Latest / Beyond the Paw - Clemson Athletics / Why Culture Still Wins with Erik Bakich

Transcript

Why Culture Still Wins with Erik Bakich · Beyond the Paw - Clemson Athletics

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Culture still wins in college sports. It's a big deal.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: If you want to have a great team, you've got
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: to have a bunch of great teammates.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: What would you say differentiates a great player from a
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: great teammate?
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: The best teammates are the ones who genuinely want the
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: other teammates to do well. And it pays to be
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: a winner, and guys love winning, but they also freaking
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: hate to lose.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: You don't want to play it safe.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Take the risk, take the chance, push your limits, push
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: your boundaries. Believing is seeing. You have to first believe
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: you can do it before you do it. But first
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: you've got to compete against yourself in whatever your best is.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: It's the only way you're going to learn about yourself
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: and grow.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Paw.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Grace LaCrosse, alongside Ashley Person. And we
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: have a really awesome episode today with head baseball coach,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Coach Backage, where we're going to talk all things culture, Clemson.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Get ready to go for now. Let's go Beyond the Paw. Today,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: we have the honor and privilege of sitting down with
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Clemson Baseball's head coach, Eric Backage. Coach Backage has directed
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: the Tigers to 164 wins in his first four seasons
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: at Clemson. In 2023, he led Clemson to its first
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: ACC championship since 2016. In 2024, the Tigers finished 44-16,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: captured the ACC Atlantic Division title, and advanced to the
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: NCAA Super Regional. Then in 2025, Clemson hosted an NCAA
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Regional for the third consecutive year. Coach Backage has coached
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: six All-Americans and has had 15 players drafted in his
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: four seasons at Clemson. He is an incredible leader and
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: role model. We are very grateful to have you on
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the show.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate that. Thanks for
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: keeping the intro relatively short. Right. Awesome.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: Well, thank you for being here.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: We're excited.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: We're going to start how we usually do. So we
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: do what we call a two word check in. So
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: you can pick any two words that you're feeling today.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: Just kind of a pulse check on how everyone's doing
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: and how you're showing up today with us.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Dangerous and aggressive. It's Monday.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: It's Monday. He's ready to get after it.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Attacking the week, ready to attack. This is our finale
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: of our fall ball.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: So we've got some improvements to make this week, but
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: we've got two games with Georgia Tech at the end
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: of the week.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So ready to rock and roll. Dangerous and aggressive.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: I'm going to carry that into the week.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, I might need to get
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: a little bit more of that in my life.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: What are your two grace?
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I would say I'm grateful because this weekend my parents
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: were here. Uh, so that was very nice to see them.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: And I'm just grateful you're here. I'm grateful for everything
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: that Clemson has to offer. Um, And then I'm also
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: feeling blinged up. Brought the ring. We got our rings
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: this weekend.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: That was awesome to see, by the way.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was cool.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And then had the race with the gymnasts.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Brie crushed it.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I had my money on Brie.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And she got a late start and still pulled it.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: And she still came through there.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I was a little worried someone was going to pull
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: a hamstring.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I always think that, too.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: It was cold. They did it. They've been out of
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: the gym for a while. Yeah.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Well, you guys are fun to watch. I mean, that
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: is an electric sport to watch.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I love it. You guys pack the house. It's amazing.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: It's so unique, the energy in that space.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's awesome. What are your two words, Ashley?
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: I would say today I'm feeling bright.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: The sun is out. It's a beautiful day. Just excited.
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: It's a good Monday. I like Mondays. A lot of
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: people don't, but I'm like, we're doing it. I feel good,
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: ready for the week. And with that, I would say
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: I feel set, like set for the week.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. It's a new one.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Cool.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Thanks, everyone.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: This is always an opportunity for me to learn new words.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: We do.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Everyone always brings new fun. New fun perspective every week.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So we're going to hop into some rapid fire questions.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: All right. You're dangerous and you're ready for this.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: No prep for this podcast. So this is totally.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Impromptu. Let's do it. All right.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: What is the best vacation you've ever been on?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Uh, Omaha, 2019.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: I asked my kids that all the time, what's your
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: favorite vacation we've ever taken?
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: They all say Omaha.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: And every year my wife asked me where, what do
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: you want for father's day? And I say the same thing,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: spend it in Omaha.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's good.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's, you know, we're obviously there playing when you
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: get to go, but it, it certainly feels like the
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: pinnacle of the ultimate baseball vacation for all the families,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: all the parents, all the players, uh, all the fans
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: stop what you're doing, go to the middle of the country.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: So want nothing more to return that experience for the
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Clemson faithful and then give them some that we've never
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: had before.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And that's a dog pile in Omaha.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Great answer. What is your bucket list item?
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Uh, in life bucket list, um, outside of, outside of baseball.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Um, You know, when I turned 18, I told my
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: mom I was going bungee jumping, getting a tattoo, and skydiving.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Okay. Right? And she said, no, you're not. And I
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: immediately went.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: And got some stupid tattoo that is my constant reminder
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: that freshmen do dumb things.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Yep. And mom is always right.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Give them a little grace.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: Went bungee jumping, still haven't gone skydiving yet. So that'll
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: be next.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: That's your bucket list item.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Sweet.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Went bungee jumping a lot. That was fun.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: Where did you do that?
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I did it in Mexico.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Not the smartest thing to do.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Like over city streets on a crane. So it's probably
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: really dumb.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, really living on the edge.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Really dumb.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: You're here to tell us about it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: I'm an adrenaline junkie. I like going fast. My pet
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: peeve is anything that's slow.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: So, yeah. Okay.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Good to know.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Way on the edge.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. What is the best concert you've ever been to?
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Lollapalooza, 1994.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I have also been to Lala. I'm from Chicago. Who
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: did you see there?
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Red Hot Chili Peppers, which they're like the timeless band.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Their stuff is good in any era. Neil Young was there.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Soundgarden was there. Stone Temple Pilots was there. We were
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: just talking about this with our staff the other day.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: But I was young.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: I was like 16 or 17 years old.
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  Speaker 3: So it was like one of my first concerts where
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: I had a little freedom, went with my friends.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: But it was so much fun.
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  Speaker 3: I've seen some really good ones over the years, living
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: in Nashville, a lot of country music, a lot of
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: cool concerts, but yeah, that one kind of set the
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: high bar early on.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That would be hard to, that's hard to beat.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: If you had to choose right now, what would be
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: your walkout song?
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: So every, every time we do the freshmen, uh, welcome back, uh,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: celebration in, In Little John, they always ask that, like,
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: what do you want to run out to?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: And I always pick Glorious by Macklemore.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Okay. You know, it's just an easy go-to, feeling glorious.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: When I was a player in college, I actually came
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: out to Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Ooh. Just because of the guitar.
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  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Walking out, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So all this music, like anyone watching this is
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: going to go, who?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's what every year now, Macklemore, Glorious.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Seems to work. Yeah, there you go.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Those are great picks. Three things that you can't live without.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: Oh, boy.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Coffee in the morning, working out.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: Are we going, like, deep, like, faith family stuff?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Up to your discretion. Or are we keeping it, like,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I already started superficial, so I'll stick with, without going
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: back too many layers, I'll stick with coffee, working out.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: And lately, as of like the last six months, Claude Cote.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. He is my go-to cheat code.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: That is hilarious. I love your love for AI. I've
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: seen some of the Instagram AI posts.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not really doing Instagram anymore.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: No?
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Our last one was, I think I did a, that
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: was back when I was learning how to edit and
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: was spending way too much time on CapCut. So I've
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: deleted that app. I don't edit my videos anymore. That
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: just takes too long. But I did a really cool one,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: I thought, right before the Notre Dame series, and then
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: we got swept, and I was.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Like, well, to hell with this. And we're done.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Not spending any more time on Instagram.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Too much time on Instagram.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Not too much time.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: And it, you know, it didn't really pan out like it's,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: you know, I thought it would get all this opportunity for.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Our players and it got some stuff, but yeah, not,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: not really. All right.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Last one. Favorite food.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: You know, I been into chicken and rice for a
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: long time. Like that's just an easy go to. So yeah, that,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: you know, that, that is probably just like safe pick. Um,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: but I've been, I've been cooking more food lately and
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: driving my wife crazy too with like new, you know,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: this new style of healthy eating. Like I'm all into
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: like single ingredient, organic foods, no seed oils, things like that.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Cooking with a lot of olive oil and so doesn't really,
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: you know, not, it's not much.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Nothing too crazy.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Well, it's, yeah, it's, it's just, getting the food is
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the hard part.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah so like you can only go to greenville to
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: shop at the stores to get it but yeah that
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: drives her nuts so let's just stick with chicken and rice.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Chicken and rice we had uh we had ronan hannifin
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: from the football team on the podcast and he talked
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: about his love for chicken and rice as.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Well it's just it just works Yeah.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: Do you do a lot of things with it?
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Little different seasonings, sauces, or just plain?
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I'm pretty basic. I mean, I'm cooking
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: with a lot of olive oil lately. Not doing a
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: whole lot with seasoning, just trying to be like super
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: strict with nutrition. Been into nutrition for a long, long
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: time since I was an athlete in college, but now
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: it's like the level where it's annoying everyone around me.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: So I try to like stay basic with, with the
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: food and, but yeah, not, not any crazy recipes. Yeah.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I think people would be surprised how important nutrition is
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: when you're an athlete. I mean, maybe not surprised, but
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: like gummies, fruit snacks, things that are quick carbs. And
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: so when you're an athlete, a lot of times those
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: things are beneficial.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: You can get away with it when you're an athlete
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: and in college for sure. And then, you know, I'm
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: like right around the corner of being 50 years old,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: which is like, God, that's like such a big number.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So later in life, it definitely becomes, I think, even
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: more valuable.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: As important as it is, as much as like fueling
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: your performance and recovering and how nutrition enhances that, it's
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: like mission critical, non-negotiable. If you're a serious athlete, but even,
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: you know, just later in life, just how you feel
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: energy levels, you know, how it improves the quality of
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: your sleep. And if you are into fitness later in life,
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: like how imperative it is to be able to continue
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: to do like intense activity. Yeah.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: So shifting gears a little bit in order to understand
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: who you are now, I think it's important that we
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: look back on where you came from. And so you
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: had the opportunity to play for Keith LeClaire back when
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: you were at East Carolina. And when you look back
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: on that experience, how did being coached by him shape
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: your understanding of your role now as a coach?
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: So I went to, you know, I grew up in California,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: played high school, junior college baseball out there, thought I
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: was going to East Carolina as a business management major. And,
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: you know, part of it, I got there and I
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: took an accounting class and I didn't know what the
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: professor was, saying.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I could barely understand them.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: So, but the majority of it was, you know, I
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: experienced Coach LeClaire's superpower of being able to take guys
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: from all over, all over, like we had junior college
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: California guys like myself. We had guys from the Carolinas
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: and the Northeast, a couple of kids from Canada, Florida kids,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: and just bring this circle tighter and and really build
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: a team and get a bunch of guys with all
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: different backgrounds to become what felt like this tight brotherhood.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: And it just hit me like, man, I want to
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: do that, right? And that's when I knew I wanted
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: to get into coaching. So I changed my major to
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: exercise science, and kind of that's when, after experiencing a
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: semester with He and the coaches there and the team
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: and the players was like, I want to do that
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: for the rest of my life.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: That looks like a lot of fun.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: That's really cool.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: Well, and I think, too, being able to recognize that
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: at that time in your life, bringing a team together,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: that is it's hard to do when you do have
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: so many people coming into one place from so many
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: places and backgrounds. That's team, like how you bring them
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: all together. So I think you're wherewithal to identify that
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: then and then be like, this is something I want
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: to do. is really special and probably speaks to, you know,
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: who you are now and what you carry into your
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: role now.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: But I didn't.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: Realize in my research that you were from California. So
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: what parts of California did you grow up in?
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I grew up in San Jose. So my whole
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: family is still in Northern California. But, yeah, I grew
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: up out there. I was a junior college guy, you know,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Juco guys, Juco bandit. I would go anywhere, opportunity to
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: keep playing. And it just so happened that the– Keith LeClair,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: when he was, so little did I know going to
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: play for Keith LeClair that I was joining the Jack
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Leggett coaching tree. So Keith LeClair played for and coached
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: with Jack Leggett when he was at Western Carolina. And
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: when Coach Leggett came to Clemson in the mid-90s, Keith
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: LeClair took over Western Carolina, had a lot of success,
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: but had recruited a guy from the junior college that
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I played for, and he went to Western Carolina and
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: did really well. And so then Keith LeClaire left Western Carolina,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: went to East Carolina, and called up our junior college
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: again and said, hey, we're putting together a recruiting class.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: What do you guys got out there? So their recruiting coordinator,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: the guy Randy Mazey, who's also a Clemson alum and
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: was an awesome head coach at West Virginia, but had
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: a tremendous career at various stops along the way as well,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: flew out to California to come take a look at
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: myself and a few other guys and We all committed
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: sight unseen.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: We had not seen East.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Carolina until we took our recruiting visit after we signed our.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: National logo tent. So we were all in. We had
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: to do it. We were sold.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we were like, screw it.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: These coaches sound great. It sounds like an unbelievable opportunity.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: I would have to explain to people if it was
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: in North Carolina or South Carolina, where is East Carolina.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: But it was the one decision that certainly I can
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: pinpoint as changing the trajectory.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Of my life. Yeah, and it's crazy. In that moment,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you had no idea what kind of doors
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: that would open or that you would end up in
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Clemson back here. That's incredible.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy to think that it was all this weird,
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: unique way that wasn't even revealed at the time. that
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: I was part of this Clemson coaches coaching tree. Because
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: had I not gone to East Carolina, there's no way
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: I would have been the volunteer at Clemson in 2002.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: But because of the relationship of Keith LeClair and Jack Leggett,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: Keith LeClair is the one that set me up to
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: be the volunteer here in the late fall of 01.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: So it's just like the stars aligned in that regard. Yeah.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: It kind of makes me think about your, one of
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: your sayings, which is go for the no. And it's
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: that idea to me, at least it's this idea of
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: like going for opportunities, which you don't know if somebody
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: is going to say no, but always having that mindset
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: of like, it's going to be a yes and taking
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: that risk and jumping. And it seems like you did
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: that as well.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I lived my life with that philosophy. Yeah. You got
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to go for it.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, you don't want to play it safe. Take
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: the risk, take the chance, push your limits, push your boundaries.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: It's the only way You're going to learn about yourself
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: and grow.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: So, yeah.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: Sorry, go ahead.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, don't just stop with what
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: feels comfortable where you know there's a yes.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Go beyond. Go for now.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: Well, I was in a program, CU Advance. And so
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: CU Advance is a professional development program for people at Clemson,
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: Clemson Athletics. And you spoke to us in this room,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: I think maybe three years ago now.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: And to this day, I took notes in every session.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: You know, we have coaches come in. They're all fantastic.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: But go for no are three words that are in
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: that journal that I, to this day, once a week
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: coach package, I say that. And I credit you all
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: the time. It is so real. She did it last week. No,
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: he did.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, this is great.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: He's coming. That's a great saying. What is the worst.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: Thing that someone is going to tell you is no.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: And then you can try again or pivot. So tell
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: me no.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Go for it. Yeah. And it's not, it's not like
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't make it up. I heard it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: It's some, it's actually some guy created it, had a
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: story about being a salesperson and people always like stop
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: their selling what they perceive would be a good sale.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: They don't make the customer push them to the no.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: So it was like this great analogy and the same thing,
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: but just applied to sports now.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just a great life motto. Oh, absolutely.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: It'll carry you a hard moment. I'm like, what do
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: I do? Do you go for it?
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Why not?
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: So thank you for teaching me that.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: So in the spirit of kind of taking risks, and
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: I was recently watching the Nick Saban documentary, and he's
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: of course known as one of the best coaches to
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: coach college football. And one of the things that he
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: said was, it's not normal to want to be the best.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: It's normal to do just enough to get by. And
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I was very curious, kind of your thoughts on that
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: and maybe where you feel like you implement some of
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: that mindset into your program, as well as what does
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: it take to be a coach who can get their
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: players to buy into that as well?
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of that is this idea of doing
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: something that they've never done or the program has never done.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: So I think Nick Saban is great.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: There's a group of coaches out there that just have
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: some incredible messaging, Dabo being one of them, but just
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: that they're like constantly dropping these life lessons and wisdom.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: But it goes back to, for most people, seeing is believing.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: You have to do it before you believe you can
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: do it. That's certainly how most sports fans are, they're
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: not going to believe a team can do it till
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: they do it and for the on the other side
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: for the players and the coaches believing is seeing you
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: have to first believe you can do it before you
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: do it and so it it just gets to that
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: mindset of you want if you want to be great
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: if you want to be the best First, you need
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: to truly believe that it is possible and not just, yeah,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: that would be cool. I'd like to do that. But
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: what is it that you want? And then what are
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: the steps that then there's going to be a gap
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: of where you are now and where you need to be?
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: And then what are the steps that you need to
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: take and the group needs to take in order to
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: get there?
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: So every Monday our staff.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Meets and, you know, that's a big topic is we
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: do a needs assessment every week of what does our team,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: what does our program need? if we are trying to
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: climb the mountain and climb the mountain, plant the Clemson
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: flag on top of the mountain, but eventually become the
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: mountain that everybody else wants to climb, right? Well then
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: what needs to be true in order to get that done? Yeah.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: So we're always trying to figure that out and always
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: pushing our players beyond their limits. So they do believe
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: that that can be done because now they've seen that, wow,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: I just set PRS for myself in all these areas.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: I can apply it to here, here, and here of
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: my game or my life. Yeah.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: As you're kind of talking through that, what would you say,
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: and you maybe just named a few pieces of it,
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: but if you had to kind of articulate what your
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: coaching philosophy is or pillars or things that guide you
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: when working through that, what would you say those things are?
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so if I were to totally oversimplify our program,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: I would say if you want to have a great team,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: you've got to have a bunch of great teammates. Mm-hmm.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: And so that's what this room is for, this classroom.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: We meet in here every day.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Culture still wins in college sports. It's a big deal.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: And I would say even at the top of professional
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: sports for the teams that actually win it, they always
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: talk about having this intense culture.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, you see like grown men draped all over
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: each other.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: They just have this incredible bond and like this love
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: for each other.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: So it's real.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: At every level, especially on winning teams. But it's something
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: that we can try to foster and manufacture in here.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: And that's one part of it. We have to have
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: the best of the very best in terms of recruiting
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: the very best players and the very best player development
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: strategies so that we can make them the best on
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: the field. But then what happens in here and getting
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: everyone to truly love the team as much or more
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: than their individual role That's where that gets really tough.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: So building culture to where you actually can try to
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: create that love for team and love for each other.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: That's where it happens. It happens in here, but it's
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: it's a lot harder said than done.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's a common saying, right, is
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: like you're only as strong as your weakest link. And
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: it's easy to say. But then when you put into practice, it's.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: it's real. It's, it's true. It's, you know, the team can't,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the team can't be the best. If you have one
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: person back here pulling everyone from behind, what would you
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: say differentiates a great player from a great teammate? Is
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: that the same thing? Is that different in your opinion?
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: The difference was you separate them. So the difference between
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: a good player and a great player, the great player,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: consistently performs at the top of their skill set more
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: often than the good player.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: The good player shows flashes of being great.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: The great player is like consistently good and then has
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: greatness more often. So that's the difference between average and good,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: good and great, great to elite, however you want to
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: classify them. Consistency of performance is always the separator. yeah,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: you have some people that are just touched by the
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: hand of God and like they're the best football player,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: best basketball player, best baseball player, but the ones that
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: can perform it towards the top or at the top
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: of their skill set, those are the ones who make it.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: In terms of being a teammate, the best teammates are
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: the ones who genuinely want the other teammates to do well.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: I always use the girlfriend analogy like, How many guys
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: in here? I'll ask, how many guys have girlfriends? Like
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: half of them raise their hand and the other half
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: are lying.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: And then I'll say, you know, how many of.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: You said this morning, hey, hope you have a good day.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Just not as good as me. And like none of
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: them raise their hand. And it's like, yeah, you'd never
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: say that to your girlfriend. You'd never say that to
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: your wife. You'd never, you know, but it happens all
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: the time in competitive sport. Someone's playing the same position
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: as you.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Hope you have a good day. Just not as good
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: as me.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: So you have this inter-team competition, which is really important
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: because you push each other, but a great teammate genuinely
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: wants that guy, the other guy, to do well, even
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: if they're competing for the same role in the same spot.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: How do you balance that as a coach, the idea
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: of wanting your teammates to succeed but also wanting to
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: succeed yourself?
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: It's what literally fuels the performance of the team.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: If we have so much inter-team competition that the worst
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: thing that could happen is we have nine good players
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: and nine bad players, and that's the two deep of
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: our position players, well, then nobody would be pushing each other.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: But when you have a lot of competition out there
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: and those guys that, you know, there's two guys at
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: each position and they are neck and neck and they're
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: both doing all the little things and working their butts off,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: then they're both getting a whole lot better individually, which
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: is also raising the ceiling and the floor of the team.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: Are there ways that you as a coach create opportunities
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: for that to exist if you're not seeing it?
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: We so we I'm in addition to being an adrenaline junkie,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I love competition.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: And so we build competition.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I think we got away from a lot of these
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: fundamentals last year, which is why we had a terrible season.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: And we're back to like hardcore foundational principles of what
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: made our program good the first three years. you know,
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: chasing a great program, which we haven't established yet. But
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: getting back to these core principles of just the love
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: of competition, getting guys to be hyper competitive in everything
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: they do. And so finishing a training day every day
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: and putting things on the line, something for the winners,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: also something for the losers. So you understand it pays
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: to be a winner and guys love winning, but they
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: also freaking hate to lose. Right. And so it's this
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: competition and we keep track of who the winners are.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: Like we, we, I pull up my phone and have
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: a competition record of the fall just so far and
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: who's got the most wins. And like, it's, it's a
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: real thing because the scoreboard matters, winning matters, but in
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: order to get the results and to get the outcomes,
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: you got to put the target on all the other
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: things like just competing against what, against your personal best,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: whatever your best is, your best effort, your best execution,
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: your best, whatever, like setting the bar there. And, yeah,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: when it's time to play Georgia Tech this weekend or
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Coastal the other week, like, yeah, it can be that
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: me versus you, us versus them mindset. But first you've
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: got to compete against yourself and whatever your best is
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: because that's really what we're talking about.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and in a team, I feel like if everybody
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: individually does that, they compete against themselves, then collectively the
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: team is pushing themselves forward, right, because you have everybody
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: who's at their best at the same time.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: 100%.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: I think the best, most successful teams would echo some
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: version of that. Gymnastics would echo some version of that.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: You watch it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: You can see it. When you see it and you
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: notice it, you're like, yep, they're doing it.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, our motto is one day better.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Kind of a similar idea there.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Exact idea, yeah.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: So you talked about last season a little bit, and
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you've done this every season, but
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I work at the ARC, and so I've seen guys
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: coming in with their green outfits on. They said they
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: just came from practice, and I know that this has
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: been something that you've implemented within the program is this
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: idea of earning the paw, earning the colors. Can you
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: talk a little bit about that?
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so this year was the first time that they
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: had to earn the opportunity just to wear purple and orange.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Normally, they do have to earn.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: the opportunity to wear the paw, wear Tigers, wear the C, wear,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: you know, wear Clemson. So we, we, I didn't make
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: it up. This is a, this is a Vanderbilt thing.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: It's a coach Corbin thing. He's been doing it a
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: long time, but I've worked with him for seven years.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: And so I've, I've.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Always loved the idea of coming in. Everybody's the same. And,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: you know, it's like not this basic training, but it's
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: kind of like basic training. Like everybody's just, you know,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: they're all the same. There's no, no, we're not anointing anyone.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: You don't walk in and have this gear haul of
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: here's all my stuff. And, you know, I think as coaches,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: and especially in today's world, we're always battling entitlement of
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: athletes who are like, you know, where's my stuff?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You know, serve it up. And it's this.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Idea of, you know, yeah, getting what you earn. I mean,
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: you earned that championship ring. Show that thing again.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you did. Can we zoom in on this? No kidding.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: That was earned with a lot of hard work. They
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: didn't hand that out in August, right? And so you
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: guys had to work your butts off for that, which
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: you did. And you had to perform under pressure and
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: perform in the clutch. And everybody, it was a team effort.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: And so getting this idea of, all right, we're just
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: a bunch of dudes who wear the same colors.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: We're not a team yet.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Can't call ourselves a team in August when half the
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: team doesn't know half the team's name.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: So this ties into this concept of building team. And
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: so we just use program gear as one of the
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: things that one of the vehicles that we we use
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: to kind of drive team building and drive players appreciating
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: what they get.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: You mentioned you were grateful.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Right. Well, we want them to be grateful for all
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: the things that Clemson has to offer, including the gear
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: that they get. So it doesn't fit all sports. It
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: doesn't fit everyone, but it fits all. us and uh
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: and we'll continue to do it and this year we
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: just did it with different colors we did it with
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: beige and green and and uh so yeah we looked
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: a little odd uh on campus for.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Maybe next year you'll put them in some pink um
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: you never know well.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: You talked i'm curious you talked a little bit about
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: this but you know over time just as society changes
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: and people change i'm curious what that is like as
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: a coach when you see different generations of student athletes
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: come in And then you're talking a lot about these
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: things that you're trying, you work every day to instill
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: in them as student athletes, but also as people. How
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: do you navigate once they leave the building? They're, you know,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: you have them in your space, you have them on
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: the field, you have them in the classroom. But then
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: when they leave, how do you work towards making sure
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: that they're maintaining that out there too? Because then they're
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: coming back. And what is that? Does that pose any challenges?
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: What is that like?
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: It's a huge challenge because 24 hours in a day
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: and we're with them for four of those. Yeah.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of time. It's a lot of time.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: So we have what we call program standards. Some people
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: have rules. We don't call them rules. We call them standards.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: And standards are just, this is how you operate as
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: a Clemson baseball player. And it's just specific, tangible behaviors
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: in all the areas that they're a student athlete here,
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: in the classroom, in the community.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: In training and games.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: But there's this shared mentality and this shared language that's
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: attached to it. So there is this set of standards
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: that they're expected to be held accountable to. But I
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: think overarching sitting above that is this idea that to
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: your point, as time changes, you know, especially we're in
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: a time now where, you know, say, ah, I don't
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: like that. You know, if I complain about that enough,
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: I can get that canceled or I can get that person,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, I can get those rules to change,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: but there's some things in life that just don't change. right?
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: And I always use the example of home plate just
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: for baseball.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Home plate is 17 inches wide in little league, in
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: high school, in college, in the minor leagues, in the
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: major leagues. Home plate does not shrink, does not widen.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: So if you think about, all right, what are the
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: things in life that are in our metaphorical home plate
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: that we're not going to shrink the plate or widen
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: the plate on? And for us, it's What are those
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: overarching things sitting above our standards that sit above baseball?
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: And for us, what we put in home plate is
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: God and country and family and school. And so our
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: players have at least some guardrails that they know, all right,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: these values are really important in our program. God, country, family, school,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: they're ahead of baseball. And then baseball, we have these
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: standards that this is what is expected of us in
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: order to be a Clemson baseball player. So- You hope
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: that they lean on those. I always say, kind of
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: give them a simple, like, instead of thinking of something as,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: should I do that?
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Should we do that?
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: In the world of posting on social media, it's like,
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: should Brian Hennessey post that? Right? Should that go on
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: the Clemson Baseball X account or Instagram account? But it's
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: the same thing with, like, You know, and our guys
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: aren't perfect.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Nobody is.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: But that's kind of when you start looking at yourself
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: as your representative of a team and you're this walking,
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: talking billboard of your program. Maybe that starts to frame
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: the behaviors of how you should operate when you're not
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: in the Clemson facilities. Yeah.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: And I know one of your sayings is how you
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: do one thing is how you should do everything.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how you do it.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: Close.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how you do anything is how you do everything.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: There you go. I was, same idea.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Close. Yeah, you're right there. Yeah, that's a big one.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: And that speaks to kind of that, what you were
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: referencing about Nick Saban, about just being consistent and being
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: consistently good or being great. You know, like what's the
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: difference in school or the baseball field or community service?
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Like if you're going to do it and put your
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: name on it, why not do it to the best
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: of your ability?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, own it.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Well, you mentioned really briefly the I versus we
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: language and a couple of your guys coming through our
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: leadership academies.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: I cannot.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: They always point. That's one thing that they have brought
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: up in conversation is the I versus we language. And
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: you can always tell when some of those things that
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: they're hearing, you know, in your program or with their
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: teams lands because. When they re-deliver it and share it, I'm.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Like, oh, that stuck. That lands.
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I like that. And now we're all learning,
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: which is awesome.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting, too, when you have multiple of them. Like,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: it didn't just land for one person.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: You're now adding.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: It landed for every single one of them.
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: So there you go.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: IWe Challenge is a good one. It's tough. It's tough
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: to replace I, me, and my with we, our, and us.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: But if you think about it, like, what it really
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: is about, it's about spreading praise and deflecting credit. Like,
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: stop talking about yourself. Like, nobody cares. Someone asks you
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: about what you did. find something good in what other
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: people did and talk about that. Yeah.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: You know, absolutely.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: That's a great, great piece of advice there. So you
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: mentioned in, in your little home plate, a metaphor, um,
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: family is one of them. Um, and I was curious,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: you have three children, um, as your children grow up,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: what are the values that you hope that they learn
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: from watching the way that you live your life?
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Good transition on that one, by the way.
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Really good at that.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: You're really good at this. Um, Yeah, I think, you know,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: your kids, I have a 12-year-old, a 14-year-old, and a 17-year-old.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: So I'm not as cool as I used to be.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: You know, when kids are young, like, I think their
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: view of their parents is a little different. But I
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: hope my kids at least see that I'm modeling the
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: behaviors that I've preached to them. You know, I'll tell
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: them every day, you know, be a leader. Talk a
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: lot about work ethic. tell them don't let anybody outwork you.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: So I think they see that. I, you know, as
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: I've noticed over the years, I have not done a
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: good job of putting the work down.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: But I think they, I have a great wife.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: And a great family that understands that it just, it
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: takes what it takes.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: And I'm not going to.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Always have the hours to be there for family dinners. And,
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: you know, when I am home, it's like being on call.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: Like I may have to get on the phone with
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: a recruit or somebody and just the way it is.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Um, and, or one of our players or whatever.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Um, so while I'm probably not the best example of
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: someone who has work-life balance, I don't have work-life balance.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: I love the work.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: Um, but I love spending time with my kids too.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: So it's, it's just finding opportunities to weave it in
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: together and My wife and kids have been awesome about,
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: you know, being full participants and integrating our team into
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: our family and our family into our team. So our
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: team is at our house a lot. Our family is
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: here a lot.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So it works for us. But it wouldn't work for, you.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Know, I think most people, especially those who want a
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: clear separated line of having, you know, more balance.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: I just don't have.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: The balance. You can speak to this a lot more
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: than I can because I am not in the workforce yet.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of have a job, but I
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: was at a convention a couple weeks ago and one
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: of the speakers said that there is no such thing
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: as balance. People talk a lot about work-life balance. Some
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: things are always going to have to push and pull
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: here and there, but it seems like you do a
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: great job at giving what you can when you can,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: giving 100% when you're there, I'm going to make it work.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: So that's very commendable.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, I don't know if my family would
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: agree with that.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Certainly, yeah, I certainly try to build those windows in,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: those times in, like, you know, when we do have
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: an opportunity to, you know, there's a downtime in our
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: schedule in December or, you know, whatever, before school starts
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: in August, like, you know, I would want to have those, like,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: those opportunities to do something as a family. But, but yeah,
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: it's just, this is a big job and it requires
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: a lot of time and a lot of commitment. And
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: I think the coaches at this level would just say, like,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: it's just, it's what it takes.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Like there, there is, you know, you, you want your balance.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: In terms of your values aligned with how you run
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: your program and how you are as a, you know,
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: a husband or a father and your family. But the
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: time is not equal and it never will be.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: You talked about your wife. And I think sometimes when
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: talking to coaches and just understanding really what that lifestyle
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: is like, the spouse and the families there's so much
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: credit owed to them I think too it's it's a
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: sacrifice it's a decision I think you know that you
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: all have to make but when you think about your
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: wife and you think about you know your relationship how
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: do you think she would explain you or describe you
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: and maybe what her favorite thing is about.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: You Oh, you're not going to get very many compliments
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: from her.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: No, she's the best.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: But she's literally the rock of stability and support. I
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: hear my kids ask her a million questions, and then
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: they'll come to me and I'm like, oh, sweet, I'm
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: going to get a question too.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: And they'll look at me and go, where's mom? But
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: it's just because.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: the whole family is propped up on, you know, her,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: you know, keeping track of their school schedule, you know,
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: their lunches, their this, their.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: That, getting them here, getting them there. Now we've got
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: a driver.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: That's been a huge thing, you know, having a 17-year-old
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: that can drive and help out and pitch in.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: But, like, she literally is, like, the CEO of the household.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: I think most coaches would speak that way about their spouse, like,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: if you don't have that, it's, it's almost like it
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: doesn't work. Um, so Jiffy just is incredible at making
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: it work of being the CEO of, of our household,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: of our family, but then also taking on the role of,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: you know, she makes these guys cookies on their birthday
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: and brings them up and, and drops them off. And
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: it just makes herself available, you know, while trying to
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: get our, 17-year-old to his travel ball tournament, and our
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: 14-year-old to his tournament at J.B. Owens in Easley, and
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: our 12-year-old to her, you know, to her dance class.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: It's just like, it's a lot, and she's constantly juggling it,
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: and I think she feels like, you know, like she's
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: the one that's working 80 hours a week.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: It's a job, yeah, absolutely.
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: How'd you two meet?
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: We met in Nashville. I was I was renting a
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: room out.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: I had a house in Nashville and I was renting
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: it out to a guy who was our operations director
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: for Vanderbilt Baseball. And he's an Ole Miss grad. And
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: one of his very best friends in college was a
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: girl named Ginger. And Ginger's best friend growing up in
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: life was a girl named Jiffy. And so my future
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: wife was doing her internship with the Tennessee Titans during
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: the summer.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: I'm out recruiting, right?
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: So my roommate, And his good friend Ginger and her
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: good friend Jiffy are all like hanging out, spending the
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: night at my house.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: And I'm gone. And like Jiffy and her friend Ginger
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: are sleeping in my bed. I'm like, what the hell?
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, but they just had their thing. Like
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: that was, you know, she was doing her internship. She was,
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: you know, staying in Nashville a lot. And then like
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: it just so happened that I happened to be there
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: one night. She was there one night and she didn't
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: like me and I didn't like her. She was, um,
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: so she, so my, my roommate, it turns out this
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: is way too much information, but my, my roommate, my
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: roommate was like, you know, thought, you know, he had
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: a shot and he didn't know it, but she had
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: put him squarely in the friend zone. And so, you know,
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: here I am like coaching him up, uh, thinking that
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: he had a shot and she let him have it
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: one night when he, you know, tried to let her
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: know that he was interested and listening to her give
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: him the business.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, Whoa. I'm out. I like that.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: That one's got something to her. She's got an edge.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: She's got a little sass. Oh my gosh. So, yeah.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: So it just turned out she was going to Atlanta.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: I was going to a tournament in Atlanta to recruit.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: We met up with a group of friends. And then
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: it was like, hey, maybe we should get together again.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: And then, hey, get together again.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: And then before you know it, she took a job
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: in Nashville.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: So she was working in Nashville.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: I was like our second year at Vanderbilt.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: And we just started dating.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: And I kind of knew, and talking about Go4No, I
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: knew in a month that This was going to be
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: my wife, and I told her that.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: And I figured, screw it.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: If she runs for the hills, I tell her this,
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: then she's not the one. So might as well just
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: tell her.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Was that a feeling? How did you know?
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: I think everybody kind of will tell you when you
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: know you know, when it's just that instinctual gut feeling
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: like something's right.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Do you act on it? And I had that instinctual
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: gut feeling.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: I was single in Nashville for a year and I
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: was ready to settle down.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: And here you are.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: Three kids later, a whole marriage.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: That's just so fun.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: Thank you for sharing that.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: We appreciate that. And so you guys, I'm sure, have
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: moved around quite a bit for your job. What is
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: that like having a family and having a wife and
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: having to kind of pick up and move places?
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I will not get husband of the year awards.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: For the first two moves. So she was.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Eight and a half months pregnant when I accepted the
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: Maryland coaching job. So we had the nursery set up.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: So we had our son Colt in Nashville. I hit
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: the road recruiting. She and her mom drove a three-week-old
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: baby from Nashville to.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: DC area.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, that was, yeah, that was the ultimate, like
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: one of the first ultimate sacrifices she made to just,
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: you know, to just kind of leave her comfort zone,
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: friend group. Like, you know, she had a bunch of
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: sorority sisters living in Nashville and the surrounding area. So,
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: you know, to go to a place, College Park, Maryland,
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: that neither of us had family or friends with a newborn.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Right. So I was like, OK, I'll never do that again.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Then three years later, she's seven months pregnant with our son, Bo.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: And I got the Michigan job. And she's like, no,
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: you take it. And I'm going we're having the baby
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: in Ann Arbor this time.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: We're not doing this drive.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: And Michigan was a great move for our family. Like
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: that's where, you know, our kids, two of our kids
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: were born there. But all of them like consider that
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: where they grew up, like their childhood.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Um, and Michigan was a great place. We still have
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: a home in Northern Michigan.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: Um, but it was just kind of a no brainer
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: just to, for the opportunity to come back here. And
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: that was as much as it was a no brainer
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: from a, from a baseball perspective and a coaching standpoint. Um,
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: you know, it, it was tough for the kids, the kids,
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: you know, they've got their schools, they've got their friends,
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: they've got, you know, everything like their world is set.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Um, But they've, it takes time, especially moving to a.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Small town where all the friendships are already like locked in.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: It takes a full year to get like, you know,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: really find your friends.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: But we were fortunate to get to find great friends,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: you know, great families just through sport and kids playing
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: youth sports and, you know, Tempe, our daughter doing, you know,
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: dance and gymnastics. So like there, it's way good. It
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: ended up being way good by, you know, after a
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: few months, but Moving's tough. It gets to an age
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: where you start making decisions on not wanting to, you know,
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: upset the family dynamic. But this was just such a
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: unique outlier opportunity that, you know, we wanted to be
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: in this part of the country. You know, her parents
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: are two hours away in Georgia, and it's just like,
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: you know, the God country values of this part of
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: the country is just perfect for us. Yeah. Yeah.
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: Okay, so you said God country, and that was two
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: of the things you mentioned when you said you're 17
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: inches of home plate. You do in your games, it's
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: after the fifth inning, I think?
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Fourth.
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: Fourth, okay. Where the student athletes will come out and
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: shake the hands of individuals who have served in the military.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: Just talk to us about that, and you mentioned God
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: and country as those values and how that shows up
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: in your program, how that happens, all of that.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's another one. Easier said than done. Yeah.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I think I said that backwards last time. I said
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: harder said than done.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: But anyways, um, way easier said than done to get
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: an 18 to 23 year old to say, Hey, you're
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: not playing today.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: We go up in the stands in the middle of
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the game and go shake the veterans hands.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: But again, Clemson being Clemson, this community being the way
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: it is, especially in this being a former military school
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: and how we honor those who protect and defend our country. Anyways,
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: it's just a perfect tie in. Um, I didn't come
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: up with the idea. You know, it was, it was,
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: that was a Jesse Cole thing with the Savannah bananas.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: And that was just something when.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: They did it, it was like, you know, that would
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: be amazing if we could do that too. I don't
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: know if we could pull that off. It's nobody, does
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: it in college sports. Nobody has their team go into
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: the crowd. Like, I think we can do it. I think,
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: you know, I think it's a cool enough moment. You know, the,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: even the opposing fans, like even when we play South
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Carolina and we'll do it, you know, when we play
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: South Carolina, the third Friday of the season here. And
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: if there's a, if there's a veteran, that's a game cock,
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: our players will still go shake his hand. Cause that's,
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: that's maybe the one time where that supersedes the rivalry.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: That's one opportunity just to say, all right, there's some
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: things that are bigger than sport. Yeah.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: And that's an.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Opportunity to show appreciation where appreciation is deserved.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: It's such a, sitting through it experiencing it just watching
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: it happen is so incredible magical yeah you can feel
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: it you know you can feel that appreciation and I
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: think people in the crowd feel that it's real it's
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: palpable and so I love I love that.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: Tradition I did get a lot of veterans you know
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: because I go in there too and I shake their
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: hands and last year they'd be guys would be like
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: thank you now let's score some damn runs I hear
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: you yeah I know you're right we're working on it
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: yeah But they're beautiful because they have a different perspective
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: on life. So it's always a great thing to do that.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: But I've gotten to meet a lot of cool veterans
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: along the way, not just Clemson fans, just great people.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: It's moments like that that I want to work in
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: sports one day, and it's like that is why. Because
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: it's the ability to bring South Carolina fans to become–
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: Clemson fans for a split second. Um, and to appreciate
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: that and just the community aspect in that magical feeling
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: of like, wow, this is bigger than the game. It's
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: more than the game. Um, and so that's one of
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: my favorite Clemson traditions for sure. Awesome. Yeah. Speaking of traditions,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: do you have any favorite Clemson traditions other than, um,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: I'm a, I'm.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: A big fan of solid orange Friday.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: Like that's to me, that's, um, That's just something that
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: happens beyond our campus and our community. We'll be out recruiting,
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: and there's an agent, Henri Stanley, and we were in
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: Jupiter and recruiting in Jupiter, Florida.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: And he's an agent.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: He's out in the agent world, but he's wearing an
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: orange shirt on Friday in Jupiter, Florida.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: And so are we.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: It's kind of that fist pump, and he's like, solid
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: orange friday it's like you know it's just one of
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: those things where kind of like where everybody knows the
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: the brand recognition of the paw right and if you're
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: wearing that in an airport and you could be in
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: any part of the country and someone will say go
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: tigers uh that's just one of those things where clemson
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: people just you know have something that's unique to them
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: and so i love that we you know the whole
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: athletic department participates in it uh and i love that
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: people take it beyond athletics and carry it into their,
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: their daily lives. Yeah.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: It's very serious.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: You walk through downtown, you go anywhere really in the state,
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: but it's fun.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: I'm like, all right.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah. We're all doing it. We are, we are tigers here.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Always hit them with a go tigers.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: No doubt.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: Even off campus.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: For sure. Yeah.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: So shifting gears a little bit to just your day
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: to day life. I know you said, You're pretty much
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: into baseball all the time. But if there was a
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: day you had no worries, no baseball, nothing, and you
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: could just curate your day to be what you wanted
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: it to be, what would that look like for you?
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Water skiing.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Water skiing.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: I love water skiing.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: One or two?
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: One.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Okay. Slalom skiing. Yep.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: I got a buddy who lives on Lake Kiowee, David Walker,
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: and actually met him because one of our alums, Andy Monin,
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: introduced me to another guy named Greg Smith we were
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: talking about NIL we were talking about you know how
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: can we generate opportunities for our players one I don't
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: know how we got into talking oh where do you
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: live I was back a couple years ago I was
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: living on Lake Kiwi oh you into water sports oh
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: you know before you know it like what turned into
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: an NIL conversation and.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Turned into, hey, we have a water ski group.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: Why don't you meet us 7 a.m. on this Sunday
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: or whatever it was, Saturday, and go water skiing. And
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: I go out there, and there's this group of guys
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: that are in their 60s that are like all former pros.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh. And they freaking shred. They get to
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: where their shoulders are almost like scraping the water.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Wow. I thought I was good because I could lean
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: over a little bit.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah. They are just, and it's, but it's, water sports
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: have always been just, I grew up, oh man, when
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: I was a kid, a family friend had a boat
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: and would take us out sometimes in the summers and
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: learned how to water ski and do, you know, so
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: I've always been a sucker for boating and water sports.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: But that would be my day.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: That's a good one.
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: That 7 a.m., that early first run in the morning,
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: like skiing or wakeboarding, wakesurfing, whatever it is, it's just glass.
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: It's quiet for the most part. There's nothing like it.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: Nothing like it.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You hit up some water skis?
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Not ski.
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: I'll wakeboard. I can wakeboard and wakesurf. Skis, you haven't
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: been able to do it. But, yeah.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's so funny.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: I haven't ventured into the water sports, but....
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: Give it a shot. Be careful. Be safe until you're done.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Or just go for it. Go for now.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: Maybe after season. I'm a senior. I'll be graduating. We'll
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: wait until we're done.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Justin and Liz will appreciate you waiting until after.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: If you could have a meal. You get three people,
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: not one. This isn't the traditional question. Any three people...
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: dead or alive, that you could sit down and have
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: a meal with, who would they be?
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Any three people. I would pick, I mean, my instinct
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: says Jesus.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: I sentimentally would also pull my grandfather back in.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: He passed away in 2014.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: And the third one I would have to think about,
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: I'd have to think about that because I would want
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: that to be, that would most likely also be a
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: historical figure.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I just would have to think about how
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: far back would I go? Would it be like military
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: leader or.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Would it be sports figure? I would need some time
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: on that.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's fair. Those are good answers though. And would
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: you guys be eating chicken and rice?
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: We would be eating steak.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: Steak.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: Cooked only in olive oil.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Filet cooked in olive oil.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Cooked. Yeah. Any sides?
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: We'd go Pittsburgh style, char rare. Like just, yeah, it'd
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: be rare. I love that.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: Which my family hates it when I cook the steak
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: like that. But I love it like still moving.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Can't you cook like different temperatures for different people?
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: We do. Yeah, we have the full.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: We're just forcing you.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: No, my wife likes it medium well, so most of
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: our steak is medium well. But I'll keep a few
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: pieces over there, like put it on the grill.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, take it off. That's good.
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: But yeah, steak for sure. And then, yeah, the sides,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: I think those can, there's a lot of good things
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: that go with steak.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: So that could, we could ask. We could see what
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: our guests would like.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, be hospitable.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, be hospitable.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: I haven't pulled that word out in a long time.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: That was good. That came from.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: That's like four syllables.
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Practice this morning straight to it.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: We're here. We are here now. Yeah.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: How funny.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Do you think that the person your players see every
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: day is the same person that your family sees, your
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: friends see? If you're out water skiing, is that the
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: same man that your players are seeing?
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: I think they see this fall they needed a little
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: bit more of a drill sergeant, a guy who, because
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: you can always loosen the reins, start off, you know,
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: like we're going to run a really tight ship.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: I think when they.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: Come over to my house, I think as the season
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: goes and we have more just reps like in hotels and,
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: out to dinners and hanging out, then yes, the answer
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: is yes.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I think right now, um.
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: They would probably be like, I hope you don't parent
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: the way you're coaching us. Um, but it's firm, you know,
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: and it has to be, especially to kind of get
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: the program back on track, which it feels everything we're
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: doing this fall feels right. Um, so I think it
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: is what is what was needed. Um, the players don't
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: need a buddy right now. They need, They need a
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: coach and coaches that are going to hold them to
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: a high standard, hold them accountable, put a great developmental
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: plan in front of them. but also push their limits
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: and get them uncomfortable. And we've done, we've done that
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: this fall. Yeah.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: What does that reflection process look like when you, you've
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: talked a little bit about last season and how do
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: you identify some of the things that you need to
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: change in order to have a better outcome this season? Yeah.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: So the, you know, I noticed, I noticed it in
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: myself last year.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: I just was spending a lot of time on things
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: that I had never spent a lot of time on,
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: whether that be social media or, you know, I'm in the,
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: I'm in the cages meeting with the HVAC guy Because
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: we're thinking about, okay, what if we took the roof
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: off so we could put a premium space on a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: flat roof and that could drive attendance up? And how
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: could that in turn get to more dollars to our players?
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: So I was on the phone with concert promoters to
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: put the Jake Owen concert on. I was just putting
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: a lot of energy and oxygen to FanFest. you know,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: festival carnival thing for the Alabama game in the fall.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: It's just all these little things, always looking for ways
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: to grow attendance and grow revenue. And like, you know,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: thinking all these ways we can get our players NIL deals.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: And it's, that's where I have a lot of appreciation
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: and respect, you know, for Graham after the year, it's
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: just like, look, like.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: We can, we can help out in these areas.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: You don't have to put, as much time and energy into,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: into those areas. And it, I feel like I got
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: a lot of my time back. Now they never told
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: me to do that anyways. I was just thinking of
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: how can we compete with the big boys out there who, um,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: you know, had more resources at the time.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: I'd say we have Graham is, this is where Graham
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: is awesome.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: He's, you know, he's helped, uh, all the programs, whether
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: it be scholarships or rev share, NIL, whatever, like just,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: you know, know that we're, we're competitive with anybody, you know,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: we may not be the, you know, the major more
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: than I might not be the Yankees or the Dodgers,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: but we're able to compete with, with anybody now. And
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: just for me personally, just getting my time back and
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: putting all of that time into our players and, you know,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: taking over the, the hitters and the offense and just
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: being in the cages, not with the HVAC guy, but
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: with our players and working with them and, and helping
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: them and just, you know, our coaching staff, just a
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: lot more one-on-one time with our players this fall as well. Like,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: you know, we've, we've probably scheduled more one-on-one individual and
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: small group sessions with our players this fall than maybe
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: all the, you know, last couple of years combined. So
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: it's been, it's been really good from that standpoint, just
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: to be able to, as I'm looking at what went
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: wrong last year and, you know, foundationally, fundamentally, I could
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: see my energy was just.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Not in the right places. And now I'm not.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: Worried about, you know, putting on ancillary events and the
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: bananas and concerts and carnivals and.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just Clemson baseball. And
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: you know what?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: All the other things will take care of itself when
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: we're playing at the highest level possible.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: So it's just, it's back to that. And that's where
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: I was our first two years.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. It was just on foundation and standards and team
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: and coaching and none of.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: The other BS.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: And so that's been really good. I'm glad, you know,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: I'll be glad it happened after, you know, this season
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: ends up the way I think it can end up.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: But it was tough to go through because losing brings
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: out the worst in everybody.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: And we just had a lot of things that, you know, from.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: myself first but then just kind of you know best
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: player gets hurt this happens this happens this happens we
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: miss on a couple portal guys like it just it's
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: just spiraled you know nobody beat our team more than
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: us like we just we just didn't have that foundation
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: and so now I feel like we have a really
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: strong foundation to build on going into the spring.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah I can appreciate that I think So much is
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: changing every single day in college athletics, even the last
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: two to three years. It's like, how do we continue
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: to keep the main thing the main thing? And I
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: think it's hard to do, but it's exactly what you're
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: speaking to. It's like getting back to the foundation. Like,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: what are we all here for? What is going to
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: bring people here? And it's that. It's playing at the
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: highest level.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: It's performing.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: It's bringing the energy.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: So I really respect that.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: That you shared that.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Yeah.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's hard to manage with all of, all of
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: the shifts and constant changing as an athlete, as a coach. Um, yeah, definitely.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: It is. Yeah.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: The rules change every day that, you know, it's, it's,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: it's a constant adjustment, but I think everybody's, you know,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: roll their sleeves up and say, all right, well, how
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: are we going to compete at the highest level with
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: this like constant changing landscape where, you know, we got
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: one foot here, one foot there. It's the ground's moving,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: but so what? Like teams are navigating it just fine.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: We should be one of those teams as well. Like
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: this is Clemson should be the very best, should have
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: the best teams and best players. And, you know, I
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: just think this place is awesome. Should compete for championships
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: in every sport. Yeah.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: I fully agree. So to kind of wrap this up,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: we ask this question at the end of every podcast.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Who are you beyond the paw?
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: I am a guy who coaching is my title. A teacher,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: I think, would better describe certainly what I do in
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: this room right here, this classroom. But I am a
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: guy who thinks obsessively about how to unlock potential in
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: other people. And that is, while coaching baseball, baseball coach
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: is the title, unlocking human potential is literally the thing
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: that I am writing ideas in my notebook, I am
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: looking for every possible cheat code, looking for every drill,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: looking for everything to help individual players and the team
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: be their best because I have just seen it too
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: many times in the last 25 years where a player
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: who also gets obsessed and figures out how to do
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: things that they didn't think were possible and then that
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: Translates to the whole team. And before you know it,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: the team is surging, peaking with a confidence that makes
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: them feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: And that is magic. So it's the constant chase of that.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: That was a great answer.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us today. We really
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: appreciate it.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you both. Go Tigers! Go Tigers!