Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged, a podcast that equips you, the listener, with strategies to elevate your coaching.
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You'll gain practical insights from some of the best coaches around the country that you can implement with your team.
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Today I'm your host, ken Carpenter, and on today's show, nick Pugh, head baseball coach at Jackson County High School in Georgia, and he's also the head coach of Prime 16U Travel and a Detroit Tigers scout team coach.
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He'll share how he changed to be a transformational coach, how culture separates the good teams from the rest, and you won't believe what he does in one day to be a coach and a teacher.
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Next, on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
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Welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken Carpenter, presented by Athlete One.
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Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for baseball coaches, with 27 years of high school baseball coaching under his belt, here to bring you the inside scoop on all things baseball, from game-winning strategies and pitching secrets to hitting drills and defensive drills.
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Discover how to build a winning mentality.
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Inspire your players and get them truly bought into your game philosophy Plus, get the latest insights on recruiting, coaching, leadership and crafting a team culture that champions productivity and success.
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Well, I'm going to go back to your first year as a coach.
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What would you tell that coach?
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uh, you know it's.
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I kind of tell myself this as I get older um, stay humble, um, you know it's.
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I kind of nick saban almost said it best um, you know, try to be more transformational.
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I know, early on in my days as a coach I was very transactional.
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It was very wins, losses and that's really all that mattered early on in my 20s.
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But as I got older I really started to focus more on becoming more of a transformational coach.
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You never lose.
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You learn and it's more about transforming the entire player, the entire person and the entire athlete.
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And it's amazing how many more wins than losses you get when you really focus more on that aspect of their life than just, you know, are they hitting these many home runs?
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Are they getting strikeouts?
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Are you getting wins?
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You know, if you're focusing on the transformation of a player, you're getting more wins, not only on the field but off the field as well.
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Sounds good stuff, like good stuff right there.
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I don't know how many coaches have been telling me that and it's just, it's the way to coach.
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And I was very much like you early on.
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When you know, every win mattered like it was the end of the world and every loss felt like the end of the world.
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I guess you could say oh, no doubt I tell people all the time, you know, I think I hate losing more than I like winning, but it's just one of those things that you know if you put your priorities where they're supposed to be and being transformational, you tend to be more on the good side than the bad side when it comes to those things.
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Yes.
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Well, how does the rich baseball culture that you guys have down there in Georgia influence the way you coach your team, because I'm sure baseball is pretty good where you're at.
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Oh, absolutely.
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You know it's back when I was in high school, which you know, not too long ago it you had two guys throwing 80 miles an hour.
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You were a pretty good team.
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You know 80 miles an hour kind of used to be the measuring stick for pitchers in high school here in the state of Georgia, especially in the Atlanta area.
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You throw a rock and you're going to hit a high school that has one to two guys that throw 90 miles an hour.
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It is just the game has changed tremendously.
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The arms in this game have changed tremendously.
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You see, all of these players from the metro Atlanta area, one to two hours outside of Atlanta, that are just incredible ballplayers.
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I think Georgia is up there with Texas, california, florida, just these elite states that just pour out all that, these major league baseball prospects.
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I mean I think you could look at every major league roster and you'd see a lot of players from those states.
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Georgia's no different, not just Atlanta, but you go down to South Georgia and they grow them different down there.
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So I think you know every region that you play in here in the state it is loaded with 90 plus arms, guys that hit a hundred off the bat.
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It's.
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It's not easy, for sure, but it's also kind of changed the way that you know we play the game.
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It's it's really gotten back and I kind of like how the game's kind of transitioning back to actual I guess you'd call it baseball.
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It's not just, you know, pound the ball over the fence and try to hit as many home runs, and you know we kind of got in a phase there for a little while where it was, well, how hard can you throw it, how hard can you hit it?
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And we're kind of getting back to.
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You know, it doesn't really matter how hard you throw a ball, for we tell our pitchers that all the time.
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But you know this game has really made us coach more, coach better, and it's really prepared our players for the next level because of the talent that they play in our state every day.
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Yeah, I look back on my coaching career.
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In 27 years I don't think I had one player touch 90.
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And it's crazy nowadays, I guess.
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Well, it's not only that.
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But you know, a 15- 16-year-old's arm is not built to throw 90 miles an hour, it's just not.
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It's not developed to that point.
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So you know, the weight room is becoming even more important, not just for getting stronger, but let's talk about injury prevention alone.
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Our guys are in there in the offseason you know my assistant coaches here at the high school do a phenomenal job of you know, from August to when we start playing, it's about, you know, not only getting stronger but just preventing those injuries because, kind of like in basketball, if you want to get better at free throws, you got to shoot free throws.
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If you want to throw harder, you have to throw hard.
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So you know, it's all about making sure our guys stay as healthy as possible, even with their changing bodies and the 90 miles an hour these days.
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It's all about what we can do to keep them healthy throughout the season.
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You know, since we're on the off season, work outside of the weight room.
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Is there anything else you guys do to keep your team engaged throughout the year?
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Yeah, you know, other than the weight room, and the Georgia has a strict four on one policy so we can only work with four players with one coach in one location, so we can do that all the way up until official practice starts.
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You know it's as I've gone along with being more of a transformational coach, I've learned just how much more important culture is, more than anything.
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You know we're the Panthers here at Jackson County, so we have these things called claws and a claw.
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Not many people know that a claw is actually a group of Panthers and you know our guys kind of have jumped onto that and you know they.
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It's all about team learning each other's names, you know, getting to know each other.
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As they, you know, move along in the offseason process.
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They're focusing on their grades, their nutrition.
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They have weight loss or weight gain goals.
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You know we talked about academics and obviously getting stronger and you know getting better on the baseball field as well.
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So not only do we focus on, you know, the nutrition and the weight training in the offseason, but our team and our culture is probably more important than anything that we do.
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You know I see teams all the time.
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In Georgia there was a series last year.
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I don't know how many times the more talented team wins, because the talent in this state has just stretched so far, but the teams with the best culture, the best teams, the ones that you know know each other the best.
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They tend to come out on top when it comes to you know know each other the best.
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They tend to come on, come out on top when it comes to you know state championships and winning those rings.
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Does that tie into from my research?
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I checked it's called Patton.
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I'm sorry, patton DePaul.
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Yeah, well, patton DePaul is.
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We have.
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We kind of started that this year with, you know, jackson County Athletics and our baseball program in general.
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You know Jackson County is growing so fast.
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I think it's like the fourth growing county in the entire nation.
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It's kind of like Atlanta, if you know anything about Atlanta.
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We have Gwinnett County that has grown so fast and Jackson County is kind of like Gwinnett County when it was first growing.
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You know we have 2,400 students at our school, which was originally built to be like a 3A school.
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We used to have 7A here in Georgia We've kind of scaled back to 6A.
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We might be the largest 5A school in the state.
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I'm not sure.
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It just continues to grow so fast.
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But the amount that we have, the amount of kids that we have, it just continues to grow so fast.
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But the amount that we have, the amount of kids that we have, it just continues to grow so much.
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But you know it's been crazy with that.
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We talked briefly about this before we started recording and you know, no coach no high school coach, I guess I should say gets into coaching for the money.
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And if you could explain what a travel day for you looks like to do what you do as a teacher and coach?
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Sure, you know my family.
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We live in Peachtree City, georgia, or Fayetteville, right out about south of Atlanta, about 20 minutes from the airport.
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I used to work at a high school there and I probably get up about 530, try to try to get over to the school, our school.
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We're supposed to be here at 730.
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So, driving through Atlanta, it's a good hour and a half to two hour drive in the morning, depending on what's happened on I-85 in Atlanta.
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Um, but, um, you know it's also a time for me to kind of, you know, get everything going, get get the brain rolling in the morning.
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Um, I like listening to plenty of podcasts, listening to a lot of baseball stuff, um, some sports radio, um, but you know, I, I tell people all the time, you know being here and being with Jackson County and the amount of things I get to do with USA Prime, it's absolutely been worth it.
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And kind of, like you said, you don't do this stuff for the money.
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You know, across the board, coaches are probably underpaid in every profession for the most part.
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Um, but uh, you know it's, it's when you go home in Atlanta, about three, 30 or five o'clock.
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That's the two, two and a half hour, three hour drive.
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Um, you know the the family takes a hit, uh, but you know it's it's, it's been worth it, uh, you know, having having the family that you know understands what a what a coach goes through, has been, you know, incredible.
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But you're absolutely right, it's not done for the money.
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But you know, when you get to see these kids the first group that I ever got to work with at USA Prime those kids signed their letters of intent this past week.
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So, you know, just getting to reach out to them, you know all the kids that I've had the pleasure of coaching in the past and get to see them sign and go on.
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I got to go to a player's wedding the other day.
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That's what it's about, ken.
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You can't put a price tag on that stuff.
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No doubt.
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What is something that you do as a coach or your team does, that other teams or coaches might not do?
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Oh gosh, I think every team is trying to find who they are, what they do, what they do well.
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Last year was my first year here, just trying to figure out what we were, what we do well, and that's why I think that culture piece is so important.
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I tell guys that are going into being first year coaches you know, the biggest thing that you can implement into a program is your culture.
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You know, again, you're going to have talent everywhere, especially in our state, in our area.
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You know we have the defending state championship, the defending state champions in our region.
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So you know, everybody's good, everybody has talent.
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What?
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What sets you apart?
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What?
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What about?
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Your culture is going to set you apart from everybody else?
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And everybody's culture might be different.
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We may do things, we may say things, our terminology may be a little bit different, but in the grand scheme of things and coaching, all sports, you know, we want to make these guys better husbands, better fathers, better community members, and we get to teach them life lessons through two white lines and you know I learned a lot of my life lessons through the game of baseball.
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It is probably the biggest game of failure or the biggest sport that you have to deal with failure.
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If you have to deal with failure, if you can't deal with failure in this sport, you're probably not going to last very long.
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You're going to fail seven out of 10 times, and that's pretty darn good.
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So you know, just implementing that culture piece we feel like is something that sets our program and our team apart Switching gears.
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You're also the head coach, which you just alluded to, of the 16U travel team, usa Prime.
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What do you do to make it a positive three-part question what do you do to make it a positive experience with your players?
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How do you work with their high school coaches?
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And the one question that comes up all the time in travel baseball how do you avoid overuse of pitcher's arms?
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Oh man, you know USA Prime.
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It's the national group.
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Actually, I got to know them probably about three years ago when I was at Sandy Creek and Mark Nellis and USA Prime gave me the wonderful opportunity to be one of their national coaches.
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I started out with the 15U group, who are now seniors, they're not babies anymore.
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In the last two years I've had the 16U group.
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The entire national scene is a little bit different, I guess, than your average um, your travel ball, which is kind of spread out all over the nation.
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Now I think there's a perfect game tournament every weekend somewhere, um, but you know, we, um, we, we, basically we play about five or six tournaments in the year.
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Um, we, we go to carry.
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There's, you know, five or six tournaments in the year.
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We go to carry.
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You got your WWBA, you got your Beast of the East, that type of stuff.
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The World Series, usa Prime, has been special to me just because of the relationships I've got to build with these guys that are going to get to see these guys at the next level, division I, baseball playing professionally.
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I was texting with five or six of them just this week about how proud I am of seeing their development from, you know, when they're 15 years old to 18 and they're going off to sign and you spoke about staying in touch with their high school coaches.
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I've got to.
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You know, follow them.
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You know talk a lot.
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You know every single one of these guys at this national scene are so special and they're Division I in everything.
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They're Division I in the classroom, they're Division I off the field, they're Division I in their preparation in the weight room and it's so clear and that's one thing that's great that I feel like I get to bring back to you know, the high school realm is these examples of these players that are their age, that can show you know, hey, this is what it looks like, this is the expectation, the standard.
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You know everybody's not built six foot four, 215 pounds.
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That's tough to teach sometimes.
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But you know, working with guys like that, you know with you know Mark Nellis, giving me the opportunity to work with these guys, you know, every summer it's been an absolute blessing and you know it's the thing that you know.
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I'm not sure from a baseball standpoint, how much you know more I can give them from a technical, mechanical standpoint.
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They're already so polished.
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But it goes back to the cultural standpoint and you know there's no difference in coaching these guys than coaching your high school team from a transformational standpoint.
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You know there's a 15-year-old that's 6'4", 215 pounds, but you sit there and have a conversation with him, he's 15.
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You can tell just talking to him.
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So you know they have lives.
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They have stuff going on in their life.
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I tend not to even talk too much with them about mechanics.
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You know we'll talk about the mental side of the game.
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You know, is there something going on that's going to?
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And I tell them all the time what's going to set you apart from that other 15-year-old that's committed to Florida, that other 16 year old that's committed to the University of Georgia, and it's that small stuff.
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You know there's scouts that go to games, that go to our games all the time.
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It's great if you can watch a kid go four for four and hit three bombs.
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But you know that scout wants to see what you do.
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When you hit a ground ball to second base, are you going to run it out as hard as you can?
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How do you, how do you treat your teammates on teams like this?
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You know I mean you're you're you're not as very similar as you know, going to double A ball, or when you go to an SEC school, you're not the big daddy anymore, You're not at your high school, everybody's just as good as you.
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So what is going to set you apart?
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And, um, I feel like you know, with Mark's help, you know me, being able to be around these guys for as long as I have.
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It's made me a better coach from the mental side, you know.
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Just, you know, getting in these guys' ear and you know helping what sets them apart.
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You know above, you know between their ears and above the shoulders that can, you know, elevate their game at the next level and when they go professional ball, best advice you would give to a player and their parents when they're deciding to decide what travel team to play for.
00:19:52.171 --> 00:19:55.257
Oh, man, a lot of trust.
00:19:55.257 --> 00:19:58.022
You know, trust, trust is key.
00:19:58.022 --> 00:20:02.280
I would venture to say, go, go watch them.
00:20:02.280 --> 00:20:07.294
Go watch them on the field, see how they treat their players, see how they talk to their players.
00:20:07.294 --> 00:20:11.974
Um, you know, spend some time researching what kind of tournaments they play in.
00:20:12.817 --> 00:20:16.451
Uh, cause, you know, I mean I can't tell you how many different types of travel.
00:20:16.451 --> 00:20:18.335
There's 3000 different.
00:20:18.335 --> 00:20:22.590
You know canes and a while there's so many different teams out there.
00:20:22.590 --> 00:20:44.238
Um, but you know, just just researching, you know your level, understanding, you know what's going to, you know, be the betterment of you as a player, as a young man, and you know doing your research calling the coaches, talking to the national directors if national is, you know a scene that you want to be at, that goes a long way.
00:20:44.238 --> 00:20:51.535
But you know, not only just talking with them but also having the visual of seeing them play, you can tell a lot about a program.
00:20:51.535 --> 00:20:59.459
But just watching how they play the game, how they communicate with each other, and you know you can tell a lot from that for sure.
00:20:59.851 --> 00:21:05.361
And you said that your team maybe plays five or six tournaments the whole summer.
00:21:06.784 --> 00:21:09.251
That's it, these guys.
00:21:09.251 --> 00:21:15.763
Not only do they have their area code, tryout Team USA, all those types of things.
00:21:15.763 --> 00:21:28.136
It often baffles my mind when I go and talk to some of my high school players about I think you alluded to earlier about the amount of pitches that guys throw in the summer or the.
00:21:28.136 --> 00:21:30.175
You know, I know with prime.
00:21:30.175 --> 00:21:34.556
You know we really don't like to go above 75 or 80 pitches with a guy.
00:21:34.556 --> 00:21:43.982
You know we tend to stay in constant contact with you know their high school coaches as well about the use of these guys in their arms.
00:21:43.982 --> 00:21:49.698
You know we really only do five or six and we do five or six of the best ones out there.
00:21:52.194 --> 00:21:57.618
You know if you go to Cary, that's the national tournament every year they invite the top travel teams in the nation.
00:21:57.618 --> 00:22:03.962
Wwba is kind of like the one where they have 5,000 teams all come to one area.
00:22:03.962 --> 00:22:12.660
I tell you what if you want to see travel in Atlanta, come during the WWBA time, that is, it's about three hours everywhere.
00:22:12.660 --> 00:22:17.441
But you know just those five or six are really enough for them.
00:22:17.441 --> 00:22:29.419
You know the scouts are really able to be in one general area for those five or six tournaments but they have area codes and all sorts of different things that they're doing during that time, so that that really kind of maxes them out.
00:22:31.152 --> 00:22:38.934
What do you tell a player that you know, since you're getting guys that are legit baseball players and they're going on to play college baseball?
00:22:38.934 --> 00:22:58.940
What do you tell players about the recruiting process and how the transfer portal is playing a big role for college coaches, because college coach can pick up a guy in the portal, versus trying to bring somebody in and and try to develop them oh, absolutely.
00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:05.898
Um, you know, recruiting has changed so much from from when the, the transfer portal, really kind of hit.
00:23:05.898 --> 00:23:07.942
You know I'm blessed.
00:23:07.942 --> 00:23:17.404
The guys that I get to work with at the national level, they're probably going to get a really good opportunity to go in play right away, if college is even for them.
00:23:17.404 --> 00:23:21.741
You know some of these guys are going to be top 10, top 20 round draft picks.
00:23:21.741 --> 00:23:26.790
So you know, I don't know if, you know, college is even going to be their route.
00:23:26.790 --> 00:23:32.703
But I would say and I tell guys all the time, kind of take baseball out of it.
00:23:32.703 --> 00:23:43.746
You know baseball is, it's a blessing, it's something that you get to do right now and a lot of you guys get to have a lot of your education paid for through the game of baseball.
00:23:44.412 --> 00:23:45.675
But baseball is not a guarantee.
00:23:45.675 --> 00:23:55.881
Baseball is a privilege and you know, wherever you decide to sign, you got to think about well, you still have to live there, whether it's a year, whether it's two years, sometimes four years.
00:23:55.881 --> 00:24:01.136
That's a place where you're going to live and grow up and go to school and learn a lot of your life lessons.
00:24:01.136 --> 00:24:05.684
So I encourage them always take the sport out of the equation.
00:24:05.684 --> 00:24:11.334
Take baseball out of the equation.
00:24:11.334 --> 00:24:12.419
Could you see yourself getting your degree?
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