Jim Schlossnagle - 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 15% on your first purchase. This episode is sponsored by Netting Pros. Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time. 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We got a late start on our ABCA hall of Fame podcast, but start out with a bang with the University of Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagel. Schlossnagel, one of the nation's premier baseball coaches, took programs at Texas A and M and TCU to historic heights over the last 21 years. One of four coaches to win multiple games at the College World Series with multiple programs, Schloss Nagel has had success at every stop on his 23 year head coaching journey with 945 career wins as a head coach at Texas A and M, TCU and unlv. Schlossnagel got his start in coaching on Rick Jones staff at Elon after he finished his playing career for the Phoenix. Jones and Slashnagel continued their success together at Two Lane as you would expect with Coach Schlossnagel's career and personality, this is an extremely entertaining episode. Welcome Jim Schlossnagel to the podcast. [00:03:14] Speaker B: Here. [00:03:14] Speaker A: Jim Schlossnagel, 2024, ABCA hall of Fame, ABCA board member. Just finished as president. President, first year, Texas, but successful runs at A&M, TCU, UNLV. One of four coaches to win multiple games at the College World Series with different programs. So, Schloss, thanks for jumping on with me. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, man, glad to be with you. Appreciate all you do. [00:03:37] Speaker A: Hey, where would you be right now without Rick Jones. [00:03:43] Speaker B: Man? I was a journalism major wanting to write for Sports Illustrated, so I would like to think I would be in the media in some form, but seeing as how print media is, you know, gone by the wayside, who knows? But yeah, without Rick Jones, I mean, I wasn't thinking about coaching, that's for sure. [00:04:09] Speaker A: And I was going to ask you what you're going to be doing if you got. Because you're Magnum C. Laude at Elon, I was going to ask you if you'd be doing something else, because I think about what I'd be. I'd probably be bartending if I wasn't what I'm doing right now, because you never know. There's a lot of those different paths that you can take, especially early on in your career. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it's crazy how life happens, man. It's just a saying I use with our team a lot, try to use it, remind myself, you know, things happen in life for you, not to you. Even. Even the negative things, they're perceived negatives, which we all go through every day. But. But yeah, that conversation after practice one day took me out, hit me from blind side. And then he gave me a week off to think about it, and I thought. To think the world of Coach Jones and. And I came back and said, okay, yeah, I'm in. If you think I. If you think I can be good at that, which was coaching, then I'll do it. [00:05:12] Speaker A: How long did it take you to come to that realization where life happens for you, not to you? [00:05:22] Speaker B: More so later, lately in life, I mean, I think I always realized it, but, you know, whether it be personal trials and things that I've had to go through, that we all go through, and as we get older and, you know, we. We live in an imperfect world. But really, just in the last, you know, last couple years, I would say that most realization, because obviously, professionally, I didn't plan on two job changes, that's for sure. And Then personally, just trying to navigate all that, My children, all that stuff, it's hard. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Everybody. I've got two older kids now, too. And you'd like to think that you raise them and then you send them out, but you're still worried about them as a father and as a parent. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that you're also the older you get. You know, we all talk about transformational coaching versus transactional coaching, and I heard a podcast with my friend Lonnie Almeida, the softball coach at Florida State, the other day, and she said, you know, we live or she lives, which I. We all do, especially at this level, really, any level. But we live on the corner of transformational and transactional. Right. If we. We want to be transformational, but if there's not any winning, if there's not transactions, there's no opportunity to be transformational. Right. And. But. But I think, like, you know, as I've gotten older and my children are the same age as the, you know, they've bypassed now the kid. The age of the kids that we coach. You. You. You're like, holy cow. You know, these things. These guys are going through a lot. You know, there's a lot going on and. And so trying to be an encourager to them regarding, hey, man, this is happening for you. Not to you or like, our first season in A and M, you know, we were 10 and 8, and Nolan Kane looked at me and said, we might win. We might only win five games in the sec. Like, this is not good. And. But then when you look back on it, you know, that Tuesday night against Houston was a. We know we go to LSU and first ever SEC Series for me as a SEC coach, we win two out of three and end up winning the SEC west and winning, you know, going to the College World Series, finishing third. So all of those things happened for us, and I think it's about how you handle those things, how, you know, the, you know, event plus response equals outcome. The part you can control is the response. [00:08:02] Speaker A: So when you're in that run in the beginning, you get to that program and you think you're going to get turned around, and how do you stay patient with that piece to know that. That it may turn around, but it may not turn around? [00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really hard because, I mean, especially for me, because I'm super competitive, and my biggest fear in life is to let somebody down in terms of, you know, they've made an investment in the program, they made an investment in you, and you want to, you know, you Never know how many seasons you have left, so you want to make the most of it. But you. I am especially this third time, fourth time around now UNLV to TCU to A and M for example. When I look at our team this year, it reminds me a lot of our first A and M team. Awesome makeup of the players, some talented players, but also a team that's going to have to out team the other team in, in our league. We're going to have to have some things go our way which every team has to have that. But yeah, I think experience and just knowing and believing in the process that we've. All that we've set in place everywhere that we've coached. And I have a full on belief that that's going to happen here at Texas. It's just. I'm not very patient, you know. I want it to happen now. [00:09:21] Speaker A: And I was going to ask you, is the pressure on you internal or external? You've, you've been at some really high profile places and so is the pressure on you internal or external or a mix of both? [00:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah, internal for sure. I get the external pressure. I've been fortunate enough to work for athletic directors, really all of them that have been great. My first ever one was just passed away. Coach Robinson, John Robinson, that used to be the football coach at USC. Boy, what a great mentor he was as a 30 or 30 year old head coach and then everybody at TCU. So definitely internal. I think any coach, I mean you would probably agree there's no person that can put more pressure on a coach than themselves. Especially anybody that is a high achiever. And, and money doesn't. Money, like money just adds more. At least for me. Because you know, when someone's paying you a insane wage to be a coach, then I feel at least even more duty to, to do the right to you know, to win, to do the right thing. And, and so the, the saying, this is a saying that is not good. But I. It is true. Winning never feels as good as losing feels bad, right? On a scale of 1 to 10, winning should, should feel like an 8, 9 or 10 because it's hard to win. But when you're, when you work really hard and you're at a great place, it's more of a relief that you won the game. But when you lose the game it's like oh my goodness, how, how is that happening? That's a really bad thing because we should celebrate winning more. And I will say last year at A and M was my, my or our best Year in terms of really enjoying the wins more, number one, because I knew we had a really good team and it was going to work out more than likely. But, but yeah, man, coaches, coaches put a lot of pressure on themselves. If fans only knew that, they'd probably understand better. [00:11:34] Speaker A: How did you do that as far as savoring the wins? Because I, I agree with you on that. I think happiness and gratitude and all that stuff goes into savoring when things are, are going well. How, how did you make that switch with your team last year? [00:11:48] Speaker B: He. Well, first of all, in 2013, summer of 13, going into 14, Bill Mo helped me make the best top two or three. Maybe the best change in my life from a coaching staff standpoint is I don't meet with teams after games. If I have an issue with their attitude or effort, then yes, maybe if we just lost a really tough one and I don't want them to go home. I want to encourage them. I'll meet with them. But most high school summer league college games, I call it the two amoebas, as soon as the game's over, you see one team go to right field and one team goes to left field. And I used to do the exact same thing. And at least for me, and I'm not telling you this is, you know, for other coaches it may work great. I just think, I just think most of those meetings are for the coach and not for the player. It's a horribly. It's not a good teaching moment. When you've been on a field and you been there, you've taken bp, you've been there for three hours, then you play a game for three hours. All anybody wants to do is get something to eat and go home whether you've win or won or lost, right? And so that was a huge change for me because it kept me even when we would win the game, I would still be mad about something, right? Hey, we missed that cutoff or yeah, we played horrible, but we won. I need to remind you that we played horrible. No, you don't need to remind them, right? Like you won. Just it's better than the alternative, right? And so you won the game. Let them enjoy the winning of the game. And then tomorrow, when the emotions out of it and you have your bullet points, your teaching points from you missed the cutoff man or hey, really good job on that rundown, then you. And then, you know, here or wherever you might have video to support it and the next day it's a really good teaching moment. So this is a long answer to your question. But I think just allowing the players and the coaches, like, when the game's over, what we would do last year is we had a coach's locker room and we just sat on the couch and popped a beverage and for 10 minutes said, hey, man, let's. That felt good, man. Let's enjoy it. Let's don't talk about tomorrow's lineup just yet. Let's enjoy this. And then, okay, now we're back at it. But, you know, I talked to Coach Sark, Steve Sarkeesian, our football coach here, and you know, the Tech, the football team, if you watch, especially the Texas games. But I'm sure every coach, every school does it here. They have this. It's called Texas Fight. It's kind of a rally school song that they sing in the, in the locker room right after the game. Like, they really get to celebrate it. And I was talking to Max Weiner yesterday and I said, man, wouldn't that be a cool thing to do in baseball? But the problem is, like, we have another game tomorrow and the next day, and what if we've lost four in a row? Like, are we really going to celebrate one? You know? And so I don't know that baseball lends itself to that, but at the same time, why not? You know? So I think you got to allow yourself that time to enjoy it for a little bit. [00:14:56] Speaker A: You talked about the money piece for coaches, but it's also there for players. And I always laugh with the media because they start talking about, well, guys are making all this money now as players, they're going to get complacent. And I think if somebody's driven, they're going to take it the other way because, okay, somebody's investing a lot in me. I'm going to work my tail off to make it great. [00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that's going to be player to player. But I haven't noticed, at least in I can only speak to baseball, I haven't noticed any of that with name, image and likeness. I think a couple things I haven't noticed any issues with chemistry, none of that stuff. Number one, we've always had imbalanced scholarships. We've always had the guy on the team that's on books and the guy who's on 80%. And for me, as long as the player knows that the coach is going to write the lineup based on who deserves to play right before nil. Plenty of guys on 70% of baseball scholarships have sat the bench and watched the walk on play. Right? Evan Oschenbeck, one of the greatest relief pitchers in the history of college baseball, was a walk on from junior college at Texas A and M. And there were guys on nil deals and there were guys on big scholarships that watched him finish the games for us in his junior year last year, yeah, we put him on scholarship and whatever, but players. And same thing in professional baseball. Like players don't know who makes the money and who doesn't make the money, but they also know that who performs the best. And so. So, yeah, I think that stuff hasn't seeped into our sport because if someone were to act like that, then they're just not going to play. I mean, and they're going to get bypassed and at the end of the day, they want to play. [00:16:40] Speaker A: Were you on Clemson staff the year before Coach Leggett showed up? [00:16:44] Speaker B: So I was on the coach. I was on the Clemson staff with Coach Leggett. So coach our staff. Pretty cool staff right here. It was Bill Wilhelm, who I believe finished 37 years as the coach at Clemson. 37 or 38. He was number 30. That was his jersey number was 38. Our top assistant was Jack Leggett, and the next guy was restricted earnings, Coach Randy Mazzy, who just retired from West Virginia. And then I was the. I was the volunteer coach in the first year of volunteer coaches Beginning summer in 92, baseball season of 93, we all shared one office. So Coach Wilhelm, Coach Leggett, Coach Maisie and myself, all in one office. It was freaking like a. Like the show the office. Right. We could totally have done a sitcom of that, just those days. But yeah, Coach Leggett was my roommate on the road when I was 21, 22 years old. [00:17:45] Speaker A: How'd you and Coach Jones get things going at Tulane? [00:17:51] Speaker B: We got it going pretty quick. We had a great athletic director by the name of Kevin White, who is one, if he's top two athletic director in the history of college athletics. You know, was it left Tulane, Arizona State, Arizona State to Notre Dame, Notre Dame to Duke maybe. And he's still involved and his sons, you know, one's the AD at Central Florida, one's the AD at Tennessee. So just incredible leadership. Coach Jones had been at Georgia Tech, a high academic school. He went from Elon to Georgia Tech. So we had a grasp of the high academics, high cost of attendance. And then we hired a recruiting coordinator from Notre Dame, Brian Cleary, who understood high cost, high academic, private school and started signing players and, and great commitment to win there. And yeah, we. And Brian did a great job to get us off the ground. And then me, Rob Cooper, Buddy Goldsmith, we signed some really good teams and, and doing that in the shadow of what Coach Burtman was doing at LSU in the 90s. That was tough because every single regional, for the most part, we got sent to LSU. And then finally 2001, we had our breakthrough moment where we played LSU in the super regional and it was Coach Berman's last game when we beat them to go to the World Series. [00:19:13] Speaker A: How did you know it was time to go to unlv? Completely different school than Tulane. And how did you know that was going to maybe be the right choice for you? I don't think you ever truly know if it's the right choice, but how'd you know for you personally it was probably the right time. [00:19:27] Speaker B: So I, yeah, I was, you know, I interviewed to be the head coach at Maryland, where I'm from. Their athletic director was an Elon graduate. Didn't feel like that was the right thing for me. And then I would have taken, I finished second twice to be the head coach at McNeese State, and I would have taken it both times, once to Mike Bianco and once to Todd Butler, but I finished second to both of those guys. And then we got back from the World Series, or it was actually before the World Series when the job opened at unlv and I had never been to Vegas. I still have never gambled my life as a gamble with, with this coaching thing. But our, our other assistant at Tulane at the time, Buddy Goldsmith, who had coached on the west coast at, at American River Community College in Sacramento, he said, hey man, you need to look at this UNLV deal like you can win there. And they had had five straight losing seasons and, and I was like, okay, I'll go check it out. And I flew out there, met with them, and I was like, hey, you know, this is a complete opposite of Tulane. No disrespect from a small private high academic school to a state supported school in Vegas. But I was like, man, we can win some games here. It's not, it's inexpensive. There's really good high school baseball in Las Vegas. At the time, there was national champion junior college baseball at ccsn. And then you had access to all the great junior college players in California and Arizona. Dixie was it. What is it now? Utah Tech. Dixie Junior College was. They were awesome. So I just felt like you could, we could win quick. And we did. We were 30 and 30. The first year, which was the first there was the first non win, non losing season they'd had in five years. I remember when we won our 30th game and we were 30 and 29 with a loss in the conference tournament. And we lost. And we. I said, boys, we. We may not have a winning record, but we're not going to have a losing record. And then the next year, we went 47 and 14, I think. And then we ran into a buzzsaw and Pat Murphy's Arizona State team with Dustin Pedroia in the regional of 2003. And then I took the TCU job a couple weeks after that. [00:21:54] Speaker A: Well, and in that area, too, you've got everybody coming in. You got. Phoenix is close, but you got people coming into UNLV in that area, too, in Vegas for recruiting events, too. So it's a great area to recruit from. [00:22:06] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that was back when we had Team One. There was no perfect game thing called Team One. And we. We hosted the event at UNLV when I was there. But yeah, I think, I mean, coach Stan Stolte's. Stan stands still coaching there. Right? I mean, and they actually, they inducted our entire 2003 team. A couple years ago, they inducted the entire team in the UNLV hall of Fame. That was awesome. Awesome moment in my life. [00:22:34] Speaker A: For coaches listening and probably don't know this story, but used to take the beer sale money after games and used to deposit it. I still remember that you spoke in Anaheim the one year and you were talking about recruiting. And so I went to the Q and A afterwards and I just hammered you with. With fundraising questions. And you did a great job at just answering. I felt bad for everybody else because I just kept hammering you on fundraising questions. But I'm sure a lot of people don't know that story about, oh, man. [00:23:00] Speaker B: That'S the craziest stuff ever. Like, no way that gets by today. But a guy named Terry Cottle was my sport administrator and beer district Coors distributorship was a big donator to the baseball program. Coach Sosby, who. Who was before me, I think he went to work for them. Anyway, we were trying to raise money and we were trying to sell beer in the stands, and they finally gave us a liquor license or whatever to allow one person to sell the beer. But there was no place in the press box or the concession stand to do it. So we literally would just set up a table and fill coolers up with beer. Terry and I would go a couple. Like a day before the series, we would go pick up all the beer and then we Would throw it in the coolers and when the weekend was over, he would bring me or they would bring me the cash and it might be like 2,700 bucks, 3,500 bucks. And I remember, you know, I was 30 years old and I was scared to death to get in trouble. And so I would write down and, and I don't know if I took pictures and cell phones, whatever I would write down. And then Monday morning I would turn it in like here you go. Like, see, here are the receipts. Like this is exactly how much money. Because if I was a gambler in Vegas, like I could have rolled over to frickin Mandalay Bay and tried to turn that 2500 bucks into 10,000 or something. But. But yeah, did that the entire year. Insanity. [00:24:29] Speaker A: Is that some advice for coaches listening in? I don't, I don't think the newer generation kind of understands us older guys and what we had to do or you're willing to do things that other people probably aren't willing to do. [00:24:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:24:42] Speaker A: I mean, hey, that's not my responsibility as a coach here. I don't need to be doing that. But, but you're. I think those of us that have stayed in it long enough, we're willing to do those things that maybe somebody else isn't willing to do. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah. That's why I think high school coaches are the best coaches. High school coaches are. The high school coaches are real coaches. Right. Some of the guys that come in college baseball now. I mean it is what it is. Right. I don't want to sound like the old. [00:25:06] Speaker A: And I'm happy for the, the next generation. I don't want them to have to do what, what I had to. To stay in it. Like I'm happy for the next generation of guys. [00:25:15] Speaker B: Yeah. But I think, but yeah, but I. [00:25:17] Speaker A: Think of honor to it too. [00:25:19] Speaker B: Well, it's not so much a bad. I mean it's badge of honor, but it's also like I have a better grasp of what goes on having gone through all that. You know, I've, I've been in charge of the field and had to me and Rob Cooper one year we verticutted the baseball field at Tulane. By hand. Right? By hand. And then we put the seat out by pushing the thing all the way around the field by hand. Like you would do your yard. And so all those experiences, you know, they, they allow you to be better. And, and I've always admired like Rick Jones, Skip Burtman, Ron Frazier, Jim Morris. I mean I'll miss somebody but coaches that weren't, they're really good at baseball, but they see the entire scope of a program, from the fundraising to the field maintenance and all of that stuff. And, and today's. Today's coach in college. You know, you can hire a guy out of pro ball and he's never spent a day on a mower. Right? That's not his fault. But. But it is what it is. And so I think all those experiences were great. I had a. We were at A and M last year, and we were talking to the nutritionist, and I was asking her, like, okay, like, what do you do? Like, what. What's your responsibilities? And I. And I said, well, aren't you. Aren't you going to be the person that orders our meals on the road and make sure, you know, make sure we get the meals? And her response was, well, I didn't go to college for that. I was like, hold up a second. I didn't go to college to rake a field or verticut. I didn't go to college to, you know, clean out the rock beds in front of Turchin Stadium at Tulane. Right. And so we all. Our job is to pitch in and do it and be, you know, ace of all trades, like, or whatever that's called. Jack of all trades. So, you know, that's why I think high school coaches are so elite, because they, they. They don't just have to get. Do those things. They get to do those things. [00:27:11] Speaker A: Yeah, but you're one of the best that we have as far as seeing the entire picture, too. I tell this story about Dave Van Horn. We go to Arkansas to play. I'm at Western and it's raining. And our guys go in the clubhouse, and then they come out and I pull them out. I'm like, guys, do you know who's got the rake in his hand right now? He's raking third base. They're like, no. I'm like, that's Dave Van Horn. That's their head coach. Like, he's never forgotten where he came from. [00:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. I think all the best ones are. It's just. You can't ask players to do things you won't do. I did a thing last year, last couple of years at A and M, where I put on a grease board. We had 71 total bodies in the program. If you include every coach, every manager, every player, every assistant trainer, every strength coach, like, whatever, whoever we would consider a part of the program, the number was 71. And I think if my math's correct, 71 into 100 is 1.3, or the percentage came out 1.3%. And the point of the message was everybody in this room, all 71 people, have a 1.3% ownership of the company, of the program. My 1.3 isn't, in my mind, more important than. Than your 1.3 or her 1.3, because if she doesn't fully invest, that's going to keep us from being successful. Yes, I have the title of head coach, and, yes, I have bigger. Some big decisions to make, but the ownership needs to belong to everybody, and so I need to be willing, or I'm always willing. And Dave Van Horn's that kind of guy, too. Corbin. Like, to me, all those guys, like, they don't see themselves as. As above anything. And the day that I would ever act differently than that, I would want someone to tell me, and I would probably walk away. [00:29:04] Speaker A: This is a great honor, by the way. Does it feel any more special, though, because you've been in those ABCA meetings with, like, the living legends of the game. [00:29:13] Speaker B: Crazy, man. Like, it's so crazy to be in those meetings, you know, with the guys that are, you know, Coach Johnson, Coach Madison. I mean, all the guys that are in there. But I think back to my first couple conventions when I remember going up the escalator, I think it was in Atlanta or Dallas, and. And Coach Dado was coming down, and he. We made eye contact, and I said, hi, Coach. And he said, of course, his famous hot tiger and. And just running into guys like that. And, you know, Jim Morris, who. You know, and Rick Jones. Jim Morris, who let me work so many Georgia Tech camps and would let me stay at his place. And, I mean, it's just insane that I would remotely. I'm. I'm a guy from freaking Western Maryland, Hagerstown, Maryland. And I'm the baseball coach at Texas, and I've gotten to coach at A M&TCU and UNLV as a head coach. Like, it's total. It still blows my mind every day. [00:30:19] Speaker A: Is it different because you're still coaching? [00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I don't really reflect on stuff very much. You know, I promise my speech will be less than six minutes. Seven minutes. Number one, I've sat in those meetings when the guy went 40 and whatever. But. But yeah, I mean, I'm not. I'm not in reflection mode very much. I mean, I look here to my left. I wish I could show you, but on this wall is a mural in this office of Coach Dish. Coach Falk. So in other words, Dish Falk, Coach Gus Gustafson, and Coach Garrido. And those four faces stare at me every single day. So in case you. In case you're wondering where you're at and what, you know, a picture of Roger Clemens. The Rocket looks at you every day. So I don't have time to reflect. I don't. You know, I got to do a great job here for the Longhorns, and that reflection will come. But. But right now, I'm just. I'm grateful, no doubt about it, and very, very thankful, but I'm. I'm too busy. [00:31:26] Speaker A: Hey, you always hear that you can't coach in Texas if you didn't grow up there or play there. And obviously, you go to tcu, you're not from Texas, and you guys get it going. Was there any hesitation or were you like, okay, we did this at Tulane, Similar type of school. We're gonna be able to get this going at tcu. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah, my dream. People say, what was your dream job? My dream job was always tcu. That was my dream job. When I was at Tulane, I was like, man, I kind of like this private school thing back in those days. It's unique. It's a challenge because it's so expensive with 11.7 scholarships. And, you know, my spouse at the time was from Dallas. And so when you're having children, you're like, I'm never going to coach near my family because I can't stand cold weather, even though it does get cold in North Texas or Texas. But I said, man, that TCU thing, like, that's a good town. It's now a great town, and that's a good school, which is now a great school. I said, you know, everybody else that was private was good, right? Pepperdine was rolling. Rice was going well. Baylor was doing great. But TCU was a place. It's like, man, if they really wanted to be good at baseball, that would be an awesome place to live. I could raise children near somebody's family, and I think we could be pretty good. And so I always had my eye on tcu. That was the place I felt like that I could. Or we could make a mark. [00:32:54] Speaker A: What are the biggest differences between an elite public school and elite private school? [00:33:02] Speaker B: Well, I mean, you know, cost, first and foremost, you know, I think private schools, we didn't have any. There are schools out there, you know, like, obviously, Vanderbilt had some. I don't like to say that as a negative towards Vandy or Corbes, because. Let me sidebar for a second. [00:33:20] Speaker A: Think about Miami, Stanford, you know, when I was in it, especially in the 90s with cost of attendance, where they're getting a little bit of a break. Those were the two schools that I always felt like before Vandy got their deal, I always felt like it was Miami and Stanford that kind of had a little bit of an advantage from a cost of attendance piece. [00:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, you know, Stanford had help but you had to get in school. I mean that's the thing for them. Miami had some help with some. If I'm not, I don't want to. I don't want to misspeak though. They had some minority scholarships, Latin, some things for need based stuff. The thing I love to say about Vandy is, you know, nobody else wanted to take the job. Tim Corbin had the guts to go take that job. So everything that happened for him there, that wasn't just for the baseball program, that was for the school. And by the way, Rice ended up having the same stuff when coach Graham was there. Where guys could get money when their family made less than 100,000, which actually we now have at Texas. But the biggest difference would be that I felt like a small. I think a private school was like a small market team in the big leagues. Like you had to invest more in fewer players. You had to ride out the slumps of your best players. The guys couldn't get hurt because the first 10 position players could be as good as anybody else. But the difference between 10 and 11 was pretty big drop, same thing on the pitching. So you really had to be good at development. But there were positive things too, you know, like if we wanted to do stuff to a stadium, we didn't have to jump through 9 million hoops at a state university. You just raise the money and go do it, right? Because you're at a private school, you don't really. As long as you have permission from the AD and the board, you can do anything you want. So things happen faster at a private school. Smaller class sizes, which people, you know, you had something to sell. State, State University. Cheaper, right? Way cheaper. Way easier to spread scholarship money. Massive fan bases, right? A and M, 80, you know, 80 some or 75, 80,000 students. The 12th man. And so they're, you know, that, that was a positive. But there is no perfect place, right? You come here at Texas, it's an unbelievable academic school, but it's also pretty inexpensive in state. You know, we have a great city, we have good fans, but we also have entertainment challenges. In other words, there's a lot to do here. And so, you know, at A and M, you know, if two guys are playing ping pong and it's pouring rain, the 12th man's going to show up. I mean, they're coming and in a play and here if we're winning and I mean, I mean, Texas fans are going to come and move into the sec, I think is going to attract us to have even better and bigger crowds. But we have, you know, anytime you're in a place like Austin, the entertainment dollars gets challenged by, you know, jelly rolls in concert right across the street. Right. So there's a lot of challenges that way. So I think every place is awesome in their own way and every place has its challenges. [00:36:23] Speaker A: You've been around some of the best assistants in the game too, that you've hired and guys that are really doing well as head coaches too. How do you know when you're interviewing a guy who's the right fit for you? [00:36:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I've been super lucky, I think, and this is not a pat on the back to me, but this is just how lucky I've been. I think I've had nine or 10 former coaches, you know, be head coaches, whether current or past. I think that it goes back to Rick Jones and that, that conversation he had with me in the parking lot when he was talking, talking me into being a coach or talking to me about being a coach, he said the three most important qualities, especially of an assistant coach. The third most important thing, it's important, but it's the third most important thing, knowledge of the game. Right? You got to be a good teacher. You got to be a, you got to want to be continually be a lifelong learner and desire to be a great coach and just stay on top of it. The second most important thing, work ethic, right? Like, you got to be a grinder. You got to love this. This is a lifestyle. It's not a profession. This isn't a 9 to 5 job. Right? You got to really, really enjoy it and you got to work your fricking tail off. And then number one is loyal. You got to be loyal to the head coach. I mean, you may not agree, you may disagree, you can have conversations about that, you can have arguments, but you got to be loyal to the Skipper or you got to be loyal to the ad. And if you think about it, if you're a coach and you have a guy who really knows baseball, but he doesn't work hard and he's not loyal, he's got no value or if he knows baseball, he works hard and he's not loyal, he's got no value, you can't trust him. But if he's. If you find somebody, if you're a high school coach and you don't have a lot of money, but you can find a guy who's loyal and will work his rear end off well, you can teach him how to coach the catchers or you can teach him how to do the field, right? And so, and to me, those are the three things that I look for. And you know, anybody that we all need to make enough money to, to, to live and we all have bills to pay. But if I'm interviewing somebody or talking to them about the job and the first thing they want to talk about are finances, I'm out. I'm out. And it's the same thing. It's the rule I lived by as a young coach. It's a rule I tell my children to live by. And that's it. That's. I believe the longer you can wait to base this career decisions on money, the more money you'll make in the end. Right? So in a story of that would be after I was at Clemson for one semester, I was a volunteer coach. And this was. You weren't allowed to make money from your own camp. That was the first year of volunteer coaches. You couldn't get paid in camp. You can make money in somebody else's camp, but you couldn't make money at the Clemson camp. And so coach Wilhelm, I was just there because I wanted to learn. And in January, Roy Meuburn, the coach at Vandy, before court, Tim needed a pitching coach and he didn't have a lot of money. I think it was for the restricted earnings job. And Roy Meuburn called coach Wilhelm and they were, he's looking for a young pitching guy. And he said, well, I got the guy for you. And he, and Coach Wilhelm said, jim, you need to go take that job. You can make $12,000 during the academic year and $4,000 in the summer. That was the rule then. And I said, coach, but no disrespect. Like, I want to be around you and I want to be around Coach Leggett and I want to be around coach Mazy. And no disrespect to Vandy at the time, but I want to be around winning. You know, I want to be around a winner and I want to win an ACC championship or go to Omaha. I'll worry about that other stuff later. And, and you know, it worked out for Me, because then I got the two lane making the 12,000 bucks and then the rule changed and made $24,000. And so, but I, I just going back to your question, like, I don't. That's just what I look for, someone who's hungry in the profession, who's going to work hard and who's going to be loyal. [00:40:18] Speaker A: At what point at TCU did you figure out that you're going to bring Brian Kane? In. [00:40:24] Speaker B: 2006, we were 14 and 16 and I had a guy named Jake Arietta as a number one pitcher who ended up winning a Cy Young that year. He, that year he ended up going 14 and 1, led the nation in wins. And I think, tell me if I'm wrong, I think the year of 2005 may have been the year that Irvine went to Omaha with Dave Serrano as the head coach. And I had always been a Ken Revizza fan. I still have my original copy of Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time over right, over across away from me right now. And I had been teaching myself, I had been teaching Ken Revizza stuff since I was a pitching coach at tulane in like 95, 96. I had been trying to teach it all myself as the head coach. And we were 14 and 16 and I'm like, what can I do to get these guys better? And I felt like we were missing something. And I couldn't afford Ken Riviza. So I had seen in Omaha that Dave Serrano had, I think he had Brian Kane. That was Brian Kane's first client as a grad student, just recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton as a graduate student under Ken Reviza. So if I can't afford Reviza, maybe I can afford this 24 year old dude, Brian Kane, who was then an high school athletic director in Vermont. And Dave said, yeah, he's great. And we flew Brian Kane in the week before we played the Air Force Academy. And he did his deal and I was, I had already been all in on the mental game, but what I really got all in on was a different voice to help me teach the mental game. And could I go teach it myself today? Yes, for sure. But I believe that head coaches is kind of like your dad. If you're always hearing from your dad about the same stuff, you eventually tune your dad out. And so what Brian does, I mean, he does a million things for us, but what he really does is he helps me instill and maintain the mental game and teach mental skills in his own way without it being my voice. But our. Our entire staff has to be all in because that has to. It's not something that you do a lot. A little. It's something you have to do a little, a lot. And. And we have to have a Lang. The Brian the Mental Game language in our program every single day. And Brian just helps support that, either by coming on campus or the weekly zoom calls that we do. [00:43:11] Speaker A: I always felt like back then, too, he was so close to the guy's age range that he could speak their language. It was a lot of times, but I was like, the guys love him because he talks like they talk. [00:43:25] Speaker B: He does. And he's, you know, he's toned it back a little bit with age like everybody else. [00:43:29] Speaker A: That. That. Everybody. Yeah, yeah. [00:43:32] Speaker B: When we all. We all. We all. I mean, Brian Kane's successful because he screwed up. I'm successful. You're successful because we've made mistakes. We've been allowed to make mistakes. We've been. We've learned from the mistakes. Bill Mosiello, he always says, you know, Mo says, I've. I've messed up more than anybody else. Right. And so. And so, yeah. So Kaner is, you know, he's very unique, and he and I have worked together for so long, I'm now his longest standing client by far. And, you know, he knows exactly what I'm trying to do with the program, what we're trying to do. And. And he can say, hey, I think you can be better in this area. And I use him as a self evaluator. I have a weekly zoom call with him. He's kind of life coach to me with my own habits, you know, habits, routines. You know, he'll come in and say, or he'll watch a game. And I want him to point out, man, your body language was pretty brutal in the fifth inning or, hey, great job in. In this area. So I think we all need those accountability partners. [00:44:33] Speaker A: And I think he walks it. You know, he. He walks the. He walks the walk because he's living. He's living it like. He's great on routines, habits, daily habits, which holistic standpoint is what this generation of players needs now more than anything. [00:44:49] Speaker B: If I was an athletic director today, beyond the coaches, the number one position I would hire is. I would hire. I would try to hire Brian Kane because I would. I would want a. I would want a system, which is what we have in our program. We won't put a system in place that allows young people. It teaches them how to make good choices and good. Have good habits and Develop routines and habits of excellence. Because I think if you do that, you've three quarters of the battle's finished, right? And then each individual sport can go teach whatever the skills are. But if we can teach them the life skills and have someone specifically trained and specifically prepared to do that, then, you know, it's like it changes the program. [00:45:37] Speaker A: With the landscape of Division 1 baseball now, is there still a place for player development? [00:45:42] Speaker B: 1 million percent. 1 million percent. It's as much about, it's as much about development as it ever has been. You know, people think that the transfer portal, you know, I wish I had the slides I could show you that, that we show in recruiting. And, and this isn't to downplay the schools these guys came from, but like Hunter Haas came to A and M, he played decent as a freshman, he was hurt, hit under 200 as a sophomore, and he came to us as a Junior and hit over 300, hit double digit homers, stole bases, played an awesome shortstop and went in like the fourth round, fifth round. Jack Moss, Dylan Rock, Micah Dallas, Braden Montgomery, you know, Ali Camarillo. So all those, those transfers, especially when they get to a place like in the SEC where you have so many more resources in the weight room and nutrition and I mean, I think and every, these are all amateur players. So whether it's development in nine months or whether it's a high school player developed over, you know, two or three years, 100%. It's still development. 100%. [00:46:52] Speaker A: With the convention coming up, it's kind of a big pivotal time for Division 1 right now. Does it remind you a little bit of the old days when we were trying to get the common starting date? We had a transfer rule back then, 25 rule. Does it remind you of kind of back the old days when we're trying to get some things squared away back then? [00:47:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think we're in a transformative time, that's for sure. There's been a little bit of a lull in that. I mean, there's always little things here and there like the double base and plain rules and. But the problem right now is we're trying to get some things passed or we're trying to make some decisions when we don't know what the big decisions are going to be. Right. And when you sit down and you talk to Chris Del Conte or you talk to, you know, Jeremiah Donati, the new AD at South Carolina, people that I know that athletic directors are, they're dealing with stuff that is so massive at a 36,000 foot view. It's, it's, it's. As a baseball coach, you know, I need answers to this now. And that's so far down their list and understandably so. Right. We're so microscopic in our own issues in this college baseball. These dudes are dealing with massive game life changing. The entire battleship of college athletics is turning. And so yes, we're trying to get a bunch of things passed and we're trying to figure out what scholarships are going to look like and, and roster sizes. But we're so far down the food chain, it's really, really tough because we can vote all we want and be unanimous on things, but a lot of that stuff is done way above our pay grade. [00:48:36] Speaker A: If you had a blank slate to like, okay, this is what it should look like, what would you say? [00:48:43] Speaker B: I would like if it was just up to me. I think 34 is too small. But I do believe that coaches should be held accountable to a roster. And so I like to see that number be 36, 38 ish. Somewhere in there. [00:48:59] Speaker A: Is that fair Start the year do you think guys would be to start the fall 36 like once school starts. [00:49:04] Speaker B: Once school starts, I felt like that. [00:49:06] Speaker A: Kind of balances the bounces back out. If everybody can start with, with their number. [00:49:12] Speaker B: Yes. And with the caveat, you know, there's always a few caveats in there. Like for example, if one of our kids, let's say in summer ball or maybe an incoming high school senior, let's say the guy blows his arm out may of his senior year of high school, he needs Tommy John, he's now out for a year. Then give us, and we're currently allowed to have this, give us roster relief for that kid so you don't have to tell him you can't come. But it also doesn't suck up a roster spot. So in that scenario, let's say the number's 36. Then you can have a 37th player when he's rehabbing and he's for sure out for the year. But I think 34 is a little light. But there's a number between 34 and 40 that I think is, is much more manageable. I like smaller roster sizes. I would rather just coach those guys up and let them see a pathway to play and not have to put kids in a brutal scenario at the end of a fall where they have to go somewhere else and there's nowhere to go but, but junior college, which junior college. Great option but to just give them. [00:50:20] Speaker A: Better quality of life for the coaches and better quality of life for the kids because they know they're going to be there then too. 100% you're on the roster as soon as school starts. Like, you know you're going to be there. [00:50:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think we need to put rules in place to protect coaches from themselves. Right. [00:50:34] Speaker A: Because it's always in that way. There always has needed to be guardrails for coaches. Always. [00:50:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to tell. [00:50:41] Speaker A: Me that in every sport, it's not just baseball, it's every. It's every. [00:50:45] Speaker B: Every sport. Every sport. Yeah. I mean, you fire, fire more bullets, you win more wars. Like, if you're going to tell me we can have 45 players to pick out the best 34. Well, I mean, I would rather it not be that way, but if that's what it is and some kid wants to walk on at Texas and say, and I tell him, hey man, no promises, you're more than welcome to come here. But at the end of the fall if you, you know, we may have a tough decision to make. That's what people don't hear. Right. They. Most of those conversations are exactly like that. But I think it'd be better to keep us all from having that conversation and just say, hey man, you got 36 players. I do believe we need to put a transfer window at the. After the draft, though. You know, if you could have a small transfer window after the draft, since the draft is so late, it's either move the draft back to June, which that's Major League Baseball's decision, or if there's going to be a July draft and an August deadline, then we need a transfer window afterwards so that we can get players two spots in case you are over that number, you know, one. [00:51:49] Speaker A: So say you're at a school and you lose a kid that signs. Is that a one for one? Then if, I mean, if you have room for it, add another window with the transfer portal. [00:51:59] Speaker B: If you had a window. Yeah. I mean, I'm not talking about firing somebody before they come, but you know, just, you know, hey, you, this first round pick all sudden comes to college and now you got a guy, I love you, you love us, but I mean that guy's playing. You're welcome to stay, but do. Is there a window of time where you can make it to another school and maybe that other school needs a shortstop? You know, and so it's just baseball's so unique and athletic directors, going back to your original question, athletic directors, for the most part, they Want all the rules to be the same. And I get it, because they just want clarity. But baseball, with our draft and the timing of the draft is just so unique. We need to account for that. [00:52:41] Speaker A: You've been in the World Series a bunch. Is this, this the best athletes we've had on the field here the last couple years. [00:52:47] Speaker B: It's the golden age of college baseball. [00:52:49] Speaker A: It is, isn't it? [00:52:50] Speaker B: It's not even close. I'm sorry. Roger Clemens, I'm sorry. Derek. You know, Dryford, I mean, I'm sorry, you know, Brooks Keeshnik, who's out here all the time. This is the golden. I mean, those guys obviously could play today, no question. Yes, but when you have, when you have a 20 round draft, when you have 60 to 70 minor league teams gone, you know, the strength, conditioning, the analytics, the investment in the programs, like the players are so good. I mean, I playing the national championship games against Tennessee last year and I remember looking at Chuck Box right next to me on our staff and I was like, you realize how good these guys are? Look at the big leaguers that are all over this field. Christian Moore, Jace Lavalette, I mean, Gavin Grahamich in his freshman year, he's hitting 26 homers. Like, what are we talking about? And so, so yeah, man, this is. We all need to appreciate it. There's a lot of negative that we can find, but there's also just what a great sport to watch. [00:53:50] Speaker A: Like, as for me personally growing up around it, being a college, Just a college baseball fan, I. Being at the ballpark now is unbelievable for me. [00:53:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's insanity. I mean, it's. And I think the 34 to 36 or whatever that number is, I think it makes college baseball even better. I mean, because now, you know, that. [00:54:08] Speaker A: Trickles everybody every other level. And I go to the series too, and they're. They're at an elite level now to the other. The other college levels are an elite level right now too. [00:54:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And I hate the trickles down thought. [00:54:21] Speaker A: No, it's just because it filters. [00:54:22] Speaker B: I know what you're saying. I mean, I. Yeah, it filters across. Yes, it filters across. Like I could. I played NAIA baseball and I loved it. I wouldn't trade it. But you know, the guys can go have great experiences and get great degrees and play and, and get drafted and, and just do great. It doesn't all have to be in a Power 5 conference. Do you have four or whatever? [00:54:44] Speaker A: I know you don't like to reflect, but do you have a decompress once the Season's done or is it just get on to the next thing? [00:54:51] Speaker B: I wish, because the transfer portal, you. [00:54:54] Speaker A: Know, but you said it's a lifestyle. Like, that's what you said. It's a lifestyle. That's what you said. [00:54:58] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, the, the decompress would be this time of year. Yes. I had planned on going to visit a buddy and some friends at a beach this week, but we lost the SEC playoff game. I mean, SEC championship game. And now we have a home playoff game against Clemson. And I'm like, I'm not missing that. I'm too big of a sports fan. So, yes, I, I allow. I usually find a week or two in August right before school starts, and then the month of December, right. Leading up to the convention. I try to slow down and get away, but once we hit the steps of the ABCA convention, it's on. [00:55:36] Speaker A: What do you use for time management? You're getting pulled in 8 million directions. So what do you, what do you do to manage your time and keep you on task? [00:55:46] Speaker B: I try. Like with Brian Kane, I really work hard to have a very consistent routine. AM and PM in the morning and at night we use. We use an app in our program called Habit Share. That helps me, you know, keeps me. [00:56:02] Speaker A: Accountable on that for a while. He's been on Habit. Sure. For a while. [00:56:05] Speaker B: Yeah. But I mean, I'm a pretty organized guy and pretty boring, honestly. I don't play golf. I like to. I like to fish when I get time, but. But for the most part, you know, I stay pretty consistent with my routine and that helps me be on offense when this, when the day starts versus trying to catch up. [00:56:28] Speaker A: What is your morning routine? I try to tell people that successful people, if you look at their, their daily habits, like you're gonna be like, ah, that's boring. But it's the same thing. To get their day started off on the right foot. [00:56:38] Speaker B: Yeah, you're trying to win. You're trying to start the day off with wins. Right. So, you know, starts off with waking up at the same time. Usually depends if I'm going outside to work out or if I'm gonna do it here at the ballpark. But I'm usually up by 6, 6:30. Have my faith time. I have my. I'll get a workout in, I'll move, try to get outside as often as I can and then get to the office and, you know, try to knock as much stuff out before lunchtime as I possibly can. Because the best part of my day is when the players show up. Right. We all, we do all of this stuff, all this crazy other stuff so that we get to coach, get to be around these players. And here we got an awesome facility where I can walk right out this door and got indoor cages and pitching lab and the players are around all the time. But, but yeah, in the mornings I try to be super consistent with my faith time and, and my, and some level of movement workout and then I'm ready to roll. [00:57:43] Speaker A: Everybody's got to answer this one. Do you have a fell forward moment, something personally or professionally you thought was going to set you back but helped you move forward? [00:57:55] Speaker B: Probably have had a lot. I wish you to give me a heads up on that question beforehand. [00:58:02] Speaker A: We get that a lot because it does, it comes at the end and it comes out of left field. But we've gotten some great responses from this because I like to, I like for the viewers to know that it's not always rosy. And I think successful people take tough circumstances and turn them into positives. And, and you said like life, life works for you. You know that. I think that's a big piece of fail forward is life is working for you. [00:58:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I could probably name off a ton. I'm thinking of a ton. I'll just use the most recent one. I mean, this past summer was obviously crazy, right? Like the playing for the championship at one school and then, you know, 24 hours later you're at the next, the rival school. And you know, all of the social media drama that went with that, what I've learned out of that and that's been, that was, it's was really tough for a while. What I've learned out of that is to give people grace. And there's a, there's a lady who's gotten super popular on what she had number one book out right now named Mel Robbins. I think she's awesome. [00:59:17] Speaker A: She's awesome. [00:59:19] Speaker B: Well, her new thing is called Let Them. Right. And, and I've really defaulted to that in the last month or two of my life to where, you know, if someone's gonna pull in front of me at a red light or they're trying to jet in when you're in line in a car. Let them, man. Like, I'm just, I'm so, I'm so at a point in my life where if, if some fan is going to wear me out in a restaurant or want to pop off about something or at a ball game is one thing, but, I mean, I'm going to stand up for myself. I'm Going to, you know, you're going to have some standards and some boundaries. But at the end of the day, you know, people, everybody's dealing with something and just trying to give people grace and you know, have a gentle spirit, kindness, like I've screwed up, I've said. [01:00:07] Speaker A: The wrong judge now. And it's like you're not in that person's shoes. Like everybody likes to think that they would do, do it differently. You're not in that person's shoes. Like you're not going through that at the moment with like that person's going through, like you said, grace. Like I always give people grace on that stuff because it's. You're not in that, you're not in that situation. Everybody likes to think, well, I do that differently. Well, you're not in that situation. You haven't been put in that sit to make a decision right now. [01:00:35] Speaker B: Right. And you don't, like you're not in the room. Like no one was in, no one was in the room, you know, on any of that stuff. And at the end of the day, you know, like I never judge coaches. I never judge coaches. I never judge our football coach should have done this or our basketball coach. Like I don't know what I know exactly the information that I'm trying to use and I can't publicly tell people this is why we did what we did really. Because this kid, his girlfriend broke up with him or there's issues at home or you know, whatever, they don't have all the information. So, you know, but yeah, you're right. Just give people grace, be supportive and, and move on, man. It's just, life is too long. You do you and I'll do me and I can live with that. [01:01:22] Speaker A: I have a bunch of quotes in my Google calendar. So basically when I wake up I usually get up about 4:30, but I have a list of quotes and one is from Jeff Ahmed, who is the CEO of I& was getting fired. And his quote was every job looks easy when you're not the one doing it. [01:01:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome. [01:01:39] Speaker A: And so just I have some really good quote reminders of, of trying to keep myself grounded and, and having perspective. Like I think that's a big thing is you have to have perspective. [01:01:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, and so perspective is a huge. We just had one thing we have our players do is we make. They make a perspective. Perspective poster. Right. And I always use the phrase like you just said it compared to what I. I just left, you know, I left a job I really loved at Texas A and M at a place I thought was great players are awesome. I decided for a lot of reasons to come to Texas and obviously got just crushed for it. But it's not really that big of a problem, right? You know, I mean, compared to what? Like, okay, these fans got mad at you, blah, blah, blah, blah. Compared to what? Right? And so I think one of the most grounding moments anybody can ever have, and luckily or unluckily, one of the. I, you know, I got to walk through at tcu, the, you know, along with a family that had a child named Micah Ahern that had terminal brain cancer. And we walked. We did life with Micah and his family for three or four years. And then the toughest speech I've ever had to give is not at the ABCA in front of five, 6,000 coaches. It was speaking at his funeral. Right. And so if you've ever walked through a children's hospital or spent any time with anyone, any hospital, but much less a children's hospital, like, if you. That'll ground you so fast to where, hey, man, this is. You go over four. That's brutal. Compared to what? Yeah, I mean, it's really not that big a deal. And so we're all blessed, man, to be in this profession to get to coach and get to help be a part of young people's lives and compete in the sec. Like, this is crazy that I'm getting to do this stuff. So. So, yeah, perspective is. Is so ultra important. [01:03:42] Speaker A: Any other shout outs you want to give to somebody or anybody before I let you go? [01:03:47] Speaker B: I mean, I think. I think the only shot, the first. The first name that just came to mind is Craig Kylitz. Like, I think Dave Kylitz and Craig, like, the investment that that family has made in our organization. Craig Kylitz could take his skill set today and go be a CEO of any company and more than quadruple his salary. Right? And he's so committed to doing the right thing. He's trying to push the game. He's trying to battle committees, and he's trying to battle ads. And, you know, he's got all these different angles. High school coaches and youth coaches. And, I mean, I think. I think, you know, I don't. Is I'm assuming Dave Kylitz is in the hall of Fame. I'm assuming. And Craig should be. Although I don't know Craig's ever coached. Right. It's a coach's hall of Fame. He's an athletic director. I'm sure he coached at some point. But if anybody should Go in our hall of Fame. It's. It's Craig. I mean, that's the first name that comes to mind that I would, specifically on this podcast that I would want to mention. [01:04:56] Speaker A: I said it the other. This is the golden era for the abca too. [01:05:00] Speaker B: Oh, beyond measure. [01:05:05] Speaker A: Forever runs the exhibits. I was like, dude, you've ushered in 20 years of unbelievable growth, but also giving back to the game. Like, this is the golden era for the ABCA too. [01:05:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm real old school with regard to convention. I think it's. I think coaches should go. I think you have a responsibility to go. And it's. And you know, yes, you can watch the videos and you can learn that way, but. But being there, that's part of this profession. And it's an honor to be there. Not a. Not a. You know, it's. It's a get to. It's not a have to. [01:05:39] Speaker A: And I said this the other day. The. The attendees are a living, breathing portion of the convention. Like, I think that's what got us all involved and, and loving the convention itself is because the attendees are a living, breathing portion of the convention as well. Like, they. [01:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:58] Speaker A: Also, like, I think that's why our convention is the best one out there. And it's special because the attendees make it. Make it a great event, too. [01:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, that'd be like being a coach and you don't have any players. What kind of that. That's no fun. What it used to be on Charlie Brown. He would say, you're like a teacher with no students, no class. Like school in the summer. [01:06:21] Speaker A: No class. [01:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And so. So, yeah, man, it's. It's that the players are what makes the team and the attendees are what makes the convention. Like, you can have the greatest speakers ever if there's not 5, 6, 7,000 people out there to take notes and learn. And you could have the greatest exhibits ever. But I mean, yeah, the coaches, they're the root of it. And. And the fruit. [01:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Thanks for your time, Slash. Appreciate you. Yeah, man, Always appreciate talking. Congrats to Coach Sloschnage on entering the ABC hall of Fame. Well deserved honor. He's been a great mentor to me over the years. I know he's a lot more left in the tank. Can't wait to see what he does at Texas. Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Hale, Matt west, and Antonio Walker in the ABC office for all the help on the podcast. Feel free to reach out to me via email. Our brownleeabca.org Twitter, Instagram and TikTok CoachBCA or direct message me via the MyBCA app. This is Ryan Brownlee signing off for the American Baseball Coaches Association. Thanks and leave it better for those behind you wait for another day. [01:07:43] Speaker B: And. [01:07:44] Speaker A: The world will always return and your love is never for yearning and you. [01:07:53] Speaker B: Know that way. [01:07:58] Speaker A: Wait for another. [01:08:03] Speaker B: D.