Transcript
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Today on the Athlete One podcast 600 game winner Otterbein University baseball head coach, george Powell.
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And then you'll have a kid that's an elite player that might not skill set but plays the game pretty fundamentally and plays it right and will kind of associate his success on the field with somebody else that has a higher skill set.
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So they think that they can play at a higher level where they'll have everything they can handle at the Division III level on it.
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And those are the things that I think that kind of affects the recruit.
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That hurt us sometimes in the recruiting.
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As you said, turning the nose up is, I think, a good way to put it and they just don't understand how competitive it is.
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Here that's the first thing.
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We'll get an all-Ohio kid that just kind of slipped through the cracks and you know we'll meet with them.
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The first thing they say is I never realized it would be this competitive.
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Because you're still dealing with 22-year-old men.
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Welcome to the Athlete One podcast.
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Veteran high school baseball coach Ken Carpenter takes you into life's classroom as experienced through sports.
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Go behind the scenes with athletes and coaches as they share great stories, life lessons and ways to impact others and and.
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Episode 99 of the Athlete One podcast is powered by the Netting Professionals, improving programs one facility at a time.
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Before you settle in, I'd like to ask a huge favor.
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It helps us to grow the show.
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Now to my interview with 600-game winner Otterbein University baseball head coach, george Powell.
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Hello and welcome to the Athlete One podcast.
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I'm your host, ken Carpenter.
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Joining me today is Otterbein University head coach, george Powell.
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Coach, thanks for taking time to be on the show.
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Thanks, thanks, ken, for having me.
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I appreciate it.
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Well, it's April, it's foreign degrees and, I guess, typical baseball weather in Ohio.
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Yeah, I mean, I was just saying I'm just dealing with this weather this whole week, just trying to figure out practice schedules and all that stuff and trying to get on with you is kind of a challenge.
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But we're here.
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But yeah, it is.
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You always go through this in April, especially in Ohio.
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Well, you have a week to let us sink in your thoughts on getting win number 600, and you joined an elite group of coaches Don Chowdhury, brian Bruner, bob Fisher, herb Strayer and another Auburn coach, dick Fitchfall.
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Yeah, yeah, really, to reflect on it, you don't coach for the milestones, it's just something.
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I think that happens via a lot of reasons.
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I got a lot of well wishes on Twitter and just messages.
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Know, uh, twitter and um, you know, just messages, texts is that this was just unbelievable, um, and so you don't really realize what you do until you hit these things you hope you do and impact people the right way.
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Um, but just the well wishes was, was was really good, but just reflecting on it, it's, it's kind of surreal.
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I was, I was a coach, fish balls assistant.
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When he hit he had his 600th Um, and I don't, it was somebody purple, I don't know if it was Capitol or uh, mount Union, but um, you know, I just it's just surreal to me, like it's, like it's, you know, I can't believe it's.
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I still, you know, as you know, when you coach you and just doesn't feel like 25 years, yeah, and 600 wins, it's kind of unbelievable.
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And to be mentioned in those guys' status, I mean, those are, you know, I mean Don Challey's all-time winningest coach, I think maybe in baseball it's just incredible what he did.
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But just Bob Fisher was always good to me, having an opportunity to coach against all of them was something I thought when I was reflecting.
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I thought was pretty neat, you know, wow.
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But just Bob Fisher, herb Strayer, those are the shoulders that you know, us coaches now in the OAC, which is a great conference, those are the shoulders we're standing on and they're the ones that made this conference the best in Division III, you know, out of 385 or 86 teams, it's just the most competitive league and it's just an honor being named with those guys.
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It's nothing that you sign up for, it's something that you think you're going to get to or it's just something that happens via luck and being around a lot of really good people, having a lot of really good coaches, good players.
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Like I said, I can't emphasize enough good people.
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So it's been pretty, pretty cool just reflecting and getting messages and catching up and with people I haven't talked to.
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So that's the other good thing about milestones it reconnects you with people that you have good feelings for and that they have for you, and you kind of let those feelings go for years and then, when these things happen, you, you get to reconnect.
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So that's been the real nice thing for me well, I've known you for quite some time now and you know, I thought when I was doing my research I'm going to try to go a different route here.
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So I reached out to a current player that I had a chance to to coach and, uh, he's a pitcher for you, luke waller.
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Well, yeah, he said.
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I said because you know when I go.
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Well, yeah, he said I said because you know when I go to look at things I like.
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But I'm going to ask about this, ask about this.
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I thought what would a player like to hear?
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And he said to ask you about the team culture.
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And he says it's amazing that the great mindset you set with all the players yeah, I go ahead.
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So how did him go about calling that?
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Monique.
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I just think, being around a game, ken, like you have, I hope this thing doesn't keep people like this.
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I don't know how to turn it on, but, as you know, I mean I think the longer you go, you know what's good.
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You know, I've been very fortunate to coach a lot of really really good teams that really show you what good culture is all about, um, and it's really the leadership within the players, um, but you try to point them to the right direction.
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That's the one thing I would say.
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I coach more than ever now is just the mentality of the game and not letting it overwhelm you and being a good teammate and understanding how lucky you know these guys are to have an opportunity to play at this level With all the other crazy stuff that's going on in the world.
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It's, you know they have it pretty good and having them understand that I talk a lot about.
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You know what it is to, what you have to be to have success at this game Because, as you know, it's unforgiving, it's guaranteed failure, and it's how you handle those things that I think individually that allow you to collectively.
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If you can handle those things the right way, you can pick people up that are going through the same issues that happen in the game, whether it's a slump or you know you did everything right but you lined out and you have nothing to show for it.
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And that's what this game is trying to do is trying to overwhelm you mentally.
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And when you can get it together mentally from an individual standpoint, I think collectively, guys start feeding off of each other with it and picking each other up, and you know, when you get a bad strikeout, somebody comes up and picks you up, the next guy picks you up, and I think that's kind of.
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You know, what I probably preach, more than anything, is about who you are and I don't know.
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I talk a lot about the mentality that you have to have to have success in this game.
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I think part of that is being a good teammate.
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We don't, we, I don't have, we don't vote for captains and stuff, and I think that was something I did early in my earlier days, because I always thought to myself it's a tough sport to lead in when you're in an 0 for 13 slump and the game already put overwhelms with, you know, with with those type of negative things, outcomes that happen regularly in the in the game.
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So, um, and I don't want to restrict leadership, so in the years past I think that's part of it too.
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I think everybody feels invested, whether they play a lot or pitch a lot.
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I think a couple of our really good leaders in our pitching staff are two twin, the Conrad twins, that are seniors that really haven't had a lot of opportunities, and when I say many opportunities I'm saying maybe an inning here, an inning there in their whole career and they're seniors but they hold guys accountable and I think that's the thing that's special within our program is um, you know there's definitely a standard that that's been set long before.
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As you mentioned, coach, fish ball and and um, you know that's a standard of Otterbein baseball and you have to kind of get to try to get to that regular.
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But you need the right people, the right guys to do that.
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You can't do it with um.
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You know kids that are selfish, or you know it's or they.
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That's baseball is the blame game.
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You can blame anybody anytime it's the umpire's fault.
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The coach took the pitcher out, put another guy in they shouldn't put in shortstop, made three errors.
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Um, you know all that stuff.
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So when you get people away from those type of easy way outs, then I think you know you get them to focus on the right things and that's hopefully individually to grind for that individual success, so collectively for as a team, you know it benefits everybody.
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Well, you know.
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Welcome back to your career.
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You mentioned coach Fischball.
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How big a role did he have?
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And you know did your dad play a role in your approach to playing the game and now coaching baseball.
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You know, I think obviously I'll start with my dad.
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It makes it easier that way.
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But my dad just little things in the game.
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He was a guy that taught me how to handle things and when I didn't handle things he didn't let me off the hook.
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And I think that's the problem today sometimes with parenting when parents get involved, I think the negative side of it.
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I think parents' involvement is fine as long as they let the kids experience their experiences and not try to force the experience and within those experiences there's going to be negative outcomes, um, which is growth.
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So you want that, you want that, but sometimes parents don't.
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But my dad was just so influential in sports he thought athletics was a mechanism that will teach you about life.
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So, whether and I played growing up football, basketball, baseball, and I did it in high school at westville north a long time ago but uh, his attitude was just he, he, he that the athletics teaches you about life.
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So and he made a big point in that, and especially when we had, you know, tough losses as little kids and when I would cry when we'd lose, cause I hated losing, uh, as a little kid and um, you know, he would say that's, that's part of this.
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This is things that happen and little things in baseball that I still, you know, teach here and talk about all the time.
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And I'm happy now because we've been real successful this year is our two-strike approach.
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My dad, baseball-wise, was just a big guy choking up, moving to baseball and that was always something that stuck with me, even though I would be, you know, growing up in my high school and college career.
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I'd be a middle lineup guy, but it was always important for me to move to baseball.
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Now, from a coaching standpoint, um, dick Fishball meant, you know, I think they're they're both the most two influential men in my life, uh, mentors, you know, obviously my dad meant everything to me.
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He was a great, great father.
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I miss him dearly every day.
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Meant everything to me.
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He was a great great father.
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I miss him dearly every day, um, but Dick Fishball was just, uh, uh, who's, you know, he was just a technician, uh, on coaching and hitting, um, and how he laid things out and how he was so direct when he, when he coached he was, uh, you know, taught me a lot and that was.
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And then he taught me a good mentality as a coach, kind of be even keeled and see things for what they are and to understand that there's going to be some bad days in baseball and not to go too high or too low.
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So his consistent approach on how he did things, um, and very direct on how he coached, um, he, he was, and he was a technician, he was a, you know, back in, you know, you go into the eighties and nineties and if you want to go into the seventies, he was a guy that all the you know baseball people wanted to have come talk about hitting uh to their team or whether it was, and he was a great man for me.
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He was always supportive of me.
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So, um, it's two, two huge influences on me.
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Mike Florac I coach with just for one year.
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He taught me a lot up when I was up at Youngstown state after my experience with coach fishball.
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Um, he taught me just in one year just about how, again, to be direct and be precise and decisive on making decisions, and I know I can go back on Roger Engel's plan for him at Ohio Wesleyan.
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He was the same way.
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He taught me a little bit about culture.
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If I look back at it now, he would galvanize the team, especially when things would go sideways.
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How he would galvanize the team, especially when things would go sideways.
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But Dick Fishball and Ed Powell were.
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You know, ed Powell was as good a father as anybody could have and Dick Fishball is as good a mentor, and even more than that, to me, you know he was just like a second father to me, but just hugely important to me.
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When you look back at Jake Ferrer, what are some of the absolutes a player must have to?
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play at Irvine.
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Success.
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The absolutes is, I think, to have the passion to play.
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I think that's the thing that everybody likes, the idea of going and playing, and I think that's what happens because it's.
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You know, it's still a step up and you hear a lot of times, like I said, come and watch an OAC baseball game, come and watch Baldwin, wallace or us or Heidelberg or these teams.
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I mean it's good baseball in this conference, it's as good as it gets.
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All the teams in the country when we go down south want to play us because we're the, we're the conference.
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Better having two and three, you know, world Series teams.
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But the absolutes for players is that that passion.
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Obviously talent matters, but you know I would, you know, I've been, I've had really good luck with guys that were under recruited or not recruited at all and everybody in Division three is a walk on.
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But you know we've had some guys that we didn't recruit, that just showed up, that were all you know, all region players, academic, all Americans and just great contributors to our program.
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But I would say, going back to the absolutes, the passion, the work ethic, I think being who you are is hugely important.
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Like you were talking about culture earlier.
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I think the type of person you are, the selfless, you know person, and you know I used the line, the guy that used to be at University of Louisiana I think he's not there anymore, but one of the things he used to say is work while you wait and you know we talk a little bit about that, but just, I would say the absolutes is just having the really true joy to playing and if it's not baseball, the next thing is baseball.
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You know.
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So if it's studying, the next thing you're doing is probably going to be hitting or, you know, lifting, something that's going to help you become a better baseball player.
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You know, I would say that probably for me is just the passion and really, you know, have that love to play, discipline.
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I think you think within that that it's important to you.
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When you had a chance to experience being the assistant coach, talk about how important your certain coaches are, not only on this staff, but your staff as well.
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I've had a who's who.
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I mean it's just absolutely incredible.
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I mean, in my first recruiting class I had Brian Meyer who played and was on the 2003 OAC championship team.
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I'm the first one that I was able to coach.
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He came on as a graduate assistant to me after he was done and then his transformation in the coaching world has been pretty dynamic, where he went to Wright State, he went to Tulane for a while, went up to Butler and then got an opportunity to get into pro ball.
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We saw him down in Fort Myers.
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He was the manager of the year in the single A in the Florida League last summer and he's a single A coach now for the Fort Myers Muscles.
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But he's part of that lineage for me that I, you know I was able to coach um at Brink.
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Ambler came into my life.
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I don't know if you know Brink, but Brink came in um because his wife was, you know, doing a, getting a master's degree at Ohio state.
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He went to university, alabama.
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He did a lot of really good things from a hitting standpoint, um and and some of these guys did it for literally next to nothing.
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And now he's the I just talked to him about.
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He's another guy I just reconnected with.
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He was a AAA coach for the Tidewater Tides, the hitting coach, and now he's kind of going through all the organizations now but he's part of you know.
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He was in there for about three or four years for me in a couple championship years.
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Jordan Cairo, who everybody knows.
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Jordan has Christian played for me, jordan helped a couple years and did a lot of good things, brought a lot of things that Wright State did over.
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I'd be remiss with not saying John McCourt from a pitching standpoint, but probably the biggest influence that was a crossover with me and Coach Fishwell was debuting, who was with me and Coach Fish for a long time.
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That's kind of set up.
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We've always pitched it real well, set up our pitching at the end.
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But there's so many other guys now the current staff, colton Honston a really good job.
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I'm finally resourced and staffed the way we should be.
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Thank goodness from the support from our current AD, craig Glott, our current AD and Bill Fox, our VP of affairs, made that happen.
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So we were one of the last teams in OAC not to have a full-time assistant and you know, with carrying as many guys and not many now because of COVID's done, but like being in the mid-40s of guys and having two teams, I think that's you need that support with it.
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We've got two graduate assistants now.
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We're just staffed the right way to where we can develop guys.
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In the past it was just kind of touch and go, just because guys were doing it for nothing.
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He helps out Tom Ryan with our pitchers.
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Now His grandfather is Jack Ryan, one of the all-time greats in Central Ohio.
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So there's plenty of other guys that I'm proud of.
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I know I'm leaving out, like Aaron Hutchinson, bobby Wright I mean there's so many guys that have made this program what it is and have allowed me to have the success that I've had as a coach with it.
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But just, I could go on and on.
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But there's, you know, the Dave Ewing's, john LaCourte's, the Joe Wilkins I forgot the list of him.
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He's been huge.
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Joe Wilkins from Norwalk, not from Columbus, not from Scioto.
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The guy we got another Joe Wilkins who's done has a huge influence on our program and pitching development and just a lot of things we have in place there program and pitching development and just a lot of things we have in place.
00:20:15.092 --> 00:20:21.865
There's just been so many hands involved and it had to be, because you know there was nothing really here holding them, so you had to take the help.
00:20:22.942 --> 00:20:34.673
As you know, as a coach there's nothing better than good assistant coaches that you can rely on, that you know stuff's getting done when it needs to get done, that you can't always be there for Especially now, and you know my role a lot of times I find myself doing.
00:20:34.673 --> 00:20:43.240
Mike Florek told me this young sound state when I would come into work I'm sorry I'm carrying on, but I would come into work and I'd go through my recruiting pile and I'd buy pitching.
00:20:43.240 --> 00:20:48.107
You know what we're going to do for and everything was just, you know, it was just pretty class discipline issues and whatever that's going on.
00:20:48.107 --> 00:20:54.553
That's coming down from.
00:20:54.553 --> 00:21:00.576
Ironically, at that same time, jim Trestle was the uh, um, athletic director at Youngstown state when I was here.
00:21:00.576 --> 00:21:20.260
But he's dealing with all this stuff and I remember him saying you know he watched me one day do all my things and get everything in order and stuff and he hadn't even really got started on the things he wanted to and he said my chair that might as about one fifth about coaching baseball and, um, he goes.
00:21:20.280 --> 00:21:23.791
Just realize, as an assistant coach, you get to do the fun stuff, you get to do the coaching and all that.
00:21:23.791 --> 00:21:28.603
So, um, but you need, you need, you absolutely need, uh, um, and I from that he's, he's totally right.
00:21:28.603 --> 00:21:37.736
So there's just a lot of things now that I'm coming in after I get done here I'm reconciling bills and you know where we fed the guys and just little things that you know go under.
00:21:37.736 --> 00:21:40.359
You know that you have to do now that are different.
00:21:40.359 --> 00:22:01.209
There's just a lot of things to manage to now that you know in the earlier days you didn't have, but regardless you need to have great assistant coaches and I've been really fortunate to have them, I think I hope I didn't miss any of them because they've all been, you know, they've all been hugely important to to what we've done and what we do well over the past 25 years.
00:22:01.549 --> 00:22:03.296
How much do you think the game has changed?
00:22:03.296 --> 00:22:04.539
Is it is the recruiting?
00:22:04.539 --> 00:22:08.028
Definitely there's a plug yeah, I mean obviously.
00:22:08.087 --> 00:22:09.411
I mean I go back to the point.
00:22:09.411 --> 00:22:19.519
I was like kind of pre I would come in and call from the office phone from like seven to 10, from like Sunday night to Thursday, and send out mass mail, or saw the colleges and stuff with social media.
00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:25.259
Now it's there's times where I mean I, I, I text with guys and it's kind of crazy it's.
00:22:25.259 --> 00:22:35.875
You know, sometimes you don't know, you don't know what somebody's voice sounds like until you get them on campus for a visit voice sounds like until you get them on campus for a visit.
00:22:35.875 --> 00:22:40.760
So, um, uh, but uh, no, it's, that's.
00:22:40.760 --> 00:22:41.484
The recruiting for sure has changed.
00:22:41.484 --> 00:22:42.470
The game's changed because of how everything is.
00:22:42.470 --> 00:22:54.450
Obviously it comes down from major league baseball trickles from division one to us and we got the times stuff now for pitches and um, you know just everything else launch angles and the hitting and uh and just the other stuff.
00:22:54.450 --> 00:23:02.433
You know, with driveline, and I think we were doing that stuff before before, that stuff, but drivelines kind of came in and branded stuff from a pitching hitting.
00:23:02.433 --> 00:23:06.624
Oh, you know, and what the body was really doing when we thought it was.
00:23:06.624 --> 00:23:13.432
You know, when we had the VHS, when we were taping hitters at the most important point, at contact or when they were throwing the ball.
00:23:13.432 --> 00:23:15.836
It was nothing but a big blur so you couldn't really see.
00:23:15.836 --> 00:23:22.285
But when super slow-mo came in, that kind of changed the game and we kind of understood what the great players were doing and that's what we tried to do.
00:23:22.285 --> 00:23:38.131
I know, with Dave Ewing and with the pitchers and John LaCourte and Joe Wilkins here, what we did with the hitters and Jordan, cairo and Brank and the guys that I mentioned, I think Brian Meyer in the earlier days, you know you were able to kind of see.
00:23:38.131 --> 00:23:40.729
So it kind of changed what you taught.
00:23:40.729 --> 00:23:44.951
I think we would teach a little bit different than what Coach Fishball taught in hitting.
00:23:45.580 --> 00:24:05.201
I would love for him to be around this now just to hear him talk about it, because he had a strong opinion on how you swing a bat and I'd love to hear his thoughts on it, on that same question, with the launch angles and all that stuff, and I think there's so much stuff out there, it gets it gets kind of tangled up and, um, confusing for guys.
00:24:05.201 --> 00:24:07.988
So I think the game is is sometimes over complicated.
00:24:07.988 --> 00:24:10.722
We over complicate it now than we might have before.
00:24:10.722 --> 00:24:20.505
Um, you know in terms of doing things, but you still have to do the things to win that the game requires you to do, and that's you know limiting free bases, throwing strikes uh.
00:24:20.505 --> 00:24:23.531
Making routine plays defensively, um.
00:24:23.531 --> 00:24:24.232
You know.
00:24:24.232 --> 00:24:25.942
Limiting strikeouts.
00:24:25.942 --> 00:24:29.711
Getting on base the other way, um and uh.
00:24:29.711 --> 00:24:32.505
Getting in plus counts offensively, and um.
00:24:32.505 --> 00:24:34.330
You know the bunt game and doing the little things.
00:24:34.330 --> 00:24:41.250
The game dictates a lot of times what you have to do, and being consistent at it is probably the main thing.
00:24:41.250 --> 00:24:52.268
But I would say that you know the bat flipping and all that other garbage that goes on now, which you know again stems from the big leagues and stuff you know.
00:24:52.268 --> 00:24:54.003
That I don't think has any part of it.
00:24:54.003 --> 00:24:59.742
It just it eventually hits us and hits our players, and it goes down to high school for that matter.
00:25:00.825 --> 00:25:07.288
But the recruiting for sure, just because of the social media stuff, it's just easy to instant message guys, text, guys, get on it.
00:25:07.288 --> 00:25:11.387
You know, if you hear a name, somebody's looking to you know, I don't know.
00:25:11.387 --> 00:25:19.684
Somebody says somebody's interested, you can get on in five minutes, get on a computer and get video on them.
00:25:19.684 --> 00:25:23.280
You know, um, where in the past you used to have to wait for them and I just think there's so much stuff out there it's harder to get the.
00:25:23.280 --> 00:25:25.871
You know there's times where you can still do it.
00:25:25.871 --> 00:25:27.478
You know where you can we're.
00:25:27.478 --> 00:25:28.560
You know small college guys.
00:25:28.560 --> 00:25:31.611
You can go out there and get somebody that can should be playing at higher level.
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