May 14, 2025 • 25 mins
What does it take to build a high school baseball powerhouse ranked #1 in Arkansas and among the top 25 programs nationally? Coach Leighton Hardin of Conway High School pulls back the curtain on his championship formula.
The secret to Conway's "Wampus Cats" success starts with three non-negotiable values: team, toughness, and competitiveness. Coach Hardin demonstrates how following legendary coaches throughout his career prepared him to establish his own winning culture while respecting program traditions.
You'll discover Conway's innovative practice approach, including their game-changing pregame throwing routine that ensures players are mentally and physically ready from the first pitch. Hardin explains why practicing above game speed prepares his team for any situation they'll face in competition.
Perhaps most fascinating is how Conway adapted when faced with physical limitations. Without power hitters throughout the lineup, Harden implemented a specialized pitching strategy and small-ball approach that led to a state championship with an undersized team. His emphasis on two-strike hitting and situational baseball provides a masterclass in maximizing team strengths.
The mental side of baseball receives special attention as Coach Hardin shares his refreshing perspective on failure: "There was one perfect human that lived. It was about 2,000 years ago and that's none of us." This honest approach creates an environment where players develop resilience rather than fear of mistakes.
Beyond the diamond, Harden reveals his ultimate goal of developing "productive members of society, great husbands, great fathers" – demonstrating why Conway's success transcends wins and losses. Whether you coach baseball or simply appreciate leadership excellence, this conversation delivers practical wisdom you can apply immediately.
Ready to transform your coaching approach? Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a coach, player or parent who needs this perspective on building championship culture.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to Baseball Coaches Unplugged, the
show that takes you inside theminds of elite coaches and
athletes to help you sharpenyour game both on and off the
field.
I'm your host, coach KenCarpenter, and today's guest is
someone whose program continuesto raise the bar in high school
baseball.
We're heading down to Arkansasto talk to Coach Leighton Harden
(00:25):
, the head coach at Conway HighSchool, a program known not just
for its win, but for itsculture, consistency and player
development.
Coach Harden has builtsomething special, and today
we're pulling back the curtainon what makes his approach so
effective.
We're diving into leadership,building a program that lasts
(00:45):
and how to develop mentallytough athletes in today's game.
So grab a pen, because there'sgoing to be some gold in this
one.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken
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Baseball Coaches Unplugged is apodcast for baseball coaches,
with 27 years of high schoolbaseball coaching under his belt
, here to bring you the insidescoop on all things baseball,
from game-winning strategies andpitching secrets to hitting
drills and defensive drills.
We're covering it all.
(01:15):
Whether you're a high schoolcoach, college coach or just a
baseball enthusiast, we'll diveinto the tactics and techniques
that make the difference on andoff the field.
Discover how to build a winningmentality, inspire your players
and get them truly bought intoyour game philosophy Plus, get
the latest insights onrecruiting, coaching, leadership
and crafting a team culturethat champions productivity and
(01:36):
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Join Coach every week as hebreaks down the game and shares
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Your competitive edge startshere, so check out the show
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I'm your host, butch caddencarpenter, and joining me today
is layton harden, head baseballcoach at conway high school in
(02:57):
arkansas and currently rankednumber one in the state and top
25 in the nation Coach, thanksfor taking time to be on
Baseball.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Coaches Unplugged.
We appreciate it, glad to behere and glad to share whatever
we can to help out the coachesaround the nation.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, I always got to start off the podcast with a
question.
It just drives me crazy and Iwas trying to figure it out.
I've never heard of your mascotbefore.
What?
What is a wampus cat?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
so there are only four wampus cats in the nation.
Uh, we're one of them.
A wampus cat has six legs.
Uh, the story is for running asfast as light.
Two are for fighting with allits might.
So it's a six-legged cat thatuh runs fast and fights with its
other two legs oh, okay, wow,that's, that's the first.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That's the first on the show very very unique.
Well, you followed a legend andyou you had.
You got started off and had areally good career going, and
you followed a legend to come toConway and pretty much you've
had no problem continuing thewinning ways.
Every great coach has afoundation.
(04:16):
What are the core values youbuild your team around there at
Conway?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
So for us as a program, we build it around team
toughness and competitiveness.
So everything we do, whetherit's workouts in the weight room
, practice, those are the threevalues we're going to instill in
kids.
Every lesson we go to goes backto those three values.
You know you talk aboutfollowing a legend.
Coach Boucher did a fantasticjob of setting things up here at
(04:42):
Conway for me to be successfulafter I followed him, but also
for his success while he washere.
You know, before I came here Ifollowed another legend at
Lakeside and coach Tommy White,and then before that I was at
Malvern, followed a legend whowas there that started the
program, darrell Baker.
So it wasn't something that waskind of new to me.
You know it's the third time.
Being able to do that andhaving that experience, kind of
(05:04):
you know, really helped cominginto this situation where you
know the people here are reallygood too.
They didn't expect me to becoach voucher.
They knew I was going to bemyself, whatever that brought.
So there was no expectation of,hey, we're following this guy,
you got to do the same things itwas.
You know, this is your program.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Now Bring in whatever it is you do and we've done
that and you know it's beensuccessful so far.
Well, I, you know I got it.
I followed a legend when I wasa coach at Buckeye Valley and
you know as great as thecommunity was about letting me
step in and do my thing.
(05:41):
There still is that little bitof added pressure there, knowing
what the guy ahead of you haddone.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
There is, but you've got to control it.
I mean, you can only controlwhat you control and that's the
program the way you know how torun it.
Obviously, coach Boucher had alot of success here, won a lot
of conference championships, twostate championships.
But at the end of the day, youhave to be true to yourself, be
who you are and run the programthe way you know how, and that's
what we had to do when we gothere.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Well, take me inside your practices here.
What is one thing thatseparates your practices from
the average high school baseballprogram out there?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You know, I don't know that I would say anything
really separates it, but we'regoing to do everything full bore
.
You know one of the things thatwe kind of have a unique
warm-up when we go to games thatwe've got a throwing
progression we go through whichis really you know it's a timed
catch play through that.
You know, once they get donewith a round they're going to
have to get tires and throw itto the fence and run back and
(06:47):
then they go back through thecatch play and they've got it
timed and you know everything'sgoing to be timed and we got to
play at game speed or higher.
That way when we get into thegame you know there's nothing
that's going to surprise us.
Same thing with hitting.
We'll go off machine work andwe'll see better than whatever
pitcher we're going to face,whatever we think that is, or
whatever scouting or we have onthat pitcher.
So if he's a guy that's 85, 88with you know a little sink,
we'll 85-88 with you know alittle sink, we'll set the
machine to 90-92 with a littlesink, with whatever off-speed
goes with that.
So you know, just practicingabove game speed I think is a
(07:09):
big thing for our guys.
The other part of that.
Just going back to our valueswith team, you know our guys get
along really well and they workreally well together and they
know their job at the end of theday is to find a way to win.
You know your job may be topinch run today, it may be just
to come in and go in a reliefroll fifth or sixth inning.
Whatever it is, we're going towork together and find a way to
(07:29):
win and our guys buy into thatand do a really good job of
working together.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
If I could.
I'm really intrigued by whatyou said about your pregame
throwing.
Could you kind of?
Is it something?
You can explain the steps?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
to it.
We can try.
So we'll start.
We get three mans in a line, sowe'll have six guys throwing
together.
First thing they have to do ismake 20 rundown throws.
After they do that, theytransition into what we call 20
running throws, which is justkind of a momentum throw.
So they'll switch lines asthey're doing the rundowns and
the running throws.
From there we'll just go quick,catch 20 throws and after you
(08:08):
make a throw you go to the endof your line.
Then we'll go what we call softtoss throws.
Where I catch and it's reallyjust a double play feed We'll
double play feed to a guy we'retrying to catch with the top of
our hands.
Stay on top of the ball, smallcircles, get the ball out quick
to a partner down there.
He catches it, soft toss throwto the other guy and then they
have to make 20 throws with that.
Then we'll flip it where theygo Soft toss throws the other
(08:31):
direction, and so that's 80total throws in your group.
Get on the tire, throw it downback.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You've got eight minutes to go through that three
times.
Wow, I love that.
That's.
If you're not ready by thattime, then you're never going to
be ready.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
We had the throwing program that we always did.
This year.
We started a little slow in thefirst inning.
We would give teams somethingsilly walk a guy, pass ball, and
then it's ground ball, groundball.
We're down 1-0 all of a sudden.
So it was just a way to hey, wegot to get ready to start the
game, and that's kind of what wecame up with to get there ready
to start the game.
And that's kind of what we cameup with to get there.
Well, since your arrival thereat Conway, can you share a
(09:14):
moment that defines what yourprogram's all about.
So that second year we won astate championship and it was
with.
You know, really talent-wise wewere just mid-level in the
state here, but we had some guysthat were really tough and
really resilient.
The first conference game wehad that year we lost 2-1 to
North Little Rock and it was oneof those we realized.
You know, this isn't going tobe a high-level offensive team.
(09:36):
You know we had 150, 160-poundkids throughout the lineup.
So we're going to have to finda different way to win With that
.
We knew pitching-wise weprobably weren't just going to
give the ball to a guy and he'sgoing to be able to go the whole
game.
We came up with a scenariowhere we would go 2-2-1-2 or
2-2-2-1 with our pitchersbecause we have some depth on
the mound.
Then it was with our pitchersgo get your three outs, go get
(10:00):
your six outs, let's hand it offto the next guy.
That way our guys kind of havea defined role and they know
this.
All right, this is my job.
I'm going to go do this for theteam and for some of those guys
, especially now the youngerguys that journey is to go
through six innings and a gamegets really long for them.
And you know, one thing goeswrong.
Hey, man, it's the secondinning.
(10:22):
Know, all I've got to do is getout of this inning.
The next guy's coming in.
You know, I think that helpedwith our mentality and built
some resilience.
And then by the end of the yearthose guys are like, hey, why
are you not letting me go more?
I really want to go the wholegame.
Okay, at that point, there yougo, there's the ball, go get it.
And, you know, completelychanged the mindset of.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So saying that you have 150, 160-pound guys
throughout the lineupoffensively?
Were you a small ball kind ofteam or how did you handle that?
Speaker 3 (10:53):
We had to go into some small ball that year for
sure, we definitely ran thebases.
We had to be a high-leveldefensive team and that's one of
the things I feel like.
That year we had three shortstops on the infield at each
spot.
Outfield was really good.
If you hit the ball in the air,it really didn't drop, so it
was really keep teams fromscoring, grind it out, find a
way to score two or three runsto win a game, and yeah, that's
(11:14):
what they found a way to do.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well, what's one thing that you strongly believe
in that most coaches mightnecessarily not agree with?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Gosh, you know I think there's still the old
school approach of building thetoughness with the kids there's.
You know there's a lot ofdifferent ways and with travel
ball, you know it's a little bitlooser game now.
But you know we're still goingto be tight with the group.
We're going to build a team.
It's not going to be a bunch ofindividuals.
You know, with that offensively, two-strike hitting is huge, I
(11:49):
think, at our level, especiallyif you don't have guys hitting
the ball out of the yard.
If you want to see a goodhitter, see what he does with
two strikes, if he can handlethe ball, manipulate the barrel
there to where we're fouling,pitches off and staying at the
plate, work the pitcher, get himout of the game.
That's invaluable to a highschool program right now, unless
you've got eight, nine guys inthe lineup that can hit the ball
out of the yard.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
When talking small ball, how much time do you put
into the bunt game?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
We do so.
We'll practice in the morningsat six o'clock.
We'll go for an hour practicethere.
30 minutes of that is offensivesmall game.
From there, the other 30minutes is usually defensive
short game.
Then the afternoons we go tothe field and we put it together
as a team on the field.
You've got about an hour ofoffensive work every day, or,
(12:39):
excuse me, an hour of offensiveand defensive work every day
with it.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I saw this the other day, the Tennessee
versusanderbilt game, and theguy hits the home run and, uh,
you know yelling at theinfielders and then you know
kind of it's all about meapproach.
I guess what is your take on?
Uh, on that, as far as guyschirping after they hit a home
(13:08):
run at the opposing team and thewhole all about me attitude, it
sounds like you're more of ateam guy and not really into
that side of it.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, you know, when I came here, that was one of the
questions I was asked in theinterview, I guess is how do you
handle that?
And really the whole focusneeds to be on us.
This game it's.
You know there's another teamthat shows up to play you, but
you're playing against yourself.
So why would we even focus onthe other team?
And I'm not saying there'snever been a moment where our
team hasn't done that, butyou've got to pull them back in.
You know, this is what we'reabout.
(13:39):
We're about us.
Who cares who the other?
I mean that's Play the gameagainst, but you're playing
against yourself.
At the end of the day, are youdoing what we think is important
?
Are you able to execute thethings that we're supposed to
execute?
And if you do more times thannot, we're going to be on the
right side of the scoreboard atthe end of the game.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So keep it with us.
Have you had a time where youfailed as a coach, where it's
like you know I didn't do what Ineeded to do there, and how did
you respond and correct it andturn it into a?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
positive.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean.
You fail every day and I thinkyour kids need to know that you
failed, because they're afraidof failure and they need to know
it's okay to fail.
There was one perfect humanthat lived.
It was about 2,000 years agoand that's none of us.
So it's okay to make mistakeshere, you know, and that's none
of us.
So it's okay to make mistakeshere, you know, and that's one
of the things.
Sometimes we'll go throughmachine scrimmage and if they
make an error, we'll send themto the fence and back.
(14:31):
They got to be back to theirposition in 25 seconds and we'll
meet as a group.
Hey, anybody mad at Johnny formaking the error?
Nope, we're okay.
We're going to make the nextplay.
Okay, go let the guys down.
Maybe you may feel that way andmaybe we had to run the fence
for you, but it's okay, we'regoing to make the next play.
Let's get over it.
Go to the next one.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Makes sense.
I like that attitude becausethe mental side of the game is
clearly the toughest part ofplaying baseball and you know
how do you get through to theplayer that's struggling and you
know this guy's a really goodplayer for me and he's having a
(15:13):
tough time.
Is there anything you do to tryto get through to those guys?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
That's a real individual situation and it's
just knowing your kids and beingable to connect with them and
see what's going on.
And there could be a multitudeof things and what you need to
do with them, and it may just bespending time with them.
You know.
If it's something going onhitting wise, just spend a
little bit of extra time withthem in the cage, one-on-one,
because you're a good player atthe end of the day.
So if you're a good player,you're going to play good and
this may just not be your time.
(15:39):
That's okay.
Things we do, you know, we wekind of try to get them to where
they're going to be out oftheir heads.
With all the work we do,whether it's weight room, the
warmup hey, this is what we doand this is the attitude we take
to it.
So staying that same mentalfocus throughout, whether things
are going well or not.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
When your team is good, which it sounds like you
guys have been pretty good forfor a while how do you keep them
humbled and focused on justthat next game or the next pitch
?
Speaker 3 (16:09):
actually, yeah, gosh, that's hard.
You know, we went through a winstreak this year, lasted for a
while, got here towards the endof the year where we really
weren't playing very well.
We lost a game we played well,came back and we were down 5-2,
came back, tied it up 5-5 in theseventh, ended up losing 6-5,
which you know, I told the kids.
Proud of you, you wereresilient, you found a way to
(16:31):
come back.
We just didn't respond well.
The game after that we won 16-6, but just didn't play well,
real sloppy, not who we were.
So at that point we had to goget their focus back
(17:11):
no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
we end up losing like three to one, and all of our
mistakes were made defending thebutton, and so when the game
was over, I mean the gameliterally ended in like an hour
20.
You know, and I was like wetalked about it and then I said
(17:45):
let's go back out on the fieldand let's work through a couple
things.
And I took a ton of heat fromparents saying you know, what
are you?
What are you doing?
You're embarrassing the playersbecause the other team was
still, you know, packing up.
And how do you?
How do you treat a game whenthe game's over?
Do you talk to them afterwardsor do you like give it 24 hours
and then address it that way?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
We'll meet and talk a little bit and there's usually
not a lot that says, you know,hitting on a couple of points
and we get out of there in fiveminutes.
And if it's not a well-playedgame, you want to let it set in
and just say am I overreactingright here, emotionally or not?
In that instance, when we tookthem over the weight room, no,
it was sloppy play and we'regoing to take care of that right
then.
And you know, to go to yourpoint on parents, that's a tough
(18:34):
one nowadays.
I'm lucky I'm in a spot wherewe have a lot of parental
support.
They approve of everything wedo.
They know what we're trying toaccomplish with the kids and
they see it with all the thingswe do outside of baseball, with
our program to try to build thekid and make him to where he's
going to be a productive memberof society, a great husband,
great father.
So at the end of the day,that's the end goal and if it
takes us, we got to go do thisafter the game and that's just
(18:57):
what we've got to do Hate losingor love winning, hate losing.
You know, I don't know exactlywhy, it's just there's something
you didn't do well, the feelingit leaves you now again.
We talked about we lost thatgame 6-5.
I didn't have any issue withthat.
(19:18):
Our guys played well.
The other team just had to playa perfect game.
They robbed two home runs.
I mean, it was just some crazythings happened, wins blowing in
with another home run thatwould have been out.
It was one of those games where, hey, it just wasn't our day.
But I'm not a big fan of losing.
I think there's always a wayyou can find a way to win.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Well, I'll put you in a scenario here You're managing
an MLB team and I don't knowwho's your favorite team.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Gosh, I don't watch a whole lot of MLB anymore,
mainly college now.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Well, hopefully you'll know these guys.
Then you get to have these guyson your team and group A or
group B.
The first group is Ronald AcunaJr, freddie Freeman, hank Aaron
and Ted Williams.
The group B would be Juan Soto,bryce Harper, babe Ruth and
(20:17):
Barry Bonds.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I'll go with group B because I love the lefties in
the lineup.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
And you got some guys that can swing it pretty good.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, the power lefty is hard to find, so I'll take
that guy any day.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
If you could be hired to coach another sport, what
would it be and why?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Oh gosh, I don't know .
I guess football just becauseof the competitiveness of it.
You know it's every Fridaynight, You've got the lights
there, it's really your roundnow with football too.
I think football and baseballare similar mentalities that go
with them, so I think that wouldtransfer over well to football.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Well, Arkansas has a great SEC baseball program and
their coaches do a great job.
Do you think that it helps inyour state to have a, a
powerhouse program like that,that the kids can?
You know, they, they know.
Hey, it's right, it's righthere in town.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean we've got.
You know it's the only show intown really in Arkansas.
Now we've got the university ofcentral Arkansas.
It's a mile down the road righthere too, so that helps a lot
also having those guys around.
But the state of Arkansasreally rallies around the
Razorbacks and everybody reallygrows up being a Razorback fan
in Arkansas, so it helps.
(21:38):
We've had a couple go up there.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
We've got one on the team right now committed, so it
helps and it creates a littlebit of excitement throughout the
state really and it makes thestate better high school wise
yeah, well, actually I want tothrow one more question at you,
with, you know, winning statetitles and and uh, being
nationally ranked the way I,that's how I came about finding
(22:01):
you.
How does that, uh, how do theplayers handle that type of
attention?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I'm going to be honest.
You know, coming here I feltlike that was kind of an
expectation in my mind of whereI thought this place could get
to.
I left a school that wouldgraduate, you know, 250 kids in
a year.
And so what I did there, youknow we graduate 750 a year here
.
So that's three times theamount of kids.
So my last year there atLakeside I just wrote down our
(22:29):
lineup, wrote it down a secondtime, wrote it down a third time
.
I was like there's your varsityteam and I look at them like
holy cow.
You know we had eight guys whowere going to college that year
to play college baseball fromthat team at Lakeside.
I was like you got 24 kids onthis roster that are about to be
able to go play somewhere.
It's like it won't ever get tothat point.
Well, I think we finally gotinto that point.
(22:51):
So you know, in my mind cominghere, that was kind of a okay,
that's a goal I have.
Can we get on the nationalstage and possibly get ranked
nationally throughout this year?
We're going through.
We haven't lost a game for awhile.
I could feel kind of that cloudof pressure on the kids.
It was a lot to go throughbecause we're really still
pretty young.
We only start two seniors, mostof the time heavy with our
(23:11):
junior class.
So we're going through andwe're perfect.
You just kind of feel thatcloud of being perfect way on
them and once we lost that oneit kind of felt like it went
away.
But you know it's just tough tomanage.
You want to get to that pointwhere you can be perfect, but
that's hard to do.
It's really hard to do in thisgame.
There's so many good coaches,so many good teams that being
(23:32):
able to go through a seasonwithout a blemish is really
tough.
But I told the kids after thatgame I'm so proud of you.
Where you came from, I don'tcare.
We lost this game.
I'm so proud of where we're atright now and there's still a
lot to be accomplished.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So Well, it's Leighton Harden, head coach at
Conway High School in Arkansas.
Coach, thank you for taking thetime during your school day to
jump on the podcast here with meon Baseball Coaches.
Unplugged and hey, best of luckthe rest of the way.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, thank you.
We got a lot left to go.
I appreciate you having us on.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
That's a wrap on this episode of Baseball Coaches
Unplugged.
Big thanks to Coach LeightonHarden for joining us and
sharing such valuable insightinto mindset, methods and the
mission behind Conway Baseball.
If you're a coach looking totake your program to the next
level, I hope this episode gaveyou some actionable ideas that
(24:28):
you can apply right away.
And if you're a parent or anathlete tuning in, you now have
a better look at what coachinggreat coaching looks like behind
the scenes.
Don't forget to subscribe,leave a review and share the
episode with a friend.
It helps us to grow.
Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
You can follow Baseball CoachesUnplugged on X in Instagram at
(24:51):
athlete1podcast.
Today's episode of BaseballCoaches Unplugged is powered by
the netting professionals,improving programs one facility
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Until next time, I'm Coach KenCarpenter and please be sure to
(25:16):
check us out every Wednesdaywhere we sit down with elite
baseball coaches from around thecountry.
As always.
Thanks for listening toBaseball Coaches Unplugged.
Welcome back to Baseball Coaches Unplugged, the
show that takes you inside theminds of elite coaches and
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field.
I'm your host, coach KenCarpenter, and today's guest is
someone whose program continuesto raise the bar in high school
baseball.
We're heading down to Arkansasto talk to Coach Leighton Harden
(00:25):
, the head coach at Conway HighSchool, a program known not just
for its win, but for itsculture, consistency and player
development.
Coach Harden has builtsomething special, and today
we're pulling back the curtainon what makes his approach so
effective.
We're diving into leadership,building a program that lasts
(00:45):
and how to develop mentallytough athletes in today's game.
So grab a pen, because there'sgoing to be some gold in this
one.
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Welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken
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We're covering it all.
(01:15):
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Discover how to build a winningmentality, inspire your players
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(01:36):
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I'm your host, butch caddencarpenter, and joining me today
is layton harden, head baseballcoach at conway high school in
(02:57):
arkansas and currently rankednumber one in the state and top
25 in the nation Coach, thanksfor taking time to be on
Baseball.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Coaches Unplugged.
We appreciate it, glad to behere and glad to share whatever
we can to help out the coachesaround the nation.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, I always got to start off the podcast with a
question.
It just drives me crazy and Iwas trying to figure it out.
I've never heard of your mascotbefore.
What?
What is a wampus cat?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
so there are only four wampus cats in the nation.
Uh, we're one of them.
A wampus cat has six legs.
Uh, the story is for running asfast as light.
Two are for fighting with allits might.
So it's a six-legged cat thatuh runs fast and fights with its
other two legs oh, okay, wow,that's, that's the first.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That's the first on the show very very unique.
Well, you followed a legend andyou you had.
You got started off and had areally good career going, and
you followed a legend to come toConway and pretty much you've
had no problem continuing thewinning ways.
Every great coach has afoundation.
(04:16):
What are the core values youbuild your team around there at
Conway?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
So for us as a program, we build it around team
toughness and competitiveness.
So everything we do, whetherit's workouts in the weight room
, practice, those are the threevalues we're going to instill in
kids.
Every lesson we go to goes backto those three values.
You know you talk aboutfollowing a legend.
Coach Boucher did a fantasticjob of setting things up here at
(04:42):
Conway for me to be successfulafter I followed him, but also
for his success while he washere.
You know, before I came here Ifollowed another legend at
Lakeside and coach Tommy White,and then before that I was at
Malvern, followed a legend whowas there that started the
program, darrell Baker.
So it wasn't something that waskind of new to me.
You know it's the third time.
Being able to do that andhaving that experience, kind of
(05:04):
you know, really helped cominginto this situation where you
know the people here are reallygood too.
They didn't expect me to becoach voucher.
They knew I was going to bemyself, whatever that brought.
So there was no expectation of,hey, we're following this guy,
you got to do the same things itwas.
You know, this is your program.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Now Bring in whatever it is you do and we've done
that and you know it's beensuccessful so far.
Well, I, you know I got it.
I followed a legend when I wasa coach at Buckeye Valley and
you know as great as thecommunity was about letting me
step in and do my thing.
(05:41):
There still is that little bitof added pressure there, knowing
what the guy ahead of you haddone.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
There is, but you've got to control it.
I mean, you can only controlwhat you control and that's the
program the way you know how torun it.
Obviously, coach Boucher had alot of success here, won a lot
of conference championships, twostate championships.
But at the end of the day, youhave to be true to yourself, be
who you are and run the programthe way you know how, and that's
what we had to do when we gothere.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Well, take me inside your practices here.
What is one thing thatseparates your practices from
the average high school baseballprogram out there?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You know, I don't know that I would say anything
really separates it, but we'regoing to do everything full bore
.
You know one of the things thatwe kind of have a unique
warm-up when we go to games thatwe've got a throwing
progression we go through whichis really you know it's a timed
catch play through that.
You know, once they get donewith a round they're going to
have to get tires and throw itto the fence and run back and
(06:47):
then they go back through thecatch play and they've got it
timed and you know everything'sgoing to be timed and we got to
play at game speed or higher.
That way when we get into thegame you know there's nothing
that's going to surprise us.
Same thing with hitting.
We'll go off machine work andwe'll see better than whatever
pitcher we're going to face,whatever we think that is, or
whatever scouting or we have onthat pitcher.
So if he's a guy that's 85, 88with you know a little sink,
we'll 85-88 with you know alittle sink, we'll set the
machine to 90-92 with a littlesink, with whatever off-speed
goes with that.
So you know, just practicingabove game speed I think is a
(07:09):
big thing for our guys.
The other part of that.
Just going back to our valueswith team, you know our guys get
along really well and they workreally well together and they
know their job at the end of theday is to find a way to win.
You know your job may be topinch run today, it may be just
to come in and go in a reliefroll fifth or sixth inning.
Whatever it is, we're going towork together and find a way to
(07:29):
win and our guys buy into thatand do a really good job of
working together.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
If I could.
I'm really intrigued by whatyou said about your pregame
throwing.
Could you kind of?
Is it something?
You can explain the steps?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
to it.
We can try.
So we'll start.
We get three mans in a line, sowe'll have six guys throwing
together.
First thing they have to do ismake 20 rundown throws.
After they do that, theytransition into what we call 20
running throws, which is justkind of a momentum throw.
So they'll switch lines asthey're doing the rundowns and
the running throws.
From there we'll just go quick,catch 20 throws and after you
(08:08):
make a throw you go to the endof your line.
Then we'll go what we call softtoss throws.
Where I catch and it's reallyjust a double play feed We'll
double play feed to a guy we'retrying to catch with the top of
our hands.
Stay on top of the ball, smallcircles, get the ball out quick
to a partner down there.
He catches it, soft toss throwto the other guy and then they
have to make 20 throws with that.
Then we'll flip it where theygo Soft toss throws the other
(08:31):
direction, and so that's 80total throws in your group.
Get on the tire, throw it downback.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You've got eight minutes to go through that three
times.
Wow, I love that.
That's.
If you're not ready by thattime, then you're never going to
be ready.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
We had the throwing program that we always did.
This year.
We started a little slow in thefirst inning.
We would give teams somethingsilly walk a guy, pass ball, and
then it's ground ball, groundball.
We're down 1-0 all of a sudden.
So it was just a way to hey, wegot to get ready to start the
game, and that's kind of what wecame up with to get there ready
to start the game.
And that's kind of what we cameup with to get there.
Well, since your arrival thereat Conway, can you share a
(09:14):
moment that defines what yourprogram's all about.
So that second year we won astate championship and it was
with.
You know, really talent-wise wewere just mid-level in the
state here, but we had some guysthat were really tough and
really resilient.
The first conference game wehad that year we lost 2-1 to
North Little Rock and it was oneof those we realized.
You know, this isn't going tobe a high-level offensive team.
(09:36):
You know we had 150, 160-poundkids throughout the lineup.
So we're going to have to finda different way to win With that
.
We knew pitching-wise weprobably weren't just going to
give the ball to a guy and he'sgoing to be able to go the whole
game.
We came up with a scenariowhere we would go 2-2-1-2 or
2-2-2-1 with our pitchersbecause we have some depth on
the mound.
Then it was with our pitchersgo get your three outs, go get
(10:00):
your six outs, let's hand it offto the next guy.
That way our guys kind of havea defined role and they know
this.
All right, this is my job.
I'm going to go do this for theteam and for some of those guys
, especially now the youngerguys that journey is to go
through six innings and a gamegets really long for them.
And you know, one thing goeswrong.
Hey, man, it's the secondinning.
(10:22):
Know, all I've got to do is getout of this inning.
The next guy's coming in.
You know, I think that helpedwith our mentality and built
some resilience.
And then by the end of the yearthose guys are like, hey, why
are you not letting me go more?
I really want to go the wholegame.
Okay, at that point, there yougo, there's the ball, go get it.
And, you know, completelychanged the mindset of.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
So saying that you have 150, 160-pound guys
throughout the lineupoffensively?
Were you a small ball kind ofteam or how did you handle that?
Speaker 3 (10:53):
We had to go into some small ball that year for
sure, we definitely ran thebases.
We had to be a high-leveldefensive team and that's one of
the things I feel like.
That year we had three shortstops on the infield at each
spot.
Outfield was really good.
If you hit the ball in the air,it really didn't drop, so it
was really keep teams fromscoring, grind it out, find a
way to score two or three runsto win a game, and yeah, that's
(11:14):
what they found a way to do.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well, what's one thing that you strongly believe
in that most coaches mightnecessarily not agree with?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Gosh, you know I think there's still the old
school approach of building thetoughness with the kids there's.
You know there's a lot ofdifferent ways and with travel
ball, you know it's a little bitlooser game now.
But you know we're still goingto be tight with the group.
We're going to build a team.
It's not going to be a bunch ofindividuals.
You know, with that offensively, two-strike hitting is huge, I
(11:49):
think, at our level, especiallyif you don't have guys hitting
the ball out of the yard.
If you want to see a goodhitter, see what he does with
two strikes, if he can handlethe ball, manipulate the barrel
there to where we're fouling,pitches off and staying at the
plate, work the pitcher, get himout of the game.
That's invaluable to a highschool program right now, unless
you've got eight, nine guys inthe lineup that can hit the ball
out of the yard.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
When talking small ball, how much time do you put
into the bunt game?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
We do so.
We'll practice in the morningsat six o'clock.
We'll go for an hour practicethere.
30 minutes of that is offensivesmall game.
From there, the other 30minutes is usually defensive
short game.
Then the afternoons we go tothe field and we put it together
as a team on the field.
You've got about an hour ofoffensive work every day, or,
(12:39):
excuse me, an hour of offensiveand defensive work every day
with it.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I saw this the other day, the Tennessee
versusanderbilt game, and theguy hits the home run and, uh,
you know yelling at theinfielders and then you know
kind of it's all about meapproach.
I guess what is your take on?
Uh, on that, as far as guyschirping after they hit a home
(13:08):
run at the opposing team and thewhole all about me attitude, it
sounds like you're more of ateam guy and not really into
that side of it.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Yeah, you know, when I came here, that was one of the
questions I was asked in theinterview, I guess is how do you
handle that?
And really the whole focusneeds to be on us.
This game it's.
You know there's another teamthat shows up to play you, but
you're playing against yourself.
So why would we even focus onthe other team?
And I'm not saying there'snever been a moment where our
team hasn't done that, butyou've got to pull them back in.
You know, this is what we'reabout.
(13:39):
We're about us.
Who cares who the other?
I mean that's Play the gameagainst, but you're playing
against yourself.
At the end of the day, are youdoing what we think is important
?
Are you able to execute thethings that we're supposed to
execute?
And if you do more times thannot, we're going to be on the
right side of the scoreboard atthe end of the game.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So keep it with us.
Have you had a time where youfailed as a coach, where it's
like you know I didn't do what Ineeded to do there, and how did
you respond and correct it andturn it into a?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
positive.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean.
You fail every day and I thinkyour kids need to know that you
failed, because they're afraidof failure and they need to know
it's okay to fail.
There was one perfect humanthat lived.
It was about 2,000 years agoand that's none of us.
So it's okay to make mistakeshere, you know, and that's none
of us.
So it's okay to make mistakeshere, you know, and that's one
of the things.
Sometimes we'll go throughmachine scrimmage and if they
make an error, we'll send themto the fence and back.
(14:31):
They got to be back to theirposition in 25 seconds and we'll
meet as a group.
Hey, anybody mad at Johnny formaking the error?
Nope, we're okay.
We're going to make the nextplay.
Okay, go let the guys down.
Maybe you may feel that way andmaybe we had to run the fence
for you, but it's okay, we'regoing to make the next play.
Let's get over it.
Go to the next one.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Makes sense.
I like that attitude becausethe mental side of the game is
clearly the toughest part ofplaying baseball and you know
how do you get through to theplayer that's struggling and you
know this guy's a really goodplayer for me and he's having a
(15:13):
tough time.
Is there anything you do to tryto get through to those guys?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
That's a real individual situation and it's
just knowing your kids and beingable to connect with them and
see what's going on.
And there could be a multitudeof things and what you need to
do with them, and it may just bespending time with them.
You know.
If it's something going onhitting wise, just spend a
little bit of extra time withthem in the cage, one-on-one,
because you're a good player atthe end of the day.
So if you're a good player,you're going to play good and
this may just not be your time.
(15:39):
That's okay.
Things we do, you know, we wekind of try to get them to where
they're going to be out oftheir heads.
With all the work we do,whether it's weight room, the
warmup hey, this is what we doand this is the attitude we take
to it.
So staying that same mentalfocus throughout, whether things
are going well or not.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
When your team is good, which it sounds like you
guys have been pretty good forfor a while how do you keep them
humbled and focused on justthat next game or the next pitch
?
Speaker 3 (16:09):
actually, yeah, gosh, that's hard.
You know, we went through a winstreak this year, lasted for a
while, got here towards the endof the year where we really
weren't playing very well.
We lost a game we played well,came back and we were down 5-2,
came back, tied it up 5-5 in theseventh, ended up losing 6-5,
which you know, I told the kids.
Proud of you, you wereresilient, you found a way to
(16:31):
come back.
We just didn't respond well.
The game after that we won 16-6, but just didn't play well,
real sloppy, not who we were.
So at that point we had to goget their focus back
(17:11):
no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
we end up losing like three to one, and all of our
mistakes were made defending thebutton, and so when the game
was over, I mean the gameliterally ended in like an hour
20.
You know, and I was like wetalked about it and then I said
(17:45):
let's go back out on the fieldand let's work through a couple
things.
And I took a ton of heat fromparents saying you know, what
are you?
What are you doing?
You're embarrassing the playersbecause the other team was
still, you know, packing up.
And how do you?
How do you treat a game whenthe game's over?
Do you talk to them afterwardsor do you like give it 24 hours
and then address it that way?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
We'll meet and talk a little bit and there's usually
not a lot that says, you know,hitting on a couple of points
and we get out of there in fiveminutes.
And if it's not a well-playedgame, you want to let it set in
and just say am I overreactingright here, emotionally or not?
In that instance, when we tookthem over the weight room, no,
it was sloppy play and we'regoing to take care of that right
then.
And you know, to go to yourpoint on parents, that's a tough
(18:34):
one nowadays.
I'm lucky I'm in a spot wherewe have a lot of parental
support.
They approve of everything wedo.
They know what we're trying toaccomplish with the kids and
they see it with all the thingswe do outside of baseball, with
our program to try to build thekid and make him to where he's
going to be a productive memberof society, a great husband,
great father.
So at the end of the day,that's the end goal and if it
takes us, we got to go do thisafter the game and that's just
(18:57):
what we've got to do Hate losingor love winning, hate losing.
You know, I don't know exactlywhy, it's just there's something
you didn't do well, the feelingit leaves you now again.
We talked about we lost thatgame 6-5.
I didn't have any issue withthat.
(19:18):
Our guys played well.
The other team just had to playa perfect game.
They robbed two home runs.
I mean, it was just some crazythings happened, wins blowing in
with another home run thatwould have been out.
It was one of those games where, hey, it just wasn't our day.
But I'm not a big fan of losing.
I think there's always a wayyou can find a way to win.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Well, I'll put you in a scenario here You're managing
an MLB team and I don't knowwho's your favorite team.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Gosh, I don't watch a whole lot of MLB anymore,
mainly college now.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Well, hopefully you'll know these guys.
Then you get to have these guyson your team and group A or
group B.
The first group is Ronald AcunaJr, freddie Freeman, hank Aaron
and Ted Williams.
The group B would be Juan Soto,bryce Harper, babe Ruth and
(20:17):
Barry Bonds.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I'll go with group B because I love the lefties in
the lineup.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
And you got some guys that can swing it pretty good.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, the power lefty is hard to find, so I'll take
that guy any day.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
If you could be hired to coach another sport, what
would it be and why?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Oh gosh, I don't know .
I guess football just becauseof the competitiveness of it.
You know it's every Fridaynight, You've got the lights
there, it's really your roundnow with football too.
I think football and baseballare similar mentalities that go
with them, so I think that wouldtransfer over well to football.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Well, Arkansas has a great SEC baseball program and
their coaches do a great job.
Do you think that it helps inyour state to have a, a
powerhouse program like that,that the kids can?
You know, they, they know.
Hey, it's right, it's righthere in town.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean we've got.
You know it's the only show intown really in Arkansas.
Now we've got the university ofcentral Arkansas.
It's a mile down the road righthere too, so that helps a lot
also having those guys around.
But the state of Arkansasreally rallies around the
Razorbacks and everybody reallygrows up being a Razorback fan
in Arkansas, so it helps.
(21:38):
We've had a couple go up there.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
We've got one on the team right now committed, so it
helps and it creates a littlebit of excitement throughout the
state really and it makes thestate better high school wise
yeah, well, actually I want tothrow one more question at you,
with, you know, winning statetitles and and uh, being
nationally ranked the way I,that's how I came about finding
(22:01):
you.
How does that, uh, how do theplayers handle that type of
attention?
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I'm going to be honest.
You know, coming here I feltlike that was kind of an
expectation in my mind of whereI thought this place could get
to.
I left a school that wouldgraduate, you know, 250 kids in
a year.
And so what I did there, youknow we graduate 750 a year here
.
So that's three times theamount of kids.
So my last year there atLakeside I just wrote down our
(22:29):
lineup, wrote it down a secondtime, wrote it down a third time
.
I was like there's your varsityteam and I look at them like
holy cow.
You know we had eight guys whowere going to college that year
to play college baseball fromthat team at Lakeside.
I was like you got 24 kids onthis roster that are about to be
able to go play somewhere.
It's like it won't ever get tothat point.
Well, I think we finally gotinto that point.
(22:51):
So you know, in my mind cominghere, that was kind of a okay,
that's a goal I have.
Can we get on the nationalstage and possibly get ranked
nationally throughout this year?
We're going through.
We haven't lost a game for awhile.
I could feel kind of that cloudof pressure on the kids.
It was a lot to go throughbecause we're really still
pretty young.
We only start two seniors, mostof the time heavy with our
(23:11):
junior class.
So we're going through andwe're perfect.
You just kind of feel thatcloud of being perfect way on
them and once we lost that oneit kind of felt like it went
away.
But you know it's just tough tomanage.
You want to get to that pointwhere you can be perfect, but
that's hard to do.
It's really hard to do in thisgame.
There's so many good coaches,so many good teams that being
(23:32):
able to go through a seasonwithout a blemish is really
tough.
But I told the kids after thatgame I'm so proud of you.
Where you came from, I don'tcare.
We lost this game.
I'm so proud of where we're atright now and there's still a
lot to be accomplished.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So Well, it's Leighton Harden, head coach at
Conway High School in Arkansas.
Coach, thank you for taking thetime during your school day to
jump on the podcast here with meon Baseball Coaches.
Unplugged and hey, best of luckthe rest of the way.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, thank you.
We got a lot left to go.
I appreciate you having us on.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
That's a wrap on this episode of Baseball Coaches
Unplugged.
Big thanks to Coach LeightonHarden for joining us and
sharing such valuable insightinto mindset, methods and the
mission behind Conway Baseball.
If you're a coach looking totake your program to the next
level, I hope this episode gaveyou some actionable ideas that
(24:28):
you can apply right away.
And if you're a parent or anathlete tuning in, you now have
a better look at what coachinggreat coaching looks like behind
the scenes.
Don't forget to subscribe,leave a review and share the
episode with a friend.
It helps us to grow.
Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
You can follow Baseball CoachesUnplugged on X in Instagram at
(24:51):
athlete1podcast.
Today's episode of BaseballCoaches Unplugged is powered by
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at a time.
Contact them today at844-620-2707 or visit them
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Until next time, I'm Coach KenCarpenter and please be sure to
(25:16):
check us out every Wednesdaywhere we sit down with elite
baseball coaches from around thecountry.
As always.
Thanks for listening toBaseball Coaches Unplugged.
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