Pat Casey - 2026 ABCA Hall of Fame Inductee, Oregon State

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the abca's podcast. I'm your host ryan brownlee. New ABCA Podcast sponsor Driveline are longtime friends and I've used many of their products when I was coaching in the youth camps. Now, if you want to truly optimize your pitcher's workload, Pulse from Driveline Baseball takes simple pitch counts to the next level. Pulse is a wearable sensor that precisely measures every throw your pitchers make on a daily basis. Pulse tracks both throw count and throw intensity. Trusted by MLB organizations like the Cincinnati Reds, elite college programs and individual athletes at all levels, Pulse is changing the way throwing workload is managed. With the Pulse Team Dashboard, you'll be able to make data driven usage decisions to optimize training and injury prevention for your entire team. Visit drivelinebaseball.com Pulse to revolutionize your pitching staff's development and health today. This episode is sponsored by Netting Pros. 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Now on to the podcast finishing our 2026 ABCA hall of Fame Class Interviews Pat Casey etched his name among the greats in college baseball history, leading Oregon State's national prominence during a coaching career that spanned more than three decades. Casey served as head Coach at George Fox University from 1998 to 1994, compiling a 171 and 113 record before taking over at Oregon State in 1995. During his tenure with the Beavers, he compiled a.904 58 record, became the Winniest coach in any sport in Oregon State history, finishing with a career record of 171 wins and 571 losses. Under his leadership, Oregon State made six College World Series appearances and became just the fifth program in NCAA history to win back to back national titles with their 2006 and 2007 championship runs. Following the Beavers national title in 2018, Casey announced his retirement after 24 seasons in Corvallis. Oregon State success earned Casey national Coach of the Year honors from the ABCA three times, as well as five Pac12 coach of the Year awards. Casey was named the College Baseball Coach of the Decade by Baseball America and was inducted in the College Baseball hall of Fame and Oregon State Athletics hall of fame in 2024. Let's welcome Pat Casey to the podcast here with Pat Casey, ABC hall of Famer this year, three time national champ, Baseball America's Coach of the decade from 2000. But over a thousand wins, 65% winning percentage. But Coach Casey, thanks for jumping on with me. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Good to be here. [00:03:56] Speaker A: Hey, what'd you take out of all those years of playing professionally once you got to George Fox? [00:04:02] Speaker B: That I wish I'd have been a little wiser and when I was playing, I might have been able to go a little further. You know, I was young and didn't have a lot of guidance along the way. You know, in the 80s, minor league baseball was not a breeding ground for development. It was, you either help us win and move up or and stay out of trouble. And so, you know, like I said, I was very fortunate to be able to do it. Got to play eight years, finished in the Coast League out here, spent the last three seasons doing that. You know, and I would say that the greatest thing I got out of doing that was the things that I wanted to teach when I was coaching due to some of the things that I didn't do when I was playing. [00:04:50] Speaker A: What were some of those things from a development? [00:04:52] Speaker B: Well, you know, like I said, when you're 21 and you're from Newburgh, Oregon, and you've never been out in the world and you go out and you're 21 years old, you know, you just think you're gonna play every day. You know, you don't know how to train. You know, when I came up, we didn't have weights. We. There was no. Nobody sitting on you. Discipline, you know, nutritionist. No. Nobody teaching you, you know, video. I never saw myself hit. So, you know, I would come home from playing the season and go to work. I never lift away, never swing a bat, never throw a ball, didn't train properly. And when you're out, like I said, and you're 21, 22, 23, you're having a good time, you're not thinking about anything other than you're going to Wake up the next day and play and compete. And I know that's good, but you know, there was also a lot more to it and I wish I'd have been wiser to the development piece. [00:05:46] Speaker A: Do you feel like college was ahead of the pro side on that? I think maybe because they're dealing with a smaller window of players too, where you're dealing with 18 to 23 year olds rather than a 16 year old Latin kid and 40 year old veteran player. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Well, I think it depends on the program, their view of what they want to do. I certainly think that there's a lot more at the college level than we can have an impact on a young man's life in addition to baseball. I think professionally there's some great things happening, but I think it's up to the player. If the player wants to develop and the player wants help at that level, they'll give you all the help you want. They'll give you all the resources you want. If you, if you don't want to buy into development in certain area, whether it's the it stuff that's going out there, you know, there's some great things out there with technology, but there's also some things are setting some people back. You know, we got to get the human element back into the game more, I think, and tie that in with the good information that's out there. I think, you know, we're flooded with so many new gimmicks. You know, I watch all these hitting drills and all these people talk about hitting and there's such a misconception of some of the things that happen. But they're getting a lot of kids into facilities and they got to have drills. I just wish that there was a better way to help young people understand if something they're doing is productive, keep doing. If something they're doing is not productive, learn why. But I thought college was a great breeding field for me anyway, for developing young men beyond baseball. But certainly in baseball I got a lot better at doing that as I went along as well. You know, I never had the chance to be an assistant coach. I was released from the twins organization in 1987. Ten days later, I was the head coach at George Fox College. So trial and error was my best friend for a long time. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Who were some of your mentors that helped you along the way when you first got into coaching? [00:07:55] Speaker B: Well, I really didn't have any mentors. That, that was the problem. You know, like I said, I. I had never coached. I didn't get the opportunity to be an assistant coach. I was playing. I got released in the middle of the season, Father's Day, June 22, 1987. And Paul Berry, the AD at George Fox in the hometown, asked if I'd like to be the head coach at George Fox. I said, well, the reason you're asking me, because you're not even. Nobody wants the job. You know, it's. I said, I. I've been involved with baseball for eight years. I have no. No desire to coach baseball. And I didn't. And a week later, he talked me into talking to the president, and I took the job. I was head coach 10 days after I was released from the Twins at 27 years old and started coaching. But I did. I'll tell you that when I got to Division 1 and I got a chance to hang around people like Mike Gillespie at usc, Mark Marcus at Stanford, Pat Murphy at Arizona State, you know, just some real guys that were in our league that I got to look at their programs. You know, even sometimes people are a mentor to you and they don't even know it. You know, I hope that somebody would play an Oregon State team and, like, the way we played, if he's a young coach and say, hey, I want to do some of those things. And that's what I did. You know, I looked at Stanford. I was looking at him when I was 12 to nothing, too, you know, So I learned the teacher was the game for a while, and I think I had a pretty good handle on perseverance and, you know, relentless effort to get better. And, you know, that's humbling at times when you're getting your ass kicked and you. And you telling people you're going to beat them. [00:09:48] Speaker A: I call that inexpensive experience where you're learning from watching other people do things. [00:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. That's. And then here again. And then I got to know him and became friends with him. I'm actually working with Pat right now with the brewers. And, you know, those guys were. You know, it was fun. It was fun to get in there. It was miserable for a while because, you know, we didn't have the facilities, we didn't have the talent. We didn't have the anything. It was. It was walking into the lion's den, but certainly. Certainly a great ending to it. [00:10:26] Speaker A: How do you stay on the path there in the beginning? You know, because a lot of coaches deal with that. You go to places. Part of the reason jobs are open is because they haven't had success. How do you kind of stay on the path there? Of putting your head down and working. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, you have to create a belief system and obviously nobody's going to succeed beyond that belief system. If you believe in something and you truly believe in it, then you continue to passionately work for it. If your belief system is what anybody can achieve, then it's going to be what anybody can achieve. If that makes sense. Societies like that today, our leaders in this country, a lot of them, not all of them, prefer our youth to be average. Because when you're average, you're easy to control and there's no, no threat to their job. You know what I mean? So we've lowered. If you want to be. I spoke the other night to a bunch of high school coaches. I said, I can tell you how to be 100% successful. I'm giving you the, the, the antidote to be 100% successful, which is hard to do. I said, all you have to do is keep lowering the bar until everybody wins and you're going to be successful. Right? And so that's what they want. They lowered the bar. And if you look at education system today, kids are not getting educated. It's not their fault. You wonder why anxiety and fear and depression are at an all time high. Because there's no sense of purpose. These, these young kids don't feel like they have value. I would say I would hope that every guy in our team that I coached and that obviously it's a stretch to include everyone, but you hope that everybody on your team feels like they have value to the team. And that should come not only from the coaches, but more from the players. And I always say, when your best player makes the player with the least talent feel like he's just as important, you got a shot to have one hell of a team. [00:12:28] Speaker A: I coached in the Cape in the late 90s and the early 2000s and the agents were talking about your program before. You guys were kind of on the national landscape. But they were like, oregon State's going to be a program here soon. [00:12:40] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate that. I, like I said, I made a lot of mistakes. You know, I was impatient, I was a little too competitive at times. There's times that I needed the game to teach me a lesson. I needed an experience to teach me a lesson. I needed a failure to teach me a lesson. You know, the one thing that my, my father taught me, I always say that. You know, I have to admit, I was born into privilege. My mother had seven children in nine years. My dad was in the construction business and I Had nothing I wanted, but everything I needed, you know, because my dad, I wanted something. Me and my brothers, he took us outside and threw us in the mud and said, I'll tell you how to get it. You work. And my mother taught us how to care. And it was a beautiful time to be growing up. You know, I grew up in the 60s and went to high school in the 70s. You know, just. Man, it was just a wonderful time. And I think that we were kind of taking that we're robbing our. Our youth of the unimaginable potential that lies within them by stripping them of any type of creativity, any type of imagination, any type of vision to succeed in something. And, you know, when I came to Oregon State, the very first thing I said to the athletic director, when he asked him what I thought I could accomplish, I said, I think we can. And the program was a very good program. Jack Riley was a really good coach. Great man, good coach. But he only had to compete in the north because that's all he was allowed to do. You know, you're beating, you're trying. You got to be Portland and Gonzaga, Portland State and Washington. And so, you know, when I told him that I wanted to go in the south, that, you know, we needed to expand this, he's just, you know, he looked at me like I had lost my mind. He said, hey, coach, we don't draw on baseball here. This is a. This is a fine sport, but, you know, you just need to win some games and graduate your kids, and you're going to be just fine. And I just thought to myself, I just. I can't live with that. And so for someone that told him that we're going to compete regionally, I believe we can do that. And I said, if we do that, we'll compete nationally. I even had coaches in the south that told me, hey, I appreciate your. Your desire to do this, but you don't have the resources, you don't have the money, you don't have the players. This is going to be a tough experience, and it was for a while. But, you know, you give one man a shovel and he digs a grave, and you give another man a shovel and he digs a well that'll provide water for a village for a lifetime. You know, it's just, who's on the end of the shovel? [00:15:20] Speaker A: Did moving to the south, is that what helped you guys recruiting the most, you think to attract better players from the Northwest? [00:15:27] Speaker B: Two things. There was two significant things. One is winning, and two is moving to the south. So in 98, we. The south, dealt us a little bone. They gave us nine games that wouldn't count in conference, but it helped our RPI to try to get us to not come into conference. So in 98, we played Arizona. I think they were 10th in the country. And we swept them. We swept UCLA, we played USC, the great Mike Gillespie, and we went down there and won one, could have won two. So we were 7 and 2 against the South, 35 and 14 or something. Didn't even go to regional. That's, that's, that's pain. And, and so that's when I finally got our president involved and Mitch Barnhart came on, who is now Kentucky. The ad. He was an aggressive ad, and like I said, the guy, A couple guys in the south very respectfully said that they didn't think that I was making a good decision. And, and who would blame him? The six Pack you play in, you know, you play in the LA Bay Area, in Arizona. Who wants to go to Pullman, Washington or Corvallis, Oregon and play baseball, right? Or Seattle? So it was. There were days when I got my head knocked in that I wondered if I was doing the right thing. And then there was days that I had to wake up and either accept that or take on the challenge and say, you know, that's part. That's. That's probably the thing that I'm the proudest of, is you either, you know your character is going to be forged by you, how you handle those adversities and those challenges. And in tough times, you know, your character's forged. Your teams are formed and your leaders are found. There's no doubt about it. So if I was going to be a leader, I couldn't put my head in the sand and say, ouch. You know, I said, we're gonna go, man. We're gonna go until they kill us. It doesn't matter to me. They've already blown the holes through us so big that why stop now? So we were 7 and 17 in our first year in the conference, and my AD opened my door and said, hey, you need to win more games, and shut my door, and walked off. True story. [00:17:46] Speaker A: But I mean, over the course of your career, you only had two losing seasons. So obviously the way you were doing things, do you learn more from those seasons that maybe aren't up to expectations? And you do the ones that you have a lot of success? [00:17:59] Speaker B: You know, that's a great question, because you read my mind from a long way away. I'm sitting out here in Corvallis. And I'll never forget telling people that the best season that I ever had to learn how to coach was 1999, when we got our head kicked in. And because, you know, you feel like when you have a great season, you've done things well and do you want them doing better? You know, the number one enemy to greatness is good. You know, every, everybody's good. Walk down the street and walk by anybody and ask them how they're doing. Once they said, good, good, everybody's good. You know, I mean, so, like, how do we separate? That was the big thing. How do we. But 99 did this to me because in 98, 97, 98, we were extremely successful 98 team. And it just, it breaks my heart those kids didn't get to play in the regional. But what I will tell you, when I, when I was coming back on the plane and I think it was Stanford, that beat us about 23 to 5 or 21 to 5 or 22 to 4, whatever it was. And you had the mercy rule on Sundays for getaway day, so they only hit six times. And I swear to God that I was crying and I just said, I, I, I gotta, I gotta rethink how we walk, talk, eat, lift, practice. Study changed everything about our DNA from, from the top of our head to the tip of our toes. And I've got to go to practice. You know, if you go to practice and you're having a tough day and you're not up to it, you can't expect your players to be up to it. You know, you just can't. If you get in the dirt with your players, they'll pick you up on those days. You know, that's what discipline is, is the day that you don't have that, somebody else picks you up. But 99% of the time, if you're the head coach, you're going to have to walk in there like your eyes, tell them that I believe in what we're doing. I created this blueprint. I've given you a vision for the mission. Now we're going to drive engagement by being bold of how we go about it. And the head coach, I don't care in any situation, CEO, leader, teacher, father, they can see it in your eyes. They know. And so if you ain't feeling it, you better walk in and punch a hole right through your, your midsection and say, I'm walking in there like we're taking down everybody. And, and you can't do that on weekends. You have to do it, you have to do it all the time because practice is for coaches and games are for players. That's just all, you know, they're the guys, you know, that cross the white lines and get after it. And you put them in a position, in my opinion, where the game is the funnest thing because practice was a, you know, and you can still have fun, you can still enjoy it. But I would say that we were probably one of those unique programs that I think the guys would tell you, look at. I'm glad I went through some, some stuff. I'm glad that it was difficult. I'm glad that he had high expectations for me. [00:21:04] Speaker A: And you talked about society. I think about this a lot. I think we've given kids a false narrative now that it's supposed to be easy along the way. It's proposed, aware. Okay. It's going to be challenging. Like anything great that gets done, there's challenges and adversity that comes with that. [00:21:20] Speaker B: It's criminal what they're doing to our kids. It's criminal. And when you. I talked to a teacher that was a very good teacher and he's 30 years in and he said, I'd love to teach another five years. I'm retiring. I said, why are you retiring? He says, because I can't discipline the kids, I can't teach the kids. He says, do you realize in our school district we have to pass the kid? We have to pass him unless he just doesn't come. I said, you're telling me he could get a. Just write his name on the exam, not take it. Write his name on the quiz, not take it. Put his headphones on and sit in the class, not listen to you. And you have to. Yep. I said, that's criminal. And so, and we're even doing it sometimes people are doing it with good intention. So I'm a dad and me and my wife go watch little Billy play. He's, he's 11. He's going to be a superstar. He's gonna, you know, and, you know, he comes over and he's got scraped up a little bit and we give him a Gatorade and a Snickers and cuddle him up. And we're underneath the 100 foot tent with the ice cooler there with, you know, music going and a blanket in case he feels bad. And then after he strikes out, he runs over, he lays down on the blanket, mom pets him and then pats him on the ass and off you, you know. Right. You know what I mean? Like if you try to Fix all the struggles on a journey. There's one thing for sure, you're going to ruin the destination. Because the good Lord, he didn't say it was going to be easy, but he said it was going to be worthwhile, you know, so. And I'm not talking about being kind to your child or any. I'm just talking about it's okay to get knocked on your ass once in a while. It's okay for Billy to get up off the ground by himself once in a while. It's okay to come back and tell your kid one time, well, maybe the reason you're not starting is because you're not as good as guy in front of you, and maybe you got to work a little harder. And I've had some great conversations with some people that are lifetime friends that their sons played for me. And he said, you know, hey, Case, is this the right spot for him? I mean, like, you know, he's not playing a lot. He sees, you know, it seems like you have, you know, everything he does, it doesn't seem that it's good enough for you. And I said, no, if it's good enough for him, I'm good. If that's what he wants. He just. You're right. Two things. One is, if this isn't the place for him, if he thinks what he thinks is good enough for him, and. But he doesn't think what I think is good enough for him. So that was fun. You want every guy to succeed. You want every guy to have a great experience. You want every guy to love it, and, you know, that doesn't happen. But I would tell you that there's not a player that I wouldn't go to war for right now. I wouldn't go pick up if he's on the side of the street, I wouldn't go help him in any situation. I love those guys. You know, when I first started coaching, if some player would have told me he loved me, I would have thought the guy was, you know, hey, hey, hey, hey, you know, I'm married, you know, so now you tell guys all the time you love them. It's just. It's just beautiful. It really is. And so. [00:24:28] Speaker A: Tough love's a thing, too. I mean, that's a form of love. [00:24:31] Speaker B: It is, it is. But see, when you get a kid now, and not all of them, I mean, we get to recruit these kids, but sometimes when you get a kid and everything's been laid out for them and everything in there, because you don't really recruit a guy At a top line program that isn't a really good player, you know. So Billy comes from Elk Grove High School and Johnny comes from Central Catholic High School and Ted comes from Jesuit High School. And they all hit third and they all played short and all of a sudden they're all at Oregon State, right? And so it's like, you know, the dad and mom saying, well, Billy hit third his whole life, ever since he was in little league and Golly was the all star. I said, hell yes, that's why he's here. You know what I mean? Like, so I, I, I think that's one of the beauties of challenges of life, you know, if we all drove Mercedes, it'd be pretty boring life, wouldn't it? You know, and we need some, we need some. I always say this, I love to say this about teams and you know, you have Ferraris and then you have hybrids and then you have Jeeps. So the Ferrari is the guy that's got a chance to be, he's talented, he's got a chance to be a first or second rounder. You don't have a lot of those guys. The Ferrari, he's the guy that is on the fringe of that talent. But he plays like a Jeep. The Jeep's the walk on that starts in front of everybody that goes. How does it. Jack Anderson started Oregon State. He can't run, throw or hit, but he's a hell of a player. The hybrid is the guy with fringy Ferrari talent, huge jeep makeup. And if you got hybrids, you're going to win a hell of a lot of games. If you got too many Ferraris, you better get a psychologist and you better get about 16 mothers in there with some big old milk bottles, you know what I mean? Like, Billy's hurt, he sees, you know, so it's, it's what life is, right? If we were all 6 foot 4, you know, curly, dark, beautiful guys walking around, hell, it wouldn't there be no women that there wouldn't have any decisions to make. They'd have to go after guys like me, right? You know, so that's what I love about make, creating a team, you know. You know, teamwork is really what makes a team work. What makes your team work. What is it? And there's a great saying in the book Legacy, it says the strength of the wolf is in the pack, and the strength of the pack is in the wolf. You know, And I believe that we live that to the death. [00:27:06] Speaker A: You know, what do you feel like coaches miss on program building? Pardon Me, what do you feel like coaches miss on program building? Those are kind of critical. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Well, I would hate to throw a general statement out there as to what coaches miss on program building, but I think that the one thing is, is, you know, don't ever, don't ever be afraid of creating your own identity and your own culture and being authentic in what you do. You know, these, you know, there's, there's great learning lessons, there's great mentors, but, you know, forge your own way. You know, there's a thousand trails, but there's only one summit, you know, and so if I was to look at a program, say that's who I want to be, I would have to say, how do I get it with who I am? You know, how do I emulate that? And what, what do we want to be? And then you got to live by, you know, when we, when we got in the league and after we got, you know, horse collared every other inning and the season was over, I said, there's no way we're going to win at Oregon State if we don't shrink the game. In other words, I can't. We do a good job working on little things, running and hit and hit and run, start runners, push, drag, whatever. You can't do that when it's 8 to 1. I mean, just got to wait till a couple of guys walk and hope somebody runs into one. So we had to shrink the game. And the only way we were going to shrink the game was we were going to defend until the cows came home and we were going to throw. Strike one. I said, look, we're going to recruit the best defenders in the country. We're going to. And that guy might be a 5 defensively. If your scales 1 to 5, 5 means he's an all star, he's an all American, and he might be a two offensive. Pretty soon that thing's going to start. That if you, if you win that guy, that offensive piece will get a little better. Pretty soon he'll be the same premier defender, but he'll be a three hitter and he'll be a four hitter. And so pitching and defense. Pitching and defense. Pitching and defense. Pitching and defense. And then if you really believe that, which I think most coaches do, and I get it, Pro ball wants you to hit the ball out of the ballpark. Sorry about that. [00:29:14] Speaker A: That's all good. [00:29:15] Speaker B: Think somebody that has a cell phone for 100 years would learn how to turn the ringer off, but, you know, I hate those things. But anyway, so, you know, you have to have your own style. But our deal was we had to shrink the game, you know, and when I, when the bats were minus 5 and it's 12, 13 to 5, 14 to 12 is crazy, you know, so we just absolutely would not come off of that. Like I told our guys, look it, I'm going to give you a lot of freedom offensively, but I'm going to tell you defensively there's not room for anything. We're not going to give one inch defensively, not one inch. If you can't defend, you can't, you can't start for us. And, and if you can defend and you don't defend, then you need to come out here at 1 o' clock. And if you can't do it at 1 o', clock, you need to come here at noon. If you can't do it at noon, you need to come here at 11 and whatever it is, but you have to defend and if you're in the outfield, you have to run. And if you really believe the pitching and defense, and I still believe that, I still believe, and I believe in the home run is, is a wonderful tool. I wish I had six guys with Ohtani's ability. But most of the time we don't. So if you believe that, and the most important guy on the field after your pitcher has to be your catcher because that's who he throws into a couple hundred times a game. And then you just work your way up the middle, short, second, center field. We had, we've always had great catchers. They change your pitching staff. They're just not a defense, premier defender. They're part of the pitching staff. And if pitching is that important and if you look at teams and you have catchers that go good when they're hitting and, and then they're not as good when they're not hitting, that distracts the pitcher, you know, but if you, you got a guy and you can, he's going to get you that three, one pitch, that should have been a ball, but it's a strike because he framed it so well, he blocks the ball. That would advance to runner from second to third. The bad catcher or an average catcher wouldn't that a fly ball scores him on the second out. I mean, it just changes everything. And I don't think there's enough value put on that particular way of thinking. And for me, that's what we wanted to do. And then we were just going to defend like hell straight up the middle of the field. And I would, I would Tell you that there's guys, Michael Conford was one of them, Trevor Larnick is one of them that people look at as bangers, you know, a lot of. But those guys were good defenders. Those guys got great angles, they got great jumps. They, you know, and you know, when you got a center fielder that can cover the wings, then, then you got, then you have a little bit more freedom with power. But if you don't, then you got to make a decision. [00:31:50] Speaker A: Feel like the, the hallmark of your guys program too is great assistant coaches also. [00:31:55] Speaker B: Oh yeah, go. I was so blessed with guys that helped me all the way from the beginning. You know, I'll never forget the first. When I got here, one of the guys that was assisting here, Kirk Kemp stayed on and. But the first guy that I really went out and hired, I just went to the JC tournament up there and I watched. I didn't even know him, a guy named Dan Spencer. And I just. He was dirty from day one, man. He come out of the dugout, he was dirty. I said, I like this guy. So we had dinner and Spence spent a lot of time, you know, back then. It was funny. We were laughing the other day. We would. Getting his pickup in the Northwest. We put a, you know, back then you did home business, you know, now the kid's committing when he just starts coloring, you know, hey, he's inside the lines and he's left handed. Perfect. We got to get this guy. But anyway, we drive in and we go into these McDonald's, going to the bathroom, put on our nice shirt with a tie and go do the home visit, you know, and get out and throw those clothes in the back and grab something to eat fast and drive home. So we had a lot of fun. And you know, the pitching piece, a good friend of mine, Ron Northcutt, when we went as a full conference, you know, we made a decision that, you know, we probably. That, you know, that he, he want. He had another job. He was a restricted earnings guy at the time, had a family, didn't want to travel. And Gary Henderson, who's now Utah and had tremendous success as a coach, was here for a short period of time as a pitching guy. And then when we got Pat Bailey and Nate. Yes, you know, Bales was just, he was the same. You know, there's things that head coaches don't like to do. If you have an assistant coach that says, I'll do all those things you don't like to do, and he's always got your back and he's loyal. I would just tell you that there's. That I've had 99% of the guys that have worked for me that were loyal. And it cuts you to the bone if you have somebody that's not loyal. And you never can forget it. And the loyalty that that guy has for me, and I hate sitting in the office, I hate paperwork, I hate all this stuff. And he was a very gifted coach, but he was my calm in the storm. You know, he was patient. I wasn't. He was calm. I wasn't. He. He was just wonderful. And Nate was a guy that I pretty much gave complete autonomy to, to go out and coach because I thought he was so good. I thought he was amazing. But. But then you think of all the other guys too, you know, that were these undergraduates that come in and volunteer guys, you know, Andy Jenkins and. And Joey Wongs and, you know, Gippy and all these guys. Aaron Matthews, I could go on and on. Tyler Graham, you know, they played and they usually sign when they're juniors, and then, so, you know, of course they were all going to be big leaguers, and so they never dreamed that they needed that degree because that didn't matter. And so here they come back and you get to coach those guys and their energy for you. And. And there was just all that was so good for me. And I'm sure there's several guys that have a name that I forgot, but I was blessed with great people, but just not coaches. You know, our trainers are part of it. David Strickland, he was our guy in 06 national championship. He's the head guy for the Seahawks. It's just. It's just incredible. You know, Matt Toth was there, and Jeremy went and came back and Josh went and he's now at Gonzaga as the head basketball trainer, our equipment guy, our bus driver, our sids. You know, we just. We just felt if we're gonna have a program, everybody was part of it. And I hope that I would. One of the questions that I read the other night, I had to laugh because they. I said, hey, you guys asked me questions at this coaches thing. I spoke at this high school, and then I'll answer them. Instead of me coming and telling you how to do it, one of them was, I laughed and said, I heard that, you know, guys, people that worked for you and played for you really enjoyed it, but you were really demanding. I said, well, wow, that hurts my feelings. I didn't think I was demanding at all, you know, so. I don't know, man. You know, I like I said, I wish I did everything right. I didn't. I wish that every day would have been great. It wasn't. And maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. I don't know. [00:36:25] Speaker A: Did you change anything after your first college World Series appearance? [00:36:30] Speaker B: Changed our uniforms, man. We got, we got a whole, we got a whole bunch of new stuff, man. I mean, all of a sudden, all of a sudden we were in Nike school, you know, I think if you're not changing, you're gonna, I think you have to, I think you have to. Always the time really for change is when you're at your very best because someone's going to chase you. So I do think you change. I think you change certain things. I don't think you change your principles. I don't think you change your values. You know, I hoped our culture was value based, energy, led, you know, look at, we're going to come at you, but we're also going to do it right. I was fortunate. I had parents that instilled in me values, ethics, respect. Do you do it all the time? No, man. You mess up, that competitive piece gets in the way. But I'll tell you that our culture at Oregon State was incredible. You could feel, you know, culture, people try to think culture is something that's tangible and it's really not. It's what's really intangible. It's what's inside your. Because your players are your culture. It's, you know, and I get it. You can look at, like I always said, you know, I like our uniforms. I like a clean looking uniform. I don't need, you know, the bell bottom and I don't need this, you know, 16 colors. And I'm okay with if you add a little color, but I mean, you know, why does Alabama never change a football uniform? You know, I mean, like pretty, pretty, pretty profound there, you know what I mean? So let's just be who we are and let's make sure it comes from the inside out. And let's make sure that when you leave that locker, I want some guy to walk in here and go, whoa. Because I want to leave your name on there till the next guy walks in. And some guy walks in and said, man, I'm Locker and. Or Stephen Kwan, Locker. Jimmy Smith, man. This guy, I watched him play, you know, so I'm big on that. I'm big on giving back. I don't think any culture can sustain itself or survive unless you contribute back into it. I was never a big guy to do A lot of show stuff, you know, I mean, I. We would get involved in the community and with. But with real stuff, we do take our guys to children's hospitals. We take them to places that they could see what reality looks like, you know, because what we tried to do is try to instill in somebody what most people think is a sacrifice really is just an opportunity. [00:39:00] Speaker A: Was your messaging any different than that following fall after you won the first national championship? It's really hard to repeat. [00:39:06] Speaker B: I think our message was, yeah, it is. It's almost impossible. Other than Darwin, Barney and Mitch, Canham and Wally, you know, we lost every starter and we lost Dallas Buck and we lost Nickerson, we lost Gunderson and we lost Turpin and we lost. I mean, it was crazy. So our message was be the best team we could be. And I'm not sure we were that throughout most of the year because of the. Maybe it was my inexperience of winning a national championship, which is a good thing, you know, because that was my first one and it belonged to our program. And maybe me at the top didn't understand the impact it was going to have on expectations from outside. I mean, we had our own expectations, so we were somewhat off and on all year. But I'll tell you, we went back, we ucla, two out of three to get in, and we went back to Virginia and I told, I have a son that's just a special young man. He loves baseball and he loves it. He's in. He. All he can think about is, you know, this winning and losing because he's somewhat special. But I told him, I said, jonathan, we. We lost to Virginia and then we beat him. I said, we're not going to lose another game the rest of the year. And I don't know why I said that, because that's not who I am. I'm very. I'm not. I don't go out and pop off. I don't say anything. But I told him and we didn't. And we got into rhythm and we played. Wow. I don't think we. I've ever had a team, you know, we won all five in the World Series. I don't know if we trailed. I know we went 50 some innings without making an error. We were in a rhythm that was amazing. And so I would just tell you that the message was at the beginning of the year, we got to be as good as we can be. But I'm just not sure that, that we all handled that in a way that we really were as Good as we could be. I think maybe we were fooling ourselves because we had won it the year before and it was like going to the. Going to war every day when you lose the first game. And so. And everybody thought, no, five, hey, nice story. They haven't been here in 50 years. We'll see him in 50 years again. And so we had a lot of chips on the shoulders in 06. We had a lot of talent, but that those guys were gone, you know, everybody on that team was gone just about. And so. But two. But two real key guys. Mitch Canham behind the plate, like I said, and Darwin Barney and shortstop. Two places that if you're not good, you're not. You're not going to win. You're just not. [00:42:02] Speaker A: How do you help your team find that rhythm? It's really hard to bottle up and try to, to replicate, to allow them to go out and perform at their best. How do you help them find them? [00:42:13] Speaker B: Well, I think you have to really have a handle on the emotional state of your team, who you're, you know, what they can handle, what they can't handle, who's. You know. In other words, you get a freshman guy in the first 10 games of the season, you're certainly have to handle him different than you would the last 10 games of the season. If you do your job, the 50 in between, you know, like, okay, this guy's a man now, you know, we've. We've moved him forward. I think when you get to the end there, you know, they want to see in your eyes that you're willing to knock down that door and you believe we're going to knock it down. But if you walk around and tiptoe around and talk about, hey, I hope we win, you know, you. You better just count on that. It's going to be. It's going to be hope, you know, not. Not trust. You know, there's. I always say that, you know, if you look in the dictionary, the difference between determined and decided is profound. Decided means unquestionable. And that's how you have to coach, and that's how you have to walk, and that's how you have to teach, and that's how you have to get on the bus, and that's how you have to get off the bus. And there is no bigger statement, in my opinion, in Omaha than how you get on and get off the bus. That's all I can tell you. And there's something about that, and it may just be me, but I'm just telling you can feel it and you can, it's, it's there. It's, it's, it, it follows you. And if you watch good teams walk into the locker room, yeah, I don't care if it's NFL game, I don't care if it's a college bowl game and football, you can feel it. You can feel somebody's presidency is, is really a confident person. And you know, when you get a couple guys like that, yeah, you're going to be okay. When you get a team like that, man, you're gonna, you're gonna do some things that nobody thought you could do. [00:44:02] Speaker A: Was that similarities with that 2018 team? Do they have that like the other team? [00:44:06] Speaker B: Well, the 2018 team was on a mission because of what happened to us in 2016. It was unbelievable what happened to us in 2016. It was just unbelievable that we got left out of the NC2As. And we know, you know, we know where that came from. You know, and you're talking about we were, we swept Arizona State in our. And tied with them in league and they were number two seed and we had the same number of wins and the same RPI and we didn't get in. And so it was all, you know, everybody knows who, how that happened and why it happened. But when you look at guys, and those guys are freshmen, then you got to remember Nick and Larnick and corn. It lit a fire that didn't stop for two years. I don't know what we were, 56 and 6 or something like that, or 8 and 17. And then, you know, the 18 club, you know, everybody says, well, the 17 club is probably your best club, you know, and if you look at it, you know, it's crazy to be 54 and four go to the World Series and then you, then you lose two players going to the World Series, two amazing players. And you can come back and say that, you know, hey, that's why we didn't win it. Or you can come back and say 18 is going to be different, we're going to finish. And I think that that was a difference. You know, Nick broke his hand, I think at the beginning of the year and he was out for a good portion of the year. And then when he came back, but you know, that 18 team was a lot different than if you look at the 07 team. And the 18 team had three or four first rounders on. I mean, he was talented as hell and. But they also had some amazing adversity. You know, like I said, Nick broke his hand early. It Was, you know, when you're on the top of the mountain, everybody's trying to knock you off. When you're one of the last two teams in the league, nobody cares. I mean, that always go watch the. You know, and so every day you guys show up. And that's what's the beauty of it. You know, the higher you climb, the tougher it gets. And just the, you know, just the people on that team. I mean, if you just look, if you just think, I wish people could sit inside a locker room and with. With an Adley Rushman and a Quan and a Larnick and a. And I could go. Michael Grettler. I could go on and on about what their personalities were, what their attitude was. Whether it's no back or Jack Anderson or Joe Casey or Armstrong. These guys were not there to play the game. They were there to win the game. I mean, they didn't. They didn't. You know, everybody has this. This. In my opinion, and like I said, I'm. I get it. Sometimes my thoughts are different than other people. But everybody has this thing that, hey, you know, we got to have fun. Well, you know, fun is not a sustainable activity. It's. Go to the water park for a couple hours, that's fun. You know, go skiing, that's fun. Fun is when you're high fiving after the game. But if you want to have fun, you gotta. You gotta pay for it. You know, if you want to go snow skiing, you gotta pay for it. If you want to win games, you gotta pay for it. So getting to having some fun, you gotta learn how to have some enjoyment during some pain. And when you do that in practice, games are enjoyable, and winning games are fun. Those guys had no intention of going to Omaha to have fun. You know, they said, we got left out in 16. We didn't win in 17. We are here to do one thing and one thing only, and that is to win the College World Series. And I want to enjoy the time, I want to enjoy the experience, and. And I want to have fun when I'm flying home on that jet with a trophy. And so I give my guys a lot of freedom in Omaha. I so much easier to play for when it gets to the end because look at you guys. Put in the work. I know what you can do. I believe in you. Hell, we had a water balloon fight in 2018 after we lost the first game of the World Series right there on the practice field. People thought, oh, this guy. This must. They must think they're going home right Like I said, hell no, we ain't going home. But we got a whole bunch of water balloons that need to be popped, so let's just go ahead and toss them around. So I love those guys. What a great team. All the teams, you know, every team is unique. Nobody's ever had a team that they wouldn't tell you, has special people on it. You know, it's hard to go to the Kentucky Derby without a thoroughbred, you know, so. But it's how you. This is the perspective of everything, right? You know, like I was talking the other day, you know, if I was to offer somebody a thoroughbred, what's the most important? Thoroughbred or a pig, you know, oh, God, thoroughbred, you know, 500,000. I said, well, if you got your last meal, that pig's pretty good option. You know what I mean? So, you know, got to put everything in perspective. We got to figure this out, you know, so, you know, we had a lot of fun. We really did. [00:49:14] Speaker A: Outside of talent, do you think the ability to show up every day as a player is probably. The separators are the ones that have made it and the ones ones that. [00:49:21] Speaker B: Don'T that, and it's how to show up on the day when you're not your best and to be able to recognize that. And I think that's a big part of discipline. You know, discipline is that friendly little reminder that when you don't have the energy or you don't. You're not as enthused as you should be because. Because that happens to us, then discipline kicks in and says, look at. I'm going to carry you today. If you have no discipline in your life, it's like a. It's like a road map with no lines. You know, you don't have any. You don't know where you're going. And so, because when you show up to practice, we're hoping that sometime during that practice, you're going, this is a little different, more difficult than I thought it was. Hey, this is a little more challenged than I thought it was. Hey, this pisses me off. Hey, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, if you can't, as a coach, sit there and watch practice and think you're going to see that on the weekend, you're wrong. What you're seeing is what you're going to see on the weekend. Now, somebody can drop a fly ball in the sun, some pitcher can come out and dominate you, but consistently over 56, you know, watch what you see in practice as that's generally what you're Going to get on the weekend. And on Monday morning that you took the test, it's time to evaluate the results. And so it was hard for me to give into any practice. You know, it was like, you know, guys telling me sometimes, case, every day, you know, I said, that's right, every day. Because I'm going to tell you something. There's going to be two guys that I'm going to cheat. If I'm not there like this every day, the mature guy, he's gonna say, I got it, Case. He's, he's on, he's on one today, you know, but you know what we can do, guys? We can do it just right. I had a guy tell me one time, he said, this guy ended up being a second round draft pick. It just doesn't seem like I ever, you're ever satisfied with me. So it seems like it's never good enough. And I said, cole, if it's good enough for you, then I tell you what, I'll just. It'll be good enough for me. You make that decision when it's good enough for you. If you think that's good enough. You coming? Until then, I'm going to keep pushing the button. But go ahead and tell me what's good enough. When you, when you, when you feel like it's good enough, just come and let me know. You know, I never heard for him by watching, playing the big leagues, you know, it was pretty good. But I did, I. This guy was an infielder. He thought he was an infielder. I said, no, you're going to be an outfielder. And it bothered him and it bothered his family and bothered everybody else. And for two years he was, he wasn't a productive player, but I could see the athleticism. I could see what he had in him and his own drive. He made himself a player. But, but he allowed me to, to knock him down to the ground. Then he got off the ground and said, okay, I'm on one. [00:52:15] Speaker A: How do you help build players up with that too, though? Because, I mean, I've been around a really good coaches that were like that where it's kind of that bouncing act of stepping on the pedal, but then maybe give them a breather every once in a while or thing. [00:52:28] Speaker B: 100%. There's no doubt you give them. And there's days that you should have, you know, maybe kicked him in the tail that you patted him on the tail. There's days that you should have patterned them on the tail that you kicked himself. But 100, you got to know the player. In my opinion, you got to know, like I said, there's a way to send the message. And the one thing I think that, you know, everybody wants to say, hey, I treat everybody equal. Everybody's it. That just isn't the best way to go about it because everybody's different. And you can't really cut the legs out of your leaders and your captains in practice, but you got to let them know behind closed doors, hey, man, you know, I should have got on you practice there, but I'm trying to build some street cred with you, with the players, so you don't have to pick me up. That. That doesn't happen again because I'm allowing you to do that for them to recognize that you are different. We are unified, but we are all different. That goes back to the. To the strength of the wolf is in the pack, and the strength of the pack is in the wolf. You know what I mean? The individual lives by the team, the team lives by the individual. They can't be separated. You have to be selfless and selfish. Selfish in the weight room, selfish in the cage, selfish on the track, selfish in the mental piece, selfies in your discipline, and then selfless when it comes to game day, selfless in how you give to your teammate. And, you know, if you're going to have captains and leaders, you're going to have to. I do. There are probably coaches that are way better than I am that know how to handle that. But I think that when you alienate them a little bit in practice, in a situation where you could avoid it, it's better that you do that so that the other guys recognize he is a leader, he is a captain, and you're. You're. You're adding to that street cred. Then you pull him in behind closed doors and say, hey, I hope you realize, man, right there, I cut you some slack because you're a leader, man. But if you're going to be a leader, you're going to have to do it right. You can't. You can't even let that. And so I think those are things that you got to know your players. But, oh, yeah, and there's practices, like I said, you know, for us, there was always three phases. You know, the beginning of the season was way, way, way, way more fundamentals, way, way, way more how we were going to play the game. Then you get the middle of season and you start to maintain the fundamentals, but not as much time and more about games, game situations, because you're Getting a little bit closer to familiarity, who you're playing in the league. And so more that type. Then at the end of the season, it's all about sustaining what you've done well and improving on that to who your competition is going to be. You could spend, you know, it's. It's two days of work. Let's say we're playing Arizona State and they like to do this, this and this. You'd spend way more time in that. And the fundamentals never disappear. Matter of fact, they get better, but you're not spending as much time on them. And so those three phases, how much you got to keep guys off your feet? You know, I. Captains, they'd come in and say, hey, Case, we're back squatting on Thursdays, and I think we need to flip that to Monday because we play Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I said, makes sense to me. Get the weight guy in there with the happens, you know, that's. But, but you, you, you teach the game, but you coach the player. They're completely different things. You can go to a whole bunch of high schools and junior highs and seeing somebody teaching the game properly, here's how you blunt, here's how you throw. That might be different, but they're teaching. That's teaching. I don't think it's very difficult to teach the game of basketball or baseball. I don't think those things. But it's really hard to coach. Coaching means knowing the player, tying in the teaching to the personality, that you can bring it full circle into the team. That's hard. That's what's hard for us. And so anybody that thinks that they can just coach and not teach, then there's going to be failure. Somebody thinks that they're a great teacher, and they are, but they don't know how to coach. There's going to be failure, and there's going to be failure either way, but there's going to be a lot more. But so player feels that. He feels that you know him or you don't. He does. He just does. He. He does. And he knows there's times you should have got on him and you didn't. And there's times you pat him on the ass and you look at guys. Sometimes the best time to be good with guys, when he's going the worst, you know, I mean, it's like, okay, he don't need me to chew his ass out. He needs me to pat him on the ass. And the guy that's 8 for 10 when he rolls in there, he's peacocking around. I'm saying, hey, I don't care, man. I, I saw Jeter do that twice, you know, and so you kind of, you kind of have some fun with that. I'm also a big guy that everybody talks about. Family, family, family. Now I believe that I was in the most amazing family ever. There were seven of us. And I'm going to tell you, we had a couple fights in the family. So I'm not opposed to a little, a little irritation once in a while between the, Between. [00:57:22] Speaker A: Confrontation is a great thing. Yeah, healthy confrontation. That's the other thing we got is we got to try to bring society back to. Is having healthy confrontation doesn't make you mortal enemies. You can agree to disagree on things, but I think we've got to find a way to try to bring healthy confrontation back. [00:57:38] Speaker B: Well, we just got to bring men back to the table. We've got to bring leaders back to the table. We've got to put a value on family and on faith and on education and on, you know, there's very few people that really do a whole lot if they're not enthused. If they're enthused about something, there's hardly anything they can't do. But you have to inspire somebody, you have to motivate somebody. You have to inject something into somebody that they feel they have purpose and value. Every great moment, every great courage is the father of every great movement moment in history. It really is. And courage is not saying, oh, there is no fear. It's just that we understand what real fear is. You know, deciding that you're going to try to tightrope across a 10 story building, I think that's pretty intelligent fear. But playing baseball, fear, like fear just paralyzes the mind. It just, it just, it just absolutely paralyzes performance. It paralyzes the human spirit. It's a prison of its own. It's imaginational fear. You know, like you get this chance to play baseball and I'm okay with saying to somebody saying, hey, I have a hard time a little bit, you know, and there's people that can help you through some, some of your anxiety. Butterflies are good excitement. [00:59:02] Speaker A: Yeah, reframe it as excitement. [00:59:04] Speaker B: But fear, you know, fear, if fear removes you from being the best you can, then we got to figure out whether, how you're viewing fear, what, what real fear is. And fear certainly isn't having the opportunity to be so blessed that you're on a college or a high school or a junior high baseball team. You got a Uniform, you're running around, you got a chance to win a game, you got to, you know, and you're fearful. I mean, but. But it all starts at the top. And that's why we have such a bad situation in our country right now with people that are. People are not motivated to work. Why are they not motivated to work? Because they were in. Felt they were entitled to something. If you feel a sense of entitlement, it creates an inflated sense of need. I'm entitled to this. I need more, and I want to do less. Okay, so we've created a bunch of people that feel like five days is a. That's too long. I only want to work four, or I don't want to work at all because you're subsidizing me into being something that I shouldn't be. And that's. That's a very productive human being. And people don't. A lot of them don't intentionally fall into these traps, but they're allowed to. When there's no direction and there's no roadmap and there's no guidance and there's no, you know, direction. Like, who said that? Who said this is supposed to be easy? Who said that you're supposed to have everything you want? I mean, how would that be? You know what I mean? It's like, if you had everything you want, you get tired of it after, you would. You'd be useless. That's why we have so many. Sadly, we have so many people. They're tremendous entertainers, are huge superstars. To take their own life because they had everything they wanted, and they did not know how to handle anything that set them off track. [01:00:54] Speaker A: Satanic adaptation. [01:00:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, that's one of our jobs as coaches. Maybe our most important job is. Is what kind of impact are we going to have on that. That player when he leaves? What's he going to look like at 30 years old? What's he going to look like at 40 years old? And I'm very, very proud of the family men that have left this program. I stay in touch with them. I see their babies. I went over to a wedding, and these guys are going around with strollers and babies. And, you know, I said, gee, many crime. You guys did pretty good. I said, now, the one thing I know, none of you can play, but, man, you all get pretty wise, right? You know, so I did a good job there, man. [01:01:35] Speaker A: How's it been? Consultant for the Brewers. [01:01:37] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's really good because Murph's really who I Work for. I mean, you know, I don't, I don't even call it a consultant. I just, you know, another eyes on players. You know, we talk about players, we talk about situations. I've enjoyed seeing some of their prospects, seeing some of the players, having, you know, some input with some of the coaches about just the game of baseball, you know, And I'll tell you what's really funny is there's way more guys in. And I'm not around other organizations, but I can tell you there's way more guys in that locker room that want to win than people see on TV. When you play 162 and you flip it on July 9th and the guy's not running out of pop up, you know, so that's been very inspiring to me. It's inspiring to me to know how hard the staff that I'm around works. The time they put in, the effort they put in good guys, you know, just, just, just been real good for me to be around it. And I was given that opportunity because of Murph, and I like the way he does it. And, you know, we, we wanted to cut each other's throat three days a year when we were coaching against each other. Now, other than that, we were on the phone all the time, man, hey, how do you, what do you got on usc? What do you got? You know, so I've been blessed. You know, I just, I, I, there's days I wake up and I wish I was in uniform coaching a college team. And there's days I understand. I probably wouldn't mitigate the freedom that they have today, which I think the players should be part of the. When you're talking about name, image and likeness, there should be something to that. I'm not sure allowing somebody just to leave whenever they want is the best thing for them. I'm not sure it's the best thing for development. I'm not sure it's the best thing for coaches. So that part I might have a difficult time with. I don't know. [01:03:32] Speaker A: How'd you get connected with Diamond Allegiance? [01:03:35] Speaker B: Well, Tracy Smith was on the advisory board, and he asked me if I'd be interested in. And I went and met with Sandy Ogg. And Sandy, at the time had Nighthawk baseball in New York, where he was funding teams for underprivileged kids, and he was sending, you know, and sending kids off to college that we never would have got a chance to even play. So he is subsidizing that experience for summer baseball. And so me and Kevin O' Sullivan joined Tracy on the advisory board. And their whole goal was to go out and mitigate the cost of travel ball. And they keep working on that. They keep making strides toward that. They would love to see summer coaches have insurance. They'd like to have scale in order to. Maybe everybody could buy uniforms at a third of the price they're paying for them. Now they just keep working in areas, you know, airline discounts, hotel. You know, they just keep working to try to help the family out to spending way too much money to play summer baseball. And I do get the expenses. I think there's some great guys out there running some great programs, and you run into things like high airline costs and high hotel costs and high entry fees and everything else. So I think that. I think that who we're working with, as far as travel ball teams, I think they all are trying to do that, trying to get on the same page and really help develop the player and also kind of help the family out. [01:05:02] Speaker A: Do you have a fail forward moment, something you thought was going to set you back, but looking back now, it helped you move forward? Could be professionally or personally? [01:05:10] Speaker B: Well, when you get released from professional baseball, when you're in Triple A and you think you're going to be a big leaguer, you know, you. You probably think that. I'll never forget Charlie Manuel was my manager, and I went in there on Father's Day and he said, well, I'm going to make some changes. And, you know, I know the Mariners want to sign you again. We're going to go with some young guys case. And I said, all right, Charlie. I got my car, pulled over and grabbed a half a rack of beer and went up to my wife's family farm, shot birds and had a couple coldies. And I thought, you know, now what am I going to do? You know, I've been. I've been excommunicated from what I've been doing my whole life. You know, I'm 27 years old. I started playing sports when I could kick the slats out of the cradle. You know, that's all I ever did. That's what I love to do, man. Every day I'd have guys that ride bikes and go all over and I'd be shooting baskets. And so that was a huge failure, in my opinion, that it ended up being one of the best things that ever happened to me because I probably didn't have enough discipline in my life to mitigate all the issues that would have been of being a big league player. So failure in 99. When we got into the conference the first year, any small failures with players where you feel like you let a player down, then you got to come back and you got to say, I got to be better at that. And I don't think players realize that. How much it bothers a coach. [01:06:35] Speaker A: They don't, do they? [01:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:37] Speaker A: And it does it by it generally, the ones that are in it for the right reasons. It bothers you a lot when. When you feel like players don't reach their potential. [01:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:46] Speaker A: Or. [01:06:46] Speaker B: Or when you. You know. Or when you're hard on someone and you don't get to them before they leave the locker room and try to hey, hey, or whatever, Or. Or you have somebody there that's young and they're there. You forget when you were young and stupid, you know, And. And I had a player, and I cannot even believe this, but it wasn't. Not a great experience for him is first fall there, and he wasn't really good academically, and it was early, and he wasn't. And this guy ended up absolutely amazing. What he did with his life after he left and had a whole bunch of problems. And I was sitting there in a Triple A ballpark. I came in to see one of our guys play that was on rehab for the brewers, and this guy's walking across, and I haven't seen this guy in 17 years. And he says, Coach, I've been waiting for 17 years to tell you I'm sorry. And I said, you got to be kidding me, man. I said I had a tear roll down my eyes when I saw you pitching that first big league game. There's nothing to be sorry about. What you did is why I. Coach, you know, all the mistakes I made, I would never think that I hold that against somebody, but those moments are special. Seeing guys and their families, especially getting an invitation to a wedding is special. Hearing from a guy special, you know, it's just. I just can't tell you how fortunate and blessed I was. And, of course, I couldn't have never done that without the family that I had. My wife's amazing. I got one of those wives that actually had all my stuff packed when she found out I was going to recruit and thought I was great. Now, how long are you going to stay? I go three days. Well, don't worry about staying five. You're good. Never was I worried about being home, and my children were amazing. Just been really fortunate and blessed and. And it was an honor to be a college baseball coach. [01:08:39] Speaker A: Do you have any evening or morning Routines that you go to, that you do daily because you're an elite performer. You're an elite performer and I think all elite performers have those habits. [01:08:48] Speaker B: What were some of your routines? I get up early, man. I think that that's key. I try to get up, I call, you know, I get up early. I read the word I, I stretch every single morning because I'm an old guy. But those, those things right there are the time where there's nobody else up. It's quiet, it's peaceful. I get my day set, I get done doing that. I usually go on and check all my emails about 7:30 because I go to Mass at 8:00'. Clock. I get back from Mass about 8:45. And then, you know, I'm looking to hunt down something to do if I don't have it. I've started a foundation called SOAR4 which stands for share Our Abundant Resources. Amazing. We go out, find little things we don't, you know, we get involved with helping with people that really need help. That is, we're not, we're 100%, no overhead. So if a person donates $100, $100 goes out the door. We go vet where we give it to, you know, last week we went to a place called Jermaine's Culinary where they take underprivileged kids or down syndrome kids or any and teach them something in the food industry so they can actually go out and get to work. So they made us lunch. We went to everybody be athletic, which is for people after that are in disabilities and after they leave high school, really nobody to help them exercise and train. So we went there and they had over 400 volunteers in that whole program. There was a gal from the WNBA there and it was just, it was cool. We help military families that when the husband's gone and the kids, you know, people don't realize the impact that has Michelle's love. They go out and help people that are living at home that have to have chemo at home because they have children. And so they provide, they bring them meals and just stuff like that. So that's cool too because when you're a coach you get everything, you know, you're an idiot, you know, you get an itinerary. It's just coach, we're getting on the bus at 10:05 and then you're going to get off the bus and I'm going to hand you a ticket and then you're going to sit, you know, here and then we get to la. You're Getting on a bus and, you know, you don't do anything. You know what I mean? It's like I don't even know how to plug in a TV when you're coaching, you know what I mean? It's like the guy walks over and hands you the thing and, well, what button do I push, Hank? You know, so to give back, it's humbling. It's difficult. Easy to go ask for money when you're telling a guy, you can come and watch this guy play, and this is what it's going to look like and you're going to sit in the fourth row. But to ask somebody for money and say, you may never know who it goes to or who it's going to help, but you have my word, it's going to go to those that are the most needed. And, you know, I always tell everybody that the journey is not just about the mark that we leave, you know, here. It's, you know, the mark that we'll have when we're gone. You know, what we. It's just not about us now, but it's about what it's going to be when we're gone. How do we impact people? What do we do while we're here and how did that impact have an effect when we're gone? And so hopefully I got a board that's amazing. A guy who actually was my director of ops on my board, and then some guys who were boosters. We have a lot of fun. We raise a lot of money and we help a lot of people. [01:12:11] Speaker A: Where can people find soar for they can go on. [01:12:15] Speaker B: Just go to. Now they tell me it's easier if you just go to the Pat Casey foundation, but if you go soar s o a r vision.org that takes you to our website. And so we're. Now I'm learning about social media, too. I, you know, I never, I never. I've never been on a social media site in my life because my Sid put a Twitter account together so he'd run in and go, hey, can I say. You can. Congratulations. You know, Bob hit a home running. Yeah. But I've never been on Facebook, never been on Twitter. So now we are actually going to go on that as well. And I'm told it's an amazing thing. So I'm kind of for building community. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we're doing. And I guess I really am a dinosaur when people start telling me about social media. But I was a fortunate one. You know, when guys are on social media, Telling you what a bad guy you are, you know, and you, you don't get on it, you know, like I didn't know that. So you go up and see a guy, he's probably banging you on the backside. You go, hey, Ted, how you doing? All great. God, I Case is a good guy. I was just calling him the worst coach in the country, you know, so maybe it was a good thing. [01:13:20] Speaker A: What does it mean to you going into the ABC hall of Fame? [01:13:23] Speaker B: Well, it means that I'm going in with a lot of people that did a lot of great things in baseball. Obviously, what the our coaches association means is huge for all of us at a been in and I think I'm 32 or 33 years, 35. [01:13:36] Speaker A: You're a lifetime member now. [01:13:38] Speaker B: There you go. First time I ever went, I rode with Scott Carnahan in a van to San Francisco from. He was at Linfield. I was a George Fox. Bless. Oh Carney, you know, so it's, it's really, it's, it's. I'm grateful, I'm humbled. There's so many great people that have, have gone in and you know, Dave Kylitz was there when I started and what a great human being he is. And you know, it's funny is how many guys you remember when you, when as people view you when you weren't. Your program wasn't an impactful program. Nobody cared, nobody thought anything about Oregon State baseball. Hey, you a new coach there? Hey, you know, and so those guys always treated me like I was just as important as anybody else, you know, and I thought that was pretty cool when I first got in it and I met a lot of coaches and so it's special. And you know, I'm just, it's an honor to go into it and I'm thankful that I was considered and brought into the hall of Fame. [01:14:43] Speaker A: Thanks for your time, Coach Casey. Appreciate you. [01:14:45] Speaker B: Thank you, man. [01:14:46] Speaker A: Thank you. I consider Coach Casey to be one of the best we've had in the history of the game and the job he did building the Oregon State program, truly remarkable job in the Pacific Northwest. Congrats to him on his well deserved honor going into the ABCA hall of Fame. Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Hale, Matt Weston, the ABC office. For all the help on the podcast, feel free to reach out to me via email, rbrownleeabca.org Twitter, Instagram or TikTok CoachBCA direct message me via the MyABCA app. This is Ryan Browley signing off for the American Bank Baseball Coaches Association. Thanks. And leave it better for those behind you. That way Yep Wait for another day. [01:15:44] Speaker B: Will always return and your love is never for yearning and you know that way Wait for another day.