyone does, we have things in life that are up and
• 32:21
  down and you're really coaching is something that my children
• 32:27
  are in the dugout every once in a while.
• 32:29
  They aren't in there every day. But but it's one of those things
• 32:32
  where my team knows my kids and my kids know my team and my Co
• 32:36
  workers know my children. My children wander into the
• 32:39
  office and the support that I've gotten from the institution and
• 32:45
  my Co workers is really on par with what you would like to get
• 32:50
  from family. And so I think there's that's
• 32:53
  something that's real. I think everyone says, hey,
• 32:55
  we're a family here. But when it comes down to the,
• 32:59
  the nuts and bolts of that, you know, I've got hard evidence of,
• 33:02
  of, of this type of support that, that you can get from an
• 33:05
  institution and from great Co workers.
• 33:08
  So Lake Forest has been that for me for sure.
• 33:11
  It's afforded me lots of opportunities to be with my kids
• 33:14
  and, you know, be around. Plus the fact that this is this
• 33:18
  was my move home. I was out of state for almost 8
• 33:21
  years and my family's still down in Bolingbrook.
• 33:25
  I've got a brother up in Manitowoc, WI, got a brother
• 33:28
  down in the Atlantics. My parents are still in the
• 33:30
  house I grew up in. So this is this was kind of the
• 33:34
  move home. So that's another another family
• 33:37
  thing. And you know, you talk about
• 33:39
  moving around and moving up and, you know, the reality is, is,
• 33:43
  you know, I'm moving my, you know, your situation where I'm
• 33:45
  moving my kids from school to school, you know, pulling them
• 33:48
  up and putting them in a different environment.
• 33:50
  And I just I'm not sure that the the payoff is, is there.
• 33:55
  Of course, if now the way salaries are going, I think
• 33:58
  there's a little bit more incentive to move around as a
• 34:00
  coach. But but at the same time, I
• 34:02
  don't know that until you get to the the power 4 type levels, I
• 34:08
  don't know that the paychecks are a whole lot different at the
• 34:11
  different levels of softball. So, you know, professionally,
• 34:16
  it's not, you know, there's this is a I've got a great gig here.
• 34:20
  You know, we're, we can compete with anybody and you know,
• 34:25
  we're, it's, I'm proud of the product we put on the field.
• 34:29
  I think our athletes are getting, getting a great
• 34:31
  experience. And you know, but, but as much
• 34:36
  as anything, I think just from a personal standpoint, you stay
• 34:39
  because it's what's best for you and your family.
• 34:41
  That's great and you obviously enjoy coaching at the Division
• 34:44
  Three level. Yeah, I think it, I think it's
• 34:47
  AI think, I think it's a great place to be.
• 34:50
  I like the fact that our athletes, certainly I think it's
• 34:55
  a misnomer to think that the athletes come here just for the
• 34:58
  education and and then choose to walk on the softball field.
• 35:01
  The athletes on the softball team are here to play softball
• 35:06
  and go to Med school. You know, but softball, but
• 35:09
  softballs. But there are a lot of great
• 35:11
  schools out there and there are a lot of great softball programs
• 35:14
  out there. But the athletes who choose
• 35:17
  certainly for at the college level and certainly for
• 35:20
  stronger, stronger athletic programs in general, you're,
• 35:24
  they're there because they want to be a part of that softball
• 35:28
  program, you know, and, and we have a, you know, no doubt
• 35:32
  amazing academic situation, but there are other schools with
• 35:35
  great academic situations too. Yeah, and also too, Joe, I mean,
• 35:39
  you know, you guys have great, a great softball team.
• 35:41
  They're like, you guys are tough.
• 35:42
  Like I see every fall. You know, you guys, I think this
• 35:45
  this fall you played Northwestern and Loyola.
• 35:47
  So you're not like, hey, oh, we're D3, let's not go compete
• 35:50
  against these other teams, right?
• 35:51
  Like I, and I think that's the stigma that sometimes people get
• 35:55
  with junior college and Division 3 or not division non Division
• 35:59
  One kids like, oh, well, you know, they're, it's not D1.
• 36:02
  It's like, doesn't matter, man. Like the softball's good at
• 36:05
  every level, you know, and, and you guys compete and hang with
• 36:09
  Northwestern and Loyola and, and I think, you know, another
• 36:12
  Division One team. So I think that that's, you
• 36:14
  know, that's a, you know, a stigma that, you know, I think
• 36:17
  that's part of what Ken and I are doing this too, is like a
• 36:19
  softball's good at every level, man.
• 36:21
  You know, it's the same. The ball's still yellow, the
• 36:23
  bases are still 60 feet and the pitchers are all good and the
• 36:26
  hitters can all rake. So it doesn't matter what level
• 36:28
  you're we're at, you know, it's just, it's got to be a good
• 36:30
  program and and I think, you know, at Lake Force, you guys
• 36:32
  have always, always had a good program.
• 36:35
  One of my one of my players at the end of practice, right
• 36:38
  before we played NW Northwestern, Loyola and
• 36:41
  Roosevelt Division Three, we get one playing date.
• 36:43
  And so we're, you know, we stack those 3 and it's our only
• 36:48
  opportunity to play. So we're going to get everybody
• 36:49
  out on the field at some point. Northwestern regularly a top 25
• 36:55
  Power 4 softball program. You know, and you know, one of
• 36:59
  my players we were talking about, hey, we're going out
• 37:01
  there to compete to win. And it's not about whether we
• 37:03
  can or can't. We're athletes and we're going
• 37:07
  to go out and compete to win. And one of my players threw her
• 37:10
  her two cents and it's a we played against all of those
• 37:13
  players. They were everyone at
• 37:15
  Northwestern Loyola and all these products.
• 37:18
  Those players were on our travel teams and those players were on
• 37:22
  the teams we played against and they were on our high school
• 37:24
  teams and, and we've played with them before.
• 37:28
  And it's, it's not different. And you, softball's a sport, you
• 37:33
  know, it's not, it's not football where there's a £350
• 37:36
  lineman leaning on you. They, they put the ball in play.
• 37:41
  And the reality is it's you and the ball and your glove and you
• 37:46
  know, and the pitcher throws a pitch, the ball's in the air,
• 37:50
  you hit it or you don't hit it. And you know, there's, you know,
• 37:53
  there's not, hey, when my bad hits the ball, there's some
• 37:56
  monster on the other like keeping me from hitting it.
• 37:59
  No, the balls flying past me, you know, and and you.
• 38:03
  And so it's, I think it's a really great sport from that,
• 38:06
  that standpoint. Real.
• 38:08
  It's in all shapes and sizes sport certain certainly being
• 38:11
  explosive and being explosive looks different for different
• 38:13
  people. And there's the little fast kids
• 38:15
  and the big powerful kids. But either way, they're super
• 38:18
  explosive. And I told, I think sometimes, I
• 38:21
  think sometimes think that idea that the athletes are notably
• 38:25
  different. Certainly sometimes they are.
• 38:27
  I'm not going to take that take away from that.
• 38:30
  But you know, I told my team a lot, a lot of you are all the
• 38:34
  people playing in Power 4 schools were Division One
• 38:36
  athletes when they were freshmen in high school.
• 38:41
  It took you, it took you 3 or 4 years to get there, you know,
• 38:45
  but you, you developed later, you came into the sport later.
• 38:49
  But the reality is, is, you know, the weight room's an
• 38:51
  amazing thing, good coaching's an amazing thing and the the
• 38:56
  intent to be a great player goes is probably the biggest thing.
• 39:01
  I know one of your players, Kaya Mismatch, and she came in as a
• 39:05
  freshman and made a big impact and has continued to to play
• 39:08
  well. And I know she just loves it
• 39:10
  there. She loves the school, she loves
• 39:12
  playing for you, she loves the girls on the team and is having
• 39:16
  a great experience with it. And I think that that's probably
• 39:19
  true for a lot of the kids that are playing there.
• 39:22
  I think that's the goal, You know, I, I, I don't, I don't see
• 39:25
  any reason that we need to make softball hard.
• 39:29
  Yeah, it softball is hard. We don't need to make it hard.
• 39:35
  You know, being good is hard. I always laugh.
• 39:38
  And Kai's a neuroscience major. You know, this, here's this all
• 39:41
  American caliber athlete comes in and breaks records, you know,
• 39:46
  10 games into her freshman year. And, you know, but she's a
• 39:50
  neuroscience major. She was research.
• 39:53
  She was on campus studying brain science and Parkinson's disease
• 39:57
  this summer following her sophomore year.
• 39:59
  You know, crazy smart kid. That kid plays with a smile on
• 40:02
  her face. She gets after it in the weight
• 40:05
  room like she is a she is an all in kid.
• 40:08
  But she you know, the, the number of recruits and their
• 40:11
  parents, they they ask, is it hard to be pre Med and play
• 40:15
  college softball? Like it let's it's hard to be
• 40:19
  pre Med like, yeah, what what are we talking about right now?
• 40:24
  You know, and yes, it's hard to play college softball if you
• 40:27
  weren't doing anything else, you know, but but but the really
• 40:32
  good ones choose hard. Yeah.
• 40:34
  And, you know, and it, and if they don't choose hard, then
• 40:39
  that's then this isn't where you should be.
• 40:43
  And, and I think that's, you know, I think that's part of the
• 40:46
  reason we have happy athletes is because we're real upfront about
• 40:49
  that on the front end. But I don't need to be mean to
• 40:52
  you to be hard for it to be hard.
• 40:54
  I don't need to yell at you for it to be hard.
• 40:59
  We just need to know like it, everyone understands that.
• 41:02
  Hey, we're we all came here agreeing that we're going to
• 41:06
  chase trophies. I tell pretty much everybody
• 41:09
  recruit, hey, you could start for 4:00.
• 41:11
  I could probably give you a list of schools you could start at
• 41:13
  for four years. And I can't tell you you will
• 41:15
  start here. I'm recruiting you because
• 41:18
  you're good enough to start here like everybody else.
• 41:21
  I'm recruiting. Yeah.
• 41:22
  And so at some level, my goal isn't for you to I'm going to
• 41:27
  recruit so I don't have to put you on the field.
• 41:30
  No, that's not no, I'm just recruiting the best softball
• 41:34
  players I can. And I'm going to try and have 20
• 41:37
  to 25 athletes who any one of them can go out and contribute
• 41:41
  for us. And, and we don't compete
• 41:44
  against each other. We compete with each other.
• 41:46
  We compete side by side and back to the your job is to find a way
• 41:50
  to help us win. And if you are all American
• 41:52
  pitcher in the circles, probably how you help us win today and
• 41:56
  you roll your ankle tomorrow. Your job is still to find a way
• 42:00
  to help us win. And, and maybe you're the
• 42:03
  biggest cheerleader for the person you're you're that's
• 42:05
  replacing you or you're helping with charts or you're reading
• 42:10
  hitters for us or it, there's a lot of ways you can do it, but
• 42:14
  your job is to find a way to help us and it changes day by
• 42:18
  day, so. Speaking of recruiting, are
• 42:20
  there certain things that you're looking for when you're out on
• 42:22
  the recruiting trail? Are there metrics that you're
• 42:25
  trying to find or is it a character thing?
• 42:27
  Or how do you, how do you look at it and say, that's a kid I'd
• 42:30
  really like to have on my team? Obviously there's a talent
• 42:33
  level. I think, I think sometimes we as
• 42:36
  coaches, you know, we're, you know, Jay, we're always at the
• 42:38
  at the camp and you know, like, hey, what are you looking for?
• 42:41
  And, and great character is, is always the thing people say and
• 42:47
  it's 100% true, but they have to be good at softball too.
• 42:53
  And, you know, and I think that that's the, you have to have
• 42:58
  ways of, if you're a pitcher, you have to have a way to get
• 43:02
  people out. And, and that looks very, very
• 43:06
  different. You know, and we had, you know,
• 43:09
  we, we had a pitcher, a pitcher that threw against Northwestern.
• 43:13
  She's throwing low 60s. She's got good movement.
• 43:15
  She's tough pitch. We threw against Loyola.
• 43:19
  I had shoulder surgery, like major shoulder surgery year and
• 43:23
  a half ago. She was woman out of Alaska.
• 43:25
  She was a state champion CrossFit athlete coming out of
• 43:29
  high school, thinks finished second in women's Olympic
• 43:31
  lifting in Alaska. Crazy strong kid.
• 43:34
  Shoulder surgery sophomore year. She's senior now.
• 43:39
  She's spins the ball really, really well.
• 43:42
  Has a nasty change up but she throws 48 miles an hour.
• 43:47
  Really. That's her top speed.
• 43:49
  Yep, and she she's done 48 with a 37 mile an hour change up.
• 43:55
  And I'm telling you like she started against Loyola and that
• 43:59
  was we lost. We lost seven to six, you know,
• 44:03
  and you know, and and I and you can't can't get too wrapped up
• 44:07
  in the score who went because we're all well, it's a
• 44:09
  scrimmage. We're all rolling people on and
• 44:11
  off the field and that sort of thing.
• 44:13
  So the wins and losses aren't that important, but she you
• 44:18
  know, and we graduated a senior last year and she was she on a
• 44:22
  good day, she threw 51, you know, but she's, but she threw
• 44:25
  wiffle balls, you know, and it's one of those, hey, this kids out
• 44:29
  then that kid, what that kid weighed 95 lbs and is out there
• 44:32
  throwing wiffle balls with a 2 1/2 foot stride.
• 44:36
  And you've got and people like, oh, you can throw her against a
• 44:39
  bad team, right? Like, no, you can't throw her
• 44:40
  against a bad team. You throw her against a monster
• 44:42
  bat team, you know, she's her first start as a freshman was
• 44:46
  against the number 15 team in the country and you know, bats
• 44:50
  are being thrown and helmets are being thrown.
• 44:55
  She gives up. She gives up one run and five
• 44:57
  innings and 13 pop ups. It's so I think finding a way to
• 45:03
  get things done. Now, don't get me wrong, You
• 45:05
  know, if I if I'm walking across the field, I'm probably more
• 45:08
  likely get thrown 63. He's going to catch my eye
• 45:11
  before the kid throwing 49. But I think I think if you can
• 45:16
  help athletes work with the work with with thing that they have
• 45:22
  to be successful, rather than saying, hey, you throw 49 right
• 45:26
  now, we need to spend a bunch of time teaching, getting it a 63.
• 45:30
  I think sometimes you you pick and choose your battles, you
• 45:32
  know, but but I do think explosive athletes, you know, I
• 45:37
  had an assistant join us. Coach Liz Young joined me last
• 45:40
  fall and you know, it's like, hey, when we're out recruiting,
• 45:43
  what's the thing? Like, what do you it's like you
• 45:45
  got you always hit well, what's what do you look for in hitters
• 45:48
  And like they have to move fast, You know, they have to move
• 45:51
  fast. And there's, you know, I think
• 45:54
  that there are some things that are mechanically advantageous
• 45:58
  and and all of that, but you can have the prettiest swing in the
• 46:01
  world. If you aren't moving very fast,
• 46:02
  you're going to struggle to be successful.
• 46:05
  You know, So I think that's, I know we were, I think we were
• 46:09
  top ten in the country for home runs last year.
• 46:11
  And I think #2 for stolen bases. So I think it's, you know,
• 46:14
  whether it's, hey, you're going to stand in the box and smash it
• 46:17
  or you run fast or whatever. But you know, the reality is I
• 46:20
  don't care who you are, I'm sending you, you get on base,
• 46:24
  you get on base. I don't care who you are or
• 46:25
  you're hitting line up, you're running, you know, but so, but I
• 46:30
  think that that's a that's a thing that if you, if you feel
• 46:33
  confident in your ability to teach the game, explosive
• 46:37
  athletes go a long way, you know?
• 46:39
  Yeah, and I, I think it's great. And you know, Jay, and I've
• 46:42
  talked about this before too. There's this myth out there for
• 46:45
  college softball that if you're not throwing 65 to 70 miles an
• 46:48
  hour, forget about playing, you know, pitching in college.
• 46:52
  And, you know, you've just shown that that's obviously not true.
• 46:55
  You're, you know, a top level college program and you got a
• 46:59
  girl throwing 51 or 49 or, you know, just kind of down in that
• 47:03
  area. But she knows how to compete and
• 47:06
  she knows how to get people out and you guys know how to work
• 47:09
  with her. So for all of those out there
• 47:11
  who are concerned about their daughter who's maybe throwing 57
• 47:16
  right now, you know, oh gosh, she's not throwing 70 miles an
• 47:19
  hour. Don't worry about it.
• 47:21
  There's a spot for her if she wants it.
• 47:23
  Yeah, there's, I think there's, I think there's lots of ways to
• 47:25
  get it done and and there are easier ways than others to get
• 47:28
  it done, you know, but certainly.
• 47:32
  Not that you would turn down a 70 mile an hour.
• 47:35
  Not I would not, I would not turn that down.
• 47:37
  And and, and, and honestly, it's one of those I don't know that I
• 47:41
  don't know that you're going to go win a World Series with, with
• 47:45
  549 mile an hour throwers. You know, like I don't want to
• 47:50
  pretend that that's true, but but it's nice to have one in
• 47:54
  your bullpen. And you know, and the reality is
• 47:57
  it's nice to have one in it's nice to have one in your
• 47:59
  bullpen. It's nice to have one throwing
• 48:01
  your hitter sometimes because you're going to run into that
• 48:03
  kid. And, you know, we, we carry a
• 48:07
  nice pitching staff and different looks, different
• 48:10
  speeds, different styles and, and a enough of them that we
• 48:15
  don't wear them out throwing batting practice, you know, but
• 48:18
  enough that our hitters can see live pitching through the
• 48:21
  winter, you know, going into season and, and, and really, and
• 48:26
  it gives us a feel. Hey, so and so it's Susie and
• 48:29
  Jenny really well, but can't hit Samantha.
• 48:32
  And the reality is like, Hey, who are we facing today?
• 48:34
  Hey, the other team's got Samantha out there today.
• 48:36
  Well, that might be we might throw somebody else out and that
• 48:40
  you know out in left field today.
• 48:42
  Yeah. So you talked about, you know,
• 48:44
  for you, the recruiting part, what you're looking for
• 48:47
  explosive players, very solid character of, you know,
• 48:50
  individual and and I'm sure family as well too.
• 48:53
  I don't think, you know, I don't think people really realize like
• 48:56
  you're also kind of keeping an eye on their family a little bit
• 48:58
  because they've got to be of character as well too.
• 49:01
  Regard, regardless of how talented or explosive that kid
• 49:04
  is. You don't want any any crazies
• 49:05
  coming. But I'm sure you've had players
• 49:07
  who've played or that you've wanted to recruit is what I
• 49:10
  wanted to say. I'm sure you've had players that
• 49:12
  you've wanted to recruit, you were invested in, and then they
• 49:16
  maybe are looking at other programs.
• 49:18
  How do you convince them to to to come to Lake Forest and that
• 49:21
  Lake Forest is the right fit for them?
• 49:23
  What? Walk us through that a little
• 49:24
  bit if you don't mind. I think the I think the biggest
• 49:27
  thing is trying to make sure that well, I, well, I'm going to
• 49:31
  go all in on selling Lake Forest College and what we have to
• 49:35
  offer. You know, I think I've got I've
• 49:37
  got a daughter that's, that's older daughters working in sales
• 49:41
  a little bit now. And we talked the other day
• 49:43
  about just the idea that your job is not to con someone into
• 49:48
  buying your product. Your job is to figure out what
• 49:53
  that what that customer needs and what fits their needs
• 49:57
  really, really well and find how your and try to connect what
• 50:01
  your product has to offer with that person or with that
• 50:05
  company. And, and really good salespeople
• 50:08
  do a really good job of asking questions and figuring out who
• 50:12
  somebody is, what they're about, and then trying to like make a
• 50:16
  genuine connection to how you can serve their needs.
• 50:20
  I think the of course, we, we, you know, you, you lose
• 50:24
  recruiting battles, but I think the biggest thing that I find
• 50:27
  and what I'm trying to make that connection is are we the right
• 50:31
  school for you? You know, there's a reason,
• 50:34
  there's a reason that I have amazing softball players that
• 50:38
  I'm not saying they could go play go start at Alabama, but I
• 50:41
  think a lot of them really would serve a lot of mid major
• 50:44
  Division One programs as well. And I think and a lot of them
• 50:47
  got attention at that level. But just the idea.
• 50:50
  But I also have a lot of pre Med or high level finance majors on
• 50:54
  my team and you know, Lake Forest access to the city and
• 50:59
  the, you know, the internships and career path that.
• 51:02
  Campus of yours is a beautiful campus, I'm sure that doesn't
• 51:05
  hurt any. Not at all.
• 51:07
  Not at all. And you know, it's, it's for
• 51:10
  being north of Chicago and it being 70 and sunny every day
• 51:13
  here, It's, it's special, but, but really it's a gorgeous
• 51:19
  campus. I think we really sell the
• 51:23
  academic fit. And I think I have 4
• 51:25
  neuroscience majors on my team. You know, we've got four.
• 51:29
  I think we have 4 kids in law school right now.
• 51:31
  I think we've got, we had seven kids get their doctorate in
• 51:36
  various medical fields in the last four years and another 5 or
• 51:40
  6 that are in doctoral programs right now.
• 51:43
  So when you can show proof of concept that, hey, you can come
• 51:46
  here, compete for, compete for championships, compete for
• 51:51
  trophies, wear the ring and get that white coat at the end.
• 51:56
  And just I think that I think we have something to offer And I,
• 52:02
  and I think every school does. I, I can brag about what we have
• 52:05
  at Lake Forest, but the reality is, is I think sometimes coaches
• 52:09
  get caught up in trying to sell their program.
• 52:14
  And I also think we have a great thing going softball wise.
• 52:18
  You know, and you know, you guys have talked about the numbers
• 52:21
  we've put up in the like, you know, we've won some games and
• 52:24
  all that, which at some point college softball is an Ave.
• 52:32
  It is an experience And, and, and I don't think it's just, I
• 52:37
  don't think it's just for a degree.
• 52:40
  You know, if you just want a degree, you can do that online
• 52:43
  and it's really, but going to college, going going away to
• 52:47
  college, those are those are experiences that it's
• 52:50
  networking. It it's, it's the stories you
• 52:54
  tell for the rest of your life. I'm not trying to recruit
• 52:57
  somebody for to be a forester for four years.
• 52:59
  I want somebody to be a forester for 40 years and their families
• 53:04
  are here. You know, we, we homecoming
• 53:06
  football game is that homecoming weekend's huge here.
• 53:08
  There's a couple 1000 people up from on campus.
• 53:12
  We'll have 100 some softball people here.
• 53:14
  But it's, you know, Susie graduated 3 years ago and she's
• 53:18
  got a great job out in Arizona. But Susie's parents come to
• 53:21
  homecoming because they want to catch, you know, she graduated
• 53:24
  3-4 years ago. Their parents come back because
• 53:26
  they want to catch up with their friends and you know, when they
• 53:29
  come to the softball tailgate. So I think, I think those are
• 53:34
  the things, you know, when I'm recruiting, I want them to see
• 53:37
  what we have academically. I want them to get around our
• 53:40
  team. Our team is weird and goofy and
• 53:43
  fond and can you know, you know, Kaya Kaya never doesn't have a
• 53:47
  smile on her face and they enjoy each other's company, you know,
• 53:53
  but I think a lot of that comes down to people who chose to they
• 53:57
  opted in to Lake Forest College. They didn't get conned in the
• 54:01
  coming to Lake Forest College. They didn't come here because
• 54:03
  it's the only scholarship they got.
• 54:06
  They came here because they're like, this is the family I want
• 54:09
  to be a part of. And so they opted in.
• 54:12
  And the nice thing in Division 3 is they can opt out anytime they
• 54:16
  want. And fortunately, we've almost
• 54:19
  never had like, people, people step down, but they stay at Lake
• 54:23
  Forest. You know, I think in 20 years, I
• 54:26
  think I've had six or seven people transfer somewhere else,
• 54:30
  one transferred somewhere else and play couple transferred and
• 54:34
  hung up. But in general, you know, I had
• 54:37
  it's they they stick around and college softball isn't for
• 54:41
  everybody. And sometimes it's not all they
• 54:44
  hoped it would be. But as often as not, I would say
• 54:47
  most of the people that step down or hey, I'm a junior and I
• 54:51
  know that those two freshmen are both better than me and the
• 54:54
  number of hours I have to put in.
• 54:56
  I've got some internship opportunities.
• 54:59
  They retire from softball sometimes before they finish
• 55:02
  four years. But there's a lot of things that
• 55:05
  I love to do that I no longer do because there's only so many
• 55:09
  hours in the day. And it's like as an adult, you
• 55:12
  have to choose things and something at some point you're
• 55:16
  going to take the cleats off. And it doesn't have to be at the
• 55:19
  end of senior year. It's it should be when you have
• 55:22
  other things that you're more passionate about or mean more to
• 55:26
  you than softball, that's when you should retire.
• 55:30
  Not not because for any other reason, you know, or, or you ran
• 55:35
  or senior year ends and and you have that, but but it's but
• 55:39
  yeah, I think that I think that's what we sell is we sell
• 55:42
  an experience. I I joke sometimes.
• 55:44
  I mean, this is Disney Cruise, you know, and you know what, I'm
• 55:48
  the, I'm the cruise director and we're trying to create an
• 55:51
  experience and, and there are lessons to be learned.
• 55:54
  That's an educational opportunity.
• 55:56
  We're we're in a school for a reason.
• 55:58
  That's why we're, I think athletics belongs in so many
• 56:01
  ways. I like that in America, it's
• 56:04
  tied to the educational system. There's goods and bads to that.
• 56:08
  But I do think it keeps some premise on the idea that there
• 56:11
  are lessons to be learned, whether it's leadership, being a
• 56:14
  part of something, what it takes, how hard, like how hard
• 56:17
  things are if you want to be good at them.
• 56:19
  I think you learn those things in athletics.
• 56:21
  I think you can also learn them in band.
• 56:23
  I don't think that athletics has a monopoly on on those lessons.
• 56:26
  But if you do think it's a great venue for it.
• 56:29
  But at the end of the day, nobody comes back 20 years, like
• 56:32
  1020 years after they graduate and tell me, boy coached you
• 56:35
  taught me how you taught me how to hit that low and out pitch.
• 56:37
  And that's changed my life. But I do.
• 56:43
  But they do talk about like it's, it's the the things they
• 56:46
  had to wrestle with hard things and sometimes it's fundamentals
• 56:50
  and sometimes it's team dynamics or whatever.
• 56:53
  Those things that they learned how to wrestle with hard and how
• 56:58
  to do hard. Those are the things that they
• 57:00
  come back and thank you for. I did want to ask you about
• 57:03
  changing gears just a little bit about you're a pretty well known
• 57:07
  hitting coach. How did you get involved in
• 57:10
  that? And are you still doing that?
• 57:11
  Are you still giving lessons? And feel free to plug that if
• 57:14
  you'd like. I do, I do still do lessons.
• 57:17
  I enjoy it. I think it's, it's a combination
• 57:20
  of a, it's a way to stay out in the community.
• 57:22
  It's, you know, it's certainly, I mean, it's a, it's a small
• 57:25
  side hustle that it helps pay the bills.
• 57:27
  And there's no doubt about that. I really do enjoy working with
• 57:31
  kids and their families as, as they try to grow as softball
• 57:35
  players. And it's, I know I struggled a
• 57:38
  little bit with lessons early on because I grew up, like I told
• 57:41
  you, I was a wreck ball kid. My dad never played organized
• 57:44
  sports ever. And I don't know that he played
• 57:46
  a whole. I know he was the guy who grew
• 57:48
  up, you know, trying to help support his family when he was
• 57:52
  when he was 10 years old, you know, and so didn't have the
• 57:56
  opportunity to play sports. But he, I think when I started
• 58:00
  playing T-ball and Little League rec basketball, he was the guy
• 58:05
  who went over to the library and checked out a book on how to
• 58:08
  teach baseball because he wanted to be a great dad.
• 58:12
  And so I grew up playing for volunteer coaches.
• 58:15
  And so I think that charging someone to teach them how to hit
• 58:18
  was was a little bit tough for me.
• 58:20
  At some point it was, hey, this is an hour I'm spending with
• 58:23
  someone else's kid. And instead of my kid was
• 58:24
  probably the biggest, you know, the biggest change of that
• 58:29
  because because you are, you know that and that's there's,
• 58:32
  there's a value to that time. So I've gotten to the other side
• 58:34
  of that. But I still think that that
• 58:36
  sports is something that, you know, I try to think should be
• 58:39
  accessible. But I do enjoy hitting lessons.
• 58:42
  I do some individual stuff and some small group stuff.
• 58:45
  I work with teams sometimes. And I, I think it's a
• 58:48
  combination of I think I, I hopefully make people better and
• 58:51
  I think some of, you know, in lots, in lots of ways.
• 58:54
  It also serves a little bit as of a, gives me, gives me extra
• 58:58
  reps, you know, as you're trying to wrestle with some new
• 59:02
  concepts. And I think I'm always, I think
• 59:05
  I think I do a pretty good job with hitters.
• 59:08
  And you know, I don't know that my offense or my team's
• 59:10
  offensive numbers have changed a ton in the last 20 years.
• 59:13
  But I think how I teach hitting change quite a bit.
• 59:16
  But I think our, our approach to hitting hasn't changed a whole
• 59:20
  lot. And so as much as the
• 59:22
  fundamentals matter, I think the approach is, is still Trump's
• 59:26
  the the mechanics every day of the week.
• 59:29
  Absolutely. So, but I do, I think, I think
• 59:32
  it, I think I'd be bored if I think I'd be bored if I was
• 59:34
  still teaching, heading the same way, doing the same drills I did
• 59:37
  20 years ago. Like what are we doing here?
• 59:39
  Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
• 59:40
  And I think keeping that stuff fresh helps you avoid just being
• 59:43
  burned out. It was the same thing over and
• 59:45
  over and over and again. We know the game is evolving.
• 59:48
  So are there any other ways that you, you know, keep yourself,
• 59:52
  you know, keep your coaching fresh so that you avoid that
• 59:55
  burnout? I know you talked to we've,
• 59:56
  we've talked a lot. You and I have been messaging
• 59:58
  back and forth and I'm sure probably with Ken too, a little
• 1:00:00
  bit about the motor preferences, you know, just some new things
• 1:00:03
  to look at and, and do that. Are there any other things
• 1:00:05
  you're you're, you're kind of digging into that kind of keeps
• 1:00:08
  you, you know, motivated? I think, I think I try to, I try
• 1:00:13
  to stay on top of I'll listen to anybody talk about, about
• 1:00:19
  softball, you know, as far as like kidding, that sort of
• 1:00:22
  thing. Motor preferences isn't softball
• 1:00:24
  specific. It's it's how, how people move
• 1:00:27
  and how, how people work. I think just in general, you
• 1:00:31
  know, I try to read. I'm not somebody who's going to,
• 1:00:35
  I like the technical piece of it, but just from hours in the
• 1:00:38
  day, I usually get the person who really, really knows what
• 1:00:41
  they're talking about. And I think really good teachers
• 1:00:43
  and coaches make information accessible.
• 1:00:46
  So I try to find those people that do make the science
• 1:00:51
  accessible. I don't have the the time or the
• 1:00:54
  bandwidth to be an expert in kinesiology, but there are.
• 1:00:58
  People one of those neuroscience kids to help you out with that.
• 1:01:02
  Yeah, you know, the neuroscience kids, the neuroscience kids, you
• 1:01:06
  know, but like, but I, but I, but there are people who are who
• 1:01:10
  are hey, this is all I do. OK, now, like dumb it down for
• 1:01:15
  me. And, and the ones who are really
• 1:01:18
  good don't dumb it down. They just make really, really
• 1:01:22
  complicated things accessible and understandable for you know
• 1:01:27
  which, which I heck, I think I, I think I learned from them how
• 1:01:31
  to be a better teacher as much as I learned the information
• 1:01:33
  that they're that they're giving.
• 1:01:34
  But I think there's so much information out there now you
• 1:01:38
  know the reality. Hey, you want great hitting
• 1:01:41
  drills? You don't need a great hitting
• 1:01:42
  coach like YouTube will give you great hitting drills that you
• 1:01:45
  need the person that can translate and, and know that
• 1:01:49
  hey, this is a great drill, but not for you, you know, and
• 1:01:55
  because there's so much and, and there's nothing wrong with the
• 1:01:58
  drill and there's nothing wrong with you, but that's not a match
• 1:02:03
  for you. And the number of times I'm in
• 1:02:05
  the cage and I've got 2 athletes in the cage and I tell the kids
• 1:02:09
  I'm, I'm over, wait, you close your ears because I need you not
• 1:02:12
  to hear what I'm telling Jenny over here because because that
• 1:02:16
  would destroy your swing. But that's stuff that I've
• 1:02:19
  learned from, you know, just reading.
• 1:02:21
  And I think it's understanding how, how people learn and how.
• 1:02:28
  And then, and I think I've heard you guys talk about on your
• 1:02:31
  podcast before, just try to try to meet people where they are
• 1:02:35
  and, and say, Hey, this person works best in this way.
• 1:02:40
  And there's going to be some things that are, they're going
• 1:02:43
  to be some things that are 99% universal, except when it's not.
• 1:02:48
  And you know, and, and some things that are just really,
• 1:02:53
  really pretty hard. This works for you and
• 1:02:55
  definitely doesn't work for you. Yeah, and the other thing, too,
• 1:02:58
  sometimes when you're looking at drills and trying to decide what
• 1:03:01
  to do, you know, I'll see, you know, kid will show me.
• 1:03:04
  Oh, my coach had me. You know, my team coach had me
• 1:03:06
  doing this drill and I'll say it's a good drill, but it's
• 1:03:12
  nothing you need. You already know how to do that.
• 1:03:14
  You would benefit from doing something else that time.
• 1:03:17
  You've got limited time to spend on this.
• 1:03:19
  You know you would be much better off working on this
• 1:03:22
  instead, because you're already do this well.
• 1:03:24
  Yeah, I think, I think that that I think that's where the
• 1:03:28
  conversation with an athlete and getting them to engage in the
• 1:03:33
  conversation, some of them do a great job of it.
• 1:03:35
  Some of them struggle with that a little bit.
• 1:03:38
  Jay, you were talking on a podcast only your recent
• 1:03:41
  podcasts about asking questions at camps.
• 1:03:44
  And a little bit of it almost doesn't matter what question you
• 1:03:47
  ask. It's like to some extent, like
• 1:03:50
  they're kids. Some of them are great at asking
• 1:03:53
  and some of them just struggle to open their mouths.
• 1:03:57
  And so to some, if they struggle, then just start there.
• 1:04:00
  You know, it's like get them to start opening their mouth and
• 1:04:04
  that's super valuable. And then once you get that, you
• 1:04:08
  can go with a little deeper and actually make it more and more
• 1:04:11
  functional for the task at hand. But.
• 1:04:14
  I think my point is that like, just ask me, ask me how I like
• 1:04:18
  my coffee. What's my Starbucks order it
• 1:04:20
  right like it's it can be completely low risk.
• 1:04:23
  It doesn't have to be Hey, what are you looking for in a recruit
• 1:04:25
  right? Like doesn't have to be that.
• 1:04:27
  I'm not asking you for that, right?
• 1:04:28
  Like I, you know, I connect exactly like I'm looking for
• 1:04:32
  that connect, that connection there.
• 1:04:34
  I like to tell recruits I'm like, hey, we can talk.
• 1:04:37
  I don't want, we had a 5 hour bus ride to Iowa.
• 1:04:40
  I don't, I don't want to talk about first and 3rd place the
• 1:04:42
  whole time. You know, you're allowed, you're
• 1:04:45
  allowed to be interesting. You are more than a softball
• 1:04:48
  player. But yeah, I think that that
• 1:04:51
  connection piece and of course there's some kids that are
• 1:04:55
  quieter than others and there's a zero problem with that.
• 1:04:58
  But if you're really going to coach someone, coaching is
• 1:05:04
  always going to be a conversation.
• 1:05:05
  If a really good coaching is going to be a conversation
• 1:05:08
  because I, I had a kid and I forget why, I forget the skill.
• 1:05:12
  Like there was something she was trying to trying to get cover.
• 1:05:15
  And I said, hey, like, hey, let's let's just focus on trying
• 1:05:19
  to get your front elbow here. And she'd been wrestling with
• 1:05:22
  something and and she takes the neck and I've been like, hey,
• 1:05:25
  just just try and get your elbow here.
• 1:05:27
  And the next ball she smokes it. And, and I've gotten pretty good
• 1:05:33
  at saying, OK, So what was your focus right there?
• 1:05:37
  Because I'm like, hey, I just gave her a cue and it worked and
• 1:05:42
  she smashed that ball. And so now I'm just going to
• 1:05:45
  focus on that front elbow. I'm just going to I'm going to
• 1:05:48
  remind her about that front elbow.
• 1:05:49
  And I didn't assume that that time, although in the past I
• 1:05:52
  probably would have because it's a nice ego boost.
• 1:05:56
  Like what were you thinking on that swing?
• 1:05:58
  But before that swing, I just thought my mom always told me to
• 1:06:01
  relax and just let the game come to me.
• 1:06:04
  And so I just did that. I'm like, and, and so and so a
• 1:06:08
  little bit of like, it doesn't. I want to figure out what what
• 1:06:12
  works for them. I don't need to be the person
• 1:06:15
  that I don't need to be the person that gave that, that
• 1:06:19
  wisdom to them. The goal is for them to be good.
• 1:06:23
  The goal isn't for me to be a guru, you know?
• 1:06:26
  And so if you don't ask the question, I think a lot of times
• 1:06:30
  you assume it was this thing or you told them this and then five
• 1:06:35
  pitches later, you told them them something different and
• 1:06:37
  that's when their swing took off.
• 1:06:40
  And the reality of the same, it was the thing you told them 5
• 1:06:42
  minutes ago just clicked. And so just kind of really, hey,
• 1:06:47
  where are you at? What's going on?
• 1:06:49
  Like how does that like what's the feel for you on that?
• 1:06:52
  And it's like, well, I really feel that here.
• 1:06:55
  OK. And then and then to some
• 1:06:56
  extent, like letting them give you the words they need.
• 1:07:01
  And you know, and just because, because I think, I think a lot
• 1:07:04
  of times our ego gets in the way.
• 1:07:06
  You want to be helpful. And when you when and when you
• 1:07:09
  think you were boy, like, hey, let's look what I did.
• 1:07:13
  And you know, I like to tell my team, like if you hold the bat
• 1:07:18
  by the barrel and hit with the knob and you hit 400, I'm going
• 1:07:23
  to get credit for it. You know, like, boy, you did
• 1:07:25
  great things with that kid. I'm like, I think that's the
• 1:07:27
  dumbest thing I ever saw in my life.
• 1:07:29
  She's sitting for I'm like, if you're, if you're good, I get
• 1:07:32
  credit for it, whether you're whether it's my whether it's
• 1:07:35
  because of me or not. So I just want you to be good.
• 1:07:38
  I don't care. I don't care why you're good.
• 1:07:40
  I get credit one way or the other.
• 1:07:41
  So, but yeah, I think, I think that I think that conversation
• 1:07:45
  is everything. Yes, for sure.
• 1:07:47
  So Joe, I know we told you to be about an hour.
• 1:07:50
  We're a little bit longer than that right now, but.
• 1:07:52
  I talk a lot. We have a couple more questions
• 1:07:54
  for you. One, this is, you know, so
• 1:07:57
  Speaking of getting to know people, do you have any hidden
• 1:08:00
  talents or special hobbies or anything that kind of people
• 1:08:04
  would be surprised about? Well, I like to read a lot, you
• 1:08:08
  know, and, and whether like just stuff that helps me as a coach
• 1:08:12
  or grow as a person, you know, I think the stronger I am, the
• 1:08:15
  better I'm going to be able to serve everybody else.
• 1:08:17
  I like to read just for fun too. And if I turn up the radio loud
• 1:08:21
  enough in the car, I'm really good singer.
• 1:08:26
  So you have a fairly extensive coaching tree, right?
• 1:08:30
  We know one of those branches is your daughter Zoe, right?
• 1:08:33
  So how does, how does the rest of it look?
• 1:08:36
  Who else is is under your tree? That's, that's out there.
• 1:08:38
  Give us a little. Oh gosh, the I've got quite a
• 1:08:41
  few that that just assistant coaches and former players.
• 1:08:46
  Haley Purgatorio just graduated. She's out at Benedictine
• 1:08:49
  University in Arizona. She's coaching out there the my
• 1:08:53
  older daughter Kaylee's been coaching travel ball since she
• 1:08:57
  since she played for me and she's been and she's doing some
• 1:09:00
  some lessons as well, some hitting and defensive focus
• 1:09:03
  lessons. Probably probably the most
• 1:09:06
  notable like biggest success story like Laura Matthews down
• 1:09:11
  at Belmont coached with me for four years.
• 1:09:14
  She played was catcher Dayton and she's from Nashville
• 1:09:18
  originally and, you know, came here to, you know, just had a
• 1:09:23
  regular, regular job and just thought she tried kind of like
• 1:09:27
  like, hey, I'll I'll go. I'll keep my hands in the game a
• 1:09:30
  little bit. She was going to coach on the
• 1:09:31
  side and a little stipend to come be my assistant coach and
• 1:09:36
  was with me two years in. She's like, I think I want to do
• 1:09:39
  this for a living and spent two more years with me.
• 1:09:42
  And it was nice. It was when she just said she
• 1:09:44
  wanted to be a head coach. I'm like, well, then I want you
• 1:09:46
  to then I want you to switch over and be a pitching coach.
• 1:09:48
  And she had been a catcher. I'm like, if you want to be a
• 1:09:50
  head coach, this will it will give you, it'll challenge you
• 1:09:54
  and force you to kind of like, really like be ready for all of
• 1:09:58
  it. And so she was with me for four
• 1:10:00
  years right out of college and then went to Wittenberg and and
• 1:10:04
  then Wright State and Wright State cut their program.
• 1:10:07
  She's the head coach at Wright State, cut their program during
• 1:10:09
  COVID. And then she got to go back to
• 1:10:11
  her hometown Nashville at Belmont.
• 1:10:13
  And she's got one of the best pitchers in the country that
• 1:10:17
  kids ridiculous. But she's Laura's Laura's a
• 1:10:20
  really, really, I think great softball mind who does things
• 1:10:23
  the right way. I've been, I've been really,
• 1:10:25
  really happy to, to have been a, a, a stopping point in her
• 1:10:29
  journey. But but boy, what a coach she
• 1:10:32
  is. The head coach down at Southeast
• 1:10:35
  Louisiana's one of my former assistants.
• 1:10:38
  Yeah, I've got Hannah Kelnicky's the assistant coach out at
• 1:10:41
  Cornell, you know, and she's a, she's a local Bolingbrook
• 1:10:44
  Plainfield kid. Got a handful coaching high
• 1:10:46
  school games. There's but yeah, it's been,
• 1:10:49
  it's been fun to just to see them go on and have success.
• 1:10:53
  And you know, you get out to that the NFCA coaches convention
• 1:10:57
  and get to catch up with them. And you know, I always tell my,
• 1:11:01
  I always tell my kids, I'm like, I wish you could go recruiting
• 1:11:03
  with me every time I go so you can actually see all my friends
• 1:11:06
  so. Well, you know, and it's funny
• 1:11:11
  too, because it's going to be a little different I think in your
• 1:11:13
  situation because you've got instead of your kids becoming
• 1:11:16
  coaches, a lot of times they're becoming doctors and lawyers and
• 1:11:20
  you know, brain surgeons and researchers and all of these
• 1:11:23
  other very high level, very important jobs.
• 1:11:25
  So a bigger impact you're making in the world then strictly the
• 1:11:29
  softball. World, yeah, there's a lot.
• 1:11:31
  There's lots of ways to serve the world.
• 1:11:33
  Coaching is one of them, but there's a lot of good ones.
• 1:11:37
  So is there anything in your coaching career, the one thing
• 1:11:39
  that stands out that you really take pride in?
• 1:11:42
  Gosh, I think I think the biggest thing is just when I see
• 1:11:49
  my former players, you know, I think a lot as a as a coach,
• 1:11:53
  it's an it's a nice ego boost when your former players come
• 1:11:56
  back and see you. But you know, just, you know,
• 1:11:59
  with social media, it's so easy to see how connected they stay,
• 1:12:04
  that this is really a permanent part of who they are.
• 1:12:08
  This is this is and not just here, it happened at Millsaps,
• 1:12:13
  you know, and even go back to resurrection high School.
• 1:12:15
  They that that bond that they those teams have had.
• 1:12:19
  And I think, I think it comes from getting them all to share
• 1:12:23
  the experience, you know, and they, you know, and to see
• 1:12:25
  people who weren't real, you know, they were great teammates
• 1:12:29
  in college, but they didn't hang out together.
• 1:12:31
  They weren't best friends in college, but there if anything,
• 1:12:35
  some of them are better friends now because they they have that
• 1:12:39
  shared experience. And I think it's something that
• 1:12:43
  is so valuable and just to see it, I feel like it validates
• 1:12:48
  what I what I want athletics to be.
• 1:12:51
  None of my players are going to go be professional athletes.
• 1:12:54
  And you know, at some point the I just think that that the value
• 1:12:59
  in it is, is the experience. And that doesn't mean that we're
• 1:13:03
  not chasing trophies, but the reality is, is chasing trophies
• 1:13:07
  is what makes it hard. Chasing trophies is the shared a
• 1:13:12
  shared direction. It's that.
• 1:13:14
  And I think that I think if I'm playing, if I'm playing on a
• 1:13:17
  men's slow pitch team on Wednesday nights, if it, hey,
• 1:13:21
  we're just there to to play the game and then go drink some
• 1:13:24
  beers and eat some pizza. That's a ton of fun.
• 1:13:27
  If we're all getting together on Wednesday night and we're like,
• 1:13:29
  Hey, let's, let's get in a couple tournaments this weekend.
• 1:13:32
  Let's see if we can be the best slow pitch team in the country.
• 1:13:35
  That's a ton of fun being on a team where half the guys just
• 1:13:38
  want to drink beer and eat pizza and half the team wants to go
• 1:13:41
  win a national championship. That's not fun, right?
• 1:13:44
  I think I'd enjoy being on either of those teams, but not
• 1:13:47
  the combined team, you know? And so I think, I think trying
• 1:13:52
  to get that shared direction and it's starting.
• 1:13:56
  It's starting that in the recruiting process, like this is
• 1:13:58
  who we are. This is what we're trying to do.
• 1:14:00
  If you want to be a part of it. That seems to, that seems to
• 1:14:03
  have panned out pretty well as I see our, our, you know, the, the
• 1:14:07
  1520 years out where our, where our athletes stay connected.
• 1:14:10
  So I'm really proud of that. Well, Joe, thank you so much for
• 1:14:13
  joining us today. We really appreciate it and
• 1:14:15
  appreciate all the time you gave us.
• 1:14:18
  I appreciate you having me. I hope, I hope that was helpful.
• 1:14:20
  I hope that serves your podcast well and definitely.
• 1:14:25
  We appreciate you, buddy. No problem.
• 1:14:27
  This is this is great. I'm looking forward to getting
• 1:14:29
  at the motor preferences stuff. You guys are you guys are in
• 1:14:33
  deep on that. And I was supposed to go down to
• 1:14:35
  Chattanooga two weeks ago and had a family thing come up and,
• 1:14:38
  and wasn't wasn't able to go but, but I want to chase that
• 1:14:42
  tail a little bit and see what I can wrestle out of that to, to
• 1:14:46
  help my athletes. Yeah, anytime you want to talk
• 1:14:48
  about that, just let us know. We're both both really happy to
• 1:14:52
  do that and we're on the discovery path as well.
• 1:14:54
  So, yeah, yes. Yep, that keeps it fun and
• 1:14:57
  that's I know, Ken, you and I haven't had a ton of
• 1:14:59
  conversations. Jay and I always the when we're
• 1:15:02
  out recruiting, that's I feel like we're always, you know,
• 1:15:06
  kind of hey, what do you think about this?
• 1:15:07
  So have you seen this like, and it's, you know, almost it's it
• 1:15:12
  every time I see Jay, it's we're really, really close to breaking
• 1:15:15
  into a coaching clinic. I know it's awesome.
• 1:15:19
  I love it, man. I love.
• 1:15:20
  I'm like, oh, I always look, oh, is Joe gonna be there?
• 1:15:22
  Yeah. Awesome.
• 1:15:23
  Yeah, no, no, I love it. I think.
• 1:15:25
  I think those those are the people I love being around
• 1:15:27
  people who like to, I don't want, I'm not too into the, the
• 1:15:30
  gossip and the, you know, who's who's who and who's going where
• 1:15:34
  and that's, and it's like the people who really love the sport
• 1:15:38
  and love coaching and want it and want to be good at it and
• 1:15:41
  want to serve their athletes and.
• 1:15:43
  And want to keep learning, learning learning, learning,
• 1:15:45
  learning. Yeah, there's there's so much
• 1:15:47
  that I think we can, I think we can still squeeze a little more
• 1:15:50
  juice out of the lemon. Absolutely.
• 1:15:53
  For sure. All right.
• 1:15:54
  Thanks fellas. Thank you, Joe OK, that's it for
• 1:15:57
  us this week. Thanks to all of you for
• 1:15:59
  listening and the kind words you've been sharing with us.
• 1:16:02
  If you like what you're hearing, Please remember to give us a
• 1:16:04
  like, leave a comment and share this podcast on your social
• 1:16:08
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• 1:16:10
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• 1:16:14
  If you're so inclined, you can also leave us a great review on
• 1:16:16
  Apple Podcasts to help more people find us.
• 1:16:19
  On behalf of the From the Coach's Mouth podcast, have a
• 1:16:22
  great rest of your week and weekend.