Latest / Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball / Meet the Man Behind EMD Baseball — Andy Kiriakedes on College Baseball, Coaching & What He Knows Now | Ep. 183

Transcript

Meet the Man Behind EMD Baseball — Andy Kiriakedes on College Baseball, Coaching & What He Knows Now | Ep. 183 · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:02
  Speaker A: Hey, parents and coaches, are your kids using the right glove? The most important skill for youth athletes to learn is how to play proper catch. The problem is most youth gloves are made with bad leather and are too big for small hands. They actually make it harder to play catch. That's why former Major League Baseball shortstop Kevin Smith created Cali Gloves. Cali gloves are crafted from 100% Japanese kip leather and are the perfect size for kids. All Cali gloves come with palm slits, finger loops and elastic wrist lacing that encourage proper hand placement. The right closing patterns and give kids more confidence to go make plays. Cali gloves even allow parents to break in the glove without stretching out the fit. It's the glove Kevin wishes he had growing up and the glove all his teammates want for their kids. Visit caligloves.com to learn more and help your kids play better catch. Cali Gloves K a l I gloves.com
• 1:11
  Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I'm Andy Kirakidis joined by my wonderful co host, slash full On Host today, Mr. Keith Glasser. How are we doing, sir? Great.
• 1:23
  Speaker A: How are you?
• 1:24
  Speaker B: Good. We're, we're gonna, we're gonna flip the script here a little bit. The next couple episodes going to give the people a little bit of a deep dive into the faces behind emd. So I'll kick it over to you here.
• 1:41
  Speaker A: Sure. Tonight we're going to be joined by the other co owner of EMD baseball, Mr. Andy, Kira Kittis. I am going to sit in the interview chair tonight where I feel like I've done a generally good job when I'm by myself but obviously Andy generally will ask a lot of the questions and I'm the play by play, I suppose. But today I'm going to interview Andy. In a future episode Andy will interview me and we're going to do a little bit of a background on our stories. I think we're well over 300 plus episodes into this endeavor that we started shoot a really long time ago it seems back in, in March of 2023. Andrew and now we are, we're sitting at this will be our 100 and if you give me a moment I will tell you our 183rd episode followed by 184th along with 100 almost 50 shorts. So for your quick maths at home that's what, 3:30. But we've never actually, I, I guess sat down and, and talked about our backgrounds in this game and, and what we valued and what we learned and our coaching journeys. I, I think is kind of important to, to, to this. Right. I think when we started this, we just kind of came from a place of let's just pull the veil back and see if this is something that might stick and maybe we can do this for a little bit. And here we are three and a half years later with a lot of episodes being like, you know what, let's go a little bit deeper into who we are as people and what we've done that kind of allow us to sit here and pontificate week after week about baseball recruiting and the college baseball landscape and college baseball games and all the like. Right. So tonight we're going to interview you. I will be the wonderful host of this podcast. So for, for our start, why don't you give our listeners a quick little synopsis of where you're from, where you went to college, where you coached, and how you got here.
• 4:12
  Speaker B: Oh, thanks for having me, Keith. Appreciate it.
• 4:15
  Speaker A: Fired up to have you.
• 4:17
  Speaker B: Fired up to be on. So I grew up in western Massachusetts. That's why I don't have the Boston accent. So the completely other opposite end of the state, very small town called Sheffield, Massachusetts, is where I basically spent my whole childhood. I was actually born out in California, in San Diego, parents moved back to where they grew up, which was Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and then grew up in Sheffield, Massachusetts. No, there was not a stoplight in the town that I grew up in. So started there, small town, played, you know, baseball, basketball and football all the way up into, all the way through high school. Ultimately lost out my full senior year of athletics, minus about a half of football. Had a rather traumatic knee injury, a couple ligaments, couple, couple broken bones, couple fractures, meniscus, cartilage, dislocation in the such, which put quite a damper on my recruiting process. Ultimately, Marist College and John Sheff gave me an opportunity to go and put on a uniform somewhere. Took a walk on spot at Marist, and ten months after major surgery went there and just tried to compete my ass off and prove that I actually belonged. You know, these guys gave me a chance, felt really fortunate given how everything had kind of played out, had some offers taken off the table. So felt, you know, lucky at the time just to even have the opportunity to go and mix it up. Specifically at a program that had the previous year, I think they were 41 and 11, some crazy number at Marist and had been to three straight regionals and was just looking to find a way to get on the field, and was on the field probably way earlier than I should have been, but really didn't have an option. So went there, competed, ended up starting pretty much every day since the day I got to campus. Played third base as a freshman, move over to short later that year and then, you know, ultimately played shortstop for the remaining three years of my career. Super up and down career. Like had moments of being a good player and moments of like, when are they going to take me out of the lineup because I suck right now. And went through that cycle throughout my career, but, you know, I ended up playing a lot, played we went to Regional in 2005, down to LSU, played a really good team there. And when I got done playing and it was clear that, you know, professional baseball was not going to be an option, Dennis Healy, who is the head coach at the time, gave me the opportunity to come on staff with him and I took, I took advantage of it. I'll always be very thankful to, to Coach Healy. I'm not sure if I've ever even told him this in person, so maybe he'll list on the podcast, but that guy taught me so much in the one year that I was there, just how to think about the game, how to evaluate little tidbits, little things that you only get from having coached. And you know, I think that Dennis is, he was exceptional at what he did. I think he's one of the best evaluators I've ever sat next to. It certainly learned a ton from him and he gave me a pretty good amount of responsibility for, you know, a 22 year old kid in that program and was able to parlay that into a full time job right across town at Vassar College where I worked for John Martin, who's now the head coach at Bates College. Got there and then we, I think we were 5 and 31 the year before I got to school there and it was dire straits. I think we had 14 guys on the roster and John basically brought me on and said, hey, we're going to build this thing up. Gave me a ton of autonomy. Learned an immense amount from John, specifically about how to handle people, where to go, where to be, how to present yourself. He gave me kind of the keys to the kingdom. Give me a lot of exposure to a lot of the administrative stuff that you don't really recognize or really even see as a player. We were able to build that up, made our first conference tournament appearance, won a conference tournament game, which is something that had never happened in that program's history. So I was there for, for six seasons and then, or excuse me for five seasons. And then in January of 2014, I took an opportunity to go down to William Mary and coach down there with Brian Murphy and Brian Casey. I've spoken about Murph on this podcast 100 times. Really fortunate. Learned a ton about just how to. How to communicate with players, I think was one of the biggest things that I learned down there and like when to coach and when not to coach. I walked into a pretty, pretty awesome situation with an old team with some really, really talented players, and we were able to do a pretty good amount of winning there. Learned a lot with Brian Casey. We were both young coaches, just trying to make names for ourselves, make a name for the program. He's now the head coach at the Coast Guard Academy, but I was there 14, 15, 16. We won the regular season in 2014 in the CAA, which is a hell of an accomplishment, having to beat Charleston and UNC Wilmington at the height of their powers. And then in 2016, we went on a pretty magical run and ended up in a regional final. Won the conference tournament in dramatic fashion. Got a bid to the Virginia, the UVA regional, lost to uva, got pounded by UVA in game one, actually beat Bryant, then came back, I can beat uva. And then lost in the regional final to ecu, who would go on to the super. And that was my. My last season of coaching, and I ultimately stepped away. A really, really difficult decision to make. Sitting down and having to tell Murph that I was going to go in a different direction was. Was like, heartbreaking. Really hard decision to make with the players. And you get this because you did the same thing. Like, it was really hard to step away from it, but it was a decision at the time that I had to make. Started EMD in 2020 and been doing this ever since. So that's how we got here. Sure.
• 11:21
  Speaker A: The lot to unpack there, right? Lots of unpack. The one thing, you know, I. Flying back to the beginning a little bit.
• 11:31
  Speaker B: I want you to talk a little
• 11:32
  Speaker A: bit about your process and what it was like to go through the recruiting process having blown out your knee, right? Like, it's. It's something that happened, you know, not. Not that specifically, but kids get hurt during the recruiting process. And, you know, that initial gut punch of like, oh, my God, I just got an offer pulled. What do I do now? You know, talk about that just a little bit to kind of enlighten the listeners and people who might be going through that about how what that experience was like for you and how it ultimately Led you to Marist College University.
• 12:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. So I was a little bit like big fish, small pond, but I ended up breaking out of it and ended up getting recruited, like, a decent amount. Right. You know, I had some handful of schools that were really interested, and I had my eyes set on Stetson. That's where I. I really wanted to go. Felt like I had a. You know, I played really well in front of them in a couple tournaments and was set to go down and visit. And back then, doing your visit, like the fall of your senior year, like, that was kind of the normal timeline. And I was ready to go down and do my visit with, you know, kind of that was going to be the day that they would sit down and kind of make the formal offer, and we'd kind of talked about the logistics of it all. I was going to go down and do an overnight official visit, all that kind of stuff. And I blew up my knee the weekend before, so. Having a call. Coach Tom Reginos, who was. Went from Stetson to Clemson, Clemson to. He's a head coach of Wofford for a while. You know, having to call him and tell him what happened. And, you know, I get it now as a coach, but, you know, you're Stetson, like, they could drive 45 minutes from Stetson's campus and find a dude just like me. You know, they weren't going to take damaged goods and, you know, had had the offer pulled. I'm just kind of sitting there in limbo, like, what the hell am I going to do? I'd add like, a boatload of damage to my knees. So, like, the recovery timeline was. Was long. They kind of told me, like, 16 to 18 months is what I should expect due to the amount of damage that that had happened. I. Oh, bad place, man. Like, that was really hard to kind of have it all pulled out from under you. And I was lucky enough to have a guy named Jay Weitzel, who was a twin scout for a long time. I still keep in touch with the son Jericho, who's a. Who's a junior college coach up at Jamestown Community College. But that guy took a liking to me. For whatever reason, I was never a professional prospect, but he had seen me play and thought I was a decent player and was tough. And he was basically the reason that Marist even decided that they were going to pay attention to me. And I was just looking for somebody to tell me, like, hey, man, we'll give you a shot. Like, at that point, like, I knew I was a pretty good Player. I knew I just needed somebody to say, hey, like, we'll give you an opportunity to do it. And John Chef did that and that was kind of how it played out for me. I. We had talked as a family about trying to do a postgraduate year potentially to see if I could get back and, and kind of re up the recruiting process. Looking back on it, like, I don't know if that would have helped because I wasn't, I wasn't going to be able to play that summer anyways, so. But Coach Jeff gave me the opportunity. I, as a 17 year old, signed the student loans like, and was just ecstatic that somebody was going to give me a chance to wear a uniform. And I didn't know what to expect. I'd seen a practice, felt like I could go and mix it up. I don't know, I guess I kind of had that chip on my shoulder a little bit the whole way. Like, just kind of having to prove that I belonged, you know, non scholarship dude. Like, I don't know if anybody even knew that while we were playing. You know, nobody knows, you know, usually know anybody's situation. But like, yeah, I was on Pell grant, work study grant. I just did whatever I could to make it financially feasible. And this is, oddly enough, it was probably the best thing that could ever happen to me because, you know, I ended up playing 206 games, NCAA Regional. I mean, I'm still texting today. I was laughing like, I must have texted like six or seven guys that we played with today. And you know, everything that happened there led me to Marist and you know, for that window of time, that was the best thing that could happen to me.
• 16:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I think that, I mean, I'm very fortunate that you ended up at Marist University. We wouldn't be sitting in this chair interviewing each other, but I think, you know, those things build your, your college experience. Right? Like, you know, there's, there's a reason, you know, I'm not a big believer in this stuff, but like, you ended up at the place that you ultimately were meant to be at overall, right? It was the right fit, the right, the right institution. You talk about some of the things we did, you know, you were there a little bit before me, you know, but some of the things we did together, some of the things you guys did before I got there, you know, what about your college experience? Would you say you appreciate now more now than you did in the moment as a player?
• 16:56
  Speaker B: The people, like, it's 100% of people, the Guys that we played with that, I mean, shoot. The field staff that I worked with every day, shout out. Randy freaking legend. You know, you know, people like Alyssa Gates, who we had on the podcast. I think it's just kind of the camaraderie of it, and I don't. It's hard to understand what it's like to be a part of a program that has. It's like, very prideful program. You know, the guys who went there are proud that we went there. We, you know, we did a pretty good amount of winning. The program has had. Has had a lot of success. It's. Yeah, for me, it's just the people, you know, that. That you end up goofing around with, having fun, you know, sweating and lifting and doing all the stuff that you have to do. That's the thing that I. In the moment, you don't understand. Looking back on, like, that's kind of the. That was like, kind of the magic of it was the people.
• 18:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it's a special place. And I'm not just saying that because I went there to Harvard.
• 18:07
  Speaker B: On the Hudson, baby.
• 18:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the only downside, in all seriousness, is that it rains just enough to piss you off. The only thing that is really the downside of that place, Like, I would kill for another day on the green. Like, just give me a nice. A nice September Tuesday where it's like 75.
• 18:30
  Speaker B: Oh, yep.
• 18:33
  Speaker A: Gosh. What's the best?
• 18:35
  Speaker B: Or. Or. Or a Sunday after the. A Sunday in like, late April, after you just left a series out on the green.
• 18:46
  Speaker A: Walk up to the calf, grab some food.
• 18:48
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:49
  Speaker A: Back out. Get out there on the green. Maybe mix it up with some wiffle ball.
• 18:52
  Speaker B: Oh, maybe somebody pulled a hose out from one of the dorms and we
• 18:59
  Speaker A: got a slip inside going.
• 19:01
  Speaker B: Doing a little slip and slide action. Taking in the Hudson.
• 19:04
  Speaker A: Oh, gosh, those are the days.
• 19:07
  Speaker B: Magical place.
• 19:08
  Speaker A: 40 now. Still want to go do it?
• 19:13
  Speaker B: What.
• 19:15
  Speaker A: I think the next question I'm going to ask you is, what. What do you know now that you wish you knew then? This is a tough one.
• 19:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. What do I know now that I wish I knew then? Good question. What do I know now that I wish I knew then? I wish I knew. I wish I had a better understanding of, like, when it was gonna end, because I think I would have appreciated it a little bit more in the moment and, like, everybody has aspirations to play a little bit longer, but I think I. I wish I was a little bit more self aware in the moment just to kind of Appreciate it a little bit more while we were going through it. All right. I, I, I don't think I was ever naive to like the time and the effort that it was going to take. That was always something that I was comfortable with. But I think looking back on it, like, I, I feel like sometimes those moments can be fleeting and if, if you kind of know that it is finite, I think you can enjoy some of like the really small stuff a little bit more and not get so caught up in, you know, like what the future holds and what's that going to look like. But like really try to, if I could go back at 18, go back to my 18 year old self, I think I would say just appreciate every day of this because at some point it's going to come to an end. And these are four years that you, you can't replicate them. You just can't replicate them.
• 21:06
  Speaker A: No, I mean, I don't want to add too much context here because I'm going to have to answer a lot of similar questions. But it goes fast, right? And I think that's to your point. It seems like at the jump like four years, you make the decision of like I'm going to go to Marist or X school and you, you literally blink and you're graduating. Yeah, it goes that fast. And I think you're right, like being able to, not because I, I don't think I would not consider myself ungrateful either, but to like legitimately appreciate those moments and the time that you spend there, which I think you get a little nostalgic about as we're talking about the green and some of those things. And there's still things we were texting the other day about a certain member of our team that would not be good with, I don't even know what it was. But social media, when tours would be going by, things would get shouted out, which, you know, it's stupid things like that that are just, you know, you remember those stupid things and you kind of think it's going to go on forever and it doesn't, there's going to be, it's a finite time. Right. And I think that as, as coaches, we, we forget those things when we are coaching sometimes because you're going to continually be able to do these things for a pretty long time where your student athletes are only going to have four or now five years to do this. Where there is kind of a hard end date for the overwhelming majority of people who are going to go play college sports.
• 22:51
  Speaker B: I, I think the other Thing that I would tell myself, and I've kind of changed the question a little bit. Like, the other thing I would go back and I would tell myself is don't, don't take it so serious. And I mean that like the best way possible. Like, because I think there's a difference between having pride in what you do and doing the things that you need to do to try to get the best out of yourself. But I think that there's a, I think it's a skill to not take it too serious and not take it so heavily all the time. Right. Like being able to switch it off a little bit and maybe enjoy some of the other things that I may have said no to a little bit. Maybe say yes a couple more times. I think for me personally that would have been good for me. I think a lot of times as a player, my answer to what you're struggling is like, well, just go do more. And sometimes just not taking it so serious. It doesn't mean that you don't try. Like, I think one of the, one of my tools that was worth it. That was worth the, was that I was tough and I showed up and I played through pain and I, all that kind of stuff. Like, it doesn't mean don't do that, but like laugh at yourself a little bit more. Like, just don't take it quite as serious. And I think I might have gotten a little bit more out of myself. I think I might have showed up as a little bit of a better teammate if I could have done that. Sure.
• 24:23
  Speaker A: I, I think, I think I understand what you're trying to say. Like, you're trying to like, almost like the break. You, you, you need an, an outlet. Yeah. Outside of the game.
• 24:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 24:36
  Speaker A: And I think that that's, and I think we can both agree that there's plenty of outlets at any school you're going to go to that you can find. But I think sometimes you can get super caught up in. Let's unpack this for a second. Right. So I'm thinking about this as like my own personal experience that we'll talk about eventually. But like things that you thought as coaches when you coached you, you thought you, you know, you probably were trying to coach into your players some of the things that you had right. Or you thought you, you wanted more out of. And I, I, I think what I'm trying to drive out here is like, you play, you're coming off a blown out knee. I know you played with a broken foot for a good portion of a season. Where you didn't miss a game and just the regular just bang up injuries you get over the course of the year, right? Like, there's a level of toughness there that you, you're going to push through all of those things, right? And I think that it's, it's. I'm not saying this to pump you up because you're my business partner and one of my best friends in this entire world, but when you do those things, and I think there's a lot of kids who, who are willing to push through those, those injuries and, and that mental barrier of like, this hurts, but I, I can still get out there and do this. But there, there needs to be an off switch at some point, right? Like, and it's not, not to say you stop, but like, you do need to take a step away at times. And I think, you know, with what. I think what I'm trying to drive at here is like, when I started to. Realized that as I got older in coaching, that being that guy who wanted to constantly be on the field and fight through injuries and do those things, like, they need a break, they. We forget what it's like to be a student athlete as coaches, and I think that's why we, why we did what we did, why you did what
• 26:49
  Speaker B: you did in college.
• 26:51
  Speaker A: I think it's also a kind of the environment we were in, right? Like the, the people that we were surrounded by, the people that we played for. But I think it's easy in those instances, especially when you're a student athlete, to get lost. And that's probably not the right word to use in this scenario, but to get caught up in that mindset of like, yeah, I'm hurt, but I'm going to push through and do it and I'm going to. I can. I have to take care of my body. I have to take care of this. And like, you, you forget that you do need it. Off switch. Because even if you are, even if you aren't doing anything, right, even if we're sitting in 23 Fairview hanging out, watching, playing video games and whatever, we're still talking baseball. We're still doing this. We're still doing this because this is. My body needs this. Instead of like, hey, you know, like, why don't we go out to dinner and just get out of here and go hang out with a couple other guys instead of. You know what I mean? Does that make sense?
• 27:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think it's gonna make
• 27:58
  Speaker A: sense to people who are listening to this. But does that make sense?
• 28:00
  Speaker B: I think, like, when I think about it, if I could have taken, like, a power from one of the guys that we played with, I would have taken Moose's ability to show up on game day in practice and be a really, really good player. Like, he. It just seemed like nothing ever. Like, Moose never, ever took himself too seriously with stuff and, like, was always able to separate baseball from the other part. And I think that was, like a superpower for him because he cared so much when it mattered, but he was able to, like, kind of wash it. As soon as the game was over, he was able to wash it, and I think it was like a superpower for him. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to ask Moose that question next time I see him is like, you know, what was that like for you? Because sometimes it could come off as, like, a little bit aloof, but, like, you know as well as I do, like, one, he's was a absolutely fantastic player, but, like, he just had a unique ability to, like, compete and play hard and be super tough and care about it. But, like, as soon as. As soon as the uniform came off, it was like, all right, I'm. We're doing something else. And I felt like that. That elevated his ability to be a really good player for those reasons.
• 29:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think that it's. I mean, Feeney was the same way.
• 29:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, right.
• 29:24
  Speaker A: Like, two dudes who. Who played quite a bit. I mean, Moose, I think, is second all time average at Marist. I think Feeney is top 10.
• 29:40
  Speaker B: They could hit.
• 29:41
  Speaker A: They could really, really play that. Moose patrolled center. Feeney played third, you know, but they were dudes who, when the uniform came off, it was like, all right, let's go be college students. And not like, not in a bad way, like, make no bones about it, like, not in a bad way, but, like, they were able to do that when I think, you know, other people weren't necessarily capable of being able to flip that switch off. And I think that's in part why they were as good as they were. Yeah, they were able to have. They struck that balance. That. That's probably the. The best word to.
• 30:14
  Speaker B: To.
• 30:14
  Speaker A: To use there. Like, they struck the balance of, like, yeah, I can. I can shut it off and. And have other interests and do other things that I. I want to do while also still being able to compete and play baseball at a high level. And, you know, some of the rest of us were just, you know, I think maybe intrinsically, you knew, like, maybe we weren't as good, so we needed to do more. And maybe in that situation it wasn't the right thing. I don't know. That was it. That was a deep conversation there. Yeah, I know. I think, like, and it, you know, the other side of it is like the games change so much and strategies have changed from a coaching standpoint and things are, you know, we're a lot more data driven and, you know, there's a lot more we never talked about. I mean, I shouldn't say never because that's probably not true. But, you know, we didn't really talk about sleep and nutrition and all of that stuff when we were in college. Right. Like in the early 2000s, it was just like, hey, like, this is what it is. Here you go. Like, we're gonna get in the weight room quite a bit. We're gonna get after it there, you know, but it wasn't, it wasn't hammered on like it is now. It was like hydrate, you know, being hydrated.
• 31:24
  Speaker B: And the only time anybody cared about us being hydrated is when we were down at LSU and it was like 100 freaking 10. And you had a mandatory 64 ounces of Gatorade that you had to drink before you went to bed. And people, Tris, came around and checked to make sure that everybody's Gatorade bottles were empty. Yes, yes. That was the only time nutrition came into play. Right. So.
• 31:45
  Speaker A: And it's changed now where, like, we didn't. That stuff wasn't talked about where, you know, I think it's interesting because there's a lot of things that these players nowadays, and it's morphed with the game, have access to that you and I never had access to. And we've either taught ourselves or are still learning about it because it's ever evolving. But what do you wish you had access to as a player that didn't exist back in the early 2000s? If you're the parent of a high school baseball player with college aspirations, you already know the recruiting process can feel overwhelming. Endless showcases, non stop emails, and big promises with very little clarity. That's why we recommend Diamond College Showcase Camps, the nation's premier academic baseball showcase. At Diamond College Showcases, every college coach in attendance is there with a purpose to coach, instruct, evaluate and recruit. Every player is seen, every player is engaged, and every family leaves with a clear understanding of where they truly stand. This is not a mass camp. College coaches run the drills, evaluate every athlete and provide honest professional feedback that you can trust. Diamond College Showcase Camps are built for serious student athletes who value Both baseball and academics. If you're looking for transparency, clarity, and a recruiting experience that respects your time and your players future, Diamond College Showcase is the place to be. To learn more, visit Diamond College showcase dot com.
• 33:15
  Speaker B: I think the one that sticks out to me is like the mental, like the mental skill stuff. I think that, not like a psychiatrist, but like the mental skills that are taught, right, the, the, the breathing techniques and like kind of how to get yourself back to center. I think I would have benefited immensely from that. I think that was. I think if I had those type of tools at my disposal, I think my career would have had fewer valleys just from being able to not let a, you know, an O for nine stretch turn into an O for 12 stretch. And like, those tools I think are something that, that kids now. Like, if you're a college athlete now and you're not taking advantage of some of that type of stuff, like, I think you're crazy. It doesn't mean that you're, that you're like mentally weak. Like, if you learn a good breathing technique just to prepare yourself in the on deck circle or you have a mechanism to get yourself back to center when the umpire balls, you know, calls a strike on the inner half, that isn't a strike. And now you're down. Oh, two. Like those are the type of things that I think can like really be impactful in the game of baseball is like just a little preparation stuff that I, I wish I had that the new, more dialed into nutrition. I think, you know, I was probably fortunate that like, I could kind of just eat whatever I wanted when I was in college because we worked out so much. But I would have, I think now knowing how much that can move the needle for kids, I think that I would have loved to have been a little bit more dialed in and had more information at hand and had somebody say, hey, like, this is what your intake should look like. This is what your, you know, a day of eating should look like for you versus, like, I'm gonna go get a large coffee and two bacon, egg and cheeses because we're gonna lift for the next 90 minutes and we'll see how that goes. So I think those are the two things that, two things that stick out to me. But the mental, the mental coach, the mental preparation part, like that is the one for sure, 100%. Yeah.
• 35:37
  Speaker A: I think that was, I don't want to say it was in its infancy when we were in college, but it definitely exploded in the last 10 to 15 years. That was not.
• 35:51
  Speaker B: And I Don't know if it would have stuck back then, though, because there was such a stigma. There was a stigma that, like, if you. If you can't handle the inevitable failures of baseball, then you're just soft like that. And like, that was kind of the, you know, and I always prevailing thought, yeah, and I always would, like, hang my hat on the fact that, like, I was tough, like you mentioned, you know, like, playing through some injuries. Like, I remember sitting in the dugout at Delaware and Healy, I'd broken my foot the day before, so I didn't start the next day. He comes down to the bench and he goes, hey, can you. Can you take in a bat and just go out the shortstop and just catch a ball if it gets hit to you? I'm like, coach, I broke my foot. He's like, well, yeah. I go. I looked at Trish, I was like, are you gonna let me play? She's like, if you can deal with the pain, you can go and play. Like, I never. It was never that. It was like, the mental side of not letting that oh, for three turn into, you know, like over three with two punch outs and a pop out to the first baseman, you know, not letting that turn into, you know, a. A one for five the next day. They're like, how do you put the brakes on that stuff? And back when I just. I think back then, it, like, it wasn't one, I don't know, at least I didn't have any exposure to it, but two. I think in that day and age, it was like, just suck it up. Like, just be better. It's like, well, yeah, I would. Yeah, I would love that. Like, I'm not. I'm not trying to go over four, you know, but if the. Any kids are listening to it now, like, it is not a cop out. It is a tool in your tool belt. And if you have a way to center yourself just to be as consistent as you can mentally, you're. You're a fool not to take advantage of it.
• 37:48
  Speaker A: I think it's difficult. Like, we all know it's difficult. It's an incredibly hard thing to do. You know, I think that it's something that a lot of people have embraced over the course of the last couple years, because if it. Look, it might not be for everyone, right? And that, like, that's fine, but it might help 10 guys on your team, and if it helps 30% of your team, then it's worth it for what you're talking about and doing. Because I think that, you know, there Needs to be some semblance of, of, you know, and I think it helping coming from someone from the outside. Right. Where there's, you know, where the, the student athlete feels like there's no preconceived notions or judgment on them for what they think or how they go about things. And you know, being able to talk through things and say, you know, sometimes you might say some stuff, be like, yeah man, I say that and it just sat like I say it out loud and just sounds just dumb. Like, okay, like then why are you thinking it? Right. And just having that conversation might spur you to think differently. Like yeah, man, if you continually negative self talk yourself like that, eventually you're going to start believing it. Yeah.
• 38:57
  Speaker B: 100.
• 38:58
  Speaker A: And having. Just being able to have conversations like that can make it help kids make the jump that, you know, that they need in order to ultimately succeed in their careers.
• 39:12
  Speaker B: I think it's really cool that a lot of programs are like integrating this now. Yeah, no, it's kind of like what they do. Like I don't know how they do it, but I do know that it's, it, it's a part of how they build their program and help their kids be successful is that it's not just throw them to the wolves and let them figure it out. I think that's awesome.
• 39:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, I, I think that it's another tool that you can use. But also this shit is hard, man. Like, it's not to scare anyone away from this. Like baseball's hard in general, let alone trying to be a student athlete. Trying to go to class, trying to, you know, keep your grades up while traveling all over the place. You know, it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. It's not for the faint of heart. So, you know, and there's other stressors. You're going to have life stressors and family stressors and what's going on in school and baseball. I'm not playing. I'm not getting the burn I want. Like there's a lot going on there in young minds that, you know, sometimes just being able to talk that out and figure out ways where you can handle it a little bit better and figure out a way. Okay, we're, we're probably. It can help somebody. I mean, shoot. I think Tom Brady even had. Didn't he. Isn't there a famous story where he was at Michigan and worked with a mental coach? He was like, you get what he was. You treat your one rep like it's your Super Bowl. And he started taking like, perfect reps. And then he got five reps and then he got. And then it built all the way up until he became the starter. Then obviously we know the story from there, but, like, it all started with him sitting down, talking to a guy of like, you know, being super dejected and upset that he wasn't as good and only getting one. One rep of practice. And the guy was like, okay, let's treat it as your Super Bowl. And it started his meticulous planning moving forward. And you know, that story is, is told, but I mean, shoot, if it worked for him, I got to imagine he worked for some other people. Maybe not to the level that it did for him, but you get what I'm saying. Yeah. All right, next question. What do people think matters but ultimately does not matter about your college experience?
• 41:31
  Speaker B: Gear. Like, freaking gear. And the other one too. And this will be a little bit controversial and there'll be a lot of coaches out here who probably get all puffy about it. But like, facilities.
• 41:45
  Speaker A: Ooh, really?
• 41:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. Like, do you have a baseball field? Do you have a place to hit? Do you have a place where you can get big and strong? If you've got those things, you have what you need to do it. Right now, I would love to have all the fancy stuff. Like, I'm not saying that stuff doesn't have value, but I think people get caught up in the facilities and like, oh, well, they've got all this cutting edge gear. If you don't connect with that coach and that coach isn't going to get the best out of you, you can have all the gear and tech that you want. It doesn't matter.
• 42:17
  Speaker A: Fair.
• 42:18
  Speaker B: Now, if you're splitting hairs between Arkansas and Texas, like, yeah, you can worry about facilities, but the end of the day, like, people like, oh, you know, I thought the facilities here, they are better. Like, do you have a weight room where you can get, you can get stronger? Do you have a place where you can hit? If you're a position player, do you have a place where you can hit year round and do they have baseballs? Like, you don't need a lot more than that. And I know the tech and stuff's really important, but, like, fundamentally when you're talking about, like the physical development of a player, I think people get way too fixated on how nice the facilities are. And for me, that needs to be. Let me try to further clarify my statement. That needs to be much farther down the list of priorities then people have it in terms of where people put it up. On list often. Sure. I think if it's the. The people have to be first. You have to feel like that coach who's sitting across from you is going to give. Is going to get the best out of you. He's going to. And it doesn't mean be nice and tell you all the fuzzy wuzzy stuff that to make you feel good, like, you need to feel like that guy can get the best out of you. So the gear for me, like, if you commit to a place because they've got a Nike deal or an Adidas deal, like, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Like, you'll get gear, you know, like you'll get.
• 43:53
  Speaker A: I wore, I wore four different brands of shoes in my four years at Marist College.
• 44:00
  Speaker B: We went to an NCAA regional. We had a Russell top and Rawlings pants on. Like, it doesn't matter. Do you have, do you have uniforms?
• 44:08
  Speaker A: We had Nike cleatso and hats.
• 44:12
  Speaker B: Yeah. No, we didn't have Nike hats that year. We had Easton hats that year because they were left over from the previous year. We got. No, we did get Nike eventually. We did end up getting Nike hats. But I think that stuff just. It's cool, it's flashy, it's fun. But like, I see it on social media and I see like these programs posting about all their gear and it's like you were 19 and 36 last year. Like, who gives a. Like it just that stuff. Maybe it's because we didn't have all the flashy stuff, but like, for me, like, it just doesn't matter.
• 44:48
  Speaker A: I had a sick. I had a sick white helmet with red brim that I wore when we had. When we wore our whites and white hats. I will say that. Yeah, it didn't. I was a senior. It wasn't. It didn't move the needle for me to go to school. But I will say it was pretty sick.
• 45:04
  Speaker B: But if those two, for me, if those two things are really high up on your list, you're. You need to recalibrate. Like what really is important, right? If. If all things are created equal and then you get to. Facilities in one place is way better than the other. Okay. But if you love the coaching staff at one place, you feel really good about the opportunity to go in there and compete. It checks the boxes academically, it checks the boxes socially, it checks the boxes financially, and the other place has really nice facilities, but they don't check the. You don't really get along with the coach that well. Like your mate, your. Your priorities are in the wrong place. What else? Those are the two that jump off for me all the time. They're like, if you're a ball player, like, that stuff just shouldn't be the. It shouldn't be the driving factor in what you do.
• 46:08
  Speaker A: All right,
• 46:11
  Speaker B: what about the metal ruffles and feathers?
• 46:14
  Speaker A: What about the inverse of that question? What matters more than people think the people.
• 46:24
  Speaker B: Like that is for me, you're going
• 46:26
  Speaker A: to open and close with the people.
• 46:27
  Speaker B: I'm going to open and close.
• 46:29
  Speaker A: Big people guy.
• 46:30
  Speaker B: Big people guy. Yeah, People being in an environment that is going to challenge you, But I think you want to find a coach that is going to treat you fair, not nice. They're not your friend. You're not supposed to be your friend. You want them to treat you fair. You want them to hold you accountable. And if you can find coaches that you have a connection with that are going to provide those things, like, that's the secret sauce to having a. Being happy and, like, enjoying your time in a place. And I went through four coaches, right? We left that part out. I have four coaches.
• 47:20
  Speaker A: I was gonna bringing that up, but
• 47:22
  Speaker B: yeah, I had four coaches, right? And John Chef, who's head coach of Virginia Tech, recruited me, and he was gone, like, two days into my fall. He left to go to Louisiana Lafayette, which he. It earned a thousand times over with all the winning he had done. Jim Tyrell took over. He was the pitching coach at the time. And then he left to go to
• 47:46
  Speaker A: Florida Southern.
• 47:48
  Speaker B: No, he went to Old Dominion first. Oh, do you went to Florida. And then was head coach of Florida Southern. And then we had Coach Rakuya, who we had on the podcast. And then we had. We had Coach Healy, one of those guys. Like, I wish I had gotten a chance to play for Coach F, for obvious reasons. Like, that's the guy who gave me a chance to play college baseball. But each one of those guys, like, I learned different things from. I enjoyed playing for two of them a lot more than I enjoyed playing for one of them. But, like, those guys challenged me. They were fair and, like, that's all I could ever ask. And I don't know, maybe that's just how I was brought up and, like, kind of where I'm from, but, like, that's all I ever really wanted was, like, just fair, like, give me a chance to. To compete and be honest with me. And they were all of those things. So you got. You got that. And then this is a little bit harder to nail down because you don't get the information, but, like, the people you play with, like, dad moves the needle, like, so much. So much. You know, you and Eric and Moose and Sarge and Feeny and the whole list of guys, like, they're the guys who made it fun. Towler and Brack and Grower, like, everybody's personalities coming together. And like, the people who were a part of that program was such a huge piece fit for me. So, like, I think. I don't think people take that into consideration enough. I think we get fixated on the flashy stuff like we talked about, and I think the people is really, really important. And are you going to be in a setting that you're going to be happy? Because, like, you got to be happy with where you're at. If you're not happy with where you're at, you're never going to figure out how good of a ball player you can be because you're just. You're just not going to be able to kind of be there fully, you know, if every time you leave the field, you know, if half of your day you're in a place that you don't enjoy being, it eventually it's going to bleed into. Bleed into the baseball stuff. So, yeah, I think that.
• 50:07
  Speaker A: I mean, I think the people you play with is. Is huge.
• 50:11
  Speaker B: Right.
• 50:11
  Speaker A: Like you mentioned everyone, but, you know,
• 50:14
  Speaker B: in the list, I'm just texting with Kyle Meyer. He's at Wrigley Field right now.
• 50:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, Meyer and Kenny and Close and, you know, McDonough.
• 50:24
  Speaker B: Even the dudes that didn't get along with. I still look fondly back on those guys. Yeah, you don't get along with all your teammates. Like, that's the reality of it.
• 50:33
  Speaker A: But we all were trying to respect your teammates. You know, the. There's a lot of them. You know, I think it's interesting and I think that I don't. We can probably talk about this right now because it's. It's going to. I don't know if it's going to come up when you interview me, but I think since that was the last question I'm going to ask before we wrap this up. But I think it's interesting when we talk about the. The people, but then we both played for multiple coaches, so, like, how do you. What would your advice be to. How to deal with that? Right. Because it's gonna happen. I mean, you hope it doesn't happen, but the reality is, like, it's a business. And, you know, coaches, if they have a better opportunity to better their life and their Family's life. Like, they might go ahead and take that opportunity.
• 51:35
  Speaker B: Now. You're. You're absolutely right. And like, that's. It's one of the uncertainties with all this is.
• 51:42
  Speaker A: And I should say this before, before we get into it real quick, like, it's not just your head coach, the guy who recruited you, who's the hitting coach or the pitching coach, like, they might leave when you're there because they have an opportunity to be a head coach somewhere else. Or maybe they, you know, now they have the opportunity to go coach in a higher conference, whatever it might be. So not just the head coach.
• 52:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that is the uncertainty that is college baseball. And I think you can read the tea leaves a little bit. But I don't know if I have a good answer for that. I think my answer to that would be that I think the other side of it, like we talked about, like, you need to be happy about the other parts of it. I think that that matters because there is a chance that there's going to be some turnover. And maybe, maybe how I would answer that is that I think your expectations of what a coach is and who they should be, like, they're not your friend. And I think that in the recruiting process, that gets. Can get like a little fuzzy. And. But when you get to school and when you're there, like, you're. You don't have to love your coach for them to be good for you. Like, you need to recognize that their job is to coach that team. And really all you can ask for is that they're fair and respectful. Like, if a coach treats you like, that's not a good coach. But if a coach doesn't give you what you want and his decision is fair because you're not performing or you're not doing what is expected of you, that coach isn't a bad guy. The coach is doing his job. And there's a thick line in that conversation that I think is tough for some people to wrap their head around when they get to college. Is that. Could you hear like, oh, I, you know, I thought so. And so, you know, I just thought he was a hard ass. And it's like, well, you got written up three times in the dorm. You know, your era was 11 and a half. Like, did you think he was gonna play you? Yeah, yeah. So I'm kind of losing the plot here a little bit. But, like, you can only make a decision off of the information that you have in front of you. When you're talking about committing to A school. So I don't think it. I don't think it denigrates the need to really understand or get a good feel for what that coach is, what his principles are, how he coaches, what type of program you're walking into, because you have to operate under the assumption that that guy is going to be there. Unfortunately, they may not, but when you're going through the recruiting process, I think the best thing you can do is try to evaluate it in the moment of is this coach, is this staff, is this place the right fit for me? With all the information that I have at my disposal right now, is this the place that's the right fit for me? And I think that's the best you can do. I mean, shoot, I would have loved to have Coach Chef there for all four of my years, but he left. And I also got to play for two dudes that I have a wild amount of respect for, and one of them gave me my first coaching opportunity. So, like, coach has left. It opened the door for me to be impacted by two guys that I have a ton of respect for. So, yeah, I think.
• 55:33
  Speaker A: I think it's easier now, right. Where like, coaches leave, like, you can get a free pass in the transfer portal and you can just jump ship.
• 55:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. Where if you're not, take it with you. If Joe left, I don't think he was taking me. When Joe left to go to Alabama, I don't think he was. I don't think he had any thoughts of taking me with him.
• 55:53
  Speaker A: Me either. But like, we, you know, we're not comparing apples to apples here because we didn't have that luxury when that happened for us. Right. I think that you were like we had. There was a lot of uncertainty. I only played for two. I was recruited by Joe and then I. I played for. For Heels and I played for Joe my freshman year and then played for Heels my last three. And I think that you. You need to have an understanding of it's not the person that recruited you, but you are still going to have an opportunity every day to go out there and show that you are good enough as a baseball player and in conversations with them, understand where you're at in the depth chart, where you know how, what you need to do to get better, all of those things. And it doesn't mean that you're going to have warm and fuzzy conversations. I can promise you on this pre show and the conversation I had with heels today myself, you know, that you were getting told the truth, which I think as a player, you you have to respect, right? Like, it's. It's probably not something you're going to want to hear. And trust me, there are plenty of things that I was told, not from a negative standpoint, but we had plenty of conversations, him and I, just because of the nature of my position and, you know, his proximity to the pitchers and things like that, right? So, you know, we had plenty of conversations about things, and I learned more about baseball from him in three years than I think I had ever learned prior to that point of my life. And I grew as a player, right? Like, I don't think that I was, you know, I was never going to be a professional baseball player, but I got better and was able to have a really good career where he named me a captain my senior year. But I think that, like, you. You have to. It goes both ways, right? Like, you have to give them the opportunity if you want the opportunity yourself. If you're going to go in there, closed off to a new coach and, you know, you're probably going to put yourself in a position that, you know, maybe not be the most advantageous. You know, it doesn't mean that you go in and, you know, try to do everything and be somebody you're not. But, you know, you show up and do what you need to do and take the constructive criticism and turn that into something where you can, you know, ultimately end up hopefully helping your career. And I think it's tough, right? Like, there, you don't really know what's going to happen. You don't know who's going to get hired. You don't know anything about it. You know, so it's. It was the best decision I made. Not that I was ever thinking about leaving Marist when, When. When Joe left, but the best decision I ever made from a career standpoint, not only in college, but post. Post grad, was to stay and play for him, you know, So I think that it's. It can be scary in those situations and a lot of anxiety. But, you know, ultimately, I think if more people stuck those out, you know, obviously, if you want to leave, it's completely up to you to do so. I think you have a lot more agency in that process nowadays than you did 20 years ago, you know, But I would tell you from my experience, I think that it's. It's something that I am grateful that I stayed and never even. Never even thought to leave because. And I can. Like, truthfully, we had a lot of tough conversations, right? Like, we just did. And that was. It was good for me, you know, but like I said to him the other day, we were talking, we were talking and I was like, it's weird to me that, like, when I played for you 20 years ago, I saw you as, like this, I respected you as a coach, but, like, never thought of you as a friend. We're now, like, I call you for things and have thank you for things in my life that way, you know, when it hasn't been good because of what you were able to do for me 20 years ago. And we're closer to being, you know, right now. You know, we're friends. Like, we're, I'm 40, I have two kids. You know, he has two. It's, it's weird, right? Like, maintaining a relationship like that over so long. Like, you know, But I'm grateful for it. And I think if I had made a decision, a different decision 20 years ago, that it would, I wouldn't be sitting in this spot doing what I had done for, you know, 16 years of coaching college baseball and, you know, leaning on him for, you know, some of the things that I was, you know, fortunate to get. And make no bones about it, that guy helped me get my first two jobs in this, in this business, and I'll be forever indebted to him. So, you know, it's, I, like I said, I, I think it's something we should talk about just because it's, it's probably going to happen at some point in time that a, a coach at some point in time leaves. Like, but how do you handle that stuff?
• 1:00:55
  Speaker B: I mean, I, I, I can honestly say, like, I never thought about leaving for a second. It was, I think my thought was, like, my freshman year was a little bit different because the whole staff, besides Chef stayed. So he recruited me. So my mindset as a freshman was like, all right, well, if I want to play, like, I need to be better than the two juniors in the senior that I'm fighting against, all right, well, I was better than them. So they started me every day at third base. Then we get a new coach come in, and I had only played a little bit at shortstop, but, like, I was a shortstop. That's what I thought myself was. So, like, I went out to shortstop the first day and it was like, all right, well, we got a new coach. I had a decent freshman year. Like, I probably got a little bit of rope here, you know, probably thinks I'm decent, hitting the two hole, all that kind of stuff. Well, I got to prove to him that I belong out there all Right. Well, I did enough to start there. Had a little bit of, you know, a little bit of capital with Joe. And then when heels came in after three years of starting, I probably had a little bit of rope. But, like, I still needed to prove to him that I was supposed to be out on the field every day, day. And you Heels wasn't. He didn't care that I started, you know, 150 games prior. Like, are you the best player to play right now?
• 1:02:18
  Speaker A: Which is what it is.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker B: It's what it is. It's what it is.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker A: Well, thank you for joining our podcast.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker B: My pleasure.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker A: Really good time.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker B: I'm glad we were able to.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker A: You have a. You have a new fan. You have a new fan in the EMD world. We're going to be rooting for you in the spring
• 1:02:42
  Speaker B: now. This is good. I look forward to flipping the switch on you, turning the tables, if you will, next week.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, this is fun. I enjoyed this.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker A: Hopefully people got an insight into your life. I could be the next Barbara Walters. You never know.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker B: Who's Walter Cronkite?
• 1:03:08
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker B: Legend. But all right.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker A: The cookie crumbles. Bruce Almighty.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker B: Yes. I think it is good poll. Thank you. All right, well, thanks, everybody. Tune in next week. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.