Uncover The Secrets To A Successful 35 Year Baseball Coaching Career

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Athlete One, a podcast teaching experienced baseball coaches and players the key to performance success by exposing the secrets of those who have played and coached the game at the highest level.

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On today's show, you'll hear from Coach Randy Mazze, recently retired WVU head baseball coach, discussing what it took to turn around a baseball program that was on the verge of extinction.

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You'll also hear how important a supportive spouse is, as we are joined by his wife, amanda.

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And finally, you'll have to wait till the end to see how a tragic on-field baseball accident to their son is now benefiting families who need the help the most.

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You're locked in to Athlete One, a podcast for athletes and coaches coming to you from Dublin, Ohio, here to bring you expert advice, insightful conversations, conversations and powerful stories from guests who play or coach sports.

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Now veteran high school baseball coach and someone who has jumped out of perfectly good airplanes your host, Ken Carpenter.

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Hello and welcome to the Athlete One podcast.

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I'm your host, ken Carpenter, and joining me today.

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I'm excited to have the retired head coach of West Virginia University Baseball, randy Mazze, and a special guest to go with him, his wife, amanda Mazze.

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Guys, thanks for taking the time to be on the Athlete One.

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Yeah, you know, you actually gave me the option to have Amanda here with me or not, and I chose to have her with me.

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So good for both of us.

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He does love me.

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Thanks, Ken.

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Well, you know, when I first did this, I thought I've never had a coach with his wife on the podcast and you know, my wife was almost like an assistant coach when I came home at night.

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So I thought, with Amanda, with your sports background, I thought this is the perfect opportunity to get the two of you guys on.

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Yeah, it's.

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We've always had this unique relationship because he's always been the coach.

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I'm the TV sports reporter, so it's kind of a cliche that I'm the sports reporter that married the coach.

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But yeah, that's kind of like always been our unique little connection and I've always loved sports long before him, so it's been fun.

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It's a unique relationship and partnership, so I've really enjoyed it.

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You said, it's almost like having an assistant coach at home.

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She actually has been writing my lineups for the last 20 years.

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I don't know if people realize that.

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There you go Now you know, Now you know she gets all the credit for the wins and I take all the blame for the losses.

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Well, it's been, I think, a little bit over a month now, and you know I got to ask how's retirement treating the both of you.

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You know what, ken?

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I've never realized that you could live life stress-free for the most part.

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You know, it's been 35 years of coaching and every day you wake up you're just trying to compete and trying to find a way to be better than your opponent, and you don't realize what kind of lifestyle that is until you get out of it.

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And now the biggest stress in my life is, uh, you know, we're going to get enough rain for my tomatoes down in the garden, you know.

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And I wake up in the morning and there's a little bit of a sense of freedom.

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You know it's early, of course.

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It's only been a month and if you're going to miss part of the season as a coach, the recruiting in the summertime is probably the part you want to miss.

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So it's going really well so far.

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We'll see how it goes when the season starts and the games come along, and I'm not with the players every day and the staff every day in the office.

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All the stuff that I really enjoyed hasn't come around yet.

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So, but so far so good.

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How would you rate his retirement starting off?

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You know what?

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It's actually been pretty nice to have him home and doing things, cause I've typically the one that kind of runs the show at home.

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So I'm I'm the one doing the gardening and I'm doing all of this.

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So it has been nice.

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I will say he loves to cook.

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I hate to cook.

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Hate it, hate it, hate it.

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So he's in the kitchen cooking but he doesn't make it easy, like, if it's going to, if it's a recipe that calls for broth, he's going to make the broth homemade.

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So, like, everything is organic and from the beginning.

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So I've been telling our friends.

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It's like having a toddler in the kitchen.

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There's just stuff everywhere and it's a mess.

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And you're like, okay, this is great.

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But you're like, oh, this mess, but he's, he's enjoyed himself, it's nice to have them not stressed honestly.

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So it's again like he said, it's only been a month.

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Talk to me next month, I might be ready to kill him.

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There you go.

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Well, now that you've had some time to reflect on your career, what has it meant to you for 40 years to have such a huge effect on young baseball players' lives?

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You know, the relationships to me were always the best part.

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You know, I was never that guy that when.

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I died.

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I didn't want it to say on my tombstone how many games I won.

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You know I literally could care less about that.

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I know a lot of people are that way, but I'm not.

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When I retired I just wanted to have a network of friends and coaches that I have relationships with and you know, just yesterday I was sitting out on the back porch with a drink in my hand called Dan Fitzgerald from Kansas and Pete Hughes from Kansas State Friends of mine that I've built in this profession that I can still be friends with and I will leave with that, with great relationships with a lot of people and in the big scheme of things.

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like I said, I could care less what my record was, but the relationships with the former players and the coaches.

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I got a text from a former player literally right before we started this podcast.

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His son was born this morning and he sent me a text, gave me his name and his birth weight and all that.

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It's just stuff like that that when I reflect back, that I'm proud of what I accomplished off the field way more than on the field.

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That's the secret to coaching, in my opinion, because everybody I get on this podcast, all the coaches seem to get it and they talk about the importance of the relationships they have with their players and their assistant coaches and everybody associated with the program.

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And you know, amanda, you've been along for this ride.

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What has it meant to you to be every step of the way?

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It's been a blessing to see these guys kind of grow up before our eyes.

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I mean, when he and I first got together we're about 10 years apart, so I wasn't much older than some of these players and to watch them go from college to the real world and become fathers and dads, that's been really rewarding too.

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So you kind of have like this vested interest in their life beyond baseball and it's just been really incredible to be a part of a lot of those kids journeys through baseball, through adulthood and to see where they are now and they come back and we always tell them our house is always open, you're welcome back anytime.

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If you need us for anything, we're there for you.

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So we just have like this network of kind of like children out there all across the country, which is pretty special well, wvu baseball has changed forever under your leadership, coach um, talk about so I.

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I grew up up in Eastern Ohio and right across the river from Wheeling, and I know how the fan base can be in West Virginia.

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They're really passionate.

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But talk about how the whole state fell in love with your program.

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And the other side of it is is why should a college baseball player out there consider West Virginia as a place to play?

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Yeah, you know there's a real sense of pride too.

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When I retired that the difference in the program now compared to 12 years ago.

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I feel like the entire state right now has a program they can be proud of.

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I feel like the entire state right now has a program they can be proud of and most coaches don't get to retire when they feel that way A lot of times.

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I mean, the amount of retirements that are voluntary in our profession is way less than the forced ones as we know, than the forced ones as we know.

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But it's pretty cool to retire when you feel like you can be really, really proud of something.

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And you know West Virginia is a unique place.

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I know you know that and you know we played North Carolina in the Super Regional.

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In the state of North Carolina there are 19 or 20 Division I baseball schools.

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So in the state of North Carolina all the fans, their loyalties, are divided among those schools.

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Everybody I mean Duke and NC State and Wake Forest all have their own followings of fans.

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But in our state, as you know, there's only two Division I schools us and Marshall and they're pretty safe to say that we probably have 90% of the fan base in the state of West Virginia supporting the Mountaineers.

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So this really means a lot to a lot of people that this program is in a place right now that everybody can be proud of.

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So that gives me a sense of pride.

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In retirement I want to travel the state and stay connected with people and I feel like you know when I go speak at events regardless of what event I'm speaking at I always wear my uniform that says Mountaineers across the chest, and I do that because that uniform

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in itself, because of our state, makes people listen to what you have to say.

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You know, and we've done some great things here.

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I'm not naive enough to ever think that I did it by myself.

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This one beside me had a lot to do with it my staff, the players, the fans, the administration.

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It's a collaborative effort to get this program where it's at today, but really, really proud, when I did announce my retirement, that we left this bad boy in a pretty good place.

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Yep, without a doubt.

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Well, you know, the unique thing about this podcast is having, you know, the the wife of a coach on.

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I have had a ton of coaches on but I've never had a wife.

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And you know, I I talked to a coaching friend of mine.

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They made it to the state championship and played a great game, lost by one run.

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Parents were just very vocal and, knowing that the wife was right there in the middle of all of it and she was having to hear a lot of this, what would be the best advice that, if a coach is listening to this, he could share with his wife when she's having to attend games?

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You know it's pretty unique because I've had to sit in situations when we're at home obviously most people know that I'm his wife.

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And, like you said, mountaineer fans are passionate and there have been times where they've been yelling at him and I just know that's part of the territory.

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You know if.

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If fans want to criticize him because he sent a runner from third or called a bad pitch, like that's part of it, and I understand that.

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The thing that I never liked was if they got personal about him or me or us or our children, but even then I just sort of like, let it roll off my back.

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You kind of have to be like a duck with the water it just has to kind of like roll off because you can't engage as much as you want to.

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It just makes it worse.

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And I also stay off social media because people love you when they're winning and they hate you when they're losing.

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And even when you're winning, there are going to be people out there that if you win by 20 runs, why didn't you win by 21?

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I mean, there are always going to be detractors, no matter what you're doing.

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So I've just made it a real point to just not engage.

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And it's hard, I mean, sometimes it's hard because you want to turn around, especially at an away venue right, like that's where it's really bad because they're yelling and this and that, and yeah, it's just.

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You just have to have really thick skin and and not let them know who you are.

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Like I never wanted people to know who I was, because then they tend to like turn it up and not Well, that's the coach's wife, like let's really dig in and see if we can get a reaction.

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No, reaction is the best, but it's hard.

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I mean this is being a coach's wife at any level.

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It's not for the faint of heart.

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You have to have thick skin and you have to be tough and just, man, don't, don't wear your emotions, you know, and just wait to get back to the hotel and the car and then you can MF them all you want.

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Just don't do it to their face, don't let them know.

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Don't do it to their face, don't let them know.

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Of all the recruits Coach that you've recruited throughout the years, there's got to be one, I think, that stands out among all of them.

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And your son, you know, is uh weston.

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His uh, he's now committed to go to west virginia university and um, talk about I.

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I know how my experience was with my son being in the dugout, both as a player and as a bad boy when he was younger.

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Talk about that experience of having your son in the dugout with you throughout these years the fact that he has been in the dugout keeps me from having to teach him baseball, you know, first and foremost because he's around it every day and he watches JJ Weatherholt take ground balls and he watches guys like Darius Hill hit and kids are pretty sharp, you know, they pick up things from the kids around them.

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So for the first 12, 13 years of his life I literally didn't teach him baseball.

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I just wanted to let him go have fun and play and he's emulating people's stances and how they feel ground balls and fortunately he's around a lot of good players and he's developed a pretty good feel for the game.

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And he's developed a pretty good feel for the game.

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So now when he's in the dugout with me at his age, he'll actually we'll actually talk about the game and situations and he'll give me his input.

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He actually we were in a regional last year and there was a play at home plate in the regional and we were on defense and the umpire called the guy safe and he told me he said dad, that guy never touched home plate, he slid into the catcher's foot.

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You need to replay that call for a replay.

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So we called for a replay and the call got overturned because he paid such close attention to the game and I think that's uh.

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That really helps him as a player too, because physically, like most kids who are juniors in high school, he's undersized and understrength but he's got a pretty good feel for the game.

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So the other stuff will come.

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But I never wanted to be without him in the dugout.

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I always wanted to coach him at West Virginia, but I didn't want him to be coached by me.

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I thought that would have been too much pressure on him and I didn't want him after the game to go back to the apartment with the players.

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You know, as a coach, when you write the lineup, there's only nine guys on the team that are happy with you.

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When you write the lineup, there's only nine guys on the team that are happy with you.

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When you write the lineup the rest of them they would rather push you off the side of a cliff because they're not in the lineup.

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So they get back to the apartment and they're going to tell all their buddies what a what a jerk you are, and I just didn't want him to be around that and have to hear that.

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So I trust the coaches that are here to coach him that they're going to develop him and teach him and unselfishly, you know, I did not want to put that pressure on him to be coached by me.

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Well, let me ask you this With your son being a college recruit, commit to a Division I school as parents.

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How much do you really emphasize being prepared so when he first walks onto campus, he doesn't get hit with the oh my God, you know the weight room or whatever it is that really opens up the eyes of a freshman baseball player, regardless of how good they are?

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Yeah, you know he's in a unique situation, that he has practiced with us in the past and he lives with our team, so he's not going to get steamrolled with what happened your freshman year because he's been through it, but it's a real thing for a kid now.

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You know we've started a program called Summer Bridge where the incoming freshmen come to summer school and take one class and start lifting and practicing.

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So when that first semester starts and all 30,000 students come steamrolling into Morgantown at one time, our guys don't get overwhelmed.

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They've already been here for a month and have made the transition.

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But life as a freshman baseball player has changed here in the last two years too, because of the portal you know now.

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Uh, just like him, my son's a rising senior in high school he's an infielder.

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Uh, I think he's going to be a good player.

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I don't know that, but he could come here as a freshman and they could have signed two shortstops out of the portal the same year he gets here.

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So it's changed a lot.

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The high school kid that was committing to schools early on has changed.

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The landscape has changed.

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I have a lot of parents of kids my age that are kind of panicking right now that hey, we don't have a place.

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The last three years, you know, you've seen freshmen and sophomores in high school committing to schools and they changed the rules.

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You can't do that anymore.

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And now, with the portal, not as many high school kids are seeing the same opportunities as they have the past four or five years.

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And my message to them is just don't panic.

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If you're a good player, you'll find a good place.

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But the dynamic is definitely different than it used to be.

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Well, I heard an interview, I believe it was, with Nick Saban as he was coming toward his retirement.

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I heard an interview, I believe it was, with Nick Saban as he was coming toward his retirement and his wife played a role with the incoming freshmen.

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They would have them over to their house and things like that as the wife of the coach, but the parents that would come to of those incoming freshmen and she said that it's now all they were talking about was NIL money and he was.

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You know, coach Saban can be being a former Mountaineer himself as far as growing up in West Virginia.

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What would did you play any role like that with players throughout the years coming by, possibly to your place?

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Yeah.

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So my role in all of that was we would always have recruiting dinners at our house and meet the parents.

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We always wanted to make it a homey environment.

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When we got to West Virginia, we built a house, and when we built this house it wasn't just for our family, but it was for the baseball family as well.

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So we built our kitchen.

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It's like a nice big kitchen and so when we have meals catered and we have the team over or we have recruiting dinners, it flows.

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So we built this house, we wanted to make sure that we had the families over because you can get to know them better in your own home as opposed to going to a restaurant and you're sitting, you know tables and you don't really have a chance to interact with people.

00:22:46.652 --> 00:22:50.280
So we've always made it a family atmosphere here at West Virginia.

00:22:50.923 --> 00:22:51.083
And.

00:22:51.663 --> 00:22:59.230
I, you know, would get to know the parents, then you know, and they would ask me some questions, but they were more interested in the baseball side.

00:22:59.230 --> 00:23:03.689
But I always let it be known that if your kid needs anything, if you guys need anything, let us know.

00:23:03.689 --> 00:23:07.962
If you need, you know, the mom to come in and do some things.

00:23:07.962 --> 00:23:19.229
We've had some players who have had, you know, some life situations while they were here and I never wanted to, like, overstep my boundary because to me I'm like, well, I am just the wife, like I'm not a part of the staff or anything.

00:23:19.229 --> 00:23:23.546
But I always let it be known that if you need a mama, I'm here for you.

00:23:28.215 --> 00:23:36.144
And that seems like the consensus, because from my research a lot of the players talk about you coaches.

00:23:36.144 --> 00:23:42.951
You know you're not just a baseball coach, but you know in some ways a father figure.

00:23:43.714 --> 00:23:54.151
Yeah, you know I've always taken pride in the fact that you know we do a really good job of teaching guys the baseball skills that they need to be successful.

00:23:54.835 --> 00:23:58.286
You know how to steal second base or hit a curveball or field a backhand.

00:23:58.286 --> 00:24:01.945
But those skills, as you know, only last you for a couple of years.

00:24:01.945 --> 00:24:07.307
Very few people ever get to play this game beyond their 25th birthday.

00:24:07.307 --> 00:24:12.586
So spend all this time teaching them stuff they won't use that much the rest of their life.

00:24:12.586 --> 00:24:18.948
So I've taken a lot of pride in trying to teach them the skills that they will use the rest of their life.

00:24:18.948 --> 00:24:25.888
You know how to be a good husband and father and teammate and co-worker and all that stuff.

00:24:25.888 --> 00:24:33.348
So we really would make a conscious effort to go out of our way to teach those skills.

00:24:33.348 --> 00:24:46.175
And when they're done playing, that's the part that they appreciate the most the fact that we taught them how to be tough and overcome adversity, because everybody faces it, you know.

00:24:46.175 --> 00:24:53.328
So we would have meetings every week in our theater and wouldn't talk baseball at all.

00:24:53.328 --> 00:25:01.461
We would just talk life skills and trying to get guys in a good place mentally and prepare for the rest of their lives.

00:25:03.695 --> 00:25:08.166
Is that possibly what separates the really good, successful coaches from those who are?

00:25:08.166 --> 00:25:31.665
You know that either don't make it as a college coach or struggle, and you know, if you remove the talented players from the equation, is that, like the key you think for high school and college coaches to be able to get them to buy into what you're saying?

00:25:31.726 --> 00:25:38.000
as far as the family atmosphere, yeah, it's kind of weird If you think about it.

00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:47.268
What I deem as a successful coach is way different than what most people not in this profession deem as a successful coach.

00:25:47.268 --> 00:25:52.146
You know the fans out there and people not in this profession.

00:25:52.146 --> 00:25:53.901
They judge you on how many games you win.

00:25:53.901 --> 00:26:09.550
It's just what they do, and to me, a successful coach is one who does establish relationships with kids and teaches them life skills and ends up attending their weddings and getting to know their families.

00:26:10.556 --> 00:26:14.807
If you're inside the profession, that's what you feel is success.

00:26:14.807 --> 00:26:16.741
It's not the wins and losses.

00:26:16.741 --> 00:26:24.546
There are some that judge themselves on how many games they win, because it's the nature of the business.

00:26:24.546 --> 00:26:26.142
I'm just not one of those guys.

00:26:26.142 --> 00:26:28.042
I never wanted to be.

00:26:28.042 --> 00:26:44.023
If you can find a way to combine what I deem as a successful coach and what the fans deem as a successful coach, then you've got the perfect storm, and that's that's kind of how we ended here the last couple of years.

00:26:44.023 --> 00:26:50.086
On West Virginia, we won a regional this year, played in the super, last year we won the big 12.

00:26:50.086 --> 00:26:57.561
So all the people around the state of west virginia deem me as a successful coach based on that.

00:26:58.163 --> 00:27:12.046
but I I feel like I've been successful based on the relationships that I've built I've always told him, ken, and I've always told everybody that baseball is what he does, it's not who he is, and there's a difference with that.

00:27:12.046 --> 00:27:16.644
There are a lot of coaches baseball is what they do and it's who they are.

00:27:16.663 --> 00:27:17.365
You go to their house.

00:27:17.365 --> 00:27:18.661
They're watching Major League Baseball.

00:27:18.796 --> 00:27:21.721
It's baseball all the time and they have no hobbies outside of it.

00:27:21.721 --> 00:27:24.583
So and I couldn't honestly I couldn't be married to somebody like that.

00:27:24.583 --> 00:27:28.196
So I've always said he has that nice balance.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:36.414
So what are the hobbies that you guys do outside of for for your family, outside of baseball?

00:27:36.474 --> 00:27:43.542
My biggest hobby is going to be vacuuming and loading the dishwasher and laundry, so there's a lot of new hobbies on the horizon.

00:27:45.999 --> 00:27:50.920
I try to do all that stuff once and screw it up on purpose, so she never has to do it again.

00:27:50.980 --> 00:27:51.903
That's true, that's true.

00:27:53.154 --> 00:27:53.375
No, we're.

00:27:53.375 --> 00:27:54.619
We're huge outdoors people.

00:27:54.619 --> 00:27:56.928
That's why we love west virginia.

00:27:56.928 --> 00:27:59.496
It's the world's largest outdoor playground.

00:27:59.496 --> 00:28:04.806
We like to hike and camp and fish and and do stuff like that.

00:28:05.346 --> 00:28:08.176
Believe it or not, I've been spending a lot of time in my garden.

00:28:08.176 --> 00:28:09.438
It's so peaceful down there.

00:28:09.438 --> 00:28:11.000
Nobody yells at me.

00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:15.384
When I'm down in there I can just pick my cabbage at my own pace.

00:28:15.384 --> 00:28:20.790
I do like to do some woodworking stuff and get away from it.

00:28:33.454 --> 00:28:35.659
It's kind of weird, though, that I had a lot of hobbies before I met her and before we had kids.

00:28:35.659 --> 00:28:42.256
But when you have kids in my profession, you miss so much of what they do that I would feel guilty going and doing one of my hobbies and even taking more time away from my family.

00:28:42.256 --> 00:28:50.941
So for the last 15 years or so, the woodworking has been put to the side, and the hunting and fishing has been put to the side.

00:28:50.941 --> 00:28:56.411
Once the kids get out of the house we'll see how I feel, but it's kind of weird in retirement.

00:28:56.411 --> 00:29:14.238
I didn't know I was going to feel this way, but I retired and as soon as I retired, all my buddies would call me and say, okay, let's go here, let's go there, let's go, let's go trap fishing, let's do this, let's do that, and I'm like what?

00:29:14.238 --> 00:29:17.226
I'm retired to spend more time with my family.

00:29:17.226 --> 00:29:25.328
I immediately started feeling guilty that, well, I'm not gonna spend less time with my family in retirement.

00:29:25.328 --> 00:29:28.916
So I haven't figured that part out of it yet.

00:29:28.916 --> 00:29:31.501
But, uh, I'm still working on it.

00:29:31.501 --> 00:29:36.730
But I'm going to pick the hobbies back up, I think, and keep myself busy.

00:29:37.295 --> 00:29:46.221
You know, we started we talked about it before we got on the air we started our own podcast, amanda and I did, called Maisy Days, and we've enjoyed the heck out of that.

00:29:46.221 --> 00:29:50.926
You, as a professional podcaster, know that there's a lot that goes into it.

00:29:50.926 --> 00:29:55.480
But I want to stay connected with the people of west virginia and the program.

00:29:55.480 --> 00:30:04.704
I feel like, uh, we've kind of ingrained ourself in this community, in this state, and I by no means want that to go away.

00:30:04.704 --> 00:30:10.962
Uh, it was really nice that in my last year of coaching we had had a good year.

00:30:10.962 --> 00:30:11.545
That helps.

00:30:11.545 --> 00:30:20.674
So, yeah, I want to get out there and be visible and still meet people and get to know the people of West Virginia.

00:30:20.674 --> 00:30:23.044
That's kind of what we're passionate about.

00:30:25.497 --> 00:30:34.765
Well, the two of you have experienced travel ball, and from a parent's perspective and also from your college coach experience.

00:30:34.765 --> 00:30:47.048
There's so many good things about travel baseball, but there's also a lot of the negativity about travel baseball.

00:30:47.048 --> 00:30:54.605
What would you recommend, since you've been on both sides of it, to make travel baseball a better experience?

00:30:54.605 --> 00:30:56.622
And I'll start with you first, amanda.

00:30:57.875 --> 00:31:05.185
You know from, maybe from like the non-baseball side of it, which I know sounds weird, since we're talking about travel baseball.

00:31:05.185 --> 00:31:15.740
I think the one thing with travel ball that I don't like is I feel like it just takes up no matter what sport it is, it just takes up all the kids time, like kids just being kids anymore.

00:31:15.740 --> 00:31:25.192
It doesn't exist, like kids going to summer camp, and I like I think that has gotten lost in all of this and and our kids, they do the travel ball.

00:31:25.192 --> 00:31:34.205
But also, if we have an opportunity to do an amazing experience as a family, like, oh, we have an opportunity to go do something this weekend, we're gonna going to do it.

00:31:34.286 --> 00:31:46.208
You know, like one one weekend of him missing baseball is not going to like take them off the rails, and no coach should punish a child or a family if they want to do something like that, because that's important.

00:31:46.208 --> 00:31:48.957
The travel ball is just turned into a business for kids.

00:31:49.037 --> 00:31:49.978
Let the kids be kids.

00:31:49.978 --> 00:31:54.684
I mean, yeah, you got to do it and I know that's like the culture now, but I don't know.

00:31:54.684 --> 00:32:09.384
I just I wish it wasn't so intense in any sport, but some of these sports are year round, I'm like, but they're kids like, let's just go out in the yard and play kickball or cornhole after dinner, Like we value, you know, our family time because, of you know the uniqueness of his business.

00:32:09.483 --> 00:32:20.065
But, yeah, I just wish it wasn't so intense and so schedule driven and so much pressure from some of these coaches.

00:32:20.065 --> 00:32:30.800
And we now have friends and they're like, oh yeah, we can't do anything we have this, this and this tournament, and I'm like we just missed one of those tournaments you know but, but they feel like they can't because the coach is going to like punish their child and not play.

00:32:30.840 --> 00:32:33.166
You're paying all this money, so I don't know.

00:32:33.166 --> 00:32:37.365
I don't kind of like how it has turned into a business for kids.

00:32:37.365 --> 00:32:39.682
I mean down to eight nine-year-olds.

00:32:39.682 --> 00:32:40.826
I'm like they're eight and nine.

00:32:40.826 --> 00:32:46.337
They should be going to the pool every day and they can't go because then they have a game that night I'm like, well, I don't know.

00:32:46.337 --> 00:32:52.910
So that's kind of how I feel about it as far as like the mom side of it and maybe like the non-baseball side.

00:32:53.895 --> 00:32:56.441
I like travel baseball.

00:32:56.441 --> 00:32:59.705
I think it gets a bad rap.

00:32:59.705 --> 00:33:01.789
I think it needs some adjustment.

00:33:01.789 --> 00:33:07.386
I don't think people understand what the real purpose of travel baseball should be.

00:33:07.386 --> 00:33:13.968
It's simple to me, the goal of travel baseball is to develop the kids.

00:33:13.968 --> 00:33:16.202
It's not to win tournaments.

00:33:16.202 --> 00:33:26.075
It's not to go beat people 12 to nothing and go 5-0 and tell everybody that oh yeah, we put 72 players in division 1 baseball.

00:33:26.075 --> 00:33:32.285
The goal should be to develop the players, and I go to these travel tournaments all the time.

00:33:32.285 --> 00:33:39.186
One thing that drives me crazy is and my son was on some of these teams.

00:33:39.928 --> 00:33:59.183
You go to these tournaments and have 400 teams and you have two hour curfews and you get down to the last five minutes and the coaches are yelling at the kids because my son got yelled at for swinging at the first pitch in the last inning.

00:33:59.255 --> 00:34:12.083
There was like three minutes to go before the curfew was up and they had a one-run lead and all they had to do was continue batting for three minutes and the curfew would have came and they would have won the game.

00:34:12.083 --> 00:34:25.682
So my son swung at the first pitch to lead off the inning, hit the ball pretty good it was a deep fly ball took a great swing and got yelled at for swinging at the first pitch and we might have to play another inning.

00:34:25.682 --> 00:34:37.804
Now we might lose this game because you swung at the first pitch and there are a lot of coaches out there that care way too much about winning those games than they do about developing the players.

00:34:37.804 --> 00:34:47.166
You know, if you look at the way to develop athletes, the research says that you should practice three times for every game you play.

00:34:48.496 --> 00:34:50.603
Good luck finding that in travel baseball.

00:34:50.603 --> 00:34:59.184
There are literally no practices you just go play and the last game, my son played, for example.

00:34:59.514 --> 00:35:01.141
We just watched him this past weekend.

00:35:01.141 --> 00:35:16.440
He only got two at-bats because it was a four or five inning game, because the pace of the game was terrible, Pitchers were going slow, Kids weren't hustling on the field, so they only got two at-bats, got walked twice.

00:35:16.440 --> 00:35:19.045
He only swung the bat one time.

00:35:19.045 --> 00:35:22.860
The entire game he played shortstop and got no balls.

00:35:22.860 --> 00:35:29.137
So during that game he got to swing the bat once and never got to field a ground ball.

00:35:29.137 --> 00:35:36.965
Had we practiced that day he could have swung about 100 times and taken 50 ground balls and became a better player.

00:35:37.025 --> 00:35:37.445
That day.

00:35:38.135 --> 00:35:43.108
So kids miss the point of the value of practice and development.

00:35:43.108 --> 00:35:51.588
So, as a parent, your goal for travel ball should be is my son or daughter a better player?

00:35:51.588 --> 00:35:55.284
At the end of the summer than they were at the beginning of the summer.

00:35:55.284 --> 00:35:57.663
That, literally, should be the only goal.

00:35:58.976 --> 00:36:04.487
Winning becomes the most important thing when people's livelihoods are at stake.

00:36:04.487 --> 00:36:12.483
When you don't win, like ours at West Virginia If we don't win we don't have a job.

00:36:12.483 --> 00:36:17.246
But if a travel ball coach doesn't win, he'll still be a travel ball coach.

00:36:17.246 --> 00:36:25.505
So it's all about the development of the kids, and that's the piece that everybody seems to miss.

00:36:25.505 --> 00:36:40.572
And I love travel ball if it's done in a way where the goal should be to match your team up with teams that are going to give you equal competition.

00:36:40.572 --> 00:36:46.807
To go beat somebody 14-0, nobody got anything out of that.

00:36:46.807 --> 00:36:49.282
The kids that lost didn't have good experience.

00:36:49.974 --> 00:36:49.813
The kids that won didn't learn anything.

00:36:49.813 --> 00:36:53.025
The kids that lost didn't have good experience.

00:36:53.045 --> 00:36:55.534
The kids that won didn't learn anything.

00:36:55.534 --> 00:37:05.114
In an ideal scenario, you would get on a team that wins half their games and loses half their games, so you've learned how to win and you've learned how to lose, because you have to do both in this sport.

00:37:05.114 --> 00:37:13.463
So part of me wants to start my own organization and do it what I feel is the right way.

00:37:13.463 --> 00:37:28.097
But every time I think that way, it occurs to me that I'm retired now and I don't think I want to do that because it's a whole new lifestyle, you know.

00:37:28.097 --> 00:37:31.440
But yeah, I would like to.

00:37:31.440 --> 00:37:47.387
In my retirement, if anybody cares about my opinion on stuff like that, I would like to make a positive impact on travel ball and how people view it, because I like the concept but the execution sucks.

00:37:50.338 --> 00:37:51.755
Totally agree with what you said there.

00:37:51.755 --> 00:37:54.201
Totally agree with what you said there.

00:37:54.201 --> 00:37:59.815
Since you mentioned losing and winning, a question I ask every guest on the podcast.

00:37:59.815 --> 00:38:03.768
I would like both of you to answer hate losing or love winning?

00:38:05.034 --> 00:38:08.802
you know it's the the best players out there.

00:38:08.802 --> 00:38:10.625
I think hate losing.

00:38:10.625 --> 00:38:19.346
I I think that drives the Tom Brady's of the world and the GOATs, as people like to call them.

00:38:19.346 --> 00:38:22.204
But I guess I'm a little different.

00:38:22.204 --> 00:38:25.445
I may answer this question a lot differently than most people.

00:38:25.445 --> 00:38:31.307
I don't mind losing because I see it as a learning opportunity.

00:38:31.307 --> 00:38:36.686
I think you learn a lot more when you lose than you do when you win.

00:38:36.686 --> 00:38:43.728
So we've had some bad losses in my career here at West Virginia.

00:38:43.728 --> 00:38:51.001
I see those as unbelievable opportunities to teach kids that, hey, man, this is part of life.

00:38:51.001 --> 00:38:53.041
Life isn't going to be easy.

00:38:53.041 --> 00:39:03.746
I feel like I've done most of my coaching, or my best coaching, in the 24 hours after a bad loss than you do during any of the games.

00:39:03.746 --> 00:39:09.286
So to me, losing is learning and I view it that way.

00:39:09.286 --> 00:39:18.021
Obviously you don't want to do it too much because nobody enjoys that, but an occasional loss.

00:39:18.121 --> 00:39:19.865
I think is really, really good for you.

00:39:19.865 --> 00:39:29.246
So I love winning, but, to be honest with you, I don't mind losing, because it's an unbelievable learning opportunity.

00:39:30.597 --> 00:39:31.320
I love to win.

00:39:31.320 --> 00:39:33.420
Yeah, that's all I'm going to say.

00:39:34.856 --> 00:39:35.719
That's what I deal with.

00:39:35.719 --> 00:39:44.605
When I get out, she yells at me after we lose a bad game and I'm like hey it's a learning opportunity.

00:39:44.625 --> 00:39:45.648
Yeah, I don't care I'm competitive.

00:39:45.648 --> 00:39:51.161
Well, if you were not a baseball coach, what would you have been?

00:39:51.161 --> 00:39:55.487
And I'd like to hear both of your answers see if they're the same I don't know.

00:39:57.380 --> 00:39:59.686
Part of me wishes I would have gone to law school.

00:39:59.686 --> 00:40:08.385
I would like to be a trial attorney where you could get up and plead your case in front of people.

00:40:08.385 --> 00:40:12.349
I'd like to, and I'm probably going to, do some of this in front of people.

00:40:12.349 --> 00:40:20.664
I'd like to and I'm probably going to do some of this do some motivational speaking, because a lot of people look at what transpired here at West Virginia the last 12 years.

00:40:20.664 --> 00:40:27.938
We literally took a program that was on the brink of extinction and they were thinking about dropping the program.

00:40:27.938 --> 00:40:35.277
Now, all of a sudden, we've been ranked in the top 25 in eight consecutive seasons and a lot of people want to know how we did that.

00:40:35.277 --> 00:40:50.141
I think that'd be cool to share that message and, as you know, we've had some personal tragedy in our lives, with our son being injured, and that's an unbelievable story of inspiration that we would love to share with people.

00:40:50.141 --> 00:40:52.347
So I would like to share with people.

00:40:52.347 --> 00:41:00.166
So I would like to hit the speaking tour if people would have me and listen to the message that that, uh, we can give to people.

00:41:00.929 --> 00:41:03.414
Uh, and I'm an outdoors guy.

00:41:03.414 --> 00:41:06.273
Uh, I've I've kind of gravitated to.

00:41:06.273 --> 00:41:21.023
I grew up loving to hunt and fish and be outdoors and but it's crazy since my kids were born Now I could care less really to kill my own animals or catch my own fish.

00:41:21.023 --> 00:41:24.833
To me it's all about helping other people do that.

00:41:24.833 --> 00:41:33.349
I get way more satisfaction out of my daughter catching a fish on a fly rod than I do myself.

00:41:33.349 --> 00:41:37.280
That pales in comparison to me catching my own fish.

00:41:37.280 --> 00:41:56.197
So I would love to teach kids how to fish, take kids hunting, give them wonderful experiences, Because in the big scheme of things, as a coach and a father and a parent, our job is to make memories for children and I really really enjoy doing that.

00:41:56.197 --> 00:42:02.411
So I wish I had my own piece of land hunting property with a trout stream going through it.

00:42:02.411 --> 00:42:10.056
I would just invite kids to come and teach them how to do that and watch the joy they get out of that.

00:42:13.858 --> 00:42:17.201
Well, Amanda, what do you think he would have been if he wasn't a baseball coach?

00:42:17.201 --> 00:42:17.621
I don't know.

00:42:17.880 --> 00:42:19.862
I mean you know what.

00:42:19.862 --> 00:42:20.842
He's really funny.

00:42:20.842 --> 00:42:22.603
People don't know that about him.

00:42:22.623 --> 00:42:24.525
He has a really dry sense of humor.

00:42:24.525 --> 00:42:29.614
I mean, I don't know if he could have like survived as a comedian, let's be honest.

00:42:29.635 --> 00:42:30.197
But I don't know.

00:42:30.197 --> 00:42:34.373
He always connects really well with people.

00:42:34.373 --> 00:42:36.280
So yeah, the whole like speaking engagements and tours.

00:42:36.280 --> 00:42:38.755
He's going to amp up that, but um.

00:42:39.269 --> 00:42:40.333
I actually could have been a.

00:42:40.333 --> 00:42:43.181
I would love to be a bartender for a week.

00:42:43.181 --> 00:42:49.992
I would love that guy that believes that everybody has a story and when.

00:42:49.992 --> 00:42:51.155
I meet new people.

00:42:51.155 --> 00:42:53.101
That's my go-to line.

00:42:53.101 --> 00:42:54.956
Hey, randy, this is Jim.

00:42:54.956 --> 00:42:56.556
Hey Jim, what's your story?

00:42:56.556 --> 00:42:59.318
I just love hearing people's stories.

00:42:59.570 --> 00:43:00.748
He talks to everybody.

00:43:01.030 --> 00:43:07.456
We don't go in an airport where he's not somehow talking to somebody, if somebody's walking through the airport with a fly rod.

00:43:07.496 --> 00:43:12.898
He's like hey, where are you going, what are you doing, which is a good thing, especially in this world.

00:43:12.898 --> 00:43:14.275
Everything's so impersonal.

00:43:14.275 --> 00:43:15.695
Nobody wants to talk to anybody.

00:43:15.695 --> 00:43:18.038
This one talks to everybody, which is pretty cool.

00:43:18.570 --> 00:43:20.554
Even our bus drivers on road trips.

00:43:20.554 --> 00:43:26.610
The amazing lives that those guys have that nobody knows about.

00:43:26.610 --> 00:43:28.398
You just see them as bus drivers.

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We had a bus driver in Oklahoma this year that played college baseball at Wichita State, had a chance to play pro, got sent over, did a couple tours of duty in the armed forces, had been shot three or four times.

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