[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the ABCA's podcast. I'm your host Ryan Brownlee.
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[email protected] this episode is sponsored by Netting Pros.
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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 Miner know that the ABCA sent you now on to the podcast kicking off our 2026 ABCA hall of Fame Class interviews is Florida Atlantic University Head Coach and ABCA first vice president John McCormack. McCormack completed his 17th year at Florida Atlantic University as head coach in 2025 and 35th season with the program.
It previously served 11 years as associate head coach and seven years as an assistant coach beginning in 1991.
The Owls finished 37:21 overall and fourth in league play in their second year as a member of the American Athletic Conference.
Coach Mack has led FAU to four regular season conference championships and one postseason conference championship. The Owls have qualified for NCAA regionals six times in the McCormack era. Since 2009, 13 Owls have earned All American honors and 21 have earned All Region honors. And a total of 105 FAU players that McCormack has recruited or coached at FAU have continued their professional careers.
Additionally, 33 of the 36 draftees were not drafted out of high school, continuing McCormack's outstanding track record of developing players after they come to Boca Raton.
A big part of FAU's success has been that passion for the Boca Raton area and the university, allowing the program to attract some of the best players in Florida. FAU's baseball program has been built around the premise that McCormack would find athletes with the desire to win, the coaching staff would develop talent, and the players will become better. So welcome John McCormack to the podcast.
All right here with John McCormack, 2026 ABC hall of Fame class, but heading into 37th season at FAU, but 18th as a head coach, but been there for a long time, Max. So thanks for jumping on with me on a Sunday.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Oh, my pleasure. So excited about this and so honored. So thank you.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah, and I'm pumped to have you first because you and I have known each other for a long time, so I'm pumped to have you kick this thing off for our class. So, and this is a listener question too, came from one of your former assistants. But how many pounds of trash have you picked up on your early morning walks now?
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Oh God, it's got to be in the millions I get. I I people always are astonished of how much when I walk or go where I pick up trash all the time.
And I'd administrator asked me about it once and I said when someone comes on this campus, we get one shot, whether it be a recruit, whether it be a student, whether it be an alum, whether it be a possible donor, whether it be, you know, someone who might hire some of our alums or students. We get one shot and you never know what's going to turn somebody off.
And the other thing I live by, just because you're poor doesn't mean you have to be dirty.
And we could use some resources, but we can't clean up what we have.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: When did you start that?
[00:05:29] Speaker B: I don't know if it's probably been my whole life. I don't even know.
You know, I was always taught that. And then when I became the head Coach and I had, I always take a walk every day to kind of get myself.
And then I just started doing it, and it just kind of, you know, and guys will laugh at me because they'll see me do it in the airport.
I was up at Roger Dean the other day, and I was leaving, I picked up two bottles and threw them away because, like, I look at it like, that's Palm Beach County.
We helped build that, you know, the county. I live in Palm Beach County. And we've got to make sure it stays nice for the people who visit. And, and I'm not, believe me, this is not a holier than now thing. Sometimes it's more of a curse than a blessing. But it is something I do.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: It's just the small things that you notice because a lot of it now is people are oblivious to that. They don't even pay attention to it 100%. Where you're aware of it, you've been aware of it for a long time, and so now things like that stick out to you because you've paid attention to it.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Was that ma' am's question?
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I do that. I don't do that a lot, but I do for certain guests I will reach out to, especially guys that I know, just like, if they would want questions, because sometimes guys are, they're going to. It's been intriguing, some of the responses that I've gotten back when I do reach out to people about it, when that one was, was cool, that one, you know, and another thing, I love the quote, your true character is how people talk about you in rooms that you're not in. And you just seem like you've always been really grounded.
You're very generous, you know. Is that another thing with your upbringing?
[00:07:12] Speaker B: I think so. I, again, I, I, you know, my, I, I, I was a kind of a punky kid at times, and I had a, a coach who was also a priest, tell me, you know, my senior year of high school, at times you're a little bit of a punk and arrogant. And it really stuck with me. And as I've matured, I've tried to, you know, try to be better.
And then I hate, I say this, I had the pleasure of having a tough bout with cancer, and people look at me like, really? And I go, you don't realize how insignificant you feel when you're, when you're going through something like that. And it makes you, you know, now a new car or a really cool vacation, that stuff doesn't matter as much as the People, you know, And I. And there was one story, and I don't like saying it, but I'll tell you anyways. I was waiting for my turn for radiation, and there was a young lady that came out of the room ahead of me and she was about. She had to be in her early 20s, 24ish, really pretty young girl. She had a scar in her throat and I just assumed some sort of thyroid something. So the nurse says to her, and her name was Dominique or.
And nurse says to her, says, hey, what time are you gonna come in for radiation tomorrow? And the girl's response is, I can't.
And the nurse says, no, no, I understand, but remember, the doctor says, this is an. Every radiation is an everyday thing. What time can you come in?
And she goes, I can't, I gotta work. And the nurse is like, no, no, that's okay. Well, we, I can open early, we open at seven, but I can get here a little bit early for you, or I can ask one of the girls to stay a little bit later.
Because the people who work in those, those offices are saints.
So the, they're going back and forth on this. And I happen to be waiting next. So I'm not eavesdropping. I'm just sitting there waiting for my. The, the nurse to come and say, hey, okay?
And the girl kind of breaks down a little bit and she's by herself. And I went to more treatments than I like to think about.
And someone was always with me.
My wife most of the time.
Son, brother, mom. Someone always took me and was there, so I had someone to talk to or I couldn't drive, so I needed a ride anyways. But so this girl, and she kind of puts her hands down and she goes, I have to work. And the nurse goes, I understand.
We'll make it work. She goes, no, I have to work. I'm going to get evicted.
And I'm like.
And at that moment, I felt so insignificant, so petty that I was complaining I was sick. I never missed a paycheck. I had fabulous assistants, Greg and Jason, who, you know, who took care of the program. And I would show up in the afternoon.
Never had to worry about a mortgage, never had to worry about my boss and the president of the university were behind me. And I just said, you know, I went double down on being a good guy because of that, you know, and it. Sometimes it takes bad things to happen to end up helping you out. And I like to think I'd made a conscious effort before that I've been in this business a long time, but that really kind of solidified it for me because.
And I was talking to a coach yesterday about it, and I go, listen, man, don't worry about it. The wins and losses in two years, no one's going to remember anyways.
They're just going to remember you, you know, and that is. I was talking to a guy yesterday about it. We had. We were at the wwba, so.
But I appreciate you saying that, and I'm thankful for it.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: You've had a great run there with limited resources. I think it's a great story, ma'. Am. I didn't even realize this, but in 1999, you guys rolled off 34 wins in a row.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: But I mean, how gratifying is it for you to be at a place where, you know, you don't have some of the resources as some other schools, but you're still having a very successful program.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: The resources. The re. The biggest resource we have is each other, you know, and we have a saying, and it's right up on the wall otf only the family.
And that's our biggest resource. And I've told an AD this once. He goes, how are you guys so good? And I know your situation. And I said to him, I said, love.
We try to love up on the guys, try to make sure that their worth in this program is not wrapped up in their ERA or their batting average.
But it's been gratifying to see when I got here where it was and what it is now.
I still lay awake at night thinking of what it could be.
And, you know, everybody's trying and, you know, things have. Certain. The landscape has certainly changed that have made things a little bit more difficult. But, you know, no one's going to cry for you. You just got to go out and go to practice and keep working and keep recruiting.
And I have some young assistants and they get, you know, it's a tough time of year. People are saying no and yes, and, you know, they're getting frustrated. I'm like, we'll find our guys. We'll find the right guys. You know, when it happens, it happens. Just got to keep making calls. And, you know, so it's. It is. It's been rewarding.
You know, the greatest honor I think I've ever gotten, no offense to the abca, was. Was I've had three guys that I recruited. Now their sons are here, and I think it's a badge of honor that they thought, is that much of me and this program to say no I want my sons to play for you. So. And there were some other guys out there, and I apologize. Some of you guys called and I. It didn't work out, and I apologize.
But I really. That's one thing I think about a lot. I thought that was. I thought that was really cool.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: In your history of recruiting, how many of those guys in classes were your best players? Were your latest signs?
[00:13:39] Speaker B: A ton. A ton. You know, because, you know, I love this place and. But we're not the first choice all the time, you know, and we recruit very slowly because of that. And we don't do big classes. We don't call people and say, don't come.
So I say, take our time again, young people mature. Everybody matures at a different age.
So a lot of times you see the guy mature early and he doesn't get better. And then we were fortunate to still have spots and money later in the recruiting process to be able to say, hey, we have a spot, we have money, we have, you know, where other schools are like, hey, I know we signed 10 guys, but we can fit you in.
So I think it's. That was kind of a strategy that we came up with by necessity and just by, you know, how it worked out.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Well, especially a program that's not going to probably cut guys loose. You have to make sure it's the right fit with your program. Because you're planning on them being there.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. I'm not saying we haven't.
We've never called anybody and said, don't come. You know, there's been a guy or two that we've said, hey, you know, especially it happened last year with Pavia thing, and we didn't say. We just laid it out for him, and the young man and his family decided not to, which was fine. And I.
But no, you do have to be right. You know, I. I said get the person right and then we can work around the talent. We can find a place for them to be successful here. Right. If you thought they were going to be a Friday night guy and that didn't work out, okay, we'll use them in the bullpen. You know, we were like, just get the person right.
And then that. Then that we can work the talent into the grand scheme of things somehow.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: What have you found the best way with this generation of players to mentor them into making good decisions?
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Honesty.
Just tell them. And I think sometimes I'm the first person in their life to tell them the truth because.
And I'm a parent myself and I'm not I can. Parents, parents sometimes become fans of their kids in this travel ball model.
They play for people who are getting paid.
So if I'm making money off you, and that's the way I pay my mortgage and my car payment, I can't afford you for you to leave the facility or leave our team.
So it's like, hey, just keep working. Let's just keep working. And then I, and, and the school system is afraid to discipline and afraid to say anything because you know someone's going to get sued. So I think I look, I talk to young people and I look them in the face and I think I'm like, that's the first time they've ever heard something like that, you know, And I tell them up front, I go, this is the truth as I see it, this is the truth. And from my experiences, I'm not saying you have to completely buy into it, but I'm just telling you what I see, you know, And I'm not doing it to hurt you, I'm doing it to help you.
But I think that's the thing, just to kind of lay it out for them because I think they're used to getting kind of BS a little bit and I think this is very frank, but I do tell them, I go, if you want to come in and talk to me and you ask me a question, it's going to be the answer that I have.
With all the information I have, I'm going to give it to you with this assistance, feedback. This is what we see, you know, and sometimes guys are like, oh my God, I've never seen it that way. Or I, I, I appreciate it. So I think that's the best way.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: How do you nurse the new players through that? Like, hey, this is what it's going to look like. And, and, and you said it. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or be mean here. I'm just being honest with you. I'm being honest. And, and by the way, that's a form of love too. That's a form of love.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: I tell the whole team in the beginning and then, you know, I interaction with a young man here on, on Wednesday who's new, and he got a kind of taste of what some of my stuff was about.
And then the next day I just checked on him. I say, you okay? You understand? You want to talk again?
Do you get it? He goes, no, no, I get it. I, you know, I just, it was just a little bit of a shock. And I said, the shock value is part of it. A little bit to make you think.
The other thing that I've done is when we have meetings with guys, I tell them to go home and email me what we talked about, because sometimes they hear things differently then.
And we had it happen last year. Who turned. Guy turned out to be a very good player. He was a grad transfer from UNC W.
And everything was a little bit, you know, you've been there five years, four years, and everything was just different here. And I said, hey, it seems like you're not enjoying. He goes, no, it's just different. I've been doing. And I get it.
And then I said, email me. He emailed me. And I read the email and I was like, oh, my God, that's. That was not the intent. And I called him immediately and I said, hey, let's get together again. He ended up having a great year. And.
And I think that was a good point for, you know, a give and take. And he was. He. He was like, I'm so thankful that you spent time doing this with me because, you know, I don't like the. I'm the coach. Either get over it or, you know, we can't do that. We.
If you are like that, I think you have to be willing to run through a lot of players.
And again, anybody who's listening to this, I'm not, Believe me, I have many faults, but this is just what I believe in.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: You have them take notes during the meeting so they can kind of recall.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: No, no, I haven't gone that far yet.
And I had a friend that said, you should. You should. When he was in high school, he.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Used to record them AI I mean, that's. A lot of people are using AI for note taking now.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't even know that, but he used to just have a video camera on the desk. And it was. It was. He was at a private school and, you know, it was like he told a player something. He went home and the mom and dad flipped out. It was completely different. He's like, here's the video. And then they got the video and he goes. And the dad was like, oh, we're sorry. You know, I usually.
I usually always follow up, try to follow up and say, hey, is there anything that you didn't understand? Is there something you want to talk about further? And I tell them all the time. I go, you can say anything to me.
I don't get offended.
Just don't tell me I'm a bad husband or father. That's it. The rest of it, if you Think it was a bad call. We bunted or we didn't. But if you want to have a conversation about that, I'm fine with it, you know, you. You don't think practice is run correct. I'm fine with it. I don't, I don't get offended by that stuff, you know, but if you say I'm a bad person and, or a bad father, a bad husband, then we got problems, you know, but the rest of it, it's open to interpretation.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: You know, this generation hears the term find your passion. What does that mean to you, if anything, when somebody says find your passion?
[00:21:30] Speaker B: I don't know, it's kind of a made up thing.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: I, I think it's wrong. I think it's false.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: I don't, I, I just ask them if they're enjoying themselves because somebody, it looks like to me, some of these guys are just playing because they've done it for the last nine years. And it's. They've been put on a little bit of a pedestal at their house, you know, at their travel team, at their high school. And this is just the normal progression where, you know, the, the passion thing, that's a tough word to play. Basic.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: It comes with mistakes too. Like, for me, the narrative now is like, you have to find. I go through it with my kids, is they're like, well, it should have worked out better. I'm like, no, like, that's life showing you that there's other options. And you have to go through that and experience it to now lead you to something different. If you never leave your room or your house or get out in the real world and figure those things out, you're never gonna get on the path that you need to be on if you're not out there making mistakes.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Too many of them think, always think there's gonna be, everything's gonna work out, you know, where.
And we, you know, everybody uses the word, you have to be uncomfortable. And I.
You're gonna naturally be uncomfortable. You've never been here, you've never done your own laundry. You know, I said, for the most of the guys we recruit, someone wakes them up in the morning. There's a refrigerator full of food. There might be eggs or pancakes before. Before they go off to school, they come home and parents, like I did with my kids, you give them an illusion of freedom, but you're kind of. But this is the first real freedom they have.
And it's tough for them, it really is, because they've never done it before. And I say the baseball Is the easy part. When they first get everything else is the harder part, you know, trying to navigate just life. Where do I fit in in the whole community? Where do I fit in in the hierarchy of the team? Where do I. You know, I think those are the things they need more help with than just ground balls and swings, because that's the easy part, you know, in my opinion.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: How much are you meeting with them in the fall?
[00:23:44] Speaker B: Well, because of the rules, we do.
We usually do two meetings a week as a team.
We do.
On Wednesdays, we do.
We have a coach present on a baseball topic of their choice.
We present it, and we have one in the individual session. We have one team defensive thing every Wednesday.
And it. And the way we present the. The information is it has to be something, you know, because what you're trying to do to get me out, I'm trying to do the opposite to get a hit. So everything we teach the equal and opposite, right? So IF. If an O2 batting average looks like this, this is what offense, this is what we want. Where a 20 batting average looks like that.
And then we go out. It's usually on a defensive thing. Then we go out and do it as a team. And then Fridays, after weights, we do some sort of. We call them Foundation Fridays, whether it be money management, nutrition, sleeping, hydration, you know, and then sometimes it's just me riffing about life and, you know, being a good person and, you know, understanding how special this time is for you and enjoy it. Because they do get bogged down with, oh, woe is me.
We kind of, you know. Oh, we don't ever say, we have to say, I get to. Or.
Because if you say, oh, I have to go to practice, then you probably shouldn't be.
You shouldn't be doing this. Right?
Because I never say I have to go to work because I.
This is all I do.
I don't have any hobbies. This is all I do. I go to the movies. I like going to the movies.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Have you seen any decent movies lately?
[00:25:47] Speaker B: F1 was phenomenal.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: One Battle after Another. One Battle after Another is phenomenal. Paul Thomas Anderson, he's. I'm a huge fan of his movies like Boogie Nights, Magnolia.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Phantom Thread, I think, was his last one, which was very good, but it's very good. It's very topical on what's going on in society right now. Leonardo DiCaprio is great in it.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: That one's out because it is great. Are you, me and my wife if we're not. If I'm not recruiting or she doesn't have football. We usually go Saturday afternoon, but this time of year it's kind of tough.
We had football yesterday. I was out recruiting. And then today we have practice at. It's Sunday at 12:30. We have practice today at 3:45.
So this time of year it's a little tough. Those Fridays, I enjoy the movies, those.
[00:26:39] Speaker A: Friday life skills meetings, how much, what, what percentage of that is the first time kids have heard your new guys have heard any of that?
[00:26:47] Speaker B: A fair amount. A fair amount. You know, especially the money part. And we haven't done that one this fall.
Especially the money part because it's so easy for them now just to, you know, keep doing that at wherever.
I'm like, we in our locker room, we have a, a Coke machine.
It doesn't dispense Coke. It dispenses water and sometimes Powerade, depending on the budget.
But I see them do this to get a bottle of water out of the lobby of the, of the building. And I'm like, that's. I don't know, $3. Like. But it's just it. They're, you know, they've been taught to consume.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: You talk about budgeting then with that, with the financial part, budgeting, we talk.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: More about the last year's one was more about saving now, if you can, or right when you get out of college. And this is what it will look like when you're, you know, 50 and they. And you've been around young people enough, like I talk about, and sometimes it glazes over.
I go, you're going to get to my age one day, God willing, and you're going to start thinking about, do I have enough money to retire? Do I have enough even? Well, you know, this, previous to that, you're going to wind it back. Do I have enough money to send my kids to college?
[00:28:04] Speaker A: You know, enough money for a down payment for a house.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Exactly. Or nowadays a simple thing of which they never think of is like, you get a job opportunity, you're in voca, you get a job opportunity in Charlotte. Do you have enough money to get first and last, maybe a couple pairs of clothes? You know, that's the part that sometimes they don't think. And I go, we're just talking about saving $25 a week, which is one less day at Chipotle's. Right.
But parents ask me it all the time about money.
I said, I hate to tell you this, the only way to learn is if you give them cash because you have it and you go okay, I 10 here, this and that, and oh, my God, now you're making real decisions. Because it's real money. When they go like this, they don't know what real money is.
And then they call home and they have an argument with their parents, which is not what you want. And then their parents might give them a little bit extra. So they don't really ever understand that the well runs dry at least.
You know, we.
And the guys that I've dealt with over the years, and then we talk about compounding interest, like we kind of morph it into just like everybody else does. What we're doing in the fall is we're just compounding days to make you better, right?
You're not going to get here and we're going to start practice August 25th. Or individuals, you're not going to be throwing better by the end of the week. You know, what I tell them all the time is try not to measure it.
And then when you come back from Christmas, you'll see the difference, right? Because your body needs a time to absorb it, your mind needs time to absorb it. And then you need time to just put it into your daily life and you'll see the gains and you'll be fresh. And right now, and you know, this, they're doing a lot, you know, weights, just, you know, we're getting out of the hot season, but it's hard here in August and September to sustain a high, high level of work because of the heat. It really is.
And we've, we've had some episodes.
And, you know, I think it's just a process of just kind of coaching them through. Like, I know you're trying to change something. I know you're working on something. Just give it time, you know, And I think that's one thing we don't do enough of. And I say it all the time. Young people need support and time, you know, but everybody wants everything now. You know, like, why am I not hitting ball over the fence? Well, you know, you will just, just relax, right? It's hard. It's hard because they get a lot of pressure from the outside that we don't see. You know, a lot of them have advisors or they've been going to a hitting guy or a pitching guy for years, or gal could be either, you know, and they're all. They're always reporting back. They're always reporting back to their parents.
You know, it's funny, many, many years ago, the, the mental skills coach of the Minnesota Twins stopped by here.
He was a friend of our mental skills coach.
And I don't remember his name, and that's a bad on me, but he asked me, what's your biggest challenge? And I said, managing expectations, not only of the players, but of their families, too.
And he said, try to do this experiment. He said, ask the guys when they call home to talk to their parents or siblings or whoever about everything but baseball and see how long it lasts. So I told the guys, and we got. It was five days.
The whole team was caved in by five days.
And I said, this is not. No one's grading this, and this is not.
I said, try to make this relationship with your parents about something other than the baseball because, you know, it's become such a big part of their family's life from the time they're seven or eight and vacations and they're spending a ton of money and travel and gear and. And I said, you know, call your grandmother and talk about something she wants to talk about or. And I said, the other thing is, call your siblings and talk to them about something they're doing. Don't make it about you all the time.
And it's hard, you know, because it's.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: It's a great release, though, like, to dive into other things outside of the athletic arena. It is a way to. For them to decompress, if you can get to that point. Point.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: I personally, I had a lot of friends that could care less about me as a baseball player. I kept a lot of people in my circle in college and in high school that could have cared less about who I was as a baseball player. And I think it helped me mentally as a baseball player because I had an opportunity to get away and dive into what other people were doing and their interests. And I think it helped me grow a lot mentally on the field because I had people that could have cared less about me as a baseball player.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: We've all been there, right?
Eight or ten of us sitting around talking and bitching about the coach.
You write. We've all been there.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Well, mine was a family member, so it was nice to be able to get away from. From that.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: We've all been there. You know, baseball players have a tendency to be a little chatty behind the scenes, and it's. I think it just comes with the game, and I agree with you. To have some sort of outside Persona that can give you an opportunity to say, you know, and talk about something other than practice or what's going on or.
Because they are inundated with it every day. They're inundated with it. And I think it's for us to recognize and try to help them with and talk about it and not just to say, hey, deal with it, you know, to try to help them.
But it's tough. It's. It's tough because a lot of them have grown up not asking or wanting help.
And it's weakness.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: It is, yeah. It's a sign of weakness.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: I always say the smartest guy in the room is the guy who goes like this, hey, I need some help. You know, like, hey, I need some help.
I said, no one will think anything bad of you. But it's just part of it, right? It's part of the whole culture.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: How have your fall and spring development calendars changed over the years? What are you doing different now for fall prep and then spring prep?
[00:34:50] Speaker B: Not much. Not much. I mean, you know, there's the, you know, when the rules change and you went to the individuals, you know, we push back as far as we can because of the weather. We.
It's for us, you know, which is there's goods to it because you get a lot of time with the guys early. But then if there are things that happen in inner squads that you'd like to make changes, you don't have much time after then.
I've always pushed it back also because of recruiting, because I don't want coaches to miss inner squads. So we usually typically start. Today's the last day that we can recruit. So we, we're going to practice tonight.
We have a coach that is at the wwba. We have a coach that's at the Junior College All Star Game, State of Florida. And we have another coach who had a baby, so he's at home.
But it's life, it's part of it.
So now we'll do the bulk of our inner squads. We'll play our two games and we won't have anybody miss. Right. So they could be there to help and assess. And I've always, you know, it's hard when the guys that recruit you then when you start practicing are not there.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:36:17] Speaker B: And they're not. The players are not unaware that they're going out looking. We're looking for more players.
So I try to minimize that as much as possible. Is it, is it necessary? And we do the same thing during our week of individuals.
You know, when we. Or this first week of practice, we didn't do anything Thursday or Friday or Saturday. The inter squad did Wednesday, Thursday, gave them all Friday, Saturday, because everybody was going to be gone.
And you know, I always hate the. And some people have to do it at a necessity because of the weather, right. So they got to get on the field early to be able to. But I always hate trying to recap to the pitching coach who was out seeing the guy how the pitchers did, because you don't. Even if you watch the video, you don't get the nuances of some of the stuff. Right?
So we try to do that and then the changes, not much. You know, we do the individuals, we lift, we do. We have conditioning. I think the one thing we've done is we. We've added the once a week defensive thing to.
Because it's hard when you go into intersquads and you haven't done stuff together.
We've done that.
And then I think it's just.
It's not about changing. I think it's. You have to read the team you have. And if you have a whole bunch of returners, you might. The starting point might be different than if you have a whole bunch of new guys. Does that make sense? Like, you know, the starting point might be different if you have returners or this or that. And I learned that out very late. You know, we had, you know, the portal and we had some issues and a couple years ago and I did a terrible job of.
I forgot what John Wooden told me. Assume they know nothing. I assume they knew everything.
And we get into January and I'm like, man. And I told people at the end of the year like we did a bad job or I did not assistance. I did a bad job coaching because I just assumed too much, you know, and this was not but a couple years ago.
And I think it's. I think it's important to take your time in the beginning, lay the foundation, make sure that they understand it little things, terminology. Because so many people are coming from so many different spots.
Make sure they understand the terminology. Make sure that you guys work on it. Make sure that you understand and do the little things. Because the little things are what is going to cost you, right? If you're not good enough on the mound, there's not much you can do about it, right?
In the current season. But if you keep throwing to the wrong base on the bunt plate, that's my problem.
I didn't do something right.
And because everybody's coming from someone different, you know, everybody. He was at this school, he was at that school. He was at the junior college. He been in high school.
And they're. And you don't have as many people in the program for that same amount of time that some of that stuff naturally happens, you know, And I think that coaches have to remind themselves in this.
Where we are is start at the beginning every year and then, you know, that beginning, that beginning point could be a little bit different depending on. But just make sure everybody understands like the simple things, terminology.
Make sure they understand your expectations. Make sure that, you know, just lay it out for them.
And if they. The players don't like it, then you don't have the right players.
Right. I know it seems now coaches, especially young coaches, are afraid to really, I don't want to say lay down the law because that's not the thing, but just lay out their expectations in fear of alienating a player.
And I think it's worse when you don't do it and then all of a sudden you pull someone aside. We don't do that here. Oh, really? I didn't know that. You know, like that's your job to tell them in the beginning.
[00:40:34] Speaker A: So would you consider that a re. Engaging with the fundamentals? I think all coaches go through that, Especially if you've been at a place for a long time.
I feel like you kind of. With certain teams you might take for granted, but you have to like, reengage with the fundamentals.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: Well, I. Reengage, yes. For us, it's a little bit.
It's a little bit of time management. So if we're teaching bunt plays and we have a whole bunch of new guys, we're going to give ourselves more time. If it's a whole bunch of returners, hey guys, everybody remember, we do this, we do that, but okay, let's go through it. So it might be a little bit of a shorter time of after you initially teach it, because again, they go off to summer ball and they might. They might hear some different terminology and you got to come back and just remind them and they. It kind of clicks back in.
Kind of clicks back in. We do more of.
Of like when we start practicing on a consistent basis, we do more of the short, five to eight minute defensive segments opposed to the long ones, where people kind of have a tendency to check out and that's not good, you know, so if we don't get it or it looks a little sloppy, instead of ranting and raving, just move on and we'll pick it up tomorrow or we'll pick it up Thursday, whatever it might be, you know.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: So who do you decide who's going out for summer ball?
[00:41:58] Speaker B: How do you make all the position players need to go play.
They, they, they've got to see pitches, they've got to run the bases, they've got to track down fly balls, they got to get ground balls and then the pitchers. And it just depends on innings, you know, Depends on innings, depends on where they're going, depends on what we think they might need to work on.
Because if, if they're not, if they haven't been successful, then why send them out with, you know, it might be time. And I know we can't work with them over the summer, but it might be time to give them some things to do on their own or a little bit more of, in a controlled environment.
Hey, stay here. You can stay in the weight room, you can work on some stuff, work camp, you know, but the, the, all the position players, unless the only ones, the only ones where I, I don't want to say I give them the option, but the only ones where I, you know, have a conversation with them after their junior year, if they, you know, before the draft was, you knew right away. But after their junior year, if they don't get drafted and they've played baseball after their, after their senior year of high school, after their freshman year, after their sophomore year, if it might be better for them to get an internship, it might be better for them to spend time in the weight room. It might be better for them, you know, at that point, are they, you know, it. Everything is individual.
Maybe it's better that they do something else and come back to it fresh, you know, but when you're younger, you got to go play.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: I use Khalil Green as an example. Spent two summers in the Cape and then Junior didn't get, didn't get go where he wanted in the draft.
Worked out all summer and came back was the Golden Spike winner for his senior year. But he needed a summer off.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think sometimes mentally they need it off and because again, I, you know, this is big business and, you know, there's a lot of things at stake, but they are still kids, you know, I mean, they are, they are still young people that do need some, some outlets and time on their own and, you know, some time on their own is better for them, you know, than with us.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: Ma' am's also called you the, the master of roster management, but also intertwining the entire Florida Atlantic campus. He said, you know everybody on campus.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Well, that's just by age, Ross. You know, it's funny, this is a little bit of a prelude to my hall of Fame induction speech.
You Know, I never thought about coaching.
And I came to Florida Atlantic to get my MBA and I was fine doing what the head coach told me to do. Set up practice, hit ground balls, throw bp fine.
Then when I started recruiting and putting the team together, that's where it all clicked in for me.
Right.
Because you don't win championships one through 15. You win championships 16 through 25.
That's the, you know, that's what I always thought in my mind. Right. And it's not. Don't always go for the most talented player. Go for the player that fits what you need. Right. You know, the person and the personality is better off having here then. Because if you bring in superstars everywhere and they don't play, you got problems. Right.
So recruit a guy that's a backup and understands what it's going to be about or tell them up front. We've lost more recruits for being honest and telling them, like, hey, we don't, we don't, we don't need you to start. If you, if you end up beating that guy out, great. But our, we're bringing you here to play second, third and short. And you're going to play twice a week and help out. If you're okay with that. Let's do it now. Now, the high end could be whatever you make of it, but that's the, this is the floor of what we're looking for. And I think if, if you, if you build a team that way, then when you go into the season and everybody kind of knows where they're at, I think it's a little bit better.
So I, I appreciate ma' am would always, Whenever I talk to a player, ma', am, like, you mind if I sit in? I love hearing you kind of maneuver through some of these conversations. And yeah, sure, he'll text me every once in a while. He goes, I use one of your lines today.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: I mean, how gratifying is that for you? You have a huge coaching tree. And I, I know I'm different, but I view like a successful head coach. If players and coaches, assistants are willing to stay in the game after they've been with you, I think you've done a great job.
Well, I think that's part of being a successful head coach is that when someone has interacted you for an extended period of time, they still want to stay in the game of baseball when they, when they're done with their time.
[00:47:09] Speaker B: With you, for them to stay in the game. And for young people, young people don't want to coach as much as they did before.
You have to empower them.
You have to empower them and.
[00:47:26] Speaker A: Allow.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: Them to run their part of it. Right.
I think it's, it's one thing that you and your assistant have to sit and talk about what they're doing and how they're going through things. Because if you go out there and stop them midstream and the players will never listen to them again. You know, like with what you brought up, ma', am, with mams, he would, I would go out, I would. When he would hit with the guys, I would pick up balls in the outfield. That's all I would do. Walk around, pick up the balls. And then I would carry a little notebook, I'd take notes. I would never go in and bother them. I would never say anything to the players. And then I would say, hey, how you doing with this guy? This is what I see. This is, this might work, but I would never. I'm not saying I would never. I try never to trump him, you know, or any assistant for that matter. You know, I. Sometimes my big mouth gets my way, but I try not to because, you know, I've been there. I know what, I was an assistant for a long time and I know what, how that makes you feel, you know, and then I think the other thing is you got to. I say it all the time, don't be afraid to lose an argument with your assistant.
You know, don't be afraid to have him sit there and go through a very well thought out diatribe on why this guy should start or pitch and go give some counterpoints and go, okay, I'm going to go with you. That what that does for them is amazing. You know, what that does for them is amazing.
And you, you can falsely set it up that you were going to do it anyways, but, you know, you're empowering them and giving them the, the ability to kind of speak their mind, you know, because sometimes they do see things differently.
And, you know, this. As an assistant, you're in the cage four or five hours. Well, with nca, four hours, you're in the cage for four hours with these guys. So you get a little bit more nuance with them than the head coach. Right?
And when I cut, that was one of the things that I noticed. I was a assistant for a long time here, and then I became a head coach. And guys that I was kind of yucking up without in the cages not six months ago were like, what are you doing out here? Like that. Not saying it, but just like.
And they look, they and I, we had a first year of head coach. We had a family in for a visit, and the kid's mother asked me, like, what's the biggest difference? I go, well, the biggest thing that I found, you do less baseball as a head coach, you know, because you have to go over here for this meeting, and you do less baseball. And I said that the.
In my situation, because I just continued on.
They treat you differently. It's. I'm not treating. I. I'm gonna say I'm not treating him differently, which I'm sure I am, but they treated. They look at me differently, you know, because before I was their advocate with the head coach. Now, you know, they get very nervous of the guy who line up.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: Decisions change everything.
[00:50:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: Lineup decisions, change, changes, that relationship.
[00:50:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's tough. It's. It's, you know, the same guys.
I was the advocate. Hey, let's keep working. I'll talk to the boss, and I'll try to get you some at bats. And, you know, so it's. It's. It's.
It's not easy. The whole delicate balance, you know, and you got to hire the right people, right? It's.
You got to hire the right people. And. And again, I go back to it. It's just about people. It's not about overwhelming talent. And when I say that you're not hiring the bag boy at Publix to be your pitching coach. Right. I mean, you're not doing that. But find the. It doesn't have to be the guy everybody thinks or the guy this. Find a. The right person for your situation and make it work. Make the baseball side of it will work, but the internal part of it, if you have the wrong people, it will never work.
It'll never work.
[00:51:55] Speaker A: So you and I both loved Wayne Graham. Do we miss him in this generation?
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
I mean.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: I mean, how much of a mentor was he to you?
[00:52:08] Speaker B: You know, Wayne, one of his assistants said. He goes.
He said, you and I won't name the other coach. He goes, you're the only two guys he likes.
I really enjoyed when we would go to Rice. I would immediately go into his office and I would spend time with him and, you know, listen to him and. And if you just listen, let him talk and listen, you would learn, you know, But I enjoyed playing him. You know, he made the game so simple, right? It catch the ball, throw the ball, hit the ball, throw strikes. Simple, you know, and he had a way of. Of interacting with his players. Where I would go, man, I don't know if anybody else can do that except for him.
But I, you know, I enjoyed him. I immensely enjoyed him.
It's a shame the way things ended at the end. And we were.
We were his last game ever. We knocked him out in the conference tournament, and it was extra innings and there was a ball hit down the line and our guy was scoring from first. There was no doubt about it.
And I immediately looked over to him and everybody was kind of jumping up and down, and I looked to him and I went right over and shook his hand and thanked him and, you know, because without guys like him, I wouldn't have a good job, you know, especially at a place like Rice where he made baseball viable there, you know.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: He hadn't been to a regional before he got there. That's rolled off 23 years in a row.
[00:53:48] Speaker B: Oh, God, good.
[00:53:49] Speaker A: 23 years.
And I've said this multiple times.
I've done a lot of these now. He was like the one that I've had and like 300 plus where, like, I was fanboying out because of him and what he did. Like. And a great conversation, like, for his age at that point. Yeah, for as sharp as he still was at the end was amazing to me. Like, he's a. He's the blueprint for anybody that wants to maintain a great life.
[00:54:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: Very well read, very sharp, like, for his age. When he got on, like, it was immediately I was like, oh, he's still. He's still got it here up.
[00:54:25] Speaker B: You know, the one thing. The one thing that I just.
Even to this day, I think about and it just doesn't add up is he was such a huge sci fi fan.
[00:54:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: I just, like, loved books.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: Love sci fi books. Loved him.
[00:54:40] Speaker B: Dune was his. I think it was. Dune was his favorite. Like, I was like, are we.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: But also goes back to finding other things that you're interested in.
[00:54:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:50] Speaker A: Like, I think coaches need. I think coaches need to have that a little bit, too. We always talk about the players, but I think the coaches need a little bit of a mental, deep decompress, whatever that. A healthy mental decompress. Because obviously there's a lot of unhealthy options out there for people where I think you have to find a healthy decompression.
[00:55:09] Speaker B: I agree. I agree. That was the one thing that I. I just. I was like, really? Like, wow. I would think he would, you know, and again, you stereotype or you have these things, and I would think, like, he would be like, that is silly. But he would talk about it. He like, man, it was great. He, I, I, I do miss him. And, and, you know, I think of him and some other people that, you know, I've been at the same place for 36 years, and I want it to end correctly because a lot of guys don't. And I worry, like, I felt bad for him that when they announced it happened twice when he, they announced it happened to two different coaches when they announced that he was retiring again. We landed, we go to practice. I would immediately go right to his office. Sometimes I would go in my car ahead of time and, and, and I was like, hey, congratulations. He's like, no, I still want to coach. This is be. You know, And I was like, man. And then as soon as the season was over, he had packed up his house and he had been gone. And, you know, part of it is him, but, but there's got to be a better way. I saw it happen with Danny Bryce down at fiu, where, you know, he'd been there as a player for two years and then as a coach for 28 years, and they wouldn't even let him go back into his office, you know, Terry Alexander at J, like, there's gotta be a softer landing. I know the business we signed up for is what it is, but I just wish. And his sake, there was a, you know, and there has to be give and take on both sides. Right.
[00:56:46] Speaker A: I feel like the natural transition, where you've seen it work, is they move into a fundraising. Fundraising position at the university.
I think that's been the softest landing. Unless the guys really had just kept going and banged it out, and then it's their time and they're done with it. I think that's been the softest spot for guys is just move them into that fundraising position at the university.
Because, by the way, baseball coaches are the best we have in any profession at raising money. They, they're the best.
[00:57:12] Speaker B: Well, we, you know, it's funny, and I probably get in trouble for saying this, but in an athletic department, if football and basketball don't have the right resources, it's the, it's the athletic department's fault. In baseball, it's my fault.
Right. Or the coach's fault. Like, well, you need to go raise more money. Well, we do have other things to do, but it seems like, you know, everybody's working to do, you know. But you see, football coaches, like, hey, they didn't give me enough money. That's the reason why we didn't win. And everybody goes, that's right. That's Right.
But it's. You know, I could be a coal miner.
Not that that's not an honorable profession, but, you know, that's a little bit tougher work than I do.
I could.
I'm blessed. I really am. It's. It's been a great run, and it's not over yet. We got a lot of work to do. People ask me that all the time, and I was like, you know, I don't know when the end is, you know, And I think it's best to.
[00:58:12] Speaker A: Think about it that way. I. I think you get a bad headspace when you start thinking about what. Because it might be something completely different. I think.
[00:58:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:21] Speaker A: I think the best headspace to be in is, like, I have no idea when.
Could be at 100.
I could be coaching to 100.
[00:58:28] Speaker B: I don't see that for me, because I do think it's my job to turn it over to the next generation because there's guys waiting to be head coaches and. And I've done. I've had a really good run and. And anybody that's out there listening, don't use it against us in recruiting. I'm not leaving anytime soon.
But, you know, I think a time. Time will come when two. I think you have to look at it and say, I'm not putting in the same amount of time as I once did. You know, I owe this program and I owe the players more. They deserve more. I think that's an important thing. And then, of course, there has to be something to go to, right? Like, you know, but I don't see myself in the Wayne Graham that late in life, you know, like, even if. Even if I don't have anything to go to in terms of, like, a real something, I do think it's time to move on and let the next generation have their chance at it, you know, but retirement is not cheap, as I'm told.
[00:59:32] Speaker A: Ask coach Whalen.
[00:59:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:34] Speaker A: Hey, did you enjoy putting the speakers together? The mainstay speakers. Was it stressful?
[00:59:39] Speaker B: I thought it was awesome.
[00:59:41] Speaker A: It is awesome, isn't it?
[00:59:42] Speaker B: I thought it was awesome.
I got to meet people that I've never met before.
I got to interact with people that I had not much interaction with, you know, learned a lot.
You know, learned a lot about people's past and lives and, you know.
[01:00:03] Speaker A: It.
[01:00:04] Speaker B: It was fun. It was. I was like, I would like to do that every year. Not every year. Maybe every other year. Because it is.
[01:00:10] Speaker A: I get to do it every year because of you stage. I get to do it every Year.
[01:00:14] Speaker B: Well, you got it. You got it locked in for the next eight years.
[01:00:16] Speaker A: It's not. But it's three now.
[01:00:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:00:20] Speaker A: But it always switches. I said that a couple of ones ago because sometimes my you stage speakers get scooped up for the main stage, so I have to adjust on the fly.
[01:00:29] Speaker B: The toughest part for me was saying no to people.
[01:00:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that's extremely hard.
[01:00:36] Speaker B: It's really tough because.
And you know, for anybody that's, that's listening, hope there's a ton of you. When you're given a sheet that, a guideline and, you know, three pitching, three offense, three, you know, so it's, it's like, well, we already got three pitching. I'm sorry, I can't. Or we already had, like, we already have a pitching guy that's a D1 guy. We need someone that has a, you know, you're going to talk about this. Well, I already got someone that's going to kind of COVID that topic.
We only get, you get 40 minutes there. It's, it's a couple days, two and a half days of speaking, and we've got to make sure that we hit as many topics as we can. Right.
You know, I think that that's important that, you know, pitching, we kind of. Jason Jackson did a pitching thing. Sean McGrath did a little bit more analytical.
Jason's was more of a weekly monthly pitching plan.
And then, then Skyler Mead, which I thought was really important. He talked about being a head coach and the pitching coach, which I was looking for someone willing to do that because, you know, we see it in Division 1 baseball. Of course, he's one. Kevin O' Sullivan comes to mind.
John Savage comes to mind.
But you don't see it that often. But in high school and junior college is commonplace, you know, and again, the fine line is, you know, the assistant coach is sometimes your advocate or your sounding board as a player. And now they don't have that because you can't tell your pitching coach, who's also your head coach, how you're feeling. You know, it's just, it doesn't work that way. So I thought that was important. And one of the guidelines that I asked everybody was what I didn't want. And sometimes it happens, and over the years is someone gets up there and does these presentations and they're phenomenal, but unless you have a couple thousand dollars, it's not.
It doesn't work. Right. So I said, I asked everybody, could you please give the audience two or three things that they can take home, implement in their program?
That doesn't cost them any money. Because the worst thing we can have is a high school coach or a junior college coach goes to his ad, gets a chance to go, comes back, the ad says, what do you think? And he goes, it's great, but I need another $8,000 because I need this, I need that. And the ad is like, you're never going again. We can't afford it. So I wanted to avoid that.
And, you know, it's hard. The convention gets over, you know, January, you start practice in 10 days. So some of that stuff is hard to implement.
But I think the trick is to find something, steal something that you see on the stage, wrap it into your own, and then represent it to your team. That's what we all do. That's what, you know, go there with an open mind. And I was young and dumb, and I remember one. I won't say who gave the speech, but they talked about how they had a couple fields they practiced at a spring training site. And, you know, this one was breaking balls. This one was fastball machine. This one was army. And I'm like, I don't have that.
[01:03:59] Speaker A: I got one cage Western. I. We got one cage to work with.
[01:04:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And I tuned out. And I look back on it and I'm like, that's stupid. You should have listened and been able to, you know, sit in the audience and find something that you can take with you, whether it be good or bad, like, oh, I don't like that, but that I could use, you know, and then come back, look at your situation, look at your team. Now, how do I make this fit for my guys? You know, not how it fit for the person who presented it, how it fits for your guys, your. Your team.
[01:04:31] Speaker A: And I was going to ask you about inexpensive experience. I love that term, like, learning from other people's either successes or mistakes.
Have you had much of that over the years? Inexpensive experience?
[01:04:43] Speaker B: I had a lot of it in terms of.
I never worked. I worked for one guy.
So, like, I listen to podcasts a lot and, well, you know, I played for this guy and I worked for this guy, and then I got a job here. Then I did this, and I'm like, so a lot of it was.
And it was Coach Cooney, and I love him to death. I just saw him last two nights ago, and a lot of it was that I can't do that because that's not my personality. I can't do that because. Or I think if it's done this way, it's better, right?
And so that was, you know, the important thing is to ask questions and listen. One guy that helped me immensely was Joe Walsh.
You know, it's a shame he passed away. He was great.
But, you know, everybody. Everybody in Ately wants to. Innately wants to help. And if you ask questions, which I was good at when I was younger in terms of like, hey, how would you do this or do that?
Then I would say, again, the trick is to digest it and say, can I use it? And how do I put it into my program, not their program. I can't do what, you know, I'm not built to do what we're going to say what Tim does at Vandy.
[01:06:04] Speaker A: With the classroom every day, it's like different restaurants.
Honestly, it's like different restaurants.
[01:06:09] Speaker B: I'm not built to do that.
And I. And I, you know, and I understand that. So we do. We do it twice a week. It works for us. Or, you know, some of it's done out in the field. And he's an amazing guy, and what he does every day is just mind blowing.
I don't want to embarrass him, but I think that he should speak every year at the convention, like, you know.
[01:06:31] Speaker A: Because he's always coming up with new stuff, too.
[01:06:33] Speaker B: It's unbelievable. It really is.
[01:06:36] Speaker A: But he also is really good about reaching out to people and asking questions. Yeah, he's another great, great person that asks great questions.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, I would ask people, assistants and everybody, what would you do here? What do you do here? What do you. You know, and for me, it was. It was a little tougher because I didn't play or work for anybody else. It wasn't like I worked for Bill Smith for three years, and I could call him up and say, hey, Bill, you know, I'm having a little bit of hard time here. I. I work for one guy.
I worked for one guy, and that was it, you know, and I just did a lot of really intense observing of other people and then would ask coaches at bp, and some of that is, you know, it's funny, I won't say the coach's name because I don't want to, but I was talking to a coach, and he asked me, and he's a little bit older than me, and he said, you know, it. It's. You remember, BP used to spend some time with other coach and talk and trade and this and that. He goes, I don't find that to be a thing anymore. I go, no, people don't want to do it. You know, whether you know, I, I, I don't know why. And he said, yeah, that's kind of, I notice it less and less and less and less.
But again, it's where we're at. And to the coaches out there, you can reach out. It doesn't have to be a baseball coach that you reach out to because coaching's coaching. Right.
You know, whether you're dribbling a basketball or hitting a baseball, coaching's coaching. Dealing with student athletes is dealing with student athletes. Some of the mechanisms are different, but the nuts and bolts are the same.
So don't be afraid in your own department to ask coaches, you know, don't be afraid to do that. It doesn't have to be a baseball coach and it doesn't have to be, you know, someone that won a World Series or something. It, you know, there's guys out there doing amazing things and sometimes a don't get the recognition or might not have a platform like this. You know, I know I'm very fortunate, but, you know, just look, observe. And again, people want to help the Lancer. I would say nine out of 10 coaches would be happy to have a conversation with you.
[01:08:52] Speaker A: You know, when you spoke at the virtual convention, was that the only time that you had spoken? Was that your first. Yeah, how about, how about that? Yet you're going to be on the stage and then, oh, by the way, you're going to come record here in the office and it's just in a.
[01:09:05] Speaker B: Room with no one.
[01:09:07] Speaker A: That's why I tried to sneak in there to get, get coaches pumped up. Because you're speaking to nobody.
[01:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:09:14] Speaker A: Although it turned out great. And honestly, we talk about fail forward moments a lot on here.
For us, that was a fail forward moment because that could have, that could have been really bad for, for the abca and it turned out to be something really awesome.
[01:09:27] Speaker B: You know, I, I, of course, I've never spoke on the, the main. I was looking forward to it. I never.
[01:09:32] Speaker A: Well, you intro. You got to intro like.
[01:09:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't, I, I, I, I'm gonna pat myself on the back. I'm a very good.
And I don't mind doing it. I never.
Everybody gets a little bit of jitters and if you don't, then. Right. It's not worth it.
But that, you know, gearing up for onstage and then doing the reverse to the virtual and it was, I don't know if it was in a closet, but it was like, you know, the stage, you get to go back and forth and I'm a walker And a talker and a thinker where there was. You couldn't move.
[01:10:15] Speaker A: But mine was having to read off a teleprompter for the first time ever. I was awful. Like, the first intro I did, I just stared at the one and they were like, hey, you have to redo that.
And you have to look like you're looking in the crowd.
And that, that was the thing that I was like, oh, no, I've never read.
[01:10:35] Speaker B: I worked on. I worked on mine, so I never had to look at the notes.
And the guy told me, he goes, you're the first person here that we never didn't have to stop and start over. He goes, you were one take.
And it's. It's funny again, I.
When we do, like, marketing things around here, the marketing for. The old marketing person called me one Take Johnny because I'd say, give me the script. Read it. Okay, let's go. You know, Or I'd ask for it the night before, and then I would turn it into something I could remember.
I think it's, you know, those things are.
Are tough. But I would tell everybody, just practice them at practice. And then once you get started, it will naturally get in the moment.
[01:11:19] Speaker A: Once you get in the moment, you just got to get through that initial one. One to two minutes. Once you can get over that hump with the one to two minutes, then you kind of get in flow state and.
[01:11:29] Speaker B: And it takes over and practice because you don't want to be behind the podium just reading it. You know, bring your notes out.
And I. If I ever.
I've never written a speech.
I just do bullet points. I do, too.
I just do bullet points.
Although for this one, I haven't written anything down. I've practiced it out of my head, but I've written everything. My wife is like, you don't want to mess up. And I go, yeah, I don't worry about that. Like, that's the beauty of it.
[01:12:05] Speaker A: I tell people, even, like internally, if you think you messed up, a lot of the time, people aren't even really paying attention that much. Like, they don't even know. Like, just. Just keep moving forward.
Just keep moving forward. I mean, what does this. What does this mean to you? Going into the ABC hall of Fame?
[01:12:24] Speaker B: It literally is unbelievable from someone. And again, a little prelude of the speech from someone that didn't want that to be a career path to end up here with. And I'll tell you what, why it's a little bit more surreal last year.
And you have to be. When you know, behind stage, you have to be there a little bit early. So I was down early and Mark Johnson was there.
And I was looking at the hall of Fame stuff outside of the. The. Because I was waiting for them to unlock the door to get behind the stage. And Mark Johnson was there and he was like, hey, do you ever meet this guy? Said, I didn't meet him. He was a great guy. He was this, he was that. And we spent about 15, 20 minutes of. He's telling me about it, and I'm like, man, these guys are unbelievable. And I always, in my head, you know, like, without those guys, I wouldn't have the job I have. Right.
And then at the end of the weekend, them saying, I was like, it's just surreal, like, because I don't. I don't think I'm anything special in terms of, like, I tell people all the time, I go, I'm a good person. I don't consider myself like this unbelievable baseball guy.
I do think I have some knowledge for.
But what I excel at is people management, you know, and that's what this, this is about. Right. If you recruit the right way. This is more about managing people and expectations and, you know, the, the baseball game kind of takes. There's some things you have to do within the baseball game, but, you know, I don't. You were a head coach, you know. Right. It's. It's people management. Right.
So it is, it is very surreal. I'm very honored. And you know, that people took the time to honor me, to put the application in and write letters and, you know, that that's, you know, I don't even know how to thank them enough.
It's, you know, but I'm looking forward to it. I am.
[01:14:35] Speaker A: You know, I love walking through the hall of Fame area pre convention and like that first day and watching the hall of Famers go through there and their families, like, I just think that. I think that's one of the magical things about our convention is when you just really just soak all of that stuff in and you see the impact that it's made on people.
That part of it, like, I just think that's a really special moment for everybody.
[01:15:05] Speaker B: But just to think what some of those coaches went through just to have a baseball program. Yes. And now we're in a completely different bizarro world.
And I think about it all the time. Like, you know, the amount of, you know, holes they dug and, you know, things that.
[01:15:22] Speaker A: Behind the scenes stuff. Yeah, it's all the behind the scenes.
[01:15:26] Speaker B: Stuff, you know, again, other sports just say to the administration, hey, we need this.
It appears, and, hey, we need this. Well, if you could work it out, good luck, you know, and I'm not saying that's everywhere and it's. And the people here are very good to us, but, you know, I'm talking about 20 years ago, right?
Everybody made sure the arena looked good. Not too many people were concerned 25 years ago if the baseball field looked good. You know, baseball is grounded, grassroots, and, you know, the people who just grinded at it, and I don't like that word, but it's appropriate.
[01:16:07] Speaker A: There's passion to that grind, though. Like. And I don't like the grind, but there's passion in that. That grind. Like, I think the ones that are special, they don't view it as a grind. Like, they just view it as, like, it takes what it takes to get things done.
[01:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah. People ask me about that, and I say, you know, I want to make sure that the young people here have a really good experience, because I know, you know, they're not making the money playing baseball.
You know, it's not going to happen down the line.
And I want the guys that took a chance on us 35 years ago to be proud of this place, to be proud. And I saw a whole bunch of them at the football game because we had a young man elected into the hall of Fame.
And they were talking amongst themselves, and I go, I wish there was a way I could record what you guys were saying. Go back, you know, 18, 20 years. Because they all have kids now, and they all know what real life is, right? You know, the days of we have weights and practice, and I get a paper to do and I get a test. That's child's play compared to what you're going through now. Wife, kid, three or wife, a job, three kids, daycare. One guy was like, coach, I don't know how I'm going to make it. Pay mortgage, and we're paying $2,000 a month in daycare. You know, he goes. And I said, you just got to keep working, man. Like, keep doing what you're doing.
And it's. And it's rewarding to see some of.
Some of those guys who you didn't think were getting it now have kids, and you have conversations with them, and they, you know, you're like, okay, they got it. Good, good. Because I worry about that sometimes, like, you interact with a young man for a couple years, and you go, man, how's he gonna do well on the outside?
And they surprise you, you know, but it's one of those things where I.
[01:18:04] Speaker A: Think part of it too though is I think as college coaches you're around like the elite of the elite.
So maybe like they're going to be fine. Even though in that like elite group that you have, the low end looks really bad. But comparatively to the real world and like the average people they're going to go compete against in the real world, they're still going to be further ahead than those people.
[01:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you're right, you're right. But it is a little bit of a, you know, we had a group guys that graduated and one of them, I, you know, we were helping them get a job and, and I mean he got the job. We just happened to be able to jump in a little bit. So he's like, coach man, like, he goes, I go to bed at 8:15 now.
He goes, I gotta get up at 7 and I eat and you know, I got an X amount of minute drive to work. And he goes, because his roommate also played here. And I asked him how he's doing. He goes, he's in bed by 8:15 every night. He goes, he's exhausted and he's got to learn a whole bunch of. But he goes, it's, it's fun so far. So it's, it's. I love it when they talk about real life because I talk to them about it a lot. It's coming, you've got to be ready. It's again, it's completely different than what you've been doing for the first 22 years of your life.
You know, you got to make sales or you got to turn paperwork in and you know, the school system is no longer going to say, okay, get it to us next week or we'll, we'll let you make it up. Or now it's like, no, the boss is like, this gotta be done by Friday or Thursday or whatever it is.
[01:19:42] Speaker A: Why? I'm in on a Sunday right now.
[01:19:44] Speaker B: Yeah, the boss said, gotcha.
[01:19:46] Speaker A: No, that's me. That's more me not wanting to miss a week. Do you have a fail forward moment? You have something that, that looking back now helped you move forward. Is getting cancer a fail forward moment for you?
[01:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I would think so.
I don't really have like.
And again, it's not a arrogant thing where there's been a complete meltdown. And you know, I just, you know, many, many years ago I started recruiting and I just said to myself, tell these guys the truth. Because it was easy to Say whatever, you know, just tell these guys the truth. And if they, you know, I don't want anybody to walk in my office post and say, you lied to me. You know, I, I made a ton of mistakes and God bless coach Cooney for allowing me to make mistakes, but I don't remember like a huge time, you know, where we were, where I had a huge fell forward moment. You know, I think it's just a, a whole bunch of little ones where I was able to kind of keep course correcting opposed to a big one, you know.
[01:21:02] Speaker A: Well, the year. The year, maybe you didn't address fundamentals as much.
[01:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe, yeah.
[01:21:07] Speaker A: Because now, now you're more cognizant of.
[01:21:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:21:10] Speaker A: Paying attention to those details every year.
[01:21:12] Speaker B: And, and also part of it is, you know, for so long we had a pretty good run of assistance here that we were all together, so it was kind of easy. You know, we would sit down and it would always be like, right. Yeah. Huh? Okay, let's go to work. And then I had a recon of like. Because over the last four years we've had a. Like. And God bless them, they've all gotten really nice jobs, but it has been a little bit choppier than you would like, you know, And I'm happy for them, I'm happy for him. And it just makes me more aware of like.
And I never say, like, when I hire somebody, like, this is the way we do things, like bring something to the table, bring ideas to the table. You know, I didn't. No one invented this game, you know, bring something different to the table.
I'm just trying to think of like something I don't really.
Again, I don't, I don't. Nothing major stands out. Just a whole bunch of little things where you kind of catch yourself. Well, I can't do that again. That didn't work, you know, or that won't work here. What works somewhere else. The only thing I could always say is be authentic, because they're going to know if you're. They'll eventually catch up. They might. If you have this Persona, they might say, hey, okay, but you. First of all, it's not sustainable for 300 days.
Then on top of that, they're going to see through it. Because if it's not genuine, kids won't say, and I say this all the time. They don't, they don't like, cognizant sometimes say like, I don't like. Or like they just know how it makes them feel. Right.
[01:23:02] Speaker A: And.
[01:23:04] Speaker B: I mention that to players all the time. And other coaches, young coaches that ask for advice, be genuine, tell them the truth. Because they don't remember if you were a good hitting coach or a bad hitting coach. They remember how you made them feel. And they might not even be able to put their finger on it, but the, the body's internal responses to certain things, like where I had chemo, I drive by that building and I get the, I'm not in it.
[01:23:37] Speaker A: You just, it's an automatic response to.
[01:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's how the players are years in, in their life future. If your name comes up, oh, Coach Mac, they'll get a like, oh, man, he was, he was good to me. Or, you know, and that's, that's the. And the players know it too. And I said, remember, you, you want to be a good teammate, a fair teammate. You want to hold yourself accountable, hold your teammates accountable. When you walk through that dugout at alumni game, do they go, oh, my God, he's, oh, Billy made it, or Tommy made it, or it's like, hey, great, Billy made it. You know, which one do you want to be? Right. Because again, they're not going to go, oh, on September 3rd of 1997, you said this and you made me feel bad. They're just going to know the re. The look of your face, your name is going to make them respond somewhere.
Pavlov's dog type thing. Right. Either good or bad. So just be yourself, be who you are, and they're going to respect you or like you for whatever you are. You know, I know we talked about it earlier, but so, but what is the, what is the biggest thing you've learned about coaching since doing this?
[01:25:00] Speaker A: Be yourself. You know, that's a common theme for a lot of coaches in this is just make sure you're, you're yourself.
[01:25:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:25:09] Speaker A: And also how humble people are.
[01:25:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:25:13] Speaker A: Like, I get to interview every level of baseball and I think the best ones we have have some.
They are humble in some ways.
[01:25:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:25:24] Speaker A: They're also self confident.
I do feel like the elite that we have have daily routines built into their schedule, but we've all had those fail forward moments where you know something, maybe at the time you didn't feel like it was going to be beneficial for you, but you look up a year or five years down the road and it is, was, was beneficial.
[01:25:45] Speaker B: When you say fail forward, what is something comes to mind for your own.
[01:25:48] Speaker A: I've said, for me, it was, I messed up Kansas State phone interview up when I was at James Madison.
So it's, and I was like three, four years into my career and I wasn't ready for this position. But I got the call to do a phone interview and it was for a recruiting coordinator position at Kansas State. And one of the first questions they asked was lay out the 12 month recruiting calendar. And I had recruited a little bit, but not like that. And so I, I was awful. Like it was terrible. They knew it was bad, I knew it was bad, but I hang up and I know I'm not getting the job, but I didn't deserve the job at that point.
But you said it like if I would have got that job 360 days later, they would have figured out that I wasn't ready for that job. So I probably would have got let go. But then for my master's I developed an entire recruiting plan and when I walked off the flight for my interview at Iowa, I had that manual that I had put together for my master's and that was part of the reason I got the job at Iowa.
So that's a fail forward moment.
[01:26:49] Speaker B: Do you remember how everybody had some sort of booklet?
[01:26:54] Speaker A: It had everything, the letters you'd mail, I mean for, for the newer generation of coaches. We did actually mail out recruiting.
[01:27:00] Speaker B: Yes.
Stuffing envelopes.
Stuffing envelopes, holding them, putting them, putting a questionnaire in there. And then.
But I, I, I, you know, the, the again I go back to people and, and our recruiting coordinator is Michael Cleary.
And when I, and this, this is when I said he's going to be our recruiting coordinator, he, he wasn't ready.
But I knew he was a really good person. I knew we would work hard. I knew he was going to be loyal to the, not to me, but to the program and to the, the brand, so to speak.
And then it was my job to help him.
Right. Because I don't think recruiting is not on one person, it's on everybody. Everybody has to help out and everybody has to be involved.
So I think sometimes when you interview people, you got to understand where they're at in their career and you, you can't bring them in to fail. Right.
And even if they have the greatest booklet put together, which I encourage guys to do that, you know, if you're a hitting guy or a pitching guy, put it in, put it into a booklet form and I go print it out, keep it next to you and you're going to make notes, you're going to make changes, you're going to look back on it and go, God, that was stupid, you know, or God, that's not good enough or, man, now we got to do this or we got to do that. And they're not as reticent to do that as we were. Right.
[01:28:40] Speaker A: I just think people are scared of making mistakes now.
[01:28:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:28:44] Speaker A: Or they don't want to act like they don't know what. What they're doing, I think is big, is a big part of that.
I read a lot of management Fortune 500 stuff now and talk a lot about that of, you know, safety, psychological safety. And I think if you have a good organization, yes, you don't want people incompetent. But I think people have to feel okay to be able to make mistakes.
If I really want to grow and thrive as an organization, people need to be okay that they can try new things and make mistakes, learn from them and move on and not feel like they're an idiot because they made a mistake.
[01:29:22] Speaker B: So part of my speech in my head for the hall of Fame is, I worked for Coach Cooney for 17 years, and you'll hear me say this in January, the greatest gift he gave me was the ability to make mistakes and not hold it against me.
And he would. I would come back from the convention or I would come back from the summer recruiting and go, okay, this is what we're going to do, or, this is what I'd like to do. And he would kind of go, okay. And then he got to the point, especially when I got back from the convention, he goes, what are we doing? What are we doing now?
And some of it worked and some of it didn't work. And he was very gracious always. And he would never say, no, don't do it. That won't work. He would let me. He'd go, okay, go for it. You know, as long as it didn't cost money.
[01:30:06] Speaker A: I just think you have to try. And then that's. For me, that's a positive. I think with my science background, it's a scientific method. If you try it and it doesn't work, that's good, too, because you don't have to go back to it. Like, I think you have to try things because that's also an answer, like a. You know, it didn't work. Well, that's an answer too, like, okay.
[01:30:26] Speaker B: And then you go, why didn't it work?
[01:30:28] Speaker A: Yes. And it comes with other good questions, Like, I think. I think the continual process of that is asking questions.
And. But if you don't try things, you never get to those questions.
[01:30:39] Speaker B: You don't get, what's the old thing. Thomas Edison.
It was a 10,000 how to do the light.
[01:30:45] Speaker A: He made. He, he made 10,000 wrong light bulbs to find one that worked.
[01:30:49] Speaker B: Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's true, that's true. But I, I, I, that's one of the greatest. I mean, he gave me a job, he gave me a career, he gave me a life. But the greatest gift he ever gave me was he allowed me to make mistakes. You know, he didn't control it. He didn't. He would kind of. I could see it in his eyes sometimes where, like, that's gonna not go well, but go ahead. Maybe I'll be wrong. You know that. And I think that's. And part of it is. And I say. And I said it, I go, you know, we were a smaller school.
There was the two of us.
There wasn't social media. So when sometimes no one would even know you made a mistake. Now everything is filmed and scrutinized. And so people are less likely to go put themselves out there to cause they don't want to look bad for years to come.
[01:31:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it might come back up 20 years from now.
[01:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Thank God things don't come back.
[01:31:51] Speaker A: Thank goodness.
[01:31:52] Speaker B: You know, But I do agree with you about, you know, and that's where baseball and on the scouting side, I see it, where, you know, the statistical people are like, well, it should have worked out. He had the right stats instead of saying.
Or he had the right metrics instead of saying, you know, where's the, in the room now where guys go, I want this guy. I know he can play. I know he can.
[01:32:21] Speaker A: Human element. Yeah, it's the human element.
[01:32:25] Speaker B: Well, I don't think that a lot of people believe that, that, you know.
[01:32:31] Speaker A: They still deal with human beings there. It's a, it's just a way different deal. How have you been able to maintain a healthy relationship?
You and your wife have a great relationship. How have you been able to maintain that? And you said it in the beginning that you, you want to be considered a good husband and father. How have you guys been able to make it work? Your wife's awesome. She's a great person.
[01:32:55] Speaker B: We have a good partnership. You know, there are times of the year that she's really busy with football or.
And then I kind of pick up the slack and stuff.
And then there are times when I'm really busy and she picks up the slack. I think it's.
We use a term around here, communicate and collaborate. So we do that. You know, I'm not.
We do that.
We're we're not in your face type people either, you know, And. And I think part of it is we don't have any, like, outside interest, you know, our life, our kids. And she's been at FAU 35 years, and I've been here 37, 36 full years.
And.
And this is part of it. You know, we go to the soccer games, we go to the hall of Fame dinner. We go to the, you know, like to see people that haven't seen a little while. We go to the movies. You know, we don't. We don't. It's not like we're in competition for anything. She. It's. Without her, none of this is possible, you know, I mean, our family.
Anything. None of this was possible without her. So she's. This award is.
You probably just hand it to her because she's. She's amazing. And she had a. You know, she played softball in college, so she understands the.
The sport aspect of it, the. The recruiting. And she'll even tell me. She'll say to me, like, you're not recruiting this weekend. And I was like, well, the guys are going to do it. There's nowhere you could go.
And. And I. She'll. She said it to me for years. She goes, you better not say anything in the spring if so. And so can't play or you don't have the backup shortstop you need, because that's on you.
So.
And. And she is. I think in this type of relationship, you have to be okay being alone, you know?
[01:35:03] Speaker A: You do.
[01:35:03] Speaker B: Yeah. You have to.
[01:35:05] Speaker A: Both partners in it are gonna have to be comfortable with being alone.
[01:35:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
She's traveled with us a little bit more the last couple years, which, when we had kids and they were younger, of course she didn't do it.
My kids have been great through this whole thing, and I know that they missed out on some things in their lives and. But they've gotten some other things that other.
[01:35:27] Speaker A: Their lives been enriched in a lot of other ways, too.
[01:35:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, my youngest son, he was born July 5, but because of recruiting, he didn't know his real birthday till he was about 9 or 10, because it would be like, hey, I got to go out of Town.
It's June 15th or June 18th. Let's have his birthday today. Then I would get back July 7th. Hey, it's happy birthday. Let's go. And he. He didn't even know when his birthday was. We would just pick a day that I was going to be in town in the summer and like, hey, Congratulations. Grab some friends, we'll go to the movies or, you know, so. They've been great. They've. They've. I'm, I'm proud of them, and I appreciate them very much.
[01:36:08] Speaker A: What are some final thoughts before I let you go?
[01:36:12] Speaker B: You know, again, humbled, shocked by this whole thing.
I'm scared that I don't deserve it.
You know, just, Just want to make sure that I treat everybody associated with it correctly.
I want to make sure that I don't not leave anybody out, but to make sure everybody knows how much I appreciate everything they've done for me. You know, because you don't do this by yourself. You know, it's, It's a team effort, Complete team effort.
But I'm truly grateful, truly grateful about it. And I told Tim Mead, I go, I said, tim, I only need 45 minutes. And then they're gonna play a tribute video that I'm getting work on, and then I'm gonna do another 45 minutes. So I only need. And I, I text him that, and he, he goes, I was on the floor laughing, rolling. I, I, I gotta make sure that I stay under the eight.
Slosh Nagel rule. Stay under the eight.
[01:37:24] Speaker A: It's just out of respect to everyone.
[01:37:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, just, you know, it's quick and make sure that you, you thank the appropriate people and give some context to your life and, you know, get on and get off. But it's, it's the amount of people, when it was announced, texting and calling and congrats and well earned. And, you know, and I, you think back and you go, did it really, you know, is it, you know, because I look at those people on the wall and I go, man, I've accomplished some things, but not like these guys. Like, this is, you know, but it's, you know, I think I've accomplished some things in other ways, too. You know, one thing I'm really proud of is, is the time I've been able to.
The time I've been afforded to help out with baseball itself, right? Like, the game is. The game is never going to pay you back.
People want to get paid back.
But, you know, we do a lot with Boca, Little League, we do other things, but to sit on those committees and try to help shape, you know, and try to make their lives, people's lives better, and, you know, some of the things we've been able to accomplish with Craig and the committee, and it's. That's been really rewarding. You know, when, when you're at a tournament, and guys come up to you and say, thanks, man. I appreciate. I know you like that. That's really rewarding, you know, like, we're just trying to make this job a little bit more. Because I. I mean, I'm not proud of it that I left my kids on December 26th to go to a tournament. That's not a badge of honor. But it had to be done. That's the way it was. And we were able to curb some of that stuff so people could have better lives and cut down on divorces, hopefully, and be better fathers and better husbands. And again, because at the end of the day, you know, we spend so much time with other people's kids. We've got to remember our own families, you know, And I know there's a. There's got to be a balance there. You just got to find it and kind of be willing to say, you know, one of the things they say is we're willing to say, no, I don't have time for that. I apologize, but I just don't, you know. Mental health.
[01:39:43] Speaker A: Yep. Knows no's a complete sentence.
[01:39:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:39:48] Speaker A: Mac, thanks for your time, man. I was looking.
[01:39:50] Speaker B: Oh, thank you.
[01:39:51] Speaker A: This was awesome.
[01:39:51] Speaker B: I appreciate it.
[01:39:52] Speaker A: So forward to this. Love you. You're the best. I appreciate you, sir.
[01:39:56] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate it. And you guys do great work, and thank you. And you do especially great work, so keep it up. And we appreciate it.
[01:40:03] Speaker A: Thanks, sir. One of the best things about working on the ABCA staff is getting to interact with our board members throughout the year.
I've always been impressed with Coach McCormack and the person that he is.
He has a true care for the game of baseball at all levels. I'm so happy for him being inducted in the ABCA hall of Fame.
Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Hale, and Matt west in the ABCA office for all the help on the podcast. Feel free to reach out to me via email rbronleybca.org Twitter, Instagram or TikTok coachbabca or direct message me via the MyABCA 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.
[01:41:01] Speaker B: And the world will always return as your love Never for your name and you know that Wait.
[01:41:15] Speaker A: Wait for another day.
