Dave Jarvis - ABCA Hall of Fame Class of 2025

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the ABCA's podcast. I'm your host Brian Brownlee. Our sponsor is Core Energy Belt, the trusted source of professional baseball players in both Japan and the USA. With over 700 professionals, including two former MVPs, relying on these belts, Core Energy has established itself as a leader in performance and durability. I've been wearing their belts for a while now and the added back support has made a noticeable difference both on and off the field. They offer free shipping and a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. Go to corenergybelt.com and use code ABCA2025 to save 15 on your first purchase. I'll repeat that go to Corenergy Belt and use the code ABCA2025 to save fifteen percent on your first purchase. This episode is sponsored by Netting Pros. Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time. Netting Professionals specializes in the design, fabrication and installation of custom netting for backstops, batting cages, dugouts, BP screens and ball carts. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen turf, turf protectors, dugout benches, dugout cubbies and more. Netting Professionals is an official partner of the ABCA and continues to provide quality products and services to many high school, college and professional fields, facilities and stadiums throughout the country. Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707 or infoettingpros.com visit them online at www.nettingpros.com or check out NettingPros on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. Make sure to let CEO Will Minor know that the ABCA sent you. Now on to the podcast. I want to thank everyone that listens to the ABCA Podcast. This is the 300th episode that I've recorded. I have a blast doing this and hopefully we're providing value to the baseball community and humanity as a whole. I know on the outside it looks like society is divided, but I get reminders every week of how close together and similar we all are. If I can be of service to you in any way, please reach out to me and as always, leave it better for those behind you this week on The ABCA Podcast 2025 ABCA hall of Fame Inductee Belmont Head Coach Dave Jarvis. Jarvis recently completed his 27th season as Belmont skipper in 2024. Since he took over the program in the Bruins first NCAA Division I season in 1998, Jarvis has compiled 763 wins and is the program's all time winningest coach Jarvis has over a thousand wins. With his previous head coaching gig at his alma mater, Three Rivers Community College, Jarvis had a successful stint as an assistant at Murray State. On a personal note, Coach Jarvis is one of the most humble people you ever meet and he epitomizes what it is to be called an ABCA hall of Famer. Let's welcome Dave Jarvis to the podcast here with Dave Jarvis, ABC hall of Fame this year, congrats, coach. But head coach at Three Rivers Community College was an assistant at Murray State, but 28th season here at Belmont. So congrats, coach. [00:03:36] Speaker B: Well, thank you. I'm, I, I can't tell you how blown away, how both and everybody says it's humbling. It is humbling, I'm just telling you. But I'm very honored by it and especially to be an organization that I hold in such high regard as the abca, to be recognized by them, the people that put forth my nomination. I was totally blown away by that as well. It's just, it's a great, great, a great honor that I feel like I've been blessed with. [00:04:07] Speaker A: For sure you're going to be in that group. Now when people see you at the convention, like, who was in that group when you first started going to the convention where you're like in awe of the guys, you see the hall of Famers walking around. Who was in that group? [00:04:20] Speaker B: Oh, the, the Paul Scalinas, the, you know, Gordy Gillespie, of course, Ron Polk, you know, Cliff Gustison. You know what I mean? I, it's just, you look at that and you're 20 some years old and, and you're thinking, man, those guys know everything and they're, it's, you know, they, just to be included in that group. I'm really, you know, when I'm talking about these names like guys like Johnny Reagan or Itchy Jones or some of these people, you know, it's just, you think about it and it's, I try not to think about it. It's really overwhelming at times. [00:05:02] Speaker A: Were you able to get your speech down to five, six minutes? [00:05:05] Speaker B: I haven't written my speech yet, if I'm being totally honest. We've had a lot going on program wise this fall and so I figured that's something over, over Christmas when it slows down. But you know, I don't, I, I'm not a, I, I don't hate public speaking, but I don't really like it that well. I'll try to keep mine in that six minute time frame pretty easily, I think, because I Just really want to thank some of the people that gave me my start. And you know, in, in 43 years of coaching college baseball, I have worked for two different coaches that hired me as an assistant. So I spent six years as, as an assistant coach during that, which by the way, were probably six of the best years of my life. Because you're not nearly as, you know, stressed out as an assistant coach, you know, you know what I'm talking about, Ryan. And then I've had three athletic directors in 43 years. All great, great men, great athletic directors, unbelievable accomplishments on their own, you know, standing. So I want to thank those people. I want to thank my assistant coaches and, you know, so it's not going to, I don't think it'll take me a long time to do that, but I'm grateful for it. [00:06:17] Speaker A: Do you think that's something that assistant coaches should hear right now? Because everybody, when they're assistant, they're like, I need to be a head coach. I want to be a head coach. [00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think they should hear that because, you know, I've been really fortunate here. As you well know, some of my assistant coaches have stayed with me for a long time here at Belmont. Started out with somebody like Chris Modelmog in the beginning, but then, you know, I get, I get a guy like Jason Steen who's now back with me now for a second stint. He stayed with me for a long time. Scott hall was another long term assistant, but then Aaron Smith, I mean, 14 years, Matt Barnett, 17 years. You know, I just, I've really been blessed with some long term assistant coaches, but throughout my career I've had just unbelievably good assistant coaches that have made me look a whole lot better than I probably really am. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Well, you guys have a perfect combination there because you have a great private school, but then you're right in the middle of Nashville. [00:07:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, there's, you know, Belmont, of course, is a world class educational opportunity for these kids. It's a great environment. It's a great learning environment. And then you put that inside the city of Nashville and where we're located. You know, that's, that's a really, that's a, that makes the cost is probably our biggest prohibitive or biggest hindrance. You know, when you're 60,000 a year, that, that can get in the way of up some of your recruiting for sure. But then, you know, when you look at some of the positive things that we have, we got a lot of really good things going on and, and to be honest with you, even more so than, like, when you were a player, because I remember you as a player in that age group or I was a player. Kids want to be in a place like Nashville now more than they did back when we were going to college. Right. I mean, I was thrilled to go to Jonesboro, Arkansas and play at Arkansas State. I thought I was in the big time, you know, going just to Jonesboro. So, you know, it's, it's. It. It's a. It's a good place to be in a good school to do it at, for sure. [00:08:24] Speaker A: Do you have any on your roster that have gone through the music program at Belmont? [00:08:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. I've had several kids have gone through it and gone through the music business program as well. We've had a. We've had, you know, two or three kids that have. Have actually reached some level of fame or fortune, you know, in the. In the music industry as well. We've got one young man that a lot of people haven't heard of, but his name's Wes Langlo. He was one of the first kids that I had back in the early 2000s that went through our music program here and. And then has had a lot of success as a. As a musician and a. And a guitar player, things like that. Was in a movie about Hank Williams here just a few years ago and played a pretty good role in that as well. And then, you know, you skip forward to, you know, Brian Kelly, you know, BK with Florida Georgia Line. He's half of Florida Georgia. He's the Florida half of the Florida Georgia Line duo. And, and their success, man. I mean, they took off when they, when they dropped Cruise. I had seen him just about a month or two before Crew the song Cruise dropped. And he told me, he said, coach, man, we got some really cool things getting ready to happen. I got a feeling here. And two months later, I hear Cruise and boy, they took off like a rocket ship. And then another guy is. It's from a. More of a folk, pop, techno kind of band. But you, you know, we've got Judah Acres, who is kind of a lead in Judah and the lion, which is. They've had a lot of success, even on a worldwide stage where they're touring places around the world and. And doing a lot of really cool stuff. And all three of those guys are just wonderful men that I. I'm just proud to be affiliated with, for sure. [00:10:21] Speaker A: Speaking of an assistant, when you're an assistant Murray State, when did you figure out that My dad had thrown the pizza boxes off the bus. [00:10:28] Speaker B: We actually saw him put them off. And we were all, we were plotting because we were all hungry. We didn't get post game meals, you know, in that, back in that day. And so when we saw your dad setting those pizzas off, we were like, yes, we're eating for free to. [00:10:42] Speaker A: You're being too kind for people. There's a lot of people don't know this story, but my junior year, we go to Murray State. We always played Murray State home and home. And so we were going down there. We had a hard time winning at Murray State and we messed up a first and third play late and got beat. And I get on the bus and our trainer had put the pizza boxes in my dad's seat. And at that point, you're too scared to even do anything like you should I grab a box and take it? Because I knew what was going to happen and I should have just picked him up and moved them across the aisle and we would have been fine. But as soon as he got on the bus and saw those boxes on his seat, he flung. You're, you're being nice. He threw them. He didn't set those down. He, he Frisbee tossed those off the bus. So. [00:11:28] Speaker B: Well, he put them off in such a way that they didn't leave the box and hit the. I will say that they, they, they were still inside the box. So we, my kids are running, they're all scrambling down there. As soon as that bus pulls off, they' out of the parking lot yet we're gathering up pizzas and taking them back to the dugout. [00:11:45] Speaker A: The good thing is Murray's close to Evansville, so wasn't that big a deal. But that's stuff you can't do now. You could, nor should you, hopefully my dad's listening. Dad, you shouldn't do that to people. [00:11:55] Speaker B: Well, I can't say I haven't done the same thing, but your dad's always been one of my favorite guys. I mean, he, we, we kind of come from that same old school baseball hardcore mentality. And, and there I knew what he was doing because there's been a few times when I haven't fed teams because that was one of the things that you were sending a message to your roster. You weren't trying to mistreat anybody in any way whatsoever. You're just trying to send a message about winning and what's, what's not acceptable, you know, and I. [00:12:26] Speaker A: Dad right now, if he's listening, he's like, well, if they wanted to eat, they should have played better. [00:12:30] Speaker B: That's right. They should have executed that first and third play a lot, a lot better, as they should have done. [00:12:38] Speaker A: How's the switch to the Missouri Valley been? [00:12:40] Speaker B: It's challenging. I mean, it's a really good league, as you well know. You've been around the league enough to know that it's a really good league. You know, Indiana State has just been so good these first two or three years that we've been in the league. So talented. Mitch, of course, just a tremendous teacher and coach and runs such a good program now that he's moved down to South Florida. And you got Tracy Archuleta coming in and he does the same, same thing, same, same guy almost. You know, Tracy does a great job. They're both really good baseball coaches. Missouri State, with all the tradition and the success that they had over there under Coach Gutten, another really good program. And you know, you can go on and on and on about the. I've, I've had the really good fortune. I've been in three different leagues as a head coach here at Belmont. We would started out in the Atlantic Sun Conference, which was a great, that was 8-789-ranked conference in the country during those years when we first were getting in. Had loved all the coaches that they had in there. Were all really good. You know, I mean guys like Smoke Laval and you know, Pete Dunn and Terry Alexander and some of those guys that are just unbelievable. You know, Craig Gibson down at Mercer, another great coach. But then you go into the Ohio Valley Conference again. I knew all of those coaches well and really like competing against those guys and so much. So many good, good coaching staffs in there. And then you get into the, to the Missouri Valley Conference for this third league and, and same type of situation where you, you get into the league and you get into those coaches room, coaches meeting rooms and things like that and you just go, man, this is going to be tough, but it's going to be fun because, you know, people are out there teaching baseball Right. And doing it the right way and going about things in a really positive way. [00:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it always seems like there was some camaraderie with the coaches in Missouri Valley. [00:14:38] Speaker B: Yes. [00:14:38] Speaker A: And maybe you didn't get in some other leagues. [00:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah, they're very, you know, they, it's, it's that odd thing where it's a, it's a, it's a league again like the other two leagues where they take pride in their program, they take pride in the way they go about their business and how they conduct themselves and their players conduct themselves, but they also take pride in the entire league. And so when you're not competing against them, they're pulling for each other, you know, and that's. Man, that's always. That's. That's how sport should be, I think. [00:15:09] Speaker A: You had the opportunity to coach your son, Logan. [00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Jackson as well, had been in our program, and he's down here working with us as well, as a, you know, student, undergraduate in our program. But, yeah, Logan played for me for, you know, a long time. He was in our program with COVID and medical hardship and all those type of things. He was in our program. And, you know, what turned into a really good player force as well was, you know, made. Had a lot of. Had some accolades that had come his way as a player. [00:15:41] Speaker A: Was that always a plan for. For them to come to Belmont? [00:15:45] Speaker B: No, I. I have, you know, I have three sons, Jordan, Logan and Jackson. All three of them just great men that I'm very proud of. They're 31, 27 and 23 now in age, and I'm just. I couldn't be. You know, my. My buttons pop when I. When I'm thinking about them or talking about them. But they're all really good men, all three of them. The thing about Belmont is we have a really good tuition benefit as an employee, and so that was a big factor for me. Now, Jordan, he didn't have interest in pursuing college athletics, but, again, a good educational opportunity that would be provided for him. And then Logan was. Was pursuing baseball and kind of put all of his eggs in that basket when he was in high school. You know, left the basketball program and, you know, some of those things and had some offers from some other Division 1 schools when he was coming out of high school. But he, as you mentioned, had interest in our music business program, which now he is pursuing some of that as a. As a songwriter and trying to. And trying to learn that craft and. And go into that. Actually, if, you know, if that's what God has in mind for him, that's what he wants to do. He's coaching high school baseball and. And doing songwriting a lot and mowing a lot of grass and things like that to make ends meet. So he. When he made the choice to try to come and play for us, I just told him, I said, well, my goal is to treat you just like every other player and treat every other player like they were my son. So that's what I've tried to do. And then, of course, Jackson came and was a player in our program for a semester. And then due to some, he. He got caught up in the three years at a junior college during COVID And so there was, you know, there was a transfer or, I mean, in progress towards degree issue where he was there for six semesters, and not all of that was transferring into Belmont. So he ended up leaving and going to Reinhardt and playing for Jonathan Burton down there, but which was a great experience for him. Played on another great team down there as well, too. But now he's back and working with us in our baseball program. So just, you know, Belmont's been a really good place for all three of my sons. And, you know, I'm just, like I say, all three of them, I'm just so proud of who they are and the men that they. The potential that I see in them, for sure. [00:18:10] Speaker A: Do you think that's the best tip for somebody that's got to coach their child is you got to treat them the same as everybody else or maybe harder on them a little bit? [00:18:18] Speaker B: Well, I tried. I was very conscious of that, too, because I had seen a lot of other coaches that had gone through that. I mean, you're. You're a coach's son. You played for your father. So you. You understand this dynamic that I'm talking about where. So what I. What I did is I. I turned it over a lot of times to my assistant coaches and. And would let them work under their direct supervision. And. And I think that that, that helps a lot to create a little bit of a distance and let them stand on their own. And then I would have a conversation with them, you know, too, about, Listen, you'll. You'll have people that attest you. Or try to. You know, they'll say stuff about your dad to see how you react. And I said, don't ever take that personal. Let them. You know, if they're. If they're saying, hey, that guy is crazy, you know, you jump in and go, you think he's crazy. I've seen really crazy out of that, you know, or whatever. I said, get with it. Just. Just let, you know, just be a teammate is. Is really what we tried to do, the way we tried to handle it. So, like I say, it all worked out. And I think the goal, like I say, is to try to treat them like every other player and treat every player like they were my son, which a lot of coaches do that. [00:19:31] Speaker A: I think I never got a break because I had to deal with my brother also. Yeah, there wasn't anybody for me to go to. [00:19:39] Speaker B: For both of them, you had no sympathy whatsoever, I'm sure. [00:19:43] Speaker A: What'd your time at Three Rivers do for you? [00:19:46] Speaker B: Boy, it did. Everything is. From a preparation standpoint, it taught me so much. I was hired. I got a phone call, and it's a. It. It's a little bit of a lengthy story, but I'm a graduate student at Arkansas State. I'm. I've received a graduate assistant teaching assistantship there. And it's the summer of 1982, and my plan is I'm going to be at ASU that fall. I'm going to be teaching PE classes and working on my master's degree and, you know, hoping. I'm even thinking, well, maybe I'll go into teaching and just try to be a college physical education and health instructor and physiology instructor and so forth. So that's kind of my plan. Well, the girl that I was dating in college at that time, her sister lived over in Joplin, Missouri. Now, mind you, this is 1982, so there's no cell phones, no communication. And 4th of July weekend, she just says, hey, Dave, you want to go to my sister's house in Joplin, Missouri? And I was like, yeah, let's go. We got nothing to do for Fourth of July. So we go up to her sister's house, and we're sitting in the kitchen floor playing with her nieces and nephews. At that time, they're all little kids, and we're just hanging out, playing with them. And I'm telling you, Ryan, the phone rings. It's one of those old, old kitchen wall telephones that just hangs on the wall. And when it rang, I just felt some energy charge go through my body. It was a. It was a weird feeling. And I thought, that's for me. And we're in Joplin, Missouri, five hours from Jonesboro, and it's my old junior college baseball coach calling me at her sister's house, which, no, we didn't tell anybody where we were going. And I. I answer. She answers the phone because it's her sister's house. And she goes, yeah, he's sitting right here. When she said that, I just thought, oh, this is too weird. And she hands me the phone, and I answer, and it's Roger Pattillo, who I played. Played for in junior college at Three Rivers. And he goes, what are you doing, boy? And I'm like, coach, how in the world did you find me? And he never did. I never got into. You know, Roger has passed now he died from ALS, you know, at about age 48. But I never got him to tell me how he found me over there in Joplin, Missouri. And so going to Three Rivers, you know, he. He said, I got a job. We're going to work you about 70 hours a week and pay you $5,000 a year, and you can live in the athletic dorm. And I said, man, I'm in. I'll take it. I, you know, I was just thrilled to get that chance to go back into coaching, go to, go home to program that. I had loved my time there and worked with a guy that I was, you know, everybody that played for Roger loved him, and he was just a great. He was one of great mentors that you could get. And then my AD there at Three Rivers was the head basketball coach as well, but his name is Gene Bess, and he was the athletic director and the head basketball coach. Won two national championships, won 1300 basketball games, and was just. He put me on his bench to be an assistant men's basketball coach while I was the assistant baseball coach as well. And to learn from those two guys was just an incredible experience. I mean, two tremendous coaches, and they were, they were exact opposites of each other, too. One guy. One guy was a defensive wizard. The other one knew how to teach offense on the basketball court. One of them was the strict disciplinarian, more of a John Wooden type, and the other one was more like Denny Crumb kind of, you know, so they were, they were, they were dynamic personalities. And so I learned a tremendous amount about managing players and coaching and just how to, how to relate to kids and things like that. It was a great learning experience. And after two years of being Roger's assistant on the baseball field, then he, he left and went into private sales and industry and, you know, Coach Bess asked me to. As the athletic director, He. He asked me to be the head baseball coach and then still stay with him as an assistant basketball coach. So I continued to do that for a time longer and, and it just, it was an unbelievable experience. And the people at Three Rivers treated me extremely well and, and allowed me to do stupid things and make mistakes and say stupid stuff and, and still kept on, you know, believing in me and, and. And pursuing that. So I'm always indebted to those, those men and those men and women that, that poured into me over there. [00:24:26] Speaker A: That help you being able to see different coaches, different personalities to be able to make it work. [00:24:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean, and I played for a lot of what I felt like, were pretty good men in, in high school, both in basketball and baseball. You know, we'd had a lot of coaching changes when I went through it. Played for four different guys in baseball and basketball, both at a really small school. I mean, we graduated 36 kids in class. That's how small we were. And then to go and play under Roger Pattillo and Gene Best in college a little bit and then go to Arkansas State. I played for Rich Johnson down there, who was a, he was a tremendous baseball mind. He did not communicate very well at all, but had a, had a really great, had played professionally in the Red Sox organization. And, you know, I think he played with like, Bo Ferris and some of these guys that were just, you know, incredible baseball minds, but he, he was, he was not a great teacher, so to speak. And then to go back and start trying to apply my craft to it. You know, I had another guy too, that I lived with in college. He was one of my roommates and teammates at Arkansas State, and he was, he was wanting to go into coaching as well. So his name was Matt Turner. He's now a football coach. He's been a football coach in the state of Texas for forever. High school football coach. She's been parts of, you know, both as a head coach and assistant of state football, state championships down there and so forth. Now he's on the, on the staff with UT San Antonio and what they've got going on down there. But he, he and I, we, we just, you know, there's, it, it's, there's sports specific stuff, but there's just coaching stuff too. And I've learned a lot from Matt and he and I played a lot off of each other. And, you know, so those, those are all parts of my foundational blocks like you're talking about. And then when I left 3 Riverston, Mike Tiki gave me the opportunity, when Coach Reagan retired at Murray State, gave me that opportunity to come over there. And that's when I first crossed paths with you and your dad in, in those years. [00:26:39] Speaker A: And good for you, because not a lot of guys get that opportunity to go from junior College to Division 1 baseball. [00:26:45] Speaker B: Absolutely. And to do it, you know, with, with Coach Reagan's retirement to go in there and, and work under Mike, who gave me free reign at the off with the offense and a lot of free reign in the recruiting responsibilities and so forth. You know, Mike, Mike did a lot of wonderful things for me in my time there. And, and to be honest with you, you know this as well as I do. Coach Reagan had just retired, so he was still around the office a lot. He had, he had grown up in a little bitty town in southeast Missouri, very close to where I had grown up. And so we had a lot in common in that regard and, and became another really good mentor and a friend to me up until his death, you know, many years later. So I'm, I'm very proud to even say that I, that I have that type of relationship with Coach Reagan where we'd go to ABCA conventions and I'd get to room with Coach Reagan. And I can still remember one night down in Dallas, he goes, Dave, my, my cardiologist says I have to have a glass of wine before bed every night. So he said, will you come downstairs and have a glass of wine with me? And I was like, absolutely. I don't even like wine, but I'll go down there and have a glass. So great, great memories, you know, in those, in those areas. [00:28:01] Speaker A: Did you have to adjust your recruiting at all, going from Murray State to Belmont, two different type of schools? Did you have to adjust recruiting wise? [00:28:08] Speaker B: When we first got here, Chris Modelbaum was my assistant coach that came with me from Murray, and he and I took the job June 1st of 1997. And we didn't have, we didn't have a full roster in any shape, so we really, he and I both had junior college playing backgrounds and I had coached in junior college. So we went out and hit, hit a lot of junior college kids that first summer. And Belmont, academically, it was, it had some more challenges to it than a Murray State did, I will say that. But we were able to put together a good enough roster that we went out and had a winning record that very first year, which, you know, I'm, I'm very proud of that and the job that Chris. And the other thing that when we got here was Dave Whitten, who had been the head coach here for 36 years at that time, stayed with us and, and was our pitching coach that year and a part of the program. And that was a tremendous asset as well, too, to, to have him and his Belmont ties and knowing his way around the university and so forth. He's, he was, he's part of that staff for three years. And so that was really cool as well, too. But there are differences, yes, between what are recruited in junior college, what are. And then differences between Three Rivers and Murray State from a recruiting standpoint as well, too. And then, of course, you know, differences then here, when you get to a private Christian based Institution and, and the academics, it's a little bit different. No doubt about it. [00:29:42] Speaker A: Any reservation to keep the old coach on staff? [00:29:46] Speaker B: Oh, Coach Whitten, yeah. Absolutely not. I had reservations. [00:29:49] Speaker A: That's why you're great, by the way. You're one. Well, I have in the game. Honestly, I don't know a lot of guys that would, would, would do that. [00:29:56] Speaker B: Honestly, I had some reservations. And Mike Strickland, who had been my athletic director at Murray State for four years, when, when Belmont made the decision to go from NAI all the way to Division 1 back in 96, nobody was doing that, Ryan. Nobody was making that big of a jump. And Dr. Trout at that time had just decided that he wanted to take Belmont Athletics all the way to Division one in one fell swoop. Well, in order to do that, I, I, I would say I believe he thought it was a good idea to go find an athletic director that had Division one experience at time. Well, lo and behold, he, he hires Mike Strickland from Murray State to come down here and implement and build an athletic department. And before Mr. Strickland had left Murray State, he took me out to lunch and said, listen, I'm going to call you in about six, seven, eight months and ask you to come down here and be our head coach. And he said when he got down here, then after that first year, he said, our head coach, he doesn't want to make the move as a head coach to Division 1 and learn a whole new set of. He was, Dave was 69 years old at that time, and he didn't want to go through being a head coach and all the paperwork and the new, you know, compliance laws and so forth. And so what he said is he would, he would like to stay on and be a part of your staff. And I was like, mike, do you really think that's going to work? This guy's been running it for the last 36 years. He said, you do this, you come down here and spend one full day with Coach Whitman. Just hang out with him. And he said, at the end of that day, if you tell me it won't work, then we'll figure out another, you know, another way to, to, to take care of Coach Whitten. But he said, if you meet him and spend the day with him, I think you'll, you'll understand how it's going to work. And of course, I come down here and spend the day with Dave Witten, who was such a tremendous mentor for me in my life then, because as Humble had been doing it Forever had played pro ball in the Washington Senators organization, but one of the finest human beings. And then he and his wife Martha became dear friends to me. And I still. I mean, I've got their picture on my wall right here, right now, the two of them, because even up until Dave's passing when he was 84 years old, and then Martha and I, she was the biggest baseball fan and Atlanta Braves fan that I ever knew. And she and I would talk on the phone constantly, and I try to get over and see her in Murfreesboro every chance that I could. So that ended up, I'm telling you, Ryan, becoming one of the biggest blessings in my life because it was the beginning of a wonderful friendship and relationship with those. Those two people. [00:32:42] Speaker A: Love it. You guys have great resources there. Seems like. Do you have to do much fundraising? [00:32:48] Speaker B: Well, I tell you what, we started out doing fundraising when I first got here. And you'll laugh about this because you were competing against us, I think. Well, no, you might have been gone by 97. What year did you. [00:33:00] Speaker A: That was my senior year. [00:33:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So in 98, you know, the spring of 98, we had. Belmont had always taken vans everywhere they went to go play. A lot of programs did that back in that day. But one of the things that I was, you know, a part of there at Murray is Coach Tiki and I decided we wanted to try to take a bus. So we started doing a little bit of fundraising to offset the cost difference between three vans and one one bus. And so I found an old bus company out of Clarksville, Tennessee, that it was just. It's a. It's kind of a hokey story, but we did fundraising, and so then we were able to take a. Take a bus. Now, it was an. It looked like the bus that the Cleveland Indians traveled in in Major League the movie. That's. That's the kind of bus that we were taking. And it was. It's smoking and, you know, anyway, that, you know, I could get into a lot of bus stories with you on that, but fundraising started with that. And then, you know, I've been fortunate enough to be here long enough now that in 28 years, I have a lot of former players who are alumni and they've reached a point in their. Their career and their success that they have been generous in giving back. And then we always do, you know, a reach out with our players where they'll reach out to 15 or 20 moms, aunts, uncles, grandpa, you know, and they'll send us some checks and things like that. So we do those type of little fundraisers. But then we, we've had a lot of really good friends of the program, both either alumni that are connected in that way or people that I've been able to develop relationships with since we've moved here to Nashville. And so I'm not a tr. I don't see myself as a great fundraiser, but I've been really blessed. [00:34:55] Speaker A: Great at relationships, though. And that's fundraising. You're great. [00:34:58] Speaker B: I love ships. Well, thank you. But I, that's. If I have any gifts, I would say that I really enjoy people and I love, I like to serve people or help people in any way that I can. And so I think that's a great way to start as a coach is if you have those two things. But I mean, I love people. I can tell you that. [00:35:19] Speaker A: You're extremely humble. Were you raised that way? Well, bringing, I mean, small town, Midwest. [00:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah, My, my parents, you know, we lived in Denver when, when I was just a baby. I have seven brothers and sisters, five of them older than me. And so my father was a high rise construction worker that had a terrible accident on the eighth story. He was a guy that walked the I beams, walked the girders, you know. Well, he, he had a fall and broke it, seven vertebrae in his neck. And they, they felt, they told my mom he wasn't going to live. And then a couple of days later they said, well, we think he might live, but it'll be a quadriplegic. And then, you know, a month or two later they said, well, we think he'll be paralyzed from the waist down. But we're starting to see some, some activity in the, in the upper body. And when my dad, who had been out for a long time now this is a man who had been during the Depression, raised in the middle of Denver, dropped off by his mom when he was just a child, 6, 7, 8 years old at the Catholic orphanage because she couldn't afford, you know, to feed them even. And so he was raised in a Catholic orphanage. He had a, he had gotten in a lot of fights. He had a lot of anger issues. Priests turned, it's kind of like a classic story where one of the priests saw something in him, turned him into a boxer and then he got into Golden Gloves boxing and then he got into championships and he started winning like the whole western United States and middle middleweight class of Golden Gloves and things like that, and ended up in 1941, Ring magazine, I guess it named me the number one amateur middleweight in the nation. At one point or ranked him as, as high as that. And then December 7 came and World War II started and he, he went into the military and, you know, did a lot of, I think you might say crazy things in the military as well. He ended up winning a Silver Star. So he was a tough guy, I guess, is what I'm saying, and had a rough upbringing, background. And you know, they walked in and, and my mom told him that they, what they had said that he was going to be a quadriplegic and, you know, so forth. And he said, you tell that doctor to go straight to hell because I'm walking out of here. So two years later he walks out of the hospital, which we all know that, you know, that type of determination doesn't heal a spinal, a severed spinal cord. But that type of determination can get you through a lot of things and take you a long way. And so a large family, we moved to Missouri, bought a 160 acre rock farm is what I call it. And I grew up seven miles or seven and a half miles down gravel roads out in the middle of nowhere is what I would say. We were, we were seven and a half miles from a town of 300 people. And that was, that was city to me, you know, so when you say humble, we were poor. And it's one of the greatest blessings that I've ever had is to have the seven brothers and sisters, the parents that I have, and to grow up on that rock farm in southeast Missouri because it, you just learned a whole lot of things and you learned how to do more with less. You learned how to, how to get by. You know, it was a great. I, I look back on that so fondly and I'm, I feel so fortunate to have the family that I have. But none of them knew anything about sports. My dad didn't really know sports, my mom didn't. You know, none of my older brothers and sisters cared anything about sports. So I'm out here. Plus I was surrounded. I had two older brothers and one brother that was younger than me six years, who he and I both ended up playing college baseball. But I had four girls around me, I had four sisters that I was stuck right in the middle of and none of them wanted to play sports or play baseball. So I played a lot of rock ball and by myself out there on the farm. [00:39:20] Speaker A: So who instilled your love of baseball then? How'd you find baseball? [00:39:26] Speaker B: I found baseball at, you know, I would go to school and in first grade, I don't know what, what Made me navigate to it. But I can remember in first grade, the fourth and fifth graders would have a softball game going on way down here in the lower end of the playground. And all my classmates and I are stuck up here on the merry go rounds and the swings and, you know, and I'm looking down there going, I'm headed down there. And so I went down there, finagled my way into their game, and then got to playing with these older kids, you know, fourth, fifth graders, and I'm in first grade. Well, the next thing you know, I'm, I'm. I'm playing well, and I'm. I'm keeping up with them, and they're. They're accepting me then into the game. And I think that was just the beginning. It was just. I just wanted to play ball. I played baseball, I played basketball. I played football. You got a ball, I'm in. And I'd play. And so how I found it, I don't know. We, you know, you didn't get a lot of games on television. We lived out in the middle of nowhere, so we had one channel that we got regularly, and if it was cloudy enough, we might get a second one, you know, part way. So I watched a lot of these games where it's nothing but just snow, and you can't tell. I can remember watching football games on TV growing up, and I'm probably five years old, six years old, and it's, it's. This picture is so bad, you can't tell who the home team is and who the business is. But I'm just, I'm. I'm fired up and I'm loving it. So I just couldn't get enough sports. And the ironic part is, all seven of my brothers and sisters and both my parents are just voracious readers and more intellectual than I am. And, and they talk. We get together at Thanksgiving and they talk about they're reading this author or that author, and, you know, that's just not who I am. I'm just wired differently than my parents used to buy Sports Illustrated just to try to get me to read something, because I wouldn't read anything unless it was about sports. [00:41:26] Speaker A: So, hey, I do want to thank you. During COVID you let us host a barnstormer. We were scrambling during COVID and I do want to thank you. It was the sites, you know, you're. You're not technically off campus, but enough off campus. And so I do thank you because we were scrambling that, that fall to get things in. [00:41:43] Speaker B: Well, we were honored to have you guys. That was, you know, that's, That's a good thing. I, I love what you guys do with that. And, and, you know, my assistant coaches at that time were, were a good part of what you guys had going there and did a good job with that. Coach Smith, Coach Longshore, I believe, was with me. [00:41:59] Speaker A: Longshore is on the pitching hot stove this year. [00:42:02] Speaker B: Yeah, well, he, you know, he, He. He's. He's been. Just been put on the major league staff with Cleveland and so very, very happy for Caleb and proud of him and, and just. He. He's just a good dude, man. Good country boy from Alabama. [00:42:20] Speaker A: Are you still heavily involved with the catchers and the hitters? [00:42:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I will. You know, Coach Steen and Coach Craig are our third assistant. Do such a great job with our, with our hitting and our approach and everything. I love it. I can't get enough of it. I want to throw BP and I, I'm at the, I'm at the batting cage every day or at the, you know, on the field with them every time that we're hitting. So I'm doing more. Jason is handling more of the general philosophy and the offensive approach. He, I call him my offensive coordinator and he does a tremendous job with putting together offense. But I, I love talking hitting and I love working with kids and trying to. I, I leave it to where I do a little. Some mechanical tweaks or maybe just some slight adjustments mechanically, but leave most of the lion's share of that to him because I'm a firm believer many, too many cooks can spoil the broth. When you're talking kidding. And you don't want to get too many conflicting ideas or, or voices going on in a hitter's head. I, I oversee general philosophy of offense and tweak things that I, I think that we need to do. But I try to let. I try to let my coaches do their job and they're all really well qualified and, you know, have a lot of experience and success in their background. So you want to really be careful there that you don't get too much going on for young hitters. But catchers, I work with them every day and love it. I, I mean, I really just love working with catching and, you know, catchers are crazy anyway. You gotta, you gotta love pain to some extent. You gotta love getting dirty and sweaty and all of those things and, you know, just kind of grinding into it. So it's, it takes a special breed to, to enjoy it. But, man, when you get with a bunch of catchers, that are like minded in that regard. The drill work and all this stuff. I love watching good catching coaches too, like Coach Griffin, you know, where Carson Newman does such a great job with catching and catching instruction and just, you know, you, you get around guys like that. It's just like, you know, Tim the tool man, you know, more, more test. [00:44:28] Speaker A: You guys have had good catching. [00:44:30] Speaker B: We've been blessed with some really good athletes back there. Some guys that do just a great job and we really take pride in it. We talk about it as a catching core, you know, some of the. What our goals are and what we want to try to accomplish and, and being that guy that can make a difference in the game. Maybe not with his bat or anything else, but just your, your will and what you can do for a pitcher and little subtle things to, to make a pitcher better and to help this guy out because you know him and you know what his needs are and things like that. And that goes from everything to receiving to fielding the position to when to pat the guy on the back and when to try to get after him or kick him in the butt a little bit. You know, all of those things are a part of who a catcher is and what they can contribute for sure. [00:45:15] Speaker A: And I was trying to see you last year at South Carolina. You were dealing with some health issues and, and I'm happy for you. Now you said your pre. Call, you said you're doing fine with that. Yeah, but how long did it take those guys to wear you down? About the, the taller machine angle on Sunday, which I love. I love the, the, I love the longer legs and I, I thought it was great that you guys were doing that on Sunday. I thought it was awesome. [00:45:38] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I've been, I've been big on, you know, we, we've been putting our pitching machines on the back of bullpen, you know, on mounds and things like that, portable mounds. We've been trying to create some of that angle. You know, everybody, everybody makes these adjustments. But even before you could buy the long legs, and I can remember taking, taking, you know, regular legs over to the physical plant and talking to those guys over there and saying, hey, can you get me some steel pipe this exact same diameter so that we can make these legs each, you know, 182ft, 36 inches longer so that we can increase and, and getting guys in the physical plan, explain it to them and show them what you want to do. And they get, they get excited about that. Then they're ready to help you, you know, and we have good people like that here at our physical plant. [00:46:32] Speaker A: Does it take your hitters a while to adjust to that? [00:46:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. Especially if you're using any type. You know, now you with trackman technology and all, you, you, you check your spin and if you create good spin and ride on a high fastball coming out from that, if you create the right type of vertical and downward movement and you know, so forth, all of those things I think translate all you're trying to do. It's real simple. It's the same thing that we used to do 43 years ago in both baseball and basketball practice. It's the overload theory where you're trying to create and make practice more difficult than what they're going to see in the game. And then, and that's. I coach best taught me that. I mean, he handed me a blue tap and tackle dummy basically for basketball practice and he said, dave, here's what I want you to do. Every time this guy comes in the lane, just hit him as hard as you can with this pad when he's trying to score. And that, you know. Well, I, I learned the overload theory very quickly. They're doing that with him. But I got to tell you, I was really good at knocking those guys down with that blue pad too. [00:47:37] Speaker A: What are some other challenging things that you do that you feel like help? [00:47:40] Speaker B: Well, I think that you're trying to test them. You know, a lot of the things that we're talking about from the pitching machine machine carry over into you. You want throws to be done properly. You want in and out to be taken properly. You know, some of these basic teaching tools have been around for a hundred years and more. And they, those don't, do not go out of style. Teach kids and, and you create pressure by high expectations and consequences. It could be a, it can be a little bitty consequence, but it's an agitation or inheritance to a player, as you well know, that conforms or shapes or puts pressure on them to where then they learn how to perform and to do it. And it's been, at some point, you know, you want your players to get a little bit of that edge about them where it's like, screw the old man. I'm going to do this in spite of him bitching at me or complaining at me or whatever. You know what I mean? And so when you get that mix going on, then, then you grow players and you grow men and you, and you grow them into being able to handle a lot of other things in their life too. And I think it helps Them in many ways, become better citizens, better husbands and better fathers. If you do it the right way, too. [00:48:57] Speaker A: Healthy confrontation is a great thing. [00:48:59] Speaker B: It is. And learning how to. [00:49:00] Speaker A: We're missing it. We are missing it in society right now. Healthy confrontation. [00:49:04] Speaker B: Well, and I think the term that you just. You're using, healthy confrontation, I think that's an extremely important one, because I'm all about testosterone. I'm all about us being who. Who we were intended to be. But you have to learn how to be able to get into conflict or confrontation and deal. Deal with your. Work your way through that without it exploding or becoming something unhealthy that you're talking about. [00:49:31] Speaker A: And that's what we're seeing now. Yes, you're seeing. You're seeing people hold on in general society. You're seeing people hold on to stuff so long, and then it just explodes. [00:49:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Rather than learning how to. To get it out and then release it and learn from it, we've got to do a better job of trying to bring that back and teach it to society as a whole, because that's what we're missing right now in society. [00:49:52] Speaker B: Well, in sports especially, should be leading the way in that instead of, you know, we're seeing even, you know, you saw on conference championship weekends, I think it was a rivalry weekend in the flags, football, where everybody's trying to plant a flag. And I was really. I don't know. Sarkeesian from Texas. I don't. I don't have a college football team that I care about or. I love college football. I just. I don't have one particular team. But when they won that game that night, I think it was against Texas A and M on their. On Texas A and M's field. And he ran his guys off of the logo. I said, that's what we should be more all about, you know? But everybody's got to run their program the way they see fit, too. Ryan and I. And I accept that as well. I just don't always have to be a part of it, is what I would say, too. You know, you got to let people. [00:50:43] Speaker A: Mayfield talked about it. You know, he talked about the Red river rivalry, and he's like, well, Texas and Oklahoma have been doing that to each other for years. But I think that's the other flip side of that's, like, don't even pay attention to it. [00:50:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:58] Speaker A: Like, I mean, I get both sides, but he's like, they've been doing that forever, and it's really like a non. It's nothing even really to talk about because they've been doing that to each other forever. And it's like, okay, go play better beat the other team. And if you lose then you just expect that might happen. But don't worry about it. Walk off the field and, and go about your business. [00:51:18] Speaker B: Well, it's about out of control escalations and it's about not being able to keep things in a healthy perspective and keep healthy boundaries. And we have, if anybody's going to give these players healthy boundaries, we as coaches definitely need to be doing that. But if we're going to do that that we have to have healthy boundaries in our behavior as well too, I feel like. And that's that we, that gets lost in the, in the shuffle at times too. [00:51:46] Speaker A: This is a pivotal time for Division 1 as far as legislation. [00:51:49] Speaker B: No doubt. [00:51:50] Speaker A: I mean it reminds me of the, the early 90s and the, the early 2000s when we're trying to get stuff changed. This is a pivotal. You guys right now there is you. [00:51:59] Speaker B: You'Re nail on the head, you're right over the target as they say. And, and there'll be things that'll happen I think in this next five to 10 years that are really going to, it's either it's going to make or break college athletics because we are in danger of losing college athletics in my opinion. And we're in danger of bankrupting mid level college athletics if we're not careful as well too. So hopefully the leadership that the presidents and the athletic directors can give us will bring us to an. Bring us towards sanity rather than insanity because it's unsustainable at the dirt in the direction that we're headed right now. I do believe that. [00:52:40] Speaker A: What do you feel like, what do you feel like the best roster number is? [00:52:44] Speaker B: Well, I know that there's a lot of Talk with the 34 man roster and so forth. I think that makes it really difficult at times. I mean, yeah, everybody says well, Major League Baseball has a 25, 26, 27 man roster. [00:53:01] Speaker A: Levels of minor leagues. [00:53:03] Speaker B: Exactly. And so you don't have. All their player development is going on on four other teams. All of their stopgap safety measures. If they have you, you can call a guy up if you need to. So I think that in today's world with pitching staff and pitching being the way it is, I mean when I first started coaching in 1982, I, I might have a guy go out and throw 148 pitches that day and nobody, they, they got mad at me if I came to Take them out after that because they wanted to finish the game. So the game has evolved in that way. And the way that the game has evolved, roster numbers become a little bit more important. I'm not a guy that's ever brought in 50, 60, 70 kids in the fall and you know that. That's just not been part of my landscape or where I was at. But I do think 34 is going to be a little bit tight. I know they're talking about maybe starting at 38 in the fall and being down to 34 by December 1st. Who knows what's really going to happen. And this court ruling still has to take place in April before any of these type of things. [00:54:09] Speaker A: I feel bad for you guys because it's just a guessing game right now. At least if you know, then you can adjust. Baseball coaches have always been good about adjusting with whatever the legislation piece is. I just think there needs to be. Find a way to get your number to start the school year and keep the entire guys. I just don't like the cut down piece. Put a number on it and then that way coach knows and the players know that you're going to be with the team the whole year. [00:54:35] Speaker B: It changes the dynamic of the relationship and it makes it more, it makes it more of a, you know, a transitional relationship, you know, than it does a. [00:54:45] Speaker A: It's transactional then, because transactional, that's the word I was. Because again, that's the way the rules have been set up that way. I just don't like the cut down piece. Like, let's get to a good number and, and that's what you're going to keep for the whole year. And I agree it cleans a lot of things up for everybody. [00:55:01] Speaker B: Well, it makes it. To me, it's a cultural challenge. You, you challenge the culture when you start knowing that we're going to have to try to cut some, some of this down before. I don't make the rules. I only, I only try to live within them. And so what I would say is this. And I had a young coach ask me this a couple of months ago. He said, man, how are you dealing with all this stuff? When we're talking about these roster limits, the scholarships, all this type of stuff, because you know as well as I do they're talking about bumping it up to a maximum of 34 scholarships. Well, mid levels aren't going to get. Most of us aren't going to get. You know, my ad looks at me and goes, yeah, you got 11.7. Be happy about that, you know, kind of thing. So you're going to have all kinds of discrepancies in, within your autonomy or the, excuse me, not the autonomy, but the balance of who's got what. But the thing that I would say is this. I, since COVID I have looked at it as well, this is how it is today and this is what our team's going to look like this year and what it's going to be next year. We'll. We'll deal with that as we start evolving towards that. And it really takes me back, as you mentioned, those junior college days at Three Rivers where you're turning over at least half your roster every year and you got some kids leaving because they, you know, my car doesn't work, so I ain't coming back in the, in the spring, you know, or whatever, so. Or I got to go to work or whatever. And so you develop some of those skill sets coaching in junior college because you've always got a lot of turnover and you've got. Your roster is never always in flux. [00:56:37] Speaker A: Do you think a lot of your career path ends up being some luck? [00:56:40] Speaker B: No doubt. [00:56:41] Speaker A: Well, for everybody, right? And fortune, I love. Thank you for checking me out, Fortune. [00:56:47] Speaker B: I think, I think coaching at the college is. It's fortuitous. You've got to be good, you've got to work hard, you got to do everything right. But that does not guarantee you any kind of success. There is fortune involved. Baseball is a very fortuitous sport in my opinion, just because, you know, you can do everything right. Square a pitch up, hit 100 mile an hour exit velocity, but it's right at the guy with the wind blowing in to left field and he catches it easily, you know, or you can stick your butt out, get fooled. Gork a ball over the first baseman's head with the bases loaded. The pitcher beat you in every way possible, but you just drove in three runs. [00:57:25] Speaker A: You know, do you have a fail forward moment? You have something you thought was going to set you back, but looking back now, it helped you move forward. Could be personal or professional, both, you. [00:57:35] Speaker B: Know, probably jobs that I've applied for that I thought, man, I, I should have had this job. You know, I'd be a finalist, I'd be in the interview process. I'd be down between me and one other person. And I tell you to every one of these situations, you look at it 10 years later and you go, man, I'm so glad that I didn't get that job that I thought I just had to have or, you know, so I would encourage younger coaches with that and just say, you know what? And I truly believe this, Ryan, but God's got a better plan for us than we have for ourselves a lot of times. So what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to get up every day, go to work, work as hard as we can, and, and do the best that we can to try to let go and not worry about the things that we don't have control over, you. [00:58:24] Speaker A: Know, have you always been that way or is that grown with experience? [00:58:29] Speaker B: Well, I think my parents taught me a lot of that. My father's accident, you know what I mean? Nothing that it wasn't his fault. It was just. It was a truly an accident. My, My mother was. She was born in a sod house out in the middle of the eastern Colorado prairie, you know, so they grew up with hard knocks, but both extremely intelligent, both very well read. Neither one of them had more than an 8th grade education, and yet they, they, My dad taught himself trigonometry and calculus and algebra, you know, so they would, they were very much, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get busy and go do something. And, you know, I think it was my mom that instilled in me, if you, if you're having a bad day or you don't feel good about life, then get up and go do something for somebody else. And I guarantee you you'll feel better if you do something for someone else. Where that's, that's the epitome of a servant's heart, in my opinion. [00:59:30] Speaker A: Get you out of a funk. Dive in. Just like with players, you know, if you're going, if you're not going. Well, dive into your teammates. [00:59:36] Speaker B: Yes. [00:59:37] Speaker A: Start picking your teammates up. You'll, you'll. And that's a karma thing too. The God universe, like, you start picking other people up, it's going to turn around for you at some point. [00:59:45] Speaker B: Yeah. In, in, in life and in sports, you reap what you sow many, many times. I agree totally. [00:59:51] Speaker A: Have you had to adjust your schedule at all with, with what you had going on with your, your stomach last year? Have you had, well, just your schedule at all? [00:59:59] Speaker B: No, it was just a matter. What happened was, is I had a, I'd. Back in 2008, I had had a bacteria that created a blockage in my colon in the off season. It was in fall and I had to have about 6 or 8 inches cut out, you know, of my colon. Well, that had formed over the last 16 years or so. It had formed scar tissue and apparently some of that had kinked. It had attached itself to one of my. One of my intestines and then kinked it and really created another blockage, so to speak. So I went in the hospital on February 5 and then came out on February 14. But I was healthy, feeling good. I'm thinking I'll be back in another week. I'm going to. I'm hoping I'm going to get back for that trip to South Carolina last year. And sure enough, the next day I had an infection starting and it just created abscesses throughout my abdomen. It was about an 11, 11, 12 inch incision that I had. I tell everybody that's why I look pregnant now is because it's the surgery. It's not maybe getting old and fat. But anyway, that abscess ran wild and. And really I ended up being on antibiotics for about 50 days. I ended up having drainage tubes coming out of my abdomen and then into a bag on my hip for 52 days. And, and man, that was. You know, I missed 30 games last year. But our team did great while I was gone. I mean, we get a win down at South Carolina on the road. We go up to Indiana and beat them in a game, you know, up there at their place. One game, and we're playing, you know, really well against teams like Alabama and Vanderbilt, you know, and so I, I got back and I told the kids, I said, you know, I think I'm going to just start taking the first 30 games off every year and let you guys just have fun. [01:01:51] Speaker A: How were you able to handle communication with the team while you're out? [01:01:55] Speaker B: Well, I was still, you know, I would come and I would speak with the team and stay in touch. I would. After, you know, even after games, I would. I couldn't get uniform because I had the drainage tubes coming out, actually coming out of my abdomen. But I would come and just sit and watch the games, but I wouldn't participate. I wouldn't dress out. And then after the games, I would. I would at least just make sure that they knew I was still alive and talk with them a little bit and show up, just try to be present as much as I possibly could. I tell you, the other thing that we had was in addition to the great coaching staff that I had and was blessed with, we had really good senior leadership on that team last year that, you know, we had 16 guys graduate last year. Well, they all had played for me and knew how we should go about our business. And we're Good, good captains and so forth. That took care of the. They took care of the small things and allowed us to play. [01:02:52] Speaker A: Isn't that the hope, though, as a coach like that, that they can do it if you're not around? [01:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:58] Speaker A: Doesn't that speak to you and how you have things set up there? Because they were able to get after it still, even though you weren't there all the time? [01:03:06] Speaker B: Well, this goes all the way back to John Wooden, who was, you know, he was kind of a mentor and someone that, that basketball coach Gene Bess at Three Rivers that I had worked with. He and Roger Patillo, they, you know, they would always, they would say, if we're doing things right, then when it comes game time, we just let our kids go play and let them do it the way they know how to do it. And so you hope as a coach, that's what, that's what you. When things are going really well and the players are driving the bus, let's just say it like it is. If the players are driving the bus and they're doing a good job with it, the best thing you can do is, is just sit in that other seat and keep your mouth shut and let them drive the bus. Right. And so that's what you're always hoping for. And we had really, you know, like I say, A.J. gore, Jason Steen and Will Craig did a tremendous job in my absence last year. And I don't think. I think we were just as good, if not better, in my absence that as. As anything, but I was sure excited to get back, I can tell you that. [01:04:12] Speaker A: What are some final thoughts before I let you go? [01:04:14] Speaker B: Well, just the fact that, you know, one, the things that you and I talked about earlier, the. Some of this new legislation, I have concerns about it. I have concerns about how finances and economics are going to be affecting college athletics, period. Not just baseball, but all sports. And of course, baseball is very susceptible to some of these hindrances that we run into. No doubt it can be an expensive sport at times because of roster size and equipment, things like that, but. [01:04:44] Speaker A: Yeah, but tuition dollars make up for that. [01:04:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:04:48] Speaker A: Nobody ever talks about it. Administrators don't want to talk about it. The baseball brings in a lot of revenue. Tuition. [01:04:54] Speaker B: Tuition. Yeah. But if you start going to 34 scholarships, then you're. You're actually, you're changing that. That model. But I agree with you. I think, I think we had a really sweet spot where we were generating a lot of revenue for universities with our roster sizes and so forth. But the other thing that comes to my mind or the last thought that I have is I hear this all the time and I get this question all the time is, you know, man, these kids today, you know, and people complaining or griping about, you know, well, how do you think players have changed over your 40 years of doing this? And I'll, I'll be honest with you. Parents are different. There's no doubt about that. Parents are probably the biggest problem at times, but these kids are still motivated by exactly the same things. They're, they're motivated, they want to be challenged, they want to be, they want to be held accountable, they want to work hard. You know, the guys that are doing it right, I have a lot of optimism about our future. I have a lot of optimism about our nation and where things are headed because these young guys that I'm coaching now, 43 years later, they're smarter, they're more talented, they work hard, they, they want to be challenged, they want to be held accountable and so forth. I, I, I think, I think things, I have optimism, I think there's sunshine. [01:06:21] Speaker A: I get reminders of it all the time about this generation coming up. They, they get it, they are smart and they understand about community. Yes, they, I think that's where they have it ahead of some of the other generation is they really are involved with their community as a whole. Like they see the benefit of helping everybody. [01:06:39] Speaker B: Amen. [01:06:40] Speaker A: And, and they're rallying each other in this time right now of we're in this thing together. So well. And some of these kids as well. [01:06:49] Speaker B: They'Re less selfish right now. They are more team minded. They love being a part. Here's the thing that I see in these young people today is they love being a part of a team because it's something greater than just that's all this focus upon them and it's focus on self. We're not designed. God didn't design us to be the center of our, of the universe. He designed us to be a part of that thing. And I, I just have optimism. I'll say it that way. Even at this old age, I still, I believe that things are getting better. [01:07:17] Speaker A: I really do love it. Thanks for your time, Dave. I always appreciated you. Well, happy for you, man. This is awesome. Really happy. I love, thank you. [01:07:26] Speaker B: I love our friendship and I'm grateful for it, Ryan and I hope that you'll give your dad my best. When you talk to him, he speak. I have great memories of him and competing against him at bossy field and you know, just some of, some of those things and you know, anyway, it's just, it was good, good times, great memories. Yes, thank you very much. [01:07:51] Speaker A: I'm so pumped for Coach Jarvis. In a current society where it seems like self promoters are the only ones getting recognized, it's awesome to see him get this recognition. This truly is a win for the good guys. Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Hale, Matt west, and Antonio Walker in the ABCA office. For all the help on the podcast. Feel free to reach out to me via email, rbrownleybca.org Twitter, Instagram and TikTok oachbabca or direct message me via the MyABCA app. This is Ryan Brownlee signing off for the American Baseball Coaches Association. Thanks and leave a better for those behind you. [01:08:40] Speaker B: Yep Wait for another and. [01:08:46] Speaker A: The world will always return and your. [01:08:51] Speaker B: Life is never for your name and you know that way Wait for another day.