Masters in Coaching Podcast- Episode LXV

Tim Cates catches up with Gardy O'Flynn about his days in pro baseball and now 24 years teaching and coaching. Gardy is a nationally recognized throwing specialist with National Pitching East and Tom House Sports. He is also a graduated of the MCAA program from Concordia University Irvine.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Drafted by the Texas Rangers. Hespent seven years in professional baseball. When
he finally hung him up, hegot into teaching education and has become one
of the top pitching coaches and quarterbackcoaches in the country. He has Guardio
Flynn, and he joins us nowon episode sixty five of the Masters in
Coaching Podcast. Let's go. We'llwelcome into episode sixty five of the Masters

(00:28):
in Coaching Podcast here on iHeart RadioYouTube wherever you are downloading or watching.
We certainly appreciate that. So excitedto talk to this week's guests. Yeah,
we're sixty five episodes in for thisMasters in Coaching Podcast. We're gonna
talk a lot of baseball. We'regonna talk to some football as well as
far as quarterback position with Guardio Flynn. Drafted pitching in the Texas Rangers organization

(00:49):
for seven years, currently and nationallyrecognized throwing specialists with National Pitching East.
He's working at Tom House for manyyears. A lot of you know the
name. He's a teacher in theclassroom as a high school coach as well
going on year number twenty four asan educator and by the way, he's
gotten out two master's degrees from ConcordiaUniversity Year V, the first coming in
twenty fifteen with the Masters in Coachingand Athletics Administration Program Guardy. How you

(01:14):
doing, Welcome to the podcast.I couldn't be happier to join you,
Tim. It's been a great experiencethe whole time with Concordia and it's a
pleasure to be with you. Yeah, we've had we've had some back and
forth trying to catch up with you. It's been a busy summer for you.
Not only during the school year areyou busy in the classroom and teaching
and being the educator going to almostthree decades, but you're also working with

(01:34):
pictures and catcher quarterbacks as well.But I don't know, the summer is
a busy time for you as well. It's extremely busy. I'm lucky to
be the director for Tom House Sportson the East Coast in the Northeast,
and with that working with Tom House, having him as a former coach of
mine when I played with the TexasRangers. I've had a thirty year relationship

(01:57):
with him. And yeah, there'snever a dull moment. And I got
four kids that are all in college, and this, so I gotta keep
working. Well, we're talking beforeand you're getting ready now to enter your
twenty four as an educator and thepitching and quarterback training and mechanics aside.
I know you're very proud of thefact that you're twenty four years as an
educator. You further your degree aswell. We'll get into that, but

(02:20):
going into the classroom now for yourtwenty four hawkside are you? You know,
it's great the foundations that I've gottenin the last eight years from Concordia.
I'm a phys ed teacher. Iknew from the start this is what
I wanted to do when my playingcareer was over. And I love what
I do day in and day outat Ipswich High School. And everything that
I learned from Concordia, every classwas related to how I teach in the

(02:46):
phys ed gym and classroom to alsoworking with elite athletes, whether it's an
NFL quarterback or whether it's a LittleLeague pitcher. Everything that every class there
was something I could take from andtransform it to my students. So I'm
pleased to be here. Let's goback a little bit. You're a baseball

(03:09):
player, You're drafted by the TexasRangers, spent seven years in pro baseball.
What was that like? Was thatsomething growing up that you always wanted
to be a professional baseball player?Not exactly. I grew up with three
other brothers. All three played Divisionone college football, and my path with

(03:29):
baseball was I never thought going toUniversity of New Hampshire in nineteen eighty nine,
the fall of eighty nine, thatever played pro baseball. But I
developed as an athlete, and beinga left handed pitcher is an advantage,
and I just I think being amulti sport athlete and playing a variety of

(03:50):
sports taught me how to compete.And when I could compete in other sports,
I could translate that to the mound. Even though I didn't have plus
stuff or light up the radar gun, I got hitters out. And I
continued that in my professional career untilI got to a certain point, and

(04:10):
then and then it was time tomove on. What was that life playing
professional baseball in the minor league leveland working up different levels. How was
that experience for you? It wasa great experience. I had great coaches
all the way through with a Rangersorganization, and then it got to a
point that you know, it justthat trickle down effect. They got a

(04:30):
lot of Triple A players to buildup for their big league roster, and
I just got weeded out at theend. But having such a supportive family
with Christian based values, I alwaysknew that I gave it my all in
baseball, but I always knew thatthere was more to life than just being

(04:51):
a baseball player. So it's Iwouldn't trade it for the world. I
mean, I loved every minute ofit, but it wasn't a do or
die feeling. The busting around minorleague baseball. It's not a glorious life,
but if you're a baseball player,is certainly a fun life. Oh
it was great. It was great. You just wear a bunch of guys

(05:13):
and you're, you know, youwant to win every game you're in to
to us, every game was youknow, the World Series, it was
like important, it was important towin that game for your for your teammates.
But I really just yeah, Ididn't have any complaints. And what
I can look in the mirror andrealize is that I, you know,
I was never late. I alwaysdid the work, and it just gets

(05:35):
to a point and this happens toa lot of players that it just it's
a numbers crunching. It's hard tomake it all the way to the top.
But again, it was a greatexperience. So you get done playing
professional baseball. You mentioned earlier youknew you wanted to get into education and
coaching. Did you get in immediatelyand did jump right into that? No,

(05:57):
you know, in the baseball offseasons, I worked a lot in
the school, but I also didsome work with some mutual fun companies.
I'm located a little bit north ofBoston, so I had family members involved
in the investment world. And Itried that and I put on the suit
and I did well with it becausea lot of it was you know,
personal relationships and marketing and this andthat. But then I realized, you

(06:23):
know what I missed working with athletes. I missed, you know, doing
things that I wanted to keep doing. And that's when I was fortunate to
really stumble upon a full time teachingjob and I started it out and I
and I haven't stopped since, youknow, the year two thousand, so

(06:45):
I've been going at it strong.Cardio Flynn is our guest here on the
Masters and coaching podcast. You getinto coaching, you get into teaching.
When did the stuff outside of theschool, working with Tom House in his
program? When did that? How'dthat take off? Well? It really
started my first year in professional baseball. The year I was drafted was nineteen
ninety three, and I went downto rookie ball in Port Charlotte, Florida,

(07:09):
and Tom was the rolling pitching instructorfor the Rangers then, and he
was based in their spring training complexand just having morning workouts and lifting with
them. We just always talked mechanics. We always like, we're just in
depth about pitching. And my olderbrother, who went to Harvard is an

(07:32):
orthopedic surgeon and he was in hisyou know, residency back then, and
we would just talk about that.And I talked to my brother. So
as years passed, I always keptin touch with Tom. And then he
started this National Pitching Association right downin San Diego in the early two thousands,

(07:53):
and you know, I asked,you know, could I be involved?
And I spent several summers with him, and he eventually was up at
USC for a while where he waspitching coach and just love the whole biomechanics
and there's a health first teach andit always made sense to me and it

(08:15):
worked. And I've had a relationship, you know, this whole time with
him, his philosophies. I'm curiousto find this out. I think a
lot of baseball fans, Dad's outthere, coaches out there are curious as
well, because you hear Tom Houseand his mechanics is were it's a little
different. And the way he preachpreaches an approaches mechanics. Is that different?
Is that something that people have nowcaught onto? Was he the first

(08:39):
to kind of his philosophy. Hewas the first to do several things.
The biggest thing was using three Danalysis and this is even back in the
late eighties, and this was somethingif you watch the Nolan Ryan specials,
you know they talked about his postureand his tilt. So every thing is

(09:00):
science based and looking at the primitivethree D analysis, which now you can
get the information on your iPhone.You know, there was so much into
it, and there was so muchresearch, and he's got his doctorate and
he's really put in the time gettingseveral masters programs, and it's something that
it was always science based and healthfirst and privacy to the individual. So

(09:26):
I always like the approach. It'salways been a transformational teaching approach, meaning
we don't argue with other companies thatmight do something different where holistic, and
we really take it each individuals astheir own efficiency model and everybody is a
little bit different. But we lookfor and this is Tom's really original research,

(09:52):
but we look for how their timingis into foot strike when they're pitching,
and then what comes after and ifthe posture it can be maintained and
energy can be sequenced up the body. It's like a cracking of the whip
and the energy translates up, andit's whether you're throwing a baseball, hitting
a tennis serve, throwing a football, you know, with that kinematic sequence

(10:15):
hitting a golf ball is very similarthroughout all rotational sports. So that just
was so interesting to me and Ihaven't stopped with it since and it's been
a great experience. The philosophies mechanics, what you guys are doing now,
is that something that's kind of nowuniversal or a lot of people doing that.

(10:35):
It is people have different ideas andthey just want to you know,
and there's a lot of companies outthere that are really good marketers and they
market like their program and this andthat, and you know, I'm sure
they're in the best interest of theindividuals. As we are. We look
for a posture based chin over bellybutton, level, shoulders, level eyes,

(10:58):
the importance of getting into foot strikein a certain amount of time,
and you know, delaying your hips, delaying your shoulders, and it's really
we have a lot of people thathave caught on, especially the NFL community,
a big, a big number ofNFL quarterbacks. You know, I've
worked with with Tom and the peopleout of three DQB Adam Dato. They

(11:24):
do a great job. And Itry to do a little bit over over
here on the East Coast, butvirtually almost every NFL quarterback goes through their
training protocols as well as you know, the baseball aspect. You're just saying
that I got a flashback from whenI was young, and I think it
was ninety two ninety three somewhere aroundthere, and the Texas Rangers were in

(11:46):
town and somethink I'm here in LosAngeles and they were taking on the Angels
and we were down the Big Aand I remember it was a day that
Nolan Ryot wasn't pitching and he's outthere throwing the football. Correct. I
remember in his clear day that peopleare like, why is he throwing a
football? Why is no throwing afootball? And he was out playing catch,

(12:07):
and then he was out doing differentthings. And at the time I
was growing up playing baseball and anolder brother, you know, I'm around
the baseball world at a lower levelobviously, and we're like, why is
he why is he throwing a football? What is that about? Well,
if you can throw a spiral,you're mechanically efficient now timing into foot strike
and and there's different aspects you know, is there. Yeah, you don't

(12:31):
have the three hundred pound grown mentrying to take take your head up.
You got to get rid of itquick. But if you can throw,
if you can throw a spiral,that means that you're not losing your posture
or opening up early or swimming outyour front side. You're keeping your body
we call body vectors going towards thetarget. So when we could get when

(12:54):
Tom could get pictures to do that, he knew they were being directional.
Even it's a different weighted implement andshape obviously, but all of these things
have have translated, you know,into comparing a baseball thrower or softball overhand
thrower to a to a quarterback.What kind of levels of kids are you

(13:16):
working with right now? You're talkingabout baseball and football, right, Yeah,
So you know, majority of mybusiness is baseball. I do a
lot of national clinics with Tom,and we have a great staff. Our
national directors, Dean doc Sakus andRobert Ambrose do a great job getting Tom
out throughout the country to do clinics. But pretty much a majority of my

(13:39):
business is still baseball, and youknow, I have a variety of level
of pitchers, and I also worka lot with with quarterbacks, and it's
it's really just the mechanical efficiencies andthrowing, but we get into two other
things. So we're talking about thisa little bit before. But here in
Laws Angels, Mark Pryor, thepitching coach for the Dodgers and his staff

(14:03):
around him. In the last fouror five years, I've done a tremendous
job in turning guys careers are around. Whether it's a Tyler Anderson who was
a five hundred starter in the majorleagues and now turned into a lucrative deal
with the Anaheim Angels, his passoff season after a year with the with
the Dodgers, or a Brandon Morrow, if you're Joe Blanton as a reliever.
Different guys that come in maybe dfafrom another organization or just outright traded

(14:28):
over the Dodgers at the minor leaguelevel and they tinker with them and they
fix them. And you hear thatword a lot now out here in las
Guys want to come to the Dodgeto be fixed because someone's not right.
What is it about Mark Pryor ishe is he got a connection to Tom
House? Well, I know heplayed for Tom House at USC and the
obviously Mark Pryor is is a tremendouspitching coach and was a tremendous major league

(14:54):
player. And I really think,and what we talked a little bit off
air was the Dodgers do a greatjob of simplifying things and not getting overly
complicated with their mechanical variables. Andmaybe it's as you said earlier, Tim,
was you know, limit their numberof different pitches they may throw and

(15:16):
master those and then with their indepth analytics department, if you can find
a picture that can execute just twoor three pitches in certain zones against hitters
that have difficulties proven difficulties of hittingthose pitches. Then you've got a formula
for success. Becomes like a mathproblem. But you need those type of

(15:39):
pitchers that can execute the setup ofa batter and the finishing of a batter,
meaning you know, this pitch mightnot get you out, but the
next pitch will because your swing willbe off plane and you'll get soft contact.
And that's what they do. AndI don't know the in depths of

(16:00):
what exactly they do, but Iknow they steal a lot of really good
Red Sox players. That's you knowwhere I'm from. But the sides stealing
the really good Red Sox players,they do do it. Like you said,
their whole staff is U does agreat job of rejuvenating these players and
getting them going. Is pitching?Is it too mechanical? And I say

(16:22):
this, I don't know if thisis the right way to phrase it,
but you know there's some philosophies youtalk to people, well, you know,
just simplify, don't don't make thekid on the mound think too much.
Whereas then you want to make surehe's got good mechanics he's not hurting
his arm, he's not doing somethingto put himself in jeopardy if maybe I'll
injury down the line. How importantis it to have good mechanics as a
picture out there, rather than justtell a kid and go out there,

(16:44):
you're bigger than everybody else, oryou got a stronger arm at this point,
at whatever age level you're at,and you're just gonna throw a buy
a guy. Yeah, So whatit really comes down to is the mound
is unnatural for a thrower. Sowhen you're throwing off a slope, you
have to handle Actually it's six timesyour body weight if you get full energy

(17:04):
into where you land. So it'snatural for us to go out and throw
a football on flat ground. Thatjust feels more comfortable. But when we
have a five ounce baseball and wehave to throw downhill, it's easy for
body parts to get out of place. So really, our whole philosophy with

(17:25):
National Pitching and Tom House Sports isthe unnatural pacts. We do a lot
of functional strength training and the lawthat enable the person to hold their posture
while getting as much energy into theground to bring to their arm. So
exactly what you said to him,they're not just throwing with their arm,

(17:45):
They're using their legs, they're usingtheir torso and then they're delivering the ball.
I want to go back to youand teaching and coaching, and you've
coached multiple sports. Is that somethingyou wanted to do, was to dabble
in other sports and not just particularlyin baseball. Yeah, so I always
want to give back to my highschool. They've been great to me,

(18:07):
and I my baseball business got alittle bit too big working with area top
players. So I felt, youknow, seven or eight years ago,
it was a conflict to keep oncoaching high school baseball because I was working
with in the off season with alot of the top area pitchers, and
to me, that was uncomfortable becauseI'm trying to beat them, but they're

(18:30):
also hiring me in the off season. It was like, you know,
that's the ethics part. Nowadays,it's like common with things like that going
on. But I just couldn't doit. But I love all sports.
I'm a racket enthusiast. I lovetennis, I love pickle ball. I've
been teaching pickle ball for twenty fouryears. I was, yeah, yeah,
I've been teaching it since two thousand, so great phized sports. So

(18:55):
I love you know, I'm agolf coach, and I coach, and
I coached tennis or my school.I'm the varsity coach for golf in the
fall and girls tennis in the springwhere my daughter plays, which is great.
But it really and this is whereI go back to Concordia. It
all of the things I've learned isjust adaptable to every sport, to every

(19:21):
phiz ed class, to every kidI'm teaching at a at a pitching clinic
or a quarterback camp, and itreally is it's it gives you a foundation
and then it gives you the credibilitythat you know you've also like earned,
you know, this knowledge, notjust you know, having it just come

(19:42):
naturally with everything you've got going onin your experience and and thriving. Why
was it important for you Guarding togo and pursue that masters and graduate in
twenty fifteen with your first of twomasters from Concordia. Well, again,
raising four kids and uh and beingextremely busy with my pitching business. I

(20:03):
had put some of that further educationoff, you know, as it relates
to my teaching, and I hada good friend who did the Concordia program
in like twenty twelve or thirteen,and he told me about it. He
told me about the flexibility with awith a family life and you know,
a career where you have to keepon working. And I had a couple

(20:26):
interviews with you with with with theyou know, coordinators of the program and
conversations and it, uh, evenafter the first class I took, you
know, I'm coaching, I'm takinga class, I'm doing all these things.
I just really enjoyed the further educationfrom it. And then for the

(20:51):
second one, I just we youknow, wanted to continue to learn in
that program that came up with withthe Masters of Science. Was was great
for not only my teaching career butalso my individual businesses. So it's it
really worked out great. I wantto quickly just go back to pitching and
mechanics as we sit here in twentytwenty three compared to where it was twenty

(21:14):
years ago. And you talked aboutthe three D development. Now you can
see it on your phone and youknow, the multiple camera setups so you
can see what a guy's doing wrongor doing right, and when he used
to work on well, where doyou think we can take it further.
Is it even possible to dissect mechanicsof a picture or a quarterback even more?
If we've gotten to the point wherewe've basically done everything we possibly can,

(21:38):
and we're just going to keep finetuning in a little bit as we
keep going. I think the athletesthresholds with training protocols are just so advanced,
and I think they're going to continueto improve. We just have to
do our best in this industry,especially with baseball as the as the athletes
you know, get up in onehundred mile an hour zone or you know,

(22:02):
these real strong athletes, we justhave to make sure that they're in
a safe velocity zone. And that'sone thing our group I think does extremely
well is the National Pitching and TomHouse Sports Group. We have a testing
algorithm that will tell a parent oran athlete whether their velocity is safe based

(22:26):
on different parameters of a multitude oftests throughout the body. So it could
be a weakness in a quad hamstringimbalance or a torso in balance. But
their arms are really strong and they'rethrowing really hard, but we're looking at
that as an indicator of an injurypossible if these mechanical imbalances aren't fixed.

(22:55):
So we're not just looking at arms. We're not just looking at what the
radar gun says. We have tolook, like you said, tim,
at their mechanics and at the stressorsthroughout their body, which might lead to
a preventable surgery. So I thinkthe future is going to be a little
more close knit with the orthopedic groupswhere we can find the stress, you

(23:19):
know, on a particular pitch atthat time. What happens when your mechanics
are off. It might there mightbe a something that could signal that this
picture is getting a little tired andhe's putting more stress on a on a
certain pitch. So that's something youknow. I think technology will keep on

(23:40):
advancing and artificial intelligence is going tofigure something out, and and I think
we're still we're still learning. Wow, for those listening, those watching coaches,
dads, it's amazing the technology that'sout there and what can be available
for young baseball players pitch quarterbacks outthere. So GUARDI we appreciate the time.

(24:03):
Man. I love talking baseball.I love talking mechanics. I love
the conversation and getting to hear yourbackground in your association with Tom House,
and it's been so much fun talkingto you. I wish we had more
time, but I know the listenersappreciate it and all this is happening,
and you've got not one but twomasters from Concordia University, Irvine, so
it could be done no matter whatthe schedule is or how busy you are.

(24:26):
Guardian, thank you so much forthe time and continued success. Hey,
Tim, great talking to you andkeep in touch. Great job.
Well there he goes Guardio Flynn sevenyears and professional baseball now twenty four years
as a teacher, educator and coachand nationally recognized throwing specialists with Tom House
Sports and National Pitching East. Wethank him for his time again. He's

(24:48):
now two masters degrees in at ConcordiUniversity, Irvine. It all started by
graduating in twenty fifteen with his Mastersin Coaching and Athletics Administration degree. So
you can do it. He didit and we lived forward to hearing more
from him in the future. Ifyou want to find out more about the
Masters and Coaching Athletics Administration program andthe different start times, you can go
to CUI dot EEDU, slash CoachingCui dot eed U slash coaching, find

(25:12):
out about the start times, findout about the one thousand dollars scholarship for
new students, and see if it'sthe right fit for your schedule. Thanks
to GUARDI, thanks to you forlistening and watching. There it is.
Episode sixty five is in the books. Until next time, Tip Kate saying
so long, every funny