Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the ABCA's podcast. I'm your host Ryan Brownlee.
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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 Minor know that the ABCA sent you. Now on to the podcast. Next up on the ABCA podcast, our second 2025 recipient of the Dave Kylitz Ethics and Coaching Award, Tom Meyer. Meyer served both as a teacher and baseball coach for more than 60 years. His coaching career began in 1959 as an assistant coach at Northwestern University.
From 1964 to 1969, Meyer served as the head baseball coach at Northern Illinois University before joining the staff at the University of Wisconsin Madison during the summers of 1975 and 1977. Meyer also coached Swedish national team. In 1985, Meyer started the baseball program at Brookfield Academy before being named head coach at Riverside University high school in 1990. Now an assistant for the Riverside team, Meyer has been involved with the program for more than 30 years.
A CO founder of both the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches association and the University of Wisconsin Dugout Club, Meyer also played a key role in developing the Milwaukee RBI program that included an instructional program, an eight team select league, an all star travel team that competed in the RBI regional tournament. Meyer's involvement in baseball extends to having served as past chair of both the ABCA's editorial and public relations committees. Let's welcome Tom Meyer to the podcast, all right here with Tom Meyer. Dave Kylitz, ethics and coaching honoree, but has taught and coached for over 60 years now, but still coach. And I saw that assistant at Riverside up there in Wisconsin and started the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association I think. Correct?
[00:03:48] Speaker B: That's correct. Actually it was another fellow, Jim Martin, who was coaching at Milwaukee Lutheran High School at the time and I and started that a long time ago.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: What was the inspiration for that for you guys?
[00:04:02] Speaker B: I had coached in Illinois. I coached at Northern Illinois for six years. I was on Northwestern staff a couple years and I coached at the high school at Evanston a couple years and we got involved with the Illinois High School Baseball Coaches association.
And the person who co founded was a guy by the name of Jim Martin. He's living down in Texas now, but he was a highly respected coach and he had roots in Illinois, but he was putting on a clinic every year in Wisconsin, a good one. They were bringing in some of the top coaches each year. So when I moved up to Madison and began coaching at the University of Wisconsin, it was kind of a no brainer and said let's we just need this kind of an organization in Wisconsin got together. I think it was seven or eight coaches, top coaches around and the rest is history. It's just a great organization now and it's been going on for I think over 50 years.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: So did you grow up in Illinois?
[00:05:03] Speaker B: No, I grew up in actually in Milwaukee. So I've kind of gone full circle. I spent 16 years in Illinois mainly going to school and coaching. I went to Northwestern and played a little down there and was on their staff a couple years and after Northern went up, came back to Madison, spent 14 years in Madison. We lived overseas three years and then we ended up back in Milwaukee.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Do you think Wisconsin will ever bring baseball back?
[00:05:30] Speaker B: That's a great question. People ask me that almost every year. I hope so.
It's almost embarrassing to be the only Big Ten school and now of course it's the big 18 school out of 18 schools in the Big Ten and to be the only one without baseball, it's kind of an embarrassment to me and a lot of other people. But there's a lot behind the scenes on how that happened and when it happened and when it will come back. And hopefully it will.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: It's just a great state high school baseball. It's a great state for high school baseball.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: It's. It's improved.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: And some of the best.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: I mean.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: And best.
I mean, Madison College is one of the best junior colleges in the country for baseball.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Oh, they've done a great job over there. And at one time, you would say some of the other surrounding states were better than what we have here. But right now, just the players coming out of Wisconsin, out of the. Out of the state are just wonderful. There's some great coaches, great programs going on, and that's been an encouragement.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: They've had as many big leaguers lately as anybody else in the upper Midwest.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: I haven't seen the statistics on that, but they're. They're all there.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah, they're a lot of Gavin, Lux and Kalanick. Those guys have been carved out a really good career so far.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, there are a lot of them and a lot in the pipeline which is good. And have only one Division 1 Division 1 university, which is right here in Milwaukee. University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Be the only D1 school that.
It's kind of too bad it's been.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: The explosion of the indoor facilities up there. The travel community in Wisconsin has done a tremendous job of building really nice indoor facilities up in that part of the world, which kids didn't have in the past to be able to train all year round. But you got a lot of really good facilities up there now for kids to be able to train all year.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: There are more and more.
There's plus and minuses, and there's certainly a plus that there are a lot of these indoor facilities. And you can, you can. It brings up the whole picture of travel ball. I've been coaching now for 30 some years in an inner city high school, and we've seen the inner city of Milwaukee going down, down, down. And travel ball as. As good as it is for a lot of people, and it's here to stay. Obviously, it's not helping inner city baseball because the cost to play on a travel team are. Are high, and our young guys in the city can't afford that. So unless we develop a better scholarship program or figure out how to do that, they're falling more and more behind.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And hopefully with Division one getting squared away and maybe getting some more scholarships that might. Might attract some more inner city kids to be able to continue to play baseball.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: I hope so. I hope so. Of course, baseball and all.
All of the NCAA sports are going through all kinds of growing pains. Too. So how the timing on all this is remains to be determined, I think.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: When you started as an assistant at Northwestern, did you think you would coach this long?
[00:08:42] Speaker B: I had no idea I wanted to be a player.
And, you know, and the scouts told me I was missing just one thing, ability. And so instead of being a player, I decided to go into coaching. And it was really the best thing I've ever done. How long one does something, I don't know. But I started. I actually started working on playgrounds and in the Milwaukee area. I did that for six, seven years, even while I was playing at Northwestern. And I wasn't a super player, but I sure enjoyed the game and I wanted to learn. And then we had the opportunity to serve on Northwestern staff. In those days, they only had, like, one assistant, and I was it. And had some great, you know, coaches over me throughout the years. And at Northwestern, I got the. I got the bug when the head coach asked me if I'd, you know, help Mouth and do some graduate work at the same time. And the head coach there was Freddie Lindstrom. Freddie, Coach Lindstrom played under John McGraw, the Giants. He's in the hall of Fame. Not the ABC hall of Fame, the real hall of Fame. And I think he played in major leagues when he was 17, had a.311 lifetime batting average. And I learned a lot from him, more off the field than on the field. But how. If I did, I know I'd stand. No, I didn't stand. Just one year leads to a next, and. And I did find out it matters not what level you're coaching on. As I say, I've run playgrounds, worked in high school, worked on the college level and did some Bird dog scouting. And so it matters not where you are. It's just a matter. You're working with young men and. And that's the real joy and privilege.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: At Northwestern, Northern Illinois and then Madison. Did you have other responsibilities outside of coaching?
[00:10:36] Speaker B: I was at Northern Illinois. I was working on a master's degree, and that was. That was enough. So I do my schooling in the morning and then go over to the stadium in the afternoon, have lunch with the head coach and figure out what we were going to do. And that was kind of it. That was a full load.
Then when I went to Northern Illinois, as a lot of coaches, more in those days maybe than now, I taught physical education and taught. We had. We had baseball courses for the majors and minors. So I got involved with teaching baseball, little racquetball and. And so same thing. At Wisconsin. My salary at Wisconsin was 2/3 athletics and one third physical education.
So it was a nice balance.
And then they eventually did away with a major and minor in physical education. So that changed kind of how things looked.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Is that the trajectory for you once they switched that, that's when you decided to do something else?
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Well, I left Wisconsin. That wasn't my choice. That was. They said my time was up. That's a whole nother story. But I learned a lot of lessons through all that and go up there. I actually majored in math.
Math came pretty easily to me and I decided that if I were going to teach on the college level, I probably would have to combine it with some physical education. I majored in math and minored in physical education. But I said if I wanted to teach on the high school level, not knowing where I'd end up eventually, then I wanted to teach math, not physical education.
So I tried to do both. So I majored in math, minored in physical education. Then I flip flopped them in graduate school and I got up to Madison and worked on some administration stuff for a PhD but never finish it, got too busy, probably wasn't smart enough to finish it anyway. But it was a good experience academically all way around.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: And then you were a missionary? For a little bit.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: We went over to Russia for three years through a Christian group called Navigators in Colorado Springs. They're on a lot of college campuses and I was invited to go over there one summer.
Russia had just opened up, it was the early 90s and we worked with a group of teachers over there. They hadn't had the Bible in their hands for 70 years and they wanted to learn some things. So we took a team of teachers over and then came back that fall. And then my wife and I and we had two young children at the time and we were invited to go as a family. So we did. We lived there three years.
Our girls went in Russian schools, learned the language. My wife learned the language through shopping. I'm a soul learner, so I had trouble with the language. But it was a great experience. We just loved the people and learned a lot and we've carried that back here.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: How do you make that choice as a family? Like, okay, we're going to move halfway across the world and we're going to live in a place that we don't know the culture, we don't know anything really about it. How do you make that decision as a family?
[00:13:53] Speaker B: It was relatively easy. I think I was teaching here in the inner city high school at the time. And I had done a lot of travel, mainly through baseball over the years and coached in different countries and different continents and so forth.
And then when I had this opportunity, it was easy to go over there for just the summer and my wife and family stayed home. I was over there for seven weeks. And then we came back and my wife said it was almost like she was expecting to be called to go as a family. So you might say it was a call from God. And we just accepted that and went over and it was harder to come back than it was to go over, let's put it that way. Was it really so loved and encouraged, but our time was up and it was time to come back, so we did. But it was good.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Tom O'Connell said you had his daughter as a homeroom teacher.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: I had his daughter in school, yeah. She was at Riverside. So I run into a few other people like that who, you know, we'd have a parent conference or something and we'd start meeting and, you know, and all of a sudden we're talking baseball. We found out there are baseball people in the city and it's really fascinating, you know, they find out you hooked at the state university for quite a while and then all of a sudden you're not talking math anymore, you're talking baseball. It's kind of fun.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: What have you loved about being around high school kids?
[00:15:26] Speaker B: As I say, it matters not the level. I think the high school kid. We've seen changes, as I say, I've been at riverside for probably 30 some years now, I think helping out as head coach for a while, and I backed up to being a co head coach and then I backed up to being an assistant and which I do now. I'm not doing nearly as much as I once did. But we've seen the high school change over 30 years.
But it's a joy seeing people grow through sports as human beings. And I guess hopefully that's why we're all in coaching. Sometimes that gets twisted around a little bit, but for the most part, I think that's why we're in this business. Used to say you weren't in it for the money, but now some of these coaches are doing pretty well financially, I guess. So they may be more for the money, but I hope not.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: What have you seen as the biggest changes? Maybe on the field or in the classroom with the kids? Now.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: That goes back probably when I was coaching at Wisconsin, there was a major change and a lot of people dropped out of coaching at that particular time. I Don't remember exactly when it was, but when I was in high school, which was a long time ago, if a coach said something, jump in the lake, you jump in the lake, because you trusted what the coach said. But then after a while, you began. I think they asked the question, why somewhere that took over in coaching where people no longer just did what you told them, you had to go a little deeper. And this was a good thing because they were now thinking through what you were saying, which made you as a coach think a little bit more too, and be able to come up with answers to why are you doing this and why are you doing that and why is your practice this way, etc. So I think that was a major change, but in our level in the city.
I look at our team pictures from when I first started in coaching in high school, and it was pretty much all white, and now it's pretty much all African American. That was a major change in our city. And in a lot of cities, there were challenges that went with that to adapt to what was happening, the changes going on in our cities and how to respond to that and. And to love everybody all the way through.
It provided some challenges. I met with one of our former players for breakfast the other day, an African American guy, and I said to him, I said, correct me if I'm wrong. I said, when. When we were coaching, I said I wasn't. I wasn't the head coach at the time, but I was involved with bringing on an African American coach. And I said it would make sense to me, but I'm not an African American, so you have to tell me to have an African American coach as on the coaching staff, at least with an African American. And he said, yeah, absolutely, it made a difference.
We just could, I don't know, relate, communicate or whatever better. And so those are the kinds of things that I think we've had to learn working in the city. But it's been great. I've learned a lot and had some wonderful, wonderful players go on and do a lot of things, academically and otherwise.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: We talk about that a lot with our diversity committee. And for those of us that are white and we're not immersed in someone else's culture, how can you do that as, you know, as a white coach, how can you immerse yourself into somebody else's culture to make them feel a little bit more. More comfortable?
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Yeah, next question.
That's a great question. And yeah, when.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: When the BML stuff, BLM stuff was going on, we did a lot of. We Did a lot of podcasts around that time to try to answer those questions. We're still trying to answer those questions with our diversity.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: I think it's a great question.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: And immerse each other into each other's cultures. And I think Kerrick Jackson runs our diversity committee. He explains very well where we're trying to get to more immersion, and not just exception, but more immersion, where it's more all inclusive than anything else.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: There's an organization called the Lausanne Committee that's bringing together all the Christian entities from around the world. They meet every X number of years. Not very often, but then talking to a few people who've been there this last year, they said the word that come out of that is collaboration.
I think that may be as good an answer as there is what we're talking about. We just need to keep talking and learning and growing and loving and putting feet to what we're talking, learning and living on. And then together, I think we can make some real strides. And once you become friends with somebody, it's easier to move forward. And so I think we need to, you know, have people we're not real comfortable with over to our home for dinner and vice versa.
We learned something.
For 20 years, we hosted international students. We. We had a big house that we purchased just for that reason, and we hosted. We had international students from over 115 countries come through, and we learned far more than they did. And they're the loneliest people on the face of the earth. And it was such an encouragement for us to learn what makes them, what their challenges are as they enter this culture. And it helps us to begin to address what happens to us when we enter another culture, even in our own city, even in our own country.
So it's a collaboration. I think it may be the best word out there right now.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Any of them play baseball?
[00:21:42] Speaker B: I'm sorry?
[00:21:43] Speaker A: Did any of them play baseball, the international students that came over?
[00:21:46] Speaker B: No. No.
They didn't even know where the baseball was. We took them out on a picnic one year, and we had softball out there.
And then we used to get some free tickets for the brewers games, and so we could take them to brewers games and they'd watch. And we took them on the picnic, and we said, now you try it. They had no idea how hard it was to hit a softball yet, let alone baseball. So but that was part of the process, and most of them had no idea what baseball was. Because I know baseball at one time. I don't know what it is now, but I remember One of the Olympic years, when baseball was going, I think they said baseball was going in 70 countries. It's probably far more than that now. And whatever it would be in a lot of those countries, it's just, you know, as, you know, it's isolated. It's not all over the country like it is here. And so if you're in one of those areas, you know about baseball. But otherwise, you know, they're all playing football, they're all playing soccer, and so it's. And basketball. So it's kind of an education and.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: It'S good being in the inner city. Is that what kind of inspired you to try to help with the RBI program in Milwaukee?
[00:23:04] Speaker B: I think so. We saw some needs and the RBI kind of wasn't going on.
And so we just simply got a bunch of the coaches together and met with the Brewers. The brewers are really cooperative, and so they provided what funding needed to. To happen, and the coaches got together and the program developed.
It moved to the point, this was a number of years ago now. It moved to the point where There was an 18 select league with probably the best eight schools, baseball wise, within the city itself. Those were five MPS schools, Market Public Schools, and three private schools with good programs. And so at that time, with the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic association rules at wia, you couldn't have your whole team on one team in the summer.
So we would take those eight schools and fill most of the rosters with people from those schools, and then we pick up people from other schools who didn't have the numbers to furnish their own team, and then they would join. So it was really a nice thing. And end up having an all star team, having a championship team. They televised those two games, and so it worked pretty well. And that was, I think, three nights a week. And then during the day there'd be some instruction going on for those who probably weren't good enough to make the Select E League yet. And those are volunteer high school coaches. And that went on for a while. Then there were some problems, some. Some money problems, unfortunately, and money was mismanaged and.
And a lot of people got burned. It was a sad situation, but parents got burned, coaches got burned, the brewers got burned. It was all under the Boys and Girls Club. They got burned. And so it's been trying to make a recovery since.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Any chance to get it back going?
[00:25:14] Speaker B: Pardon?
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Any chance to get it back on?
[00:25:17] Speaker B: It's making great. I would say in the last two years, it's made some really good progress. Again, I'm not doing a whole lot now, but there's some people in the city who stepped up and really are. One of them is just developing an indoor facility. I went to look at the. In fact, I went to look at the warehouse about a week ago, and within two, three weeks, they expect to have this warehouse turfed with, I think, five or six tunnels set up and will be open for business.
So it's a matter now of emphasizing that's mainly for the city because they'll get a lot of non city people trying to come in. Just to give you an idea of what we're talking about on the comparison, the last count I counted 11 turf fields outside of Milwaukee. We have one facility with five turf fields, four that are used regularly. Then the fifth one is used by the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee as airfield, and then also a professional organization called the Milkman. Well, UWM uses it in the spring, the Milkman use it in the summer. So there are 11 fields kind of like that outside of the city. The only one in the city has been where UWM used to play. And so that's been the only turf field. Now, the Milwaukee Public public schools just finished another one and reopened in the spring for the first time. So. But again, that's an example of how far behind the city is.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: And you're counseling men now, too?
Sorry, Tom O'Connell, tell me that you're a men's counselor.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: You counsel men and I'm a men's counselor. I'm volunteering in a church.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: And so we have men's studies going on. Actually, it came. The study we're involved in came out of a Fellowship of Christian Athletes group that goes back when Sal Bando and Paul Molitor and some of those people were playing for the Brewers. I wasn't involved at that time, but it's evolved out of that. And so there's been a sports history, and you don't have to be in a Bible study to find out they're hurting people around.
And so I'm old enough to know that you can learn to be a good listener or try to be a good listener, and people open up and. Yeah. So we're in a challenging world today.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: You only have 24 hours in a day. How are you getting all this stuff in?
[00:27:44] Speaker B: That's a good guess. I have to ask my wife.
I woke up this morning at 3.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: I woke up at 4.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: If that would happen every day, we'd have a problem. But there's some days like that where I wake up early get up and, and go to work.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: My view, it's like the universe is telling you to get up and go. Like, for whatever reason. Like, if I wake up at that time and I am wide awake, then I just get up and start doing stuff. I think that's the universe's nudge. Like, okay, you got stuff to do. You need to get up and go.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so too. I think I, I. From a Christian sample, I think God wakes you up once in a while and you have some things to do and you get in the word and you thank him and then you, you move forward. And so that's a healthy thing and.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: You'Re in great shape. Do you feel like that's why your longevity's been good, because you've stayed active for so long?
[00:28:36] Speaker B: I don't know. People tell me that may be part of it. I'm not in the shape that I once was. Obviously, I'm hunching over now. I'm getting old.
But I think that's an aspect of it.
I think that, you know, I read where Jesus grew in mind and body, gaining favor with God and man. And I figured if he had to do that, maybe I do too. So you grow in mind. That's the mental and body, that's the physical gaining favor with God, that's the spiritual and man, that's the social. Kind of covers everything. So if I'm lax in one of those areas, I have talked myself into kind of getting shaped up in the other areas a little bit.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: When you were coaching, what was your favorite thing on field to coach?
Did you have a favorite?
[00:29:22] Speaker B: That's a good question. I think it varied.
I was, I was an old catcher, so I like to coach catching. Obviously, we had some really good coaches at Wisconsin who helped out. And so then it's, it's a matter of, you know, you're kind of organizing everything.
But I don't think there was a favorite. I think there were some areas maybe I should have spent a little more time on. But if you have a coaches working for you, you don't have to do that. I find now that where I'm at right now, I'm probably work more with hitters than anybody else because I can sit outside a cage and watch people and, you know, do some of those things. But I, I guess any aspect, Baseball is baseball, and there's so many aspects to the game.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: What are you trying to relay to the hitters?
[00:30:20] Speaker B: I learned something a while back. It was one of those things that I, you know, I read A lot of books, like everybody does, and gone to a lot of clinics. But it was something I never picked up in a book or in a clinic.
I think I found the key thing in hitting is four things happen below the waist.
I still don't see this in print anywhere. One would be that we talk about. It used to be squish the bug and then people didn't like that. So it's changed names and principles. But in some way, shape or form, there's a pivot on that back foot, whatever you call it, whatever it happens, but it's generated by the hip coming around. But there is some kind of a pivot. Sometimes that foot comes off the ground in the process. We had Henry Aaron here for a while and look at pictures of him. Often that back foot of the. Yeah, but that foot would pivot somehow. So that's one thing. The second thing your leg would be, your back leg from the knee up would be vertical.
And that's really important because if it's on any kind of an angle, you're not going to be a good hitter. I've got picture after picture after picture of showing hitters where it's absolutely vertical from the knee straight up. And then the front knee is locked at impact, totally locked. And then your weight is on the outside of the front foot.
It sounds crazy, but at that point, that's only at the point of impact. And if a hitter isn't doing that, they're not going to be much of a hitter. And so we put people in that position and then work their way back. We'll go back a couple inches and then come back into it until they get that. And if, you know there's one thing that every good hitter does, then I think you need to approach that one thing so that that's. That's being accomplished. And some people get right away and others just get on that front foot and they're straight up and down. They don't get those hips around. But if you just get an impact and you look for those four things. I think that's something I learned over the years. That's really an important thing in hitting.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: That's a little bit of a back chaining principle, comes from kinesiology, where you get to the position that you want to get into and then work backwards from there and then go. Yeah, I really like. And it comes up with younger hitter especially. I like getting them in contact position, then go back to their load and then take a full swing.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it comes up in other sports in Other ways, too. I mean, I'm not a boxer, but you look at boxers, it's, it's the power thing, you know, it's getting that, the hips in and all that kind of thing. So there's a lot, a lot of that stuff. And now with all the, you know, the video, it's just amazing what they could think. Every day they come up with another new statistics that I never. I got to look up to find out what they're talking about, you know, but it's amazing what they come up with. But we've had a lot of discussions on that launch angle.
And my conclusion up here, and Tom McConnell and I have had long talks on this too, is, you know, and maybe on the major leagues there's something to that. But on the high school level, you can have the preferred launch angle, but all you have is a routine fly ball. Yeah. Because you don't have the power to.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: Hit it up high. Line drive. I mean, that takes.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: You got a line drive. It. You got a line drive. So we're learning and we kind of. It's like all of education. You go full circle on these things. Ted Williams used to say, just on your follow through, end up high.
Well, that's another way of saying what they're saying now, you know, and that'll take care of your launch angle, I think, if you end up high.
So there's a lot to be learned. I learned something from Marty Crow. Most of the people, maybe all the people who are watching or listening, don't have any idea who Marty Crow was.
Marty Crow was baseball coach at Ohio State a long time ago. And for a long time he went to high school with my predecessor at Wisconsin, Danny Mansfield. So you had two Big Ten coaches who went to the same high school in Ohio. And when I broke into college coaching and went to my first, it was an aacbc. Then it wasn't abca, can't get straight.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: But anyway, it was American association of College Baseball Coach.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: Baseball coach. It was aac, but then they dropped the college and now it's the abca.
Anyway, I went to my first convention and there was Marty sitting in the fifth row with his clipboard out, writing all kinds of notes down. And I said to myself, oh, we play those guys and if he's taking all those notes, maybe he's going to learn something that I need to learn. So that got me involved right away with the abca and to just try to learn. Those clinics are terrific.
Pardon?
[00:35:43] Speaker A: What are your thoughts about winning the Dave Kylitz Ethics and coaching award.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: That's a good question. I'm still trying to process that.
I think that award is. It could be given to so many coaches, maybe every coach in one way shape or form. So I'm representing a lot of people. I think ethics is a. Ethics, integrity, those are, those are words that are hard because we all fall short. I mean none of us is ethical. I came across a quote, I'm going to share it with you if I may.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I love quotes.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: And you guys going to be on. I thought you might get to something like that.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Let's get it.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: We had a gentleman in Milwaukee by the name of Don Kirkpatrick. He was a professor in business at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. And I got to know him years ago and in one of his books that he wrote he. He interviewed coaches all over the country.
I mean the name coaches at the time and some of. I got in there because I knew him. That was, that was basically it. But I came across, I mean the Tom Landry's were in there. The Ericians and Frank Doyles are just great people. Well, I've got a, I've got a quote here from Erician and Eric was the football coach at Northwestern when I was playing at Northwestern and he did a great job and then became better known when he went to Notre Dame and he was highly successful at Notre Dame so he always wanted to take batting practice and just a great guy. Well, here was a question, here's how he answered what it means to be a good coach.
He said defining the characteristics of an effective coach is not easily done. In responding, a series of words come to mind and I won't attempt to weigh them. Here are some of the words that have crossed my mind. Dedicated, confident, consistent, hard working, leader, loyal, honest, knowledgeable, communicator, enthusiastic, disciplinarian. Perseverance, strategically abreast of trends. Articulate, flexible, humble. And he said, I guess the last man that had these qualities, they put him on the cross.
If you're going to ask about integrity.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: That'S a lot of words.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: We all fall short.
So it's humbling to receive an award like that but I'm accepting that. I think on half a lot of people I learned something. If I could, if I can share just two quick things. I learned something when I was in high school.
I wrestled in high school mainly because I couldn't make the basketball team but it kept me in shape for baseball but taught me a lot because it was an individual sport compared to a team sport. And I ended up My senior year doing okay.
So we went to the state tournament, and we had four wrestlers, and our best wrestler got a cut on his head and wanted to wrestle anyway. And he looked good to the rest of us, but the doctor told our coach, if it were my son, I wouldn't let him wrestle. And our coach didn't let him wrestle.
And at the time, we thought, well, this is crazy. He's healthy. He could go and win the state championship as a team, city team. And.
And so it taught me something right then, that health is more important than the winning or losing. And then I learned another example from our coach at Northwestern. I mentioned Coach Lindstrom taught us more off the field than on the field.
And he was a great coach on the field.
We were playing, I believe it was Minnesota one year up in Minneapolis, and it was hard to beat Minnesota. Dick Siebert was coaching. He played for Connie Mack. So we had a coach who played for John McGraw, the Giants, and Dick Siebert played for Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics. And so there was a situation that came up where we scored two runs on a play.
And all of a sudden our coach called timeout, went out and talked to the umpires, and one of our runners went back to third base.
And we looked at our coach. It was obvious, because our coach went out and talked to the umpire that one of our runners would already score and had to go back to third. And we talked and said, coach, what are you doing? We got two runs, and now we have one run. And I don't remember if we won or lost the ball game, but he said, if you can't win a ball game fairly and squarely, you shouldn't win it at all. And it was a book rule situation that the umpires misinterpreted, and he wanted to set the record straight. So whether it be learning something else from a wrestling coach in high school that put the young man's physical ahead of what it should be, or whether it be interpreting a rule and making it right, those are two lessons I learned early on. And I guess the third one would be in Madison. When we worked out indoors, the track team was also working out. We had our cages set up inside, and the track team would be on the outside. Well, there was an outside lane that the joggers could use. The townspeople could come, the contributors, and they'd use that.
I think it was eight laps on the inner circle for a mile, but if you're on the outside, it was 7.7laps for a mile was longer, and I'M I'm out there. We had a Fellowship of Christian athlete groups going, and one little gal came up to me. I was kind of jogging slowly on that outside lane after practice, and she handed me a placard, which I have right here.
And I don't know if you can see it or not, but it says, you can. You can win on the scoreboard, but losing God's eyes, and you can lose on the scorebo and win in God's eyes.
And it got me thinking.
And so I began to think, okay, God, did I win or lose in your eyes today? And far too often I think I was losing in God's eyes. Now, sometimes there's actually a quadrant. You can win and lose in God's eyes, and you can win and lose on the scoreboard. It was nice when both would happen, but in Madison, our field, the parking lot was out in left field, past left field, so you had to walk all the way out the third baseline and out the gate in left field to get to the parking lot. So I'd. At the end, we get all the equipment put away, and I'd be walking out there, and I'd say to myself, okay, did I win in God's eyes today or not? I actually talked to God. I said, God, seems I won today, but I'm not sure I argued with the umpire the wrong way. And, you know, and so there are days you win, but that. That little statement that that little track yell gave me, it stuck with me. And I'd ask myself, did I win or lose? So those are some experiences that I've had that kind of stop you in your tracks and get you thinking about there's more to winning or losing on the field, lots more. And it's, you know, how you treat people. And I've made so many mistakes, but hopefully you learn.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: Just you saying I've made a lot of mistakes shows that. That you're. You're on the right path, because not everybody does that. I think the most humble people that I've been around or been in contact with are willing to admit that they've made mistakes.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, you just have to almost.
[00:43:45] Speaker A: Fault, though, almost where they're. They're too hard on the themselves.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I used to shoot myself in the foot, and that's not good either. When I make a mistake, I'd be harder on myself than anybody else. But you got to practice forgiveness on yourself, too. I think so.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: I think that's a big piece of it, too, is eventually you have to forgive yourself.
You need to learn from it, but eventually you have to forgive yourself too.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, life has to go on, you know, But I think you, you can if you have to try to correct it wrong if you can.
And if you've wronged somebody or said something or done something, you go back and ask for forgiveness and hopefully get it and then move forward and just.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Did you have.
For your players in the programs, did you have any core values?
Those are core values right there.
[00:44:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. We had a high school coach. As I say, I was head coach in a high school for a while and then. And then one of the coaches, I was getting older and I said, well, let's be co coaches. And then after a year or two, he said, I'd like to be a head coach. I said, you're it. So but then he and a subsequent coach after him, one of, one of them started having those one word values, you know, and just, just one word, Ethical hustle, you know, all those nice behind the scenes words. They'd come up with like one word A or something like that. I think there were some podcasts like yours that promoted that. And it was really healthy because you could talk about that all week and just make you a better person, at least get you thinking. And that was really healthy. So values are important.
[00:45:28] Speaker A: Is that part of adjusting with the times too? Because you said players change and they do ask why a lot more, which I appreciate the newer generation of players because they do want to know why? I think that's a great way to open up lines of communication with your players on things.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: I think you have to. I was talking to somebody, I don't know, it was just yesterday, I think, and we got talking about, you know, the transfer.
You know, I've never been a part of that. So all I do is what I read in the papers and talk to some coaches about and.
But the question came up, do they have to talk to their coach before they go into the portal?
[00:46:07] Speaker A: Not anymore.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: And the answer I got was, no, they don't. And I think that's a shame because there are some lines of communication that we're missing out on. It just makes no sense whatsoever. You've got a young guy and you know the arguments. And as I say, I'm on the outside but looking in.
And a lot of programs, freshmen don't play much. You have to be a great freshman to play in some programs. So you're being developed, a coach is spending time and the school is spending money on you to develop.
And then as A young player who may not be mature enough to figure this all out.
You're maturing in this school and under this coach, but you're not playing.
You're going to take your bat and ball, so to speak, and go elsewhere when in reality, this school and this coach might love you and is spending time with you to develop you. And now you're ready to develop your sophomore year, junior year, or even your senior year maybe, and to, to give back all that time. But you're unhappy because you haven't been playing and you've been a bit of hero in high school, you know, on the field, so you're not used to that.
So.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Plus it's hard to start over too.
Careful what you wish for. I see both sides of it. But. But yeah, of course.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: And you could have.
[00:47:32] Speaker A: We were all 18, 19, 20 years old. I think if you leave 18, 19 year olds like me, I needed accountability. I need somebody to keep me accountable. I think if you leave.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: Sure, sure.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: Kids that age their own devices, their, their frontal lobes not developed yet. Like they're not going, they're not always going to make rational decisions because their frontal lobe is not completely developed yet. And so there has to be some guardrails. But I said it five years ago when this was coming down, that this is what it was going to look like because there's zero guardrails on it right now. And, and there has to be guardrails and accountability for both.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: Well, hopefully they'll evolve.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Hopefully we can get it moving here. It's got to start moving towards something here. It can't just be the way it is right now forever. It just can't. It's not going to work.
[00:48:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the whole money thing too is.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: That's a whole nother thing, which I agree. You know, they, they should get a share of, of, of the revenue. They should.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't have any problem with that. But they should.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: But there also needs to be guardrails on that too.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: You got the right word. That's good. Yeah.
[00:48:41] Speaker A: Everybody has to answer this one. Do you have a fail forward moment? Do you have something that you thought was going to set you back but looking back now, it helped you move forward? It could be personally, it could be professionally.
[00:48:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Once I took myself out of, out of the picture, which you never do. Totally. But once I took myself out and started putting other people first, made a difference.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: How'd you come to that realization?
[00:49:08] Speaker B: I just began to realize, you know, what was important some.
My life was, you know, moving along without any problems for a long time. And then some challenges came up, and I did some soul searching and got my. My life in perspective, looked at the Lord.
And once I. Once I did that, and I think it was Vince Lombardi, the God first and family second, and the Green Bay packers third. That's not bad, you know, especially if you're up here.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: But did you feel like something was lifted off you after you made that decision? Did you feel like a weight was lifted off you?
[00:49:51] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Definitely it was.
We have. We have in Milwaukee with the brewers. And this goes back to when the old brewers were here in the American Association. The mascot was a. Was a big beer barrel, you know, And I've always said if you put that beer barrel on the side and roll it on top of somebody, it's pretty heavy.
And I felt with God, it's like taking that beer barrel on the side that's on your chest and burdening you and just roll it off on the burden bearer, on God himself. And then it's freeing. And life is just a totally different perspective. And once I started doing that, now I could be who I'm supposed to be, and the winning and losing would take care of itself. You were free to try to do what you could do and let the rest happen.
That was a healthy exercise.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Much better with the outcome. Regardless of what the outcome is, you're much better with the outcome.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: You have any morning or evening routines? I know you're a man of faith, but do you have anything else outside? I mean, because, like, you're in great shape. You've been doing this for a long time. And I.
For guys that do it at a high level for a long time. Do you have any evening or routines that you go to or habits?
[00:51:15] Speaker B: That's a. That's a. That's a good question.
I find that, exercise wise, I have to talk myself into. It's a little harder now. I'm 80. I'm 87.
[00:51:27] Speaker A: And you don't look 87, by the way.
[00:51:29] Speaker B: I don't feel 87, but I have to talk myself into it. And I share that only because over the years, kind of in different decades, you learn different things. So I've been basically kind of retired from a normal job since age 65. I've been helping out our church ever since. So I'm staying busy.
I've got a place to go. I don't have to sit around the house. My wife likes that.
So I've got an office yet outside of the home.
And As I said, even baseball wise, I met with, had breakfast with one of our former high school players two days ago. I talked on the phone yesterday with one of my former playground guys who was 10 back in the, whatever that was back in the 60s. And, and then I talked to one of our college players yesterday. So you stay in touch with people. I think of so many that I, that I haven't and that's been a real challenge. I would have liked to stay in touch with a lot more over the years, but there's only so much time.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: So when they look at, when they look at the older generation, that, that's thriving as they get older. Social, social interaction is a big piece of that for, for people that thrive as they get older. The thriving, not just like you said, you get outside, you go to your office. Like that's a huge piece of thriving as you get older is staying active and social interaction.
[00:53:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And I find that, you know, there was, there was a gentleman who mentored me and when he retired, he spent his time just having lunches and breakfast with people and had me out in Madison and the people's having lunch and dinner with the state capital. So he was meeting with politicians, he was meeting with, with university professors, he was meeting with just key people in Madison. And I was just kind of a middle aged coach at the time. And I said that's not a bad way to spend your retirement.
So I've kind of kept that in mind, you know. You know, we learned from our mentors along the way, the people we've looked up to, whether it be baseball or otherwise. And I learned a lot from this gentleman. And he was The President of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship nationally, Dr. John Alexander, some of your people may know of him. And he was a great mentor to me on off the field stuff, which carries over onto the field because you learn how to handle people better.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: What are you looking forward to? The convention.
[00:54:14] Speaker B: That's a good thing. I always get some. I don't go as many sessions as I used to.
[00:54:20] Speaker A: Well, there's a lot more of them now.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: Well, there's a lot more. You can go to so many different things and you can zoom them when you get back home, which I say I'm going to do. But I don't always now, but there's, I think it's the people at the convention. I mean that organization has grown. I go back, I was thinking the other day, knowing we were going to do this podcast, I was thinking of some of the people who I met at the early conventions. And for any young coach, this opportunity is there for everybody. I remember people like Dutch Fairing from Stanford. I remember John Lincoln from Maine.
I remember Bill Arcey. I remember he got me started on international stuff. Jerry Kendall, of course, from Arizona, was a great friend.
And I'll tell one story about Jerry.
Probably half your viewers remember Jerry and others say if you don't know who.
[00:55:21] Speaker A: Jerry Kendall is, you need to look him up. If you're listening in and you don't know who Jerry Kendall is, you need to look him up. He's one of the best we've ever.
[00:55:28] Speaker B: We got to know each other through the fca and he was an assistant coach at Minnesota. And we had known each other and we're going to play the chief up there that mentioned Dick Siebert. And it's. And this, this predated computer. So you didn't know this, but every, every time we'd play Minnesota, they'd move their outfielders two steps this way or one step that way. And seems we'd hit the ball right where they were. I said between games of a double header, I went over to visit Jerry. I said, jerry, your outfielders are uncanny. And he gave me the card they were using to chart fielders. And, and, and, and I found out it works in high school too. In fact, I got them right here. I could tell you, the high schools we play every year we do those same charts that Jerry gave me on the high school level.
[00:56:16] Speaker A: You know, college guys are spoiled now because they have, they have programs that do that for everything.
[00:56:23] Speaker B: To start this coach, I was still.
[00:56:25] Speaker A: An old school chart guy, but they don't have to do it, which, it saves them a lot of time. I know, exactly. It saves them a lot of time.
[00:56:32] Speaker B: But, but that kind of thing is just. You can learn from one another. I guess that's my point.
[00:56:37] Speaker A: And then the convention, the attendees are like a living, breathing part of our convention. I think that's why our convention is so great, is because the attendees add that living, breathing portion of the convention to it. They're just as much a part of the convention as the speakers or anything else that's going on. The attendees are a live portion of that.
[00:56:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that to go to a convention and to learn what you can, to go as a learner and sit down in those meetings and say, I'm going to walk out of here with one thing at each session and you're either going to learn something new or you're going to reinforce what you already know. And both are positive and. Or you're going to see something. This doesn't hit me. Right. And then you kind of look at it over the years and you kind of put it together, and baseball has changed.
It's a dynamic thing we're learning all the time. You know, sometimes we go full circle and we come back the other way, but at least you get these ideas. I remember there was a guy by the name of Lou Fonseca. You don't remember him.
I think he was the first baseman for somebody or maybe the Cubs or something. But he was the first guy to take video of the World Series games, as I recall the story.
And everybody in coaching used to say, when you're hitting, you step where the ball is pitched.
So if you wanted, it's an inside pitch, you step away from the plate so you can pull it a little bit more. If it's an outside pitch, you step, you know, kind of outside. And then they saw the pictures that he turned out. This was the first of all this stuff.
[00:58:24] Speaker A: Stuff.
[00:58:25] Speaker B: And. And they said, no, these people are stepping in the same place every time. And it changed all the coaching. Well, that was kind of the first one. Now you got down to minutia. Minutia, you know, and it's just the small things now. But those are things you learn through videos, and those are things you learn just by staying on top of the coaching, which you haven't done that. Brooks Robinson was another one. Brooks was maybe the greatest third baseman in the history of baseball for the Baltimore Orioles. And I remember going to one of the conventions, and at that time, the World Series film from the previous fall would be shown for the first time at the convention. That was the world premiere of the World Series film. And Brooks Robinson was one of the clinicians, and he had made two of those slow roller plays from third base in the previous World Series. So he was looking at these movies of himself for the first time. And he had taught that when you come up with the ball, you come up and you throw sidearm, you know, you feel the ground. A slow roller. And then they showed these two videos, maybe even in slow mo. I'm not sure. But he threw overhand, and he couldn't believe it. He said, I don't believe I throw overhand.
[00:59:43] Speaker A: Real versus feeling.
[00:59:45] Speaker B: But that's. That's what the picture showed. So at those clinics now with all the video stuff, we're.
[00:59:51] Speaker A: We're learning, it does challenge your thinking. I think that's the greatest thing about it.
[00:59:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the bottom line.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: That's where learning and growth comes from. Is. Is. Is getting your. Your. Your thoughts challenged. That's what. That's where you learn and grow from.
[01:00:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So thanks for all you're doing out there and.
[01:00:08] Speaker A: Yeah. What are some final thoughts before I let you go?
[01:00:11] Speaker B: Final thoughts. So I'm looking forward to Washington. I'm looking forward to running into a lot of old friends. I used to have a lot more. The older guys are dying off on me, but I think it's always an exciting time. My wife goes with me and we go to a lot of things. I do. We do some things around town. I'm getting that ethics award. So our older daughter's able to break away. She's a principal of the school. She's coming out. So we're just looking forward to.
[01:00:38] Speaker A: It's a great city to break away, too, though. By the way, I love D.C.
i love Washington, D.C. it's a great city. Outside of.
[01:00:47] Speaker B: It's wonderful.
[01:00:47] Speaker A: It's just a great city. You feel the history so much to do. You feel the history of the US when, when you're there, like I love.
[01:00:53] Speaker B: So if there are people watching who haven't been to a convention yet, you know this one, get to this one, but put it on your agenda and go every year and just learn as I have and so many others have learned and meet people like Ryan, and that's great. I look forward to connecting with you in person.
[01:01:11] Speaker A: Thank you so much for your time.
[01:01:12] Speaker B: Thank you. My pleasure.
[01:01:14] Speaker A: Congrats again to Coach Meyer. We're able to spend a little time at the convention together in the East Stage area. So happy for him to be honored. Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Hale, Matt west, and Antonio Walker and the ABCI office for all the help on the podcast. Feel free to reach out to me via email or brownleeabca.org, twitter, Instagram and TikTok coachboabca or direct message me via the MyABCA app. This is Ryan Bronley signing off for the American Baseball Coaches Association. Thanks and leave it better for those behind you.
[01:01:59] Speaker B: Wait for another day.
[01:02:04] Speaker A: And.
[01:02:05] Speaker B: The world will always return as your life was never for yearning and you know that way Wait for another.
[01:02:24] Speaker A: Day.
[01:02:28] Speaker B: Sa.
