May 16, 2025 • 47 mins
"Don't Mess with Happy" — Kevin Brooks on Building a DII Powerhouse at Angelo State
In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, Matt Rogers sits down with one of the true legends of Division II baseball — Kevin Brooks, Head Baseball Coach at Angelo State University.
With over 800 career wins, seven College World Series appearances, and a 2023 national title, Coach Brooks has turned ASU into a perennial powerhouse. But beyond the trophies and records, what makes him truly special is his humility, his passion for the game, and his relentless drive to compete.
Coach Brooks reflects on the lessons learned during two decades at the helm, how he defines success, why he still sees himself as a “competitor,” and the simple but powerful advice that has shaped his coaching: “Don’t mess with happy.”
Whether you're a coach, parent, or athlete, this conversation is packed with wisdom, perspective, and leadership gold.
👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode, and check out all the free resources and tools available at CoachMattRogers.com.
Learn more and connect with Matt Rogers here: https://linktr.ee/coachmattrogers
Listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio, and all your favorite podcast platforms.
Did you like what you heard and want more?
New Podcasts every week. Remember to subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome back to the SignificantCoaching Podcast, where we dive
into the stories, the strategiesand mindsets of coaches who are
building programs and changinglives through sport.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
Today's guest is a name thatneeds no introduction in the
world of Division two baseball,but let me try.
Anyway.
Kevin Brooks is not just thehead baseball coach at Angelo
(00:29):
State.
He is the.
Head coach at a SU in theirhistory.
Since founding the program in2005, coach Brooks has built an
absolute powerhouse over 800career wins, seven trips to the
NCAA Division two College WorldSeries A 2023 National
Championship, and moreimportantly, a culture of
(00:51):
excellence, humility, and fiercecompetitiveness that defines
what makes the D two level sospecial.
I've said it before, if there'sa Mount Rushmore of Division two
Baseball, Kevin Brooks isalready on it.
He's one of the true godfathersof the game at this level, and
despite the rings, the bannersand the records, he remains
grounded.
He's generous with his time andpassionate about his players and
(01:14):
the game itself.
When I asked him how he defineshimself, he gave me one word
competitor and when asked aboutthe Secret to sustaining success
over two decades, he shared thispiece of advice he received
years ago.
Don't mess with happy, simple,wise, and true to how he leads.
All right, before we jump in.
(01:36):
If you haven't already, pleasetake a moment to follow,
subscribe, and leave a reviewwherever you listen.
It helps more coaches, parents,and athletes find this podcast.
And be sure to visit coach mattrogers.com for free resources,
weekly blog posts, recruitingstrategy sessions, and to order
your copy of my book,significant Recruiting.
(01:57):
Alright, let's get into it.
Here's my conversation withCoach Kevin Brooks.
Coach, thank you so much forbeing on.
It's a pleasure to talk to you,especially the heart of your
season.
And I know you, luckily you geta little break here going into
playoffs.
But just thanks for being a partof this.
Honored to be here and lookingforward to visiting with you.
(02:18):
I know we don't know each othervery well, but 25 years ago, I
interviewed for the headbaseball job at Milliken
University, and a week later Iinterviewed for the head
basketball job at MaryvilleUniversity.
Oh goodness.
Like a week or two.
Wow.
And I was so young.
I was 25, 26 years old and I wasrunner up for the baseball job
(02:39):
and I got the basketball job, somy course could have gone a
completely different way'causeI, baseball's been my love.
But my question for you do youstill get excited putting that
uniform on every day and walkingout to the field?
Oh, absolutely.
Real quick, you're talking aboutthe basketball, baseball thing.
Yeah.
Growing up I was lucky.
My, my dad was a professor at ajunior college at McLennan
(03:03):
Community College in Waco.
Yeah.
And so I was lucky enough to bearound some really great
coaches, players, et cetera,growing up, but.
I always thought I wanted to bebasketball coach.
My first coaching job was a fiveand 6-year-old youth basketball
and is small world.
That guy ended up being the headof our graduate school in
(03:25):
kinesiology here at AngeloState, but he was the director.
The Woodway Family Center andthey needed coaches.
He's man, I think you'd be goodat this.
And so five and six year oldswas my first job.
We went undefeated.
We did dominate.
But anyway, so I always thoughtI was gonna be basketball coach.
Unfortunately, my skills notthat they were any good at
(03:47):
baseball either, but, definitelypushed me more towards baseball,
but as a youngster, I sat on thebench in elementary school,
junior high, keeping the reboundchart, yeah.
For all that stuff.
And was lucky enough to bearound some really good deals
coaches, and then ultimatelyended up being a little better
player at baseball.
So that's the ride I went.
(04:08):
But it's interesting that youinterviewed both in college, so
that's a crazy deal.
It was, it's amazing.
I'm still close, really close tothe guy that almost hired me at
Milliken.
He's now the president of theUniversity of Ozarks.
And we still talk about it.
If I wouldn't have been so wetbehind the ears, I think he
would've hired me.
But they had a couple of guysthat had more experience than
me.
But it's just a crazy path howwe get on this journey as
(04:30):
coaches and what you've done isso impressive.
I want to talk, obviously aboutwhat you've built at Angelo
State,'cause you've built thisfrom the ground up.
When you look back, what aresome of those core values that
you instilled in day one, thatyou're still, that you're still
using today?
Are there things that you'rejust really proud of that I went
(04:51):
into it, I was gonna do it thisway and I'm still doing it a
little bit that way.
Yeah, you asked too, and Ididn't answer your question of
do I still get excited and yes,I do.
I.
Most of us that are in thisbusiness.
It's not a business.
It's a calling.
And so I really am verypassionate about that.
And anytime of my players comein and go, coach, I know it's a
(05:14):
business I get a little upsetwith'em.
'Cause I'm like the day it isI'm outta here.
Luckily have not gotten to thatpoint.
I hope I never do.
The first team, and that's onething every, we've done a lot of
good things, but all the stuffthat's still wrong, there's
nobody to blame but me.
That part we're still trying towork and improve, but I.
The first team was so key, andwe talked about that a ton.
(05:39):
That first year of thestandard's gonna be set by you
guys.
And we want it to be high and,that first group it was, I go
back and think of many of thedays,'cause you haven't ever
been to Angelo State, but ourfacilities are just unbelievable
now.
But back then they were not Iremember the very first thing I
(06:01):
did when we started the programwas we needed new cages.
So went and got new cages.
New nets turfed it and withinthe first week, somebody walked
through there and took a knifeand just cut the whole side.
And I'm just like, okay, buildfence around the cages.
That's probably the first placeit needs to go, but, anyway, but
(06:23):
yeah, we, we started everypractice, the first 10 minutes
of practice was picking up rocksand the last 10 minutes of
practice every day was pickingup rocks.
And so to see where we've come,that first group we had one
scholarship.
And that doesn't go real far.
And but that group came in andboy, we had a lot of talented
guys still, I think our biggestdraft class we've ever had.
(06:45):
I think we had seven off thatteam drafted and but it was a
bunch of guys and I always, kidaround with them that nobody
wanted, including us probably.
But we had to take somebody,right?
We had to field the team.
And those guys just took theopportunity to work and as I
said, we didn't have thefacilities that we had today,
(07:08):
but, they just the work ethicthat they instilled in all our
future groups, I think issomething that is a key.
Cog in the machine.
And I think a lot of that toocomes, I think teams become a
reflection of the communitiesthey represent.
And, we're out here in WestTexas and you wanna talk about
salt of the earth, you good asgold people that work their
(07:31):
tails off.
And so we to keep up with allthe regular people in town.
We've gotta, do the same thing.
And so I think that's somethingthat that first group definitely
established and hopefully wecontinue to do to this day,
immediately brings up the ideaof winning the right way for me.
When you live and work and teachin a town like that, in an area
(07:54):
like that where everybody's bluecollar everybody knows what it's
like to have dirt under theirfingernails.
What does that mean to you whenyou hear winning the right way?
And how do your young men handlethat?
I hope and we've been reallyfortunate to, to win a lot.
But I, it's really importantbecause, again, baseball is the
(08:16):
best of all the sports, in myopinion, the best teacher of
life.
The, and having success.
And I do, I get reallyfrustrated watching college
baseball now on TV and probaseball with regards to, I like
to call it pro baseball, but wegotta celebrate a single and we,
(08:37):
and we don't do that.
We're one of the few teams that,that doesn't do that anymore.
And we want to, I guess we wantto celebrate our successes, but
we expect to have success.
And again, it's it's a fine lineand we don't want to take away
their individuality and all thatstuff, but, I just it it's a
(08:58):
slippery slope, I guess youwould say.
It is.
It's, but anyway, but I thinkour guys have done a fabulous
job of we know what the jobentails.
We want to go win and we want todo it the right way, as you
said.
And we're gonna lose too.
And so we wanna make sure that'sdone the right way.
We're not going undefeated.
We know that, but.
At the end of the day, we have ascoreboard.
(09:19):
It's there for a reason.
Yep.
If the only reason we cancelebrate a season is a national
championship at the end of it,then we're probably going about
it the wrong way.
And it really is.
And we're sitting here, we'regetting ready to play where, we
lose and it's over.
And I don't want that to be thecase, but.
Whether we end up nationalchampions or we don't even make
(09:42):
an NCAA tournament.
When your players have given youeverything they have, how at the
end of the year can you say itwasn't successful?
I.
Yeah, I agree.
I told somebody the other day, Igo, probably the best coaching
season I had is the year wetransitioned Maryville from D
three to D two.
We had zero scholarships, all Dthree players, and we were
(10:03):
playing in the toughest divisiontwo basketball league in the
country.
Everybody had a six 11 divisionone transfer.
We put a six four center on thefloor, right?
But it was the best coaching Iever did.
It was the most.
Fun I ever had, even though weonly won three games.
'cause those kids just, theynever quit it.
They got better every singleday.
And by the end of the year, wewere beating all these full
(10:24):
scholarship schools, yes.
So I, I know exactly what you'retalking about and I appreciate
that so much.
We're gonna, we're gonna have areally good conversation after
this on recruiting.
We're gonna do a second episode.
But do you recruit that mindsetmore than you instill it?
Do you find.
Are you finding great kids thatyou have to sometimes instill
(10:45):
that attitude?
I think it's both.
I think it's a numbers deal.
And so from the start as if weonly go get the kids that don't
need help, then we're missingout on some truly miraculous
stories.
Yes.
However.
(11:06):
You can't go try to recruit ateam full of that because
unfortunately they're not wherewe want'em to be yet as players,
people, et cetera.
But they maybe need a littlemore direction on how to get
there.
And they can do it with somedirection, but they gotta be
surrounded by people that areshowing'em the right direction.
(11:28):
Yeah.
And our, we've always had aratio, to be honest with you,
from the very start.
And roster sizes obviously havereally expanded in the last,
since covid five to seven years.
But, we used to have a roster ofabout 30 and our ratio was
always, five to one.
So we wanted five guys that weknew.
(11:50):
Gonna go to class, gonna worktheir tails off, whatever.
And then for every five ofthose, we'd go take a chance on
somebody that was extremelygifted on the baseball field,
but maybe not where we want'emto be on the other things and.
We have failed in some of thoseinstances, but we got a lot more
success stories than failures.
(12:12):
And so I think that's one of thebiggest things you've gotta do.
So in that sense, we look forones that it's instilled in
already and then we try toinstill in those that it's not.
And a lot of that again is not,I mean it's the coaches, but
it's, it is their peers.
It's the players and training.
(12:33):
Players how to coach.
That's it.
Ideally what we want is 30something coaches out there
because you can't be everywhereall the time.
But you get, get guys hopefullysaying the exact same things you
would say if you were there.
I love it.
And I love how you put itnumerically, the five to one.
'cause it's hard to be that onewhen you're surrounded by these
(12:56):
guys.
They're going to class everyday.
They're busting their butt,they're showing up to practice
early, they're getting dirty,right?
They're doing all the rightthings.
And you're the one guy that'snot, and that's 25 to five on a
30 man roster.
That five gets in line real fastbecause it shows when they're
not in line.
It does.
And like I say, we're going on20, 21 years, I think now, we
(13:17):
really don't do a heck of awhole lot as coaches.
The players it, it's, and what,ideally that's where you wanna
be, right?
Yeah.
You want it to be a player ledteam experiences.
I tell, I tell'em all the timethis isn't my team.
It's y'all's.
So whatever standard y'all wantit to be, that's what it's gonna
be.
I can yell and scream and dowhatever.
At the end of the day, it's it'sup to y'all.
(13:40):
I love that.
And I was the same way.
I wanted my, I told my guyswe'll be a good team if I'm the
leader.
We're gonna be a great team.
If you're the leader, if you'retaking ownership, I knew we were
gonna win.
I knew we were gonna have greatyears when.
When in the middle of practice,one of my seniors would stop
practice, go, coach, we need todeal with this.
We, and they would take over,they would start teaching.
(14:00):
They would help that freshmanand kick some butt.
They would make it clear, Hey,we don't do things that way.
I love it.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Zero.
Losing seasons.
As a head coach, what does thatmean to you?
Oh I don't know.
Never really thought about it.
Because coach, very many of youout there again, blessed with
(14:24):
really good assistant coachesand great players.
It's good that we've had someyears, that are way up there.
It just we're consistent, and Ithink that's good.
We try to be consistent again.
We all fail, alright, but thepoint of every day is getting up
and trying to be as good as wecan.
(14:44):
And like I say, we slip and falland when we do, we get right
back up and try again.
And that's baseball to a, in anutshell.
And again, that's life and Idon't know.
It's good.
I hope we can continue that.
But means we like to say, got alot of really good players.
You didn't have all those greatkids when you took the job and
(15:04):
you didn't know what yourassistants were gonna look like.
You didn't know what those kidswere gonna look like.
Let's, Let's talk practices.
Let's get down the dirt'causethis is where I love to be.
Okay.
It took me probably 3, 4, 5years to really realize as a
head coach, winning came down toabout four or five things that
we had to be really good at.
(15:26):
And we had to rebound, we had todefend, we had to be physical,
we had to be, we had to be ingreat shape.
And once I figured that out,that consistency started to
happen because I was buildingthat into my practices.
I was making sure there wasnever a day where those things
weren't our focus.
And, being a teammate, thingslike that.
(15:46):
Are there things that.
You just want to make sureyou're hitting every practice.
I'm just gonna hit, you're gonnathrow, you're gonna, you're
gonna defend.
Are there principles that youwant in every practice that your
staff understands?
Your guys understand?
Yeah.
Just from a baseball perspectivefree bases again, I think
(16:06):
baseball and many sports.
The, you don't have to win, justdon't lose.
Yeah.
And that's our number one thingis we try, but we're gonna try
not to lose and that sort ofbackwards.
And I probably could say thatbetter, but I.
If you're gonna, you're gonnahave to beat us.
(16:27):
To beat us.
We're not gonna beat ourselves.
And yeah.
We're not gonna walk guys, we'regonna play great defense.
And then on the other hand,we're gonna try to put as much
pressure on you where you domake mistakes.
We're gonna have great strikezone discipline.
We're not gonna chase just allthe little things that everybody
knows.
(16:47):
That's what you need to do,right?
In order to win.
But it's easier said than done,when we're in the fall and in
the fall we enter squad a ton,right?
But we play very we play a verydifferent set of rules that you
rewarded for doing what we wantyou to do.
And it'd take forever to gothrough all those things, but
(17:11):
basically we're trying toreward, the actions that we want
and then dis, we don't want youdoing these things.
And so there's a little morepenalties for that type of
stuff.
But it starts in the fall andthen, yeah, it's every day.
And I think that's the onebiggest thing, one of my very
favorite players, my firstplayer on that first team, and
(17:32):
he told me years later, but hewas like I was like, he's gonna
get tired and he is gonna shutup and he's gonna quit.
Making, gring about this orthat.
And then he goes, and that'swhen it turned around when I
finally figured out he's notgonna stop ever, so I might as
well just do what he asked me todo.
And then he took off.
(17:53):
So I think that's a lot of it.
They're like, yeah, I'm gettingolder, but I still it's
important enough to where we donot waiver on, on the standards.
I.
How many championships have youseen in any sport where the
coach wavered on those things?
It's not the way you wanna livelife.
Yeah.
It's just so hard.
(18:13):
And I'm like I was a hard, I wasa hard guy to play for,'cause
it's not that I was mean, or I,I was un I didn't have un
unrealistic expectations, but Iknew what hard work was.
And I knew that we only had twohours a day together.
We needed to get the most out ofthat.
And if we got the most out ofthat, by the time we got to the
(18:35):
second half of the season, thattwo hours turned into an hour
half.
'cause that's all we needed,right?
Yes.
Yeah.
And that's the biggest thing.
This team earlier this year I'dsay January, when we came back
February and we're practicingway we're prac, so we've got the
practice schedule made.
Yeah.
And we're staying on time onthat, which that means that's
(18:56):
bad.
On.
And finally, we got it and we'redone 30, 40 minutes early every
day.
And that's what should behappening.
Yeah.
And and they got that andanyway, so that was really cool
to see them grow in that area.
And so yes, when you're goingshorter than your plan means,
everything's rolling along,going good.
(19:18):
I love it.
I wanna talk a little bit aboutchasing in the zone, and you see
it at the pro level.
It used to be if you struck outa hundred times in Major League
baseball, you might not have ajob next year.
Now it's 150 strikeouts a year.
It's about average for theseguys.
Yeah.
I'm a huge Cubs fan, so don'thold this against me.
And he's no longer a Cub, buthe's somebody I still pay
(19:38):
attention to.
You know when a guy wins you aWorld Series after a hundred
some years you keep track ofhim.
If I gave you Javi Baez for acouple of months.
That's funny.
He's one I use.
In an example of my players, I,he is probably one of my least
favorite players in major Leaguebaseball.
What drives me crazy.
Just drives you crazy.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just drives you anyway.
(19:59):
How do you get a guy who's beena free swinger coming outta high
school, maybe junior college,just a natural athlete picks up
the ball and then all of asudden.
Pitchers are throwing 92 curveball's, 81, throwing a slider,
throwing a sinker, and they'rechasing how do you get that out
of'em?
(20:20):
Oh, it's hard.
Again, continual reinforcementhopefully is one.
And then obviously there's somany tools now the with
technology, right?
That, that we have.
And for example here, we've gotthe hit tracks and then we've
got.
Yeah, a pro batter pitchingmachine, which is the, one of
the most awesome things in theworld.
(20:40):
And so you can get in there andface game-like MLB pitching and
you got the strike zone.
Yeah.
And look, oh, I, oh, I shouldn'thave chased for us in BP and
stuff you swinging a ball yourround's done.
So it, that's real easy.
That's great.
But when we start, it's alwaysawful.
(21:02):
So when we get done with ourfall, we get into individuals
and we get into hitting.
And so any changes we wanna makewith our swing, we'll probably
spend the first two to threeweeks.
Now we're getting close togetting ready to head home for
the semester.
And now we actually starttalking about hitting, which is
way different than your swing.
(21:23):
It's pit selection.
Yeah.
It's all that stuff.
And it's really easy, but it'sway more complicated.
'cause most people reallyhaven't thought it's sea ball
hit ball.
That's right.
And again, I don't want to thinkI want to do it enough.
It's not thinking That's right.
But when we start talking aboutpitch selection, the next week
and a half is gonna be the worsteverybody's ever done.
(21:47):
It'll be awful.
Yeah, it's gonna be awful.
And we know it's gonna be awful,but we get through that and then
all of a sudden now we start,making some improvements and
then understanding the why.
Again, you wanna look at Battenaverages.
The guys with the highest Battenaverage are the guys that swing
the least.
Yeah.
You listen to Derek Jeter.
(22:08):
What pitch were you looking for?
I looked for one pitch, my wholecareer fastball down the middle.
And, and again just we'vegotten, I'm not very smart, so
that means I really gotta bereally simple on everything.
And but I think just the beautybe, the beauty of simplicity is.
(22:30):
Is something, it's a verycomplicated game, yet it's not.
And just when we can get, justget back to little bitty basic
things that you did made in thebackyard with your mom or dad or
brother or sister and just focuson those things.
I think you can really explodeand really improve a lot.
I don't think I understoodhitting until I was about 26, 27
(22:53):
years old.
Albert Olsen and a lot of theCardinals would come into my gym
in St.
Louis.
'cause we were on the west sidewhere a lot of'em lived.
And they'd be in my gym everymorning from January till they
left for spring training.
And watching Albert hit in acage was the most fascinating
thing I'd ever seen becausethere was so little movement.
(23:15):
Yep.
And even his front step maybe 5%of his weight went with that
first step.
Everything stayed home.
Yeah.
Where is that begin and end withfor you?
In terms of being able to reallyunderstand that strike zone.
Is it the eyes, is it the head?
Is it the weight?
(23:35):
Is it the hands?
Is there something that everykid that you can give, every
swing is different.
And I definitely want to getinto talking about Lance a
little bit.
He's, to me, he's another greatexample of that.
But where does that start foryou when you're trying to get a
kid to be that?
Scholarship level hitter and bethat kid that can be a great
player, a great hitter for you.
(23:58):
For me I think your bat path islike the key.
I think if you have a good batpath, you're gonna be able to
hit whether you get out on thatfront foot, whether you sit
back, whether whether you'reperfect.
To me, if you're bypassed goodyou got a chance.
'cause one, you're, we're gonnabe able to stay in the zone.
Longer.
(24:18):
Longer so I can be wrong andstill be successful.
And that's everything we try toteach our guys is look, we're
gonna be, we, how often do youthink you're perfect?
Like of a swing?
20%?
Maybe if you're really good.
Yeah.
What we gotta do, we gotta learnhow to be successful when we're
(24:39):
wrong and and so if that batpath can stay in the zone two
feet instead of 16 inches, itshould hopefully increase my
chances of success.
Makes a lot of sense.
It really does.
'cause if you're bat pass,right?
It doesn't matter if it's acurve ball, a sinker, or a fast
(24:59):
ball, right?
If it's in the zone.
You're gonna make a good swing.
Yeah.
In theory.
In theory.
Yeah.
That's, we spend a lot of timeon that and then as you said,
there's so many different ways,that's one thing when we come in
the fall, we don't really coacha whole lot because I've learned
enough, I've seen enough dudesthat I'm like, I don't know how
(25:20):
he's doing it.
But he's hitting every ball onthe barrel.
And so if I can see him forabout a month, then I can figure
it out.
So that way if he gets off inthe spring, I can go, okay, hey,
the, your hands have dropped alittle bit.
Yeah.
Or, you're loading a littlelater or what, whatever it may
be.
But if I can see it for a monthand see how they're successful
(25:42):
and see, because they wouldn'tbe here unless they'd had some
success Now.
If they get eaten up in the falland they hit one 20 which is
generally the norm.
Yeah.
Now they're open to listeningand you've got that teachable
moment and so you can't alwayswait for that.
But I think it's a lot morebeneficial if you can.
(26:02):
I love it.
All right.
We talked about Lance a littlebit.
You, you coached Lance Berkmanduring his amateur days.
What did you see in him thenthat translated?
To being a major leaguer arethere things that you could
already see at that age?
Yeah.
And so that was the summer hebecame Lance Burman, MOB Guy
(26:24):
Prospect, yeah.
So he was a, I'd seen him playin high school.
He played at New BraunfelsCanyon and signed with Rice
obviously.
And then that summer, playedwith us, with the Hayes Larks in
Hayes, Kansas.
And he's a bigger guy, right?
And then the body type, hefooled you on what a good
athlete, he could run reallywell, had a great arm, and then
(26:48):
he could just absolutely hit andhe was a switch hitter.
Always, even back then, I'mlike, dude, if you just hit
left-handed, you'd, because hisright-handed swing, he had more
power, but he was not as goodfrom the right side.
I still think if he would'vejust turned around and gone
left, I still tell him this tothis day.
I think he would've had betternumbers, but anyway but he
(27:09):
played the game with such joy.
And it lance a little bit of afree spirit and but he worked
really hard and he played reallyhard.
But it was really cool thatsummer because, that was the
year before Olympic the Olympicsand there was not an
international baseballtournament that year.
So Team USA actually played inthe NBC World Series, which used
(27:31):
to be really big deal.
And we played against them inthe championship and, anyway, it
was that, those were some crazydays.
We ended up dad gum, we had'emgoing into the eighth and Matt
LaCroix hit a bases loaded,triple off that center field
wall and they ended up beatingus.
But he really went off duringthat World Series and there were
(27:52):
a lot of scouts there and hereally.
Vaulted his way up and what heultimately became, which was a
truly great major leaguebaseball player coach.
I, I remember the first team Itook to the national tournament.
And I remember after that seasongoing, all right, I think I
figured some things out.
I fi, I think I know what I'mdoing.
And then that next year, mystarting center blew out his
(28:15):
knee and the first scrimmage ofthe year and all of a sudden our
All American is no longer on thefloor and all of a sudden going,
I don't know anything about whatI'm doing That a change.
I wanna take you back to 2007,that first World Series trip,
that third year of the program,and you make the World Series.
What do you remember about thatyear with that same mindset
(28:40):
about what you learned aboutyourself, what you learned about
coaching?
I remember a lot of things.
That's still obviously a reallyspecial team'cause they were the
first to get there.
But what I remember the most is,so 2007 during the fall, our
number one, number two, numberthree, number four, pitchers
(29:01):
gone for the year.
For one reason or another.
And so we had pitching tryoutswith everyday guys and just, and
found a couple that had pitched,that had never, a couple, had
never pitched before.
Okay, we're gonna make y'allinto pitchers as well.
And and then I remember.
(29:21):
That team.
So the year before, we'd won theconference in 2006 and and then
we went to the conference,tournament, got, we didn't play
great and we drew some toughmatchups arm wise, and we went
won.
And two, and we still, we'd won40 games in the regular season.
All the things.
And, when Selection Sunday cameour name was not called and
(29:46):
still probably the most, theworst moment I've had in
coaching was having to tell thatteam, Hey, you don't get to go
on.
You imagine 40 wins is notgetting the call.
Yeah, so it's really tough indivision two baseball.
Yeah.
There are a lot of great teamsthat don't even get the chance.
And so 2007, obviously, we justwanted to go.
(30:07):
We just wanted to go that wasit.
We want to go the tournament andso going down the stretch run,
we've got this midweek game.
We know we've gotta win thisgame and we'd lose heartbreaking
every one of'em.
We lost every game we had towin.
Everyone, but we lost them inthe right way, if that makes
sense.
Yeah.
And it, it did.
(30:27):
It just kept making us stronger.
Then we've gotta go to ourconference tournament.
We know we have to win it.
If we don't win it, we're out.
We get a we win the first game,second game, we get two outs
with a runner on third tie game.
A balk called walk Off Balk thatwe still will disagree to this
(30:48):
day over.
But and so now we gotta comebackthrough the losers bracket.
We gotta win four games.
Obviously our pitch in depth isnot real great with losing all
those guys.
And we come back.
The next one, we win an extrainning game.
Then we win the next one thenanyway.
And so all those losses I thinkcontributed.
To all those wins.
(31:08):
And and then, we go to theregional, we're the last seed.
We play the number one seedwho's got four losses, or 54 and
four or something.
And we go in, we, my, the one ofmy pit, he goes in, throws a
shutout, we win.
Play the next day.
We played an 18 inning game.
Finally.
Oh my gosh.
(31:28):
Win that one with your pitchingstaff.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Two guys.
So two guys pitched the whole 18went nine and nine.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
And and we win that, but we'replaying at a field with no
lights, so we screw up thebracket, but we get extra rest
because you know that we, it gotpushed back a day, which always
helps.
(31:48):
So we're able to bring guys backand.
We get down the lose bracket inthat one, we just come back and
win.
And so that team was just sogritty and resilient and again,
hopefully what we still aretoday.
That is amazing.
Yeah.
What a great story.
That is really fantastic.
What, when you look at a team,you've had some teams that have
(32:10):
had over, locked in for over 50games, how do you keep your guys
fresh?
How do you keep'em focused?
How do you are there thingsyou're doing to give'em a spell
and to give'em a breather andgive'em a break or is it just
the consistency of that routine?
I think it depends, I thinkevery team and every player is
(32:30):
different.
So for example, we talked aboutthis week we're, we've got a
buy.
Yeah, so it's a 10 day layoff.
So we had that in our regularseason as well.
We have a buy, we have a unevennumber of teams in our
conference, so there's a buyweek built in there.
And we did something we've neverhandled to buy that way, but I
(32:51):
thought we were a little tiredand a little banged up and we
gave'em off four days in a row,which is not something we've
ever done.
We came back practice, man,everybody's bat speeds a little
better.
Pitchers velo and command upabout two or three.
And matter of fact, I wasworried offensively, yeah.
That's probably where you worrythe most to just timing and
(33:13):
stuff being off.
And I think we scored 11 in thefirst inning and just hitting
lasers all over the field and Iwas like, huh, that worked
pretty good.
And we're doing the same thing.
Hopefully that's great.
It can work twice, but.
I think, the biggest thing forus is, and as a coach you gotta
know when to, you can't pushyour team all year.
(33:34):
They're gonna run outta gas.
And, but the standard's stillthe same.
But there days maybe you turnand look that way.
Because you know they need it.
Yeah.
They need to be able to get awaywith that.
Yeah.
Or whatever.
But then there are other partswhere that is not gonna work.
And so I think it's just usingyour judgment, but I think
(33:56):
whether the plan works or not,we've been pretty successful in
postseason for pretty long time,and I think.
We are from when we start inAugust there's a plan in place
to hopefully be playing our bestin May and June.
And it's worked out pretty goodhere recently.
And so I think it's more thereading your team, reading, just
(34:19):
their physical performance andthen their mental stuff and all
that.
But I think our practices aregenerally pretty intense every
day.
I.
But there are times during theyear you're like, okay, we're
playing this team that's ING 46.
We're gonna win.
I know we're gonna win.
I can go a little lighter thisweek.
And I think you gotta use thosethroughout the year.
Yeah.
(34:40):
We can all say every day we'redoing this, but yeah.
That's probably not really true.
Were you, would you have donesome of those things 20 years
ago?
No.
No, I think I've gotten better,a lot better, a little bit
smarter.
I'm the same way.
I, I'll still coach some highschool seasons here every once
(35:02):
in a while and, and I gottaremind myself, I.
Today's the day we break out thekickball boxes you basis.
This is the day we bring out thewiffle ball and Right, because
you need that sometimes.
Yeah, absolutely.
This is the day we get on a get'em on a bus and go to the
movies instead of practicing.
I just, early on, man, my first10 years of coaching, no way.
Yeah.
The kids just need it.
They need that break.
(35:23):
They need to know that there's ahumanity in what you're doing.
Amen.
And they're, yeah.
We're very exuberant when we'reyoung.
I look at some of the stuff Idid when I was young, and Lord
forgive me.
Yeah.
You and me both today.
We somebody to have cuffs on us20 years ago we've been talking
a lot about baseball.
We're talking about 50 50 gameseasons.
We're talking about all thesegreat things that you're doing
(35:45):
on the baseball field.
I don't want any of ourlisteners to forget that you're
coaching student athletes,you're coaching kids that are in
class every day and bustingtheir tail and studying.
What is, what are yourphilosophies?
What are some of the thingsyou're doing to create that
balance for your guys?
So they're walking outta AngeloState with that degree in hand
and that, whether they're goingto the major leagues or they're
(36:07):
getting drafted, or they'regonna go to med school or go to
business school or go get a job.
What are those things that youguys do on a week-to-week basis
to make sure that balance isthere?
I think you know, the biggestthing is you are who you are all
the time, and so you can't be anextremely hard worker just in
baseball and stink at yourrelationships with your
(36:30):
girlfriend and your family, andthen stink in the classroom.
And so I.
It becomes a thing of that'sjust who I am, right?
Yeah.
And everything I do, I hopefullyam given great effort.
The one thing I think that wetry to do we're, we do things
way different, I think than, alot of people, but we try to
(36:53):
teach them.
So like in the fall, first thingwe do is, hey, we do a goal
sheet, and it's academics,athletics, and then after.
College, what do you want to doand how can we help you?
And on the academic end it's, orespecially the guys that this,
their first year here.
Yeah.
Okay.
You got algebra at nine, you gotwhatever, bring in your class
(37:18):
schedule.
Okay.
When are you gonna study?
And they're like, I'm gonnastudy every night from seven to
10, Monday through Saturday.
Then I'll be like, okay, you'regonna do that?
And they're like, yes.
And I'm like, okay where are yougonna study?
I'm in my room.
Okay, your roommate there, theylist playing video games,
(37:39):
whatever.
Okay then that's probably not agood place.
Then let's find a place.
And then you cut let's saythey're a big Yankees fan.
Okay'cause it's always, you'rein playoffs, right?
It's about when school starts.
So I was like, so Yankees gotgame seven of the World Series
on a Tuesday night, you'restudying, you told me you're
studying from seven to 10, youwatching the Yankees or are you
(38:00):
doing that?
And I'm fine with the answers tothe Yankees.
But I was like, okay, so we justand baseball people were so
routine oriented, right?
Every one of us.
And so we just try to get'em inthe routine.
But the key is with the routine,we gotta stay with the routine.
And you gotta understand, theymay, your friends may call and
say, Hey, we're all going to amovie, or we're all going that
(38:22):
if this is the time you setaside for study, or to go hit
extra, or to get in the weightroom extra, or whatever it is.
We just gotta be disciplinedenough to say that, and then we
hold them accountable withoutoverseeing.
We will ask, but I'm not gonnago in there and stand and see if
they're doing what they'resupposed to do.
(38:44):
Because at the end of the day,we can push the degree.
We can want the degree Mom anddad can want the degree.
Everybody can want the degree.
You gotta want it at the end.
Now we can trick you intogetting it.
By just trying to stay eligible,then all of a sudden you walk up
your wake up your senior yearand you're like, Hey, you know
what?
You getting a piece of papersaid you finished.
(39:06):
And so we've done that too.
But I just think, again it'steaching these young people to
grow up and be great men.
And there are a lot of thingsthat go into that, but a lot of
that is accountability toyourself.
Did they change their tune whenyou talk about that?
When they say, I'm gonna, I'mgonna study these hours.
Yes.
It's always when you talk aboutthe reality, do you hear a
(39:28):
change in I do.
And they're like, oh, I hadn'tthought about that.
And I was like, no, you hadn't.
And I'm like, but generallyyou're telling me you're, dude,
you're studying 40 hours a week.
I don't think you need to dothat much.
Yeah.
And that's one thing that'schanged, we used to do study
hall back in the day.
And and then I quit doing it andI was like, I just wanna see our
GPA was like half a point higherwhen we didn't.
(39:51):
And I think it's because most ofus, you make us do it right.
First of all, we're not gonna doit probably with our hearts and
but you let'em go do it on theirown, they're gonna do more and
they're gonna do a higherquality job.
And so that's our philosophywith everything.
We're limited obviously with theNCAA hours and so we give'em
just a taste and then you know,you wanna really go get better.
(40:16):
You've got access to thefacilities.
Hopefully we're doing a good jobcoaching.
You now go be as good as you canbe.
I love it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's the way the worldis going in a good program.
We're disciplined.
You walk off the floor, you walkoff that field you're still got
that Angelo State on your chest.
(40:38):
Amen.
Doesn't change.
You're in a classroom.
Doesn't change.
So I love that mentality and Ithink it's so important for
young men and young women tohear that.
Being an adult it's hard, butbeing an adult means there's
rewards that come with it.
I if you're willing to commit toit.
So yes, for sure.
(41:00):
I love it.
Coach, can I can we do a littlerapid fire with you?
Yeah, go ahead.
Is there a, is there somethingthat you've read?
Is there a book, is there apodcast?
Is there somebody that you know,somebody, a mentor that's giving
you some advice?
Is there something you recommendto young coaches?
Anything Grant Taf is everwritten.
(41:20):
Winning, I believe.
He's got some great things forteachers classroom teachers as
well.
I grew up in, in Waco, I went toBaylor.
That guy was my idol growing up.
Strangely enough he came toBaylor from Angelo State.
And so I've gotten him to speakto our team several times.
That's awesome as he getshonored here.
(41:41):
But nobody better motivator thanthat guy.
What's the best advice you'vereceived as a coach?
Oh, man.
Don't mess with happy.
And that's Mark Johnson.
That's the title of your podcastepisode.
Don't Mess With Happy.
I love it.
Yeah.
Mark Johnson, who, a former,hall of fame coach former head
coach at Texas a and m that Igot to work for a little bit.
(42:03):
And first of all, e everythingwe do at our program is
patterned off of what we didthere.
But in this business I.
A lot of people you can get intoa right race.
And he was like, Kevin don'tever mess with happy.
And it, it's, boy, it's reallygood advice.
Perfect.
I wish somebody would've droppedthat on me when I was a
(42:24):
26-year-old head coach.
'cause it would've, I think itwould've saved me a lot of pain
in my players.
Yes.
Yes.
So that's great.
Whenever I see my guys over thelast 30 years, we get together
for an alumni thing or reunionthing.
There's always, I always getteased about things that I would
say over and over again.
Is there is there a Coach Brooksphrase that your guys always
(42:48):
tease you about?
'cause you always say it.
It's, oh, there's a lot.
There's a whole YouTube channelif you wanna go watch'em all.
I wish I would've known that,but I'm gonna go check it out.
Anyway, they hadn't done theimitations as much in the past
few years, but yeah, there's aton.
Let's see.
I, I think there's some yearsthey just start in the fall and
I'll say something, they gowrite it down on the
refrigerator and they have, abook at the end of the year what
(43:11):
are we doing, or why?
But I do say why a lot.
But there, there's a lot, one ofmy favorite ones and it makes no
sense.
Okay.
That's it.
This doesn't make any sense, butit makes sense, right?
I talk out of both sides of mymouth quite a bit.
You gotta trust your teammates,but you can't trust them.
(43:33):
That's one.
And when I explain'em in mymind, they make perfect sense.
But yes, they make fun of me allthe time.
Oh, God.
So anyway, I love it.
I love it.
You sound like an old Yankeescatcher for some reason.
Yogi Berra.
Oh gosh.
Yeah.
So anyway, but.
It's, as that's, it's one of thebest parts of this is when they,
(43:57):
when your players arecomfortable enough with you to.
To get on you when you Yeah.
That's a good place to be.
It's a great place to be.
Yes.
It really is.
We're, when we're so hard onhim, and we're constantly
pushing'em to their potential.
It's so nice when it just clicksand coach ain't going nowhere.
He ain't giving up on me.
He ain't quitting on me evenwhen he is hollering at me.
Me.
(44:18):
So the fact that you have thatand you've always had that is,
is such a big deal.
So that's cool.
Is there one word.
That describes Kevin Brooks as acoach.
Oh, gosh.
Man, one word I, that's tough.
Competitor is really about thebiggest one I can think of.
(44:40):
I love competing.
Yeah.
It shows.
Coach, thank thanks so much fordoing this first segment with
me.
It's such an honor to talk toyou and such pleasure to listen
to how you've built this programand how you've sustained it.
And, but the real joy for me isto see how much fun you're still
having and how much you stilllove the game and being a part
(45:01):
of these young men's lives.
So thank you for doing thistoday.
Awesome.
It was an honor, and thank youfor having me on.
For you.
Good luck the rest of the way.
Thank you.
What a conversation full ofwisdom, humility, and an
unshakeable competitive spirit.
Coach Kevin Brooks has done itall at Angelo State, started a
program from scratch, built itinto a national power, and kept
(45:23):
it there with consistency, careand character.
But what stood out most to metoday wasn't the accolades or
the titles.
It was his commitment to stayinggrounded and his passion for
doing things the right way.
He's not chasing the next shinything.
He's leading with intention.
He's building young men throughbaseball, and as he reminded us,
he's not about to mess withhappy.
(45:45):
I love that.
Coach Brooks, thank you forbeing a competitor, a builder,
and a true example of whatsignificance in coaching looks
like.
Now if you enjoyed this episode,be sure to follow, subscribe,
and leave a review Whereveryou're listening.
Share it with a coach, a parent,or an athlete who needs to hear
this message.
And make sure you check out mywebsite, coach matt rogers.com.
(46:06):
That's where you'll find freeresources, weekly blog posts,
one-on-one recruiting strategysessions if you're starting this
recruiting journey.
And you can get your copy ofsignificant recruiting, the
playbook for prospective collegeathletes and be on the alert.
'cause you want to make sureyou're subscribing to my
newsletter.
I've got new books coming out,I've got new journals coming out
(46:27):
for college athletes.
So make sure you're payingattention to that.
Now before you leave, don'tforget, come back this Monday
for a special bonus episode ofsignificant Recruiting where
Coach Brooks and I we're gonnadive deeper into the recruiting
side of college baseball.
You won't want to miss it.
Thanks for listening, and we'llsee you next time on The
(46:48):
Significant Coaching Podcast.
Welcome back to the SignificantCoaching Podcast, where we dive
into the stories, the strategiesand mindsets of coaches who are
building programs and changinglives through sport.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
Today's guest is a name thatneeds no introduction in the
world of Division two baseball,but let me try.
Anyway.
Kevin Brooks is not just thehead baseball coach at Angelo
(00:29):
State.
He is the.
Head coach at a SU in theirhistory.
Since founding the program in2005, coach Brooks has built an
absolute powerhouse over 800career wins, seven trips to the
NCAA Division two College WorldSeries A 2023 National
Championship, and moreimportantly, a culture of
(00:51):
excellence, humility, and fiercecompetitiveness that defines
what makes the D two level sospecial.
I've said it before, if there'sa Mount Rushmore of Division two
Baseball, Kevin Brooks isalready on it.
He's one of the true godfathersof the game at this level, and
despite the rings, the bannersand the records, he remains
grounded.
He's generous with his time andpassionate about his players and
(01:14):
the game itself.
When I asked him how he defineshimself, he gave me one word
competitor and when asked aboutthe Secret to sustaining success
over two decades, he shared thispiece of advice he received
years ago.
Don't mess with happy, simple,wise, and true to how he leads.
All right, before we jump in.
(01:36):
If you haven't already, pleasetake a moment to follow,
subscribe, and leave a reviewwherever you listen.
It helps more coaches, parents,and athletes find this podcast.
And be sure to visit coach mattrogers.com for free resources,
weekly blog posts, recruitingstrategy sessions, and to order
your copy of my book,significant Recruiting.
(01:57):
Alright, let's get into it.
Here's my conversation withCoach Kevin Brooks.
Coach, thank you so much forbeing on.
It's a pleasure to talk to you,especially the heart of your
season.
And I know you, luckily you geta little break here going into
playoffs.
But just thanks for being a partof this.
Honored to be here and lookingforward to visiting with you.
(02:18):
I know we don't know each othervery well, but 25 years ago, I
interviewed for the headbaseball job at Milliken
University, and a week later Iinterviewed for the head
basketball job at MaryvilleUniversity.
Oh goodness.
Like a week or two.
Wow.
And I was so young.
I was 25, 26 years old and I wasrunner up for the baseball job
(02:39):
and I got the basketball job, somy course could have gone a
completely different way'causeI, baseball's been my love.
But my question for you do youstill get excited putting that
uniform on every day and walkingout to the field?
Oh, absolutely.
Real quick, you're talking aboutthe basketball, baseball thing.
Yeah.
Growing up I was lucky.
My, my dad was a professor at ajunior college at McLennan
(03:03):
Community College in Waco.
Yeah.
And so I was lucky enough to bearound some really great
coaches, players, et cetera,growing up, but.
I always thought I wanted to bebasketball coach.
My first coaching job was a fiveand 6-year-old youth basketball
and is small world.
That guy ended up being the headof our graduate school in
(03:25):
kinesiology here at AngeloState, but he was the director.
The Woodway Family Center andthey needed coaches.
He's man, I think you'd be goodat this.
And so five and six year oldswas my first job.
We went undefeated.
We did dominate.
But anyway, so I always thoughtI was gonna be basketball coach.
Unfortunately, my skills notthat they were any good at
(03:47):
baseball either, but, definitelypushed me more towards baseball,
but as a youngster, I sat on thebench in elementary school,
junior high, keeping the reboundchart, yeah.
For all that stuff.
And was lucky enough to bearound some really good deals
coaches, and then ultimatelyended up being a little better
player at baseball.
So that's the ride I went.
(04:08):
But it's interesting that youinterviewed both in college, so
that's a crazy deal.
It was, it's amazing.
I'm still close, really close tothe guy that almost hired me at
Milliken.
He's now the president of theUniversity of Ozarks.
And we still talk about it.
If I wouldn't have been so wetbehind the ears, I think he
would've hired me.
But they had a couple of guysthat had more experience than
me.
But it's just a crazy path howwe get on this journey as
(04:30):
coaches and what you've done isso impressive.
I want to talk, obviously aboutwhat you've built at Angelo
State,'cause you've built thisfrom the ground up.
When you look back, what aresome of those core values that
you instilled in day one, thatyou're still, that you're still
using today?
Are there things that you'rejust really proud of that I went
(04:51):
into it, I was gonna do it thisway and I'm still doing it a
little bit that way.
Yeah, you asked too, and Ididn't answer your question of
do I still get excited and yes,I do.
I.
Most of us that are in thisbusiness.
It's not a business.
It's a calling.
And so I really am verypassionate about that.
And anytime of my players comein and go, coach, I know it's a
(05:14):
business I get a little upsetwith'em.
'Cause I'm like the day it isI'm outta here.
Luckily have not gotten to thatpoint.
I hope I never do.
The first team, and that's onething every, we've done a lot of
good things, but all the stuffthat's still wrong, there's
nobody to blame but me.
That part we're still trying towork and improve, but I.
The first team was so key, andwe talked about that a ton.
(05:39):
That first year of thestandard's gonna be set by you
guys.
And we want it to be high and,that first group it was, I go
back and think of many of thedays,'cause you haven't ever
been to Angelo State, but ourfacilities are just unbelievable
now.
But back then they were not Iremember the very first thing I
(06:01):
did when we started the programwas we needed new cages.
So went and got new cages.
New nets turfed it and withinthe first week, somebody walked
through there and took a knifeand just cut the whole side.
And I'm just like, okay, buildfence around the cages.
That's probably the first placeit needs to go, but, anyway, but
(06:23):
yeah, we, we started everypractice, the first 10 minutes
of practice was picking up rocksand the last 10 minutes of
practice every day was pickingup rocks.
And so to see where we've come,that first group we had one
scholarship.
And that doesn't go real far.
And but that group came in andboy, we had a lot of talented
guys still, I think our biggestdraft class we've ever had.
(06:45):
I think we had seven off thatteam drafted and but it was a
bunch of guys and I always, kidaround with them that nobody
wanted, including us probably.
But we had to take somebody,right?
We had to field the team.
And those guys just took theopportunity to work and as I
said, we didn't have thefacilities that we had today,
(07:08):
but, they just the work ethicthat they instilled in all our
future groups, I think issomething that is a key.
Cog in the machine.
And I think a lot of that toocomes, I think teams become a
reflection of the communitiesthey represent.
And, we're out here in WestTexas and you wanna talk about
salt of the earth, you good asgold people that work their
(07:31):
tails off.
And so we to keep up with allthe regular people in town.
We've gotta, do the same thing.
And so I think that's somethingthat that first group definitely
established and hopefully wecontinue to do to this day,
immediately brings up the ideaof winning the right way for me.
When you live and work and teachin a town like that, in an area
(07:54):
like that where everybody's bluecollar everybody knows what it's
like to have dirt under theirfingernails.
What does that mean to you whenyou hear winning the right way?
And how do your young men handlethat?
I hope and we've been reallyfortunate to, to win a lot.
But I, it's really importantbecause, again, baseball is the
(08:16):
best of all the sports, in myopinion, the best teacher of
life.
The, and having success.
And I do, I get reallyfrustrated watching college
baseball now on TV and probaseball with regards to, I like
to call it pro baseball, but wegotta celebrate a single and we,
(08:37):
and we don't do that.
We're one of the few teams that,that doesn't do that anymore.
And we want to, I guess we wantto celebrate our successes, but
we expect to have success.
And again, it's it's a fine lineand we don't want to take away
their individuality and all thatstuff, but, I just it it's a
(08:58):
slippery slope, I guess youwould say.
It is.
It's, but anyway, but I thinkour guys have done a fabulous
job of we know what the jobentails.
We want to go win and we want todo it the right way, as you
said.
And we're gonna lose too.
And so we wanna make sure that'sdone the right way.
We're not going undefeated.
We know that, but.
At the end of the day, we have ascoreboard.
(09:19):
It's there for a reason.
Yep.
If the only reason we cancelebrate a season is a national
championship at the end of it,then we're probably going about
it the wrong way.
And it really is.
And we're sitting here, we'regetting ready to play where, we
lose and it's over.
And I don't want that to be thecase, but.
Whether we end up nationalchampions or we don't even make
(09:42):
an NCAA tournament.
When your players have given youeverything they have, how at the
end of the year can you say itwasn't successful?
I.
Yeah, I agree.
I told somebody the other day, Igo, probably the best coaching
season I had is the year wetransitioned Maryville from D
three to D two.
We had zero scholarships, all Dthree players, and we were
(10:03):
playing in the toughest divisiontwo basketball league in the
country.
Everybody had a six 11 divisionone transfer.
We put a six four center on thefloor, right?
But it was the best coaching Iever did.
It was the most.
Fun I ever had, even though weonly won three games.
'cause those kids just, theynever quit it.
They got better every singleday.
And by the end of the year, wewere beating all these full
(10:24):
scholarship schools, yes.
So I, I know exactly what you'retalking about and I appreciate
that so much.
We're gonna, we're gonna have areally good conversation after
this on recruiting.
We're gonna do a second episode.
But do you recruit that mindsetmore than you instill it?
Do you find.
Are you finding great kids thatyou have to sometimes instill
(10:45):
that attitude?
I think it's both.
I think it's a numbers deal.
And so from the start as if weonly go get the kids that don't
need help, then we're missingout on some truly miraculous
stories.
Yes.
However.
(11:06):
You can't go try to recruit ateam full of that because
unfortunately they're not wherewe want'em to be yet as players,
people, et cetera.
But they maybe need a littlemore direction on how to get
there.
And they can do it with somedirection, but they gotta be
surrounded by people that areshowing'em the right direction.
(11:28):
Yeah.
And our, we've always had aratio, to be honest with you,
from the very start.
And roster sizes obviously havereally expanded in the last,
since covid five to seven years.
But, we used to have a roster ofabout 30 and our ratio was
always, five to one.
So we wanted five guys that weknew.
(11:50):
Gonna go to class, gonna worktheir tails off, whatever.
And then for every five ofthose, we'd go take a chance on
somebody that was extremelygifted on the baseball field,
but maybe not where we want'emto be on the other things and.
We have failed in some of thoseinstances, but we got a lot more
success stories than failures.
(12:12):
And so I think that's one of thebiggest things you've gotta do.
So in that sense, we look forones that it's instilled in
already and then we try toinstill in those that it's not.
And a lot of that again is not,I mean it's the coaches, but
it's, it is their peers.
It's the players and training.
(12:33):
Players how to coach.
That's it.
Ideally what we want is 30something coaches out there
because you can't be everywhereall the time.
But you get, get guys hopefullysaying the exact same things you
would say if you were there.
I love it.
And I love how you put itnumerically, the five to one.
'cause it's hard to be that onewhen you're surrounded by these
(12:56):
guys.
They're going to class everyday.
They're busting their butt,they're showing up to practice
early, they're getting dirty,right?
They're doing all the rightthings.
And you're the one guy that'snot, and that's 25 to five on a
30 man roster.
That five gets in line real fastbecause it shows when they're
not in line.
It does.
And like I say, we're going on20, 21 years, I think now, we
(13:17):
really don't do a heck of awhole lot as coaches.
The players it, it's, and what,ideally that's where you wanna
be, right?
Yeah.
You want it to be a player ledteam experiences.
I tell, I tell'em all the timethis isn't my team.
It's y'all's.
So whatever standard y'all wantit to be, that's what it's gonna
be.
I can yell and scream and dowhatever.
At the end of the day, it's it'sup to y'all.
(13:40):
I love that.
And I was the same way.
I wanted my, I told my guyswe'll be a good team if I'm the
leader.
We're gonna be a great team.
If you're the leader, if you'retaking ownership, I knew we were
gonna win.
I knew we were gonna have greatyears when.
When in the middle of practice,one of my seniors would stop
practice, go, coach, we need todeal with this.
We, and they would take over,they would start teaching.
(14:00):
They would help that freshmanand kick some butt.
They would make it clear, Hey,we don't do things that way.
I love it.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Zero.
Losing seasons.
As a head coach, what does thatmean to you?
Oh I don't know.
Never really thought about it.
Because coach, very many of youout there again, blessed with
(14:24):
really good assistant coachesand great players.
It's good that we've had someyears, that are way up there.
It just we're consistent, and Ithink that's good.
We try to be consistent again.
We all fail, alright, but thepoint of every day is getting up
and trying to be as good as wecan.
(14:44):
And like I say, we slip and falland when we do, we get right
back up and try again.
And that's baseball to a, in anutshell.
And again, that's life and Idon't know.
It's good.
I hope we can continue that.
But means we like to say, got alot of really good players.
You didn't have all those greatkids when you took the job and
(15:04):
you didn't know what yourassistants were gonna look like.
You didn't know what those kidswere gonna look like.
Let's, Let's talk practices.
Let's get down the dirt'causethis is where I love to be.
Okay.
It took me probably 3, 4, 5years to really realize as a
head coach, winning came down toabout four or five things that
we had to be really good at.
(15:26):
And we had to rebound, we had todefend, we had to be physical,
we had to be, we had to be ingreat shape.
And once I figured that out,that consistency started to
happen because I was buildingthat into my practices.
I was making sure there wasnever a day where those things
weren't our focus.
And, being a teammate, thingslike that.
(15:46):
Are there things that.
You just want to make sureyou're hitting every practice.
I'm just gonna hit, you're gonnathrow, you're gonna, you're
gonna defend.
Are there principles that youwant in every practice that your
staff understands?
Your guys understand?
Yeah.
Just from a baseball perspectivefree bases again, I think
(16:06):
baseball and many sports.
The, you don't have to win, justdon't lose.
Yeah.
And that's our number one thingis we try, but we're gonna try
not to lose and that sort ofbackwards.
And I probably could say thatbetter, but I.
If you're gonna, you're gonnahave to beat us.
(16:27):
To beat us.
We're not gonna beat ourselves.
And yeah.
We're not gonna walk guys, we'regonna play great defense.
And then on the other hand,we're gonna try to put as much
pressure on you where you domake mistakes.
We're gonna have great strikezone discipline.
We're not gonna chase just allthe little things that everybody
knows.
(16:47):
That's what you need to do,right?
In order to win.
But it's easier said than done,when we're in the fall and in
the fall we enter squad a ton,right?
But we play very we play a verydifferent set of rules that you
rewarded for doing what we wantyou to do.
And it'd take forever to gothrough all those things, but
(17:11):
basically we're trying toreward, the actions that we want
and then dis, we don't want youdoing these things.
And so there's a little morepenalties for that type of
stuff.
But it starts in the fall andthen, yeah, it's every day.
And I think that's the onebiggest thing, one of my very
favorite players, my firstplayer on that first team, and
(17:32):
he told me years later, but hewas like I was like, he's gonna
get tired and he is gonna shutup and he's gonna quit.
Making, gring about this orthat.
And then he goes, and that'swhen it turned around when I
finally figured out he's notgonna stop ever, so I might as
well just do what he asked me todo.
And then he took off.
(17:53):
So I think that's a lot of it.
They're like, yeah, I'm gettingolder, but I still it's
important enough to where we donot waiver on, on the standards.
I.
How many championships have youseen in any sport where the
coach wavered on those things?
It's not the way you wanna livelife.
Yeah.
It's just so hard.
(18:13):
And I'm like I was a hard, I wasa hard guy to play for,'cause
it's not that I was mean, or I,I was un I didn't have un
unrealistic expectations, but Iknew what hard work was.
And I knew that we only had twohours a day together.
We needed to get the most out ofthat.
And if we got the most out ofthat, by the time we got to the
(18:35):
second half of the season, thattwo hours turned into an hour
half.
'cause that's all we needed,right?
Yes.
Yeah.
And that's the biggest thing.
This team earlier this year I'dsay January, when we came back
February and we're practicingway we're prac, so we've got the
practice schedule made.
Yeah.
And we're staying on time onthat, which that means that's
(18:56):
bad.
On.
And finally, we got it and we'redone 30, 40 minutes early every
day.
And that's what should behappening.
Yeah.
And and they got that andanyway, so that was really cool
to see them grow in that area.
And so yes, when you're goingshorter than your plan means,
everything's rolling along,going good.
(19:18):
I love it.
I wanna talk a little bit aboutchasing in the zone, and you see
it at the pro level.
It used to be if you struck outa hundred times in Major League
baseball, you might not have ajob next year.
Now it's 150 strikeouts a year.
It's about average for theseguys.
Yeah.
I'm a huge Cubs fan, so don'thold this against me.
And he's no longer a Cub, buthe's somebody I still pay
(19:38):
attention to.
You know when a guy wins you aWorld Series after a hundred
some years you keep track ofhim.
If I gave you Javi Baez for acouple of months.
That's funny.
He's one I use.
In an example of my players, I,he is probably one of my least
favorite players in major Leaguebaseball.
What drives me crazy.
Just drives you crazy.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just drives you anyway.
(19:59):
How do you get a guy who's beena free swinger coming outta high
school, maybe junior college,just a natural athlete picks up
the ball and then all of asudden.
Pitchers are throwing 92 curveball's, 81, throwing a slider,
throwing a sinker, and they'rechasing how do you get that out
of'em?
(20:20):
Oh, it's hard.
Again, continual reinforcementhopefully is one.
And then obviously there's somany tools now the with
technology, right?
That, that we have.
And for example here, we've gotthe hit tracks and then we've
got.
Yeah, a pro batter pitchingmachine, which is the, one of
the most awesome things in theworld.
(20:40):
And so you can get in there andface game-like MLB pitching and
you got the strike zone.
Yeah.
And look, oh, I, oh, I shouldn'thave chased for us in BP and
stuff you swinging a ball yourround's done.
So it, that's real easy.
That's great.
But when we start, it's alwaysawful.
(21:02):
So when we get done with ourfall, we get into individuals
and we get into hitting.
And so any changes we wanna makewith our swing, we'll probably
spend the first two to threeweeks.
Now we're getting close togetting ready to head home for
the semester.
And now we actually starttalking about hitting, which is
way different than your swing.
(21:23):
It's pit selection.
Yeah.
It's all that stuff.
And it's really easy, but it'sway more complicated.
'cause most people reallyhaven't thought it's sea ball
hit ball.
That's right.
And again, I don't want to thinkI want to do it enough.
It's not thinking That's right.
But when we start talking aboutpitch selection, the next week
and a half is gonna be the worsteverybody's ever done.
(21:47):
It'll be awful.
Yeah, it's gonna be awful.
And we know it's gonna be awful,but we get through that and then
all of a sudden now we start,making some improvements and
then understanding the why.
Again, you wanna look at Battenaverages.
The guys with the highest Battenaverage are the guys that swing
the least.
Yeah.
You listen to Derek Jeter.
(22:08):
What pitch were you looking for?
I looked for one pitch, my wholecareer fastball down the middle.
And, and again just we'vegotten, I'm not very smart, so
that means I really gotta bereally simple on everything.
And but I think just the beautybe, the beauty of simplicity is.
(22:30):
Is something, it's a verycomplicated game, yet it's not.
And just when we can get, justget back to little bitty basic
things that you did made in thebackyard with your mom or dad or
brother or sister and just focuson those things.
I think you can really explodeand really improve a lot.
I don't think I understoodhitting until I was about 26, 27
(22:53):
years old.
Albert Olsen and a lot of theCardinals would come into my gym
in St.
Louis.
'cause we were on the west sidewhere a lot of'em lived.
And they'd be in my gym everymorning from January till they
left for spring training.
And watching Albert hit in acage was the most fascinating
thing I'd ever seen becausethere was so little movement.
(23:15):
Yep.
And even his front step maybe 5%of his weight went with that
first step.
Everything stayed home.
Yeah.
Where is that begin and end withfor you?
In terms of being able to reallyunderstand that strike zone.
Is it the eyes, is it the head?
Is it the weight?
(23:35):
Is it the hands?
Is there something that everykid that you can give, every
swing is different.
And I definitely want to getinto talking about Lance a
little bit.
He's, to me, he's another greatexample of that.
But where does that start foryou when you're trying to get a
kid to be that?
Scholarship level hitter and bethat kid that can be a great
player, a great hitter for you.
(23:58):
For me I think your bat path islike the key.
I think if you have a good batpath, you're gonna be able to
hit whether you get out on thatfront foot, whether you sit
back, whether whether you'reperfect.
To me, if you're bypassed goodyou got a chance.
'cause one, you're, we're gonnabe able to stay in the zone.
Longer.
(24:18):
Longer so I can be wrong andstill be successful.
And that's everything we try toteach our guys is look, we're
gonna be, we, how often do youthink you're perfect?
Like of a swing?
20%?
Maybe if you're really good.
Yeah.
What we gotta do, we gotta learnhow to be successful when we're
(24:39):
wrong and and so if that batpath can stay in the zone two
feet instead of 16 inches, itshould hopefully increase my
chances of success.
Makes a lot of sense.
It really does.
'cause if you're bat pass,right?
It doesn't matter if it's acurve ball, a sinker, or a fast
(24:59):
ball, right?
If it's in the zone.
You're gonna make a good swing.
Yeah.
In theory.
In theory.
Yeah.
That's, we spend a lot of timeon that and then as you said,
there's so many different ways,that's one thing when we come in
the fall, we don't really coacha whole lot because I've learned
enough, I've seen enough dudesthat I'm like, I don't know how
(25:20):
he's doing it.
But he's hitting every ball onthe barrel.
And so if I can see him forabout a month, then I can figure
it out.
So that way if he gets off inthe spring, I can go, okay, hey,
the, your hands have dropped alittle bit.
Yeah.
Or, you're loading a littlelater or what, whatever it may
be.
But if I can see it for a monthand see how they're successful
(25:42):
and see, because they wouldn'tbe here unless they'd had some
success Now.
If they get eaten up in the falland they hit one 20 which is
generally the norm.
Yeah.
Now they're open to listeningand you've got that teachable
moment and so you can't alwayswait for that.
But I think it's a lot morebeneficial if you can.
(26:02):
I love it.
All right.
We talked about Lance a littlebit.
You, you coached Lance Berkmanduring his amateur days.
What did you see in him thenthat translated?
To being a major leaguer arethere things that you could
already see at that age?
Yeah.
And so that was the summer hebecame Lance Burman, MOB Guy
(26:24):
Prospect, yeah.
So he was a, I'd seen him playin high school.
He played at New BraunfelsCanyon and signed with Rice
obviously.
And then that summer, playedwith us, with the Hayes Larks in
Hayes, Kansas.
And he's a bigger guy, right?
And then the body type, hefooled you on what a good
athlete, he could run reallywell, had a great arm, and then
(26:48):
he could just absolutely hit andhe was a switch hitter.
Always, even back then, I'mlike, dude, if you just hit
left-handed, you'd, because hisright-handed swing, he had more
power, but he was not as goodfrom the right side.
I still think if he would'vejust turned around and gone
left, I still tell him this tothis day.
I think he would've had betternumbers, but anyway but he
(27:09):
played the game with such joy.
And it lance a little bit of afree spirit and but he worked
really hard and he played reallyhard.
But it was really cool thatsummer because, that was the
year before Olympic the Olympicsand there was not an
international baseballtournament that year.
So Team USA actually played inthe NBC World Series, which used
(27:31):
to be really big deal.
And we played against them inthe championship and, anyway, it
was that, those were some crazydays.
We ended up dad gum, we had'emgoing into the eighth and Matt
LaCroix hit a bases loaded,triple off that center field
wall and they ended up beatingus.
But he really went off duringthat World Series and there were
(27:52):
a lot of scouts there and hereally.
Vaulted his way up and what heultimately became, which was a
truly great major leaguebaseball player coach.
I, I remember the first team Itook to the national tournament.
And I remember after that seasongoing, all right, I think I
figured some things out.
I fi, I think I know what I'mdoing.
And then that next year, mystarting center blew out his
(28:15):
knee and the first scrimmage ofthe year and all of a sudden our
All American is no longer on thefloor and all of a sudden going,
I don't know anything about whatI'm doing That a change.
I wanna take you back to 2007,that first World Series trip,
that third year of the program,and you make the World Series.
What do you remember about thatyear with that same mindset
(28:40):
about what you learned aboutyourself, what you learned about
coaching?
I remember a lot of things.
That's still obviously a reallyspecial team'cause they were the
first to get there.
But what I remember the most is,so 2007 during the fall, our
number one, number two, numberthree, number four, pitchers
(29:01):
gone for the year.
For one reason or another.
And so we had pitching tryoutswith everyday guys and just, and
found a couple that had pitched,that had never, a couple, had
never pitched before.
Okay, we're gonna make y'allinto pitchers as well.
And and then I remember.
(29:21):
That team.
So the year before, we'd won theconference in 2006 and and then
we went to the conference,tournament, got, we didn't play
great and we drew some toughmatchups arm wise, and we went
won.
And two, and we still, we'd won40 games in the regular season.
All the things.
And, when Selection Sunday cameour name was not called and
(29:46):
still probably the most, theworst moment I've had in
coaching was having to tell thatteam, Hey, you don't get to go
on.
You imagine 40 wins is notgetting the call.
Yeah, so it's really tough indivision two baseball.
Yeah.
There are a lot of great teamsthat don't even get the chance.
And so 2007, obviously, we justwanted to go.
(30:07):
We just wanted to go that wasit.
We want to go the tournament andso going down the stretch run,
we've got this midweek game.
We know we've gotta win thisgame and we'd lose heartbreaking
every one of'em.
We lost every game we had towin.
Everyone, but we lost them inthe right way, if that makes
sense.
Yeah.
And it, it did.
(30:27):
It just kept making us stronger.
Then we've gotta go to ourconference tournament.
We know we have to win it.
If we don't win it, we're out.
We get a we win the first game,second game, we get two outs
with a runner on third tie game.
A balk called walk Off Balk thatwe still will disagree to this
(30:48):
day over.
But and so now we gotta comebackthrough the losers bracket.
We gotta win four games.
Obviously our pitch in depth isnot real great with losing all
those guys.
And we come back.
The next one, we win an extrainning game.
Then we win the next one thenanyway.
And so all those losses I thinkcontributed.
To all those wins.
(31:08):
And and then, we go to theregional, we're the last seed.
We play the number one seedwho's got four losses, or 54 and
four or something.
And we go in, we, my, the one ofmy pit, he goes in, throws a
shutout, we win.
Play the next day.
We played an 18 inning game.
Finally.
Oh my gosh.
(31:28):
Win that one with your pitchingstaff.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Two guys.
So two guys pitched the whole 18went nine and nine.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
And and we win that, but we'replaying at a field with no
lights, so we screw up thebracket, but we get extra rest
because you know that we, it gotpushed back a day, which always
helps.
(31:48):
So we're able to bring guys backand.
We get down the lose bracket inthat one, we just come back and
win.
And so that team was just sogritty and resilient and again,
hopefully what we still aretoday.
That is amazing.
Yeah.
What a great story.
That is really fantastic.
What, when you look at a team,you've had some teams that have
(32:10):
had over, locked in for over 50games, how do you keep your guys
fresh?
How do you keep'em focused?
How do you are there thingsyou're doing to give'em a spell
and to give'em a breather andgive'em a break or is it just
the consistency of that routine?
I think it depends, I thinkevery team and every player is
(32:30):
different.
So for example, we talked aboutthis week we're, we've got a
buy.
Yeah, so it's a 10 day layoff.
So we had that in our regularseason as well.
We have a buy, we have a unevennumber of teams in our
conference, so there's a buyweek built in there.
And we did something we've neverhandled to buy that way, but I
(32:51):
thought we were a little tiredand a little banged up and we
gave'em off four days in a row,which is not something we've
ever done.
We came back practice, man,everybody's bat speeds a little
better.
Pitchers velo and command upabout two or three.
And matter of fact, I wasworried offensively, yeah.
That's probably where you worrythe most to just timing and
(33:13):
stuff being off.
And I think we scored 11 in thefirst inning and just hitting
lasers all over the field and Iwas like, huh, that worked
pretty good.
And we're doing the same thing.
Hopefully that's great.
It can work twice, but.
I think, the biggest thing forus is, and as a coach you gotta
know when to, you can't pushyour team all year.
(33:34):
They're gonna run outta gas.
And, but the standard's stillthe same.
But there days maybe you turnand look that way.
Because you know they need it.
Yeah.
They need to be able to get awaywith that.
Yeah.
Or whatever.
But then there are other partswhere that is not gonna work.
And so I think it's just usingyour judgment, but I think
(33:56):
whether the plan works or not,we've been pretty successful in
postseason for pretty long time,and I think.
We are from when we start inAugust there's a plan in place
to hopefully be playing our bestin May and June.
And it's worked out pretty goodhere recently.
And so I think it's more thereading your team, reading, just
(34:19):
their physical performance andthen their mental stuff and all
that.
But I think our practices aregenerally pretty intense every
day.
I.
But there are times during theyear you're like, okay, we're
playing this team that's ING 46.
We're gonna win.
I know we're gonna win.
I can go a little lighter thisweek.
And I think you gotta use thosethroughout the year.
Yeah.
(34:40):
We can all say every day we'redoing this, but yeah.
That's probably not really true.
Were you, would you have donesome of those things 20 years
ago?
No.
No, I think I've gotten better,a lot better, a little bit
smarter.
I'm the same way.
I, I'll still coach some highschool seasons here every once
(35:02):
in a while and, and I gottaremind myself, I.
Today's the day we break out thekickball boxes you basis.
This is the day we bring out thewiffle ball and Right, because
you need that sometimes.
Yeah, absolutely.
This is the day we get on a get'em on a bus and go to the
movies instead of practicing.
I just, early on, man, my first10 years of coaching, no way.
Yeah.
The kids just need it.
They need that break.
(35:23):
They need to know that there's ahumanity in what you're doing.
Amen.
And they're, yeah.
We're very exuberant when we'reyoung.
I look at some of the stuff Idid when I was young, and Lord
forgive me.
Yeah.
You and me both today.
We somebody to have cuffs on us20 years ago we've been talking
a lot about baseball.
We're talking about 50 50 gameseasons.
We're talking about all thesegreat things that you're doing
(35:45):
on the baseball field.
I don't want any of ourlisteners to forget that you're
coaching student athletes,you're coaching kids that are in
class every day and bustingtheir tail and studying.
What is, what are yourphilosophies?
What are some of the thingsyou're doing to create that
balance for your guys?
So they're walking outta AngeloState with that degree in hand
and that, whether they're goingto the major leagues or they're
(36:07):
getting drafted, or they'regonna go to med school or go to
business school or go get a job.
What are those things that youguys do on a week-to-week basis
to make sure that balance isthere?
I think you know, the biggestthing is you are who you are all
the time, and so you can't be anextremely hard worker just in
baseball and stink at yourrelationships with your
(36:30):
girlfriend and your family, andthen stink in the classroom.
And so I.
It becomes a thing of that'sjust who I am, right?
Yeah.
And everything I do, I hopefullyam given great effort.
The one thing I think that wetry to do we're, we do things
way different, I think than, alot of people, but we try to
(36:53):
teach them.
So like in the fall, first thingwe do is, hey, we do a goal
sheet, and it's academics,athletics, and then after.
College, what do you want to doand how can we help you?
And on the academic end it's, orespecially the guys that this,
their first year here.
Yeah.
Okay.
You got algebra at nine, you gotwhatever, bring in your class
(37:18):
schedule.
Okay.
When are you gonna study?
And they're like, I'm gonnastudy every night from seven to
10, Monday through Saturday.
Then I'll be like, okay, you'regonna do that?
And they're like, yes.
And I'm like, okay where are yougonna study?
I'm in my room.
Okay, your roommate there, theylist playing video games,
(37:39):
whatever.
Okay then that's probably not agood place.
Then let's find a place.
And then you cut let's saythey're a big Yankees fan.
Okay'cause it's always, you'rein playoffs, right?
It's about when school starts.
So I was like, so Yankees gotgame seven of the World Series
on a Tuesday night, you'restudying, you told me you're
studying from seven to 10, youwatching the Yankees or are you
(38:00):
doing that?
And I'm fine with the answers tothe Yankees.
But I was like, okay, so we justand baseball people were so
routine oriented, right?
Every one of us.
And so we just try to get'em inthe routine.
But the key is with the routine,we gotta stay with the routine.
And you gotta understand, theymay, your friends may call and
say, Hey, we're all going to amovie, or we're all going that
(38:22):
if this is the time you setaside for study, or to go hit
extra, or to get in the weightroom extra, or whatever it is.
We just gotta be disciplinedenough to say that, and then we
hold them accountable withoutoverseeing.
We will ask, but I'm not gonnago in there and stand and see if
they're doing what they'resupposed to do.
(38:44):
Because at the end of the day,we can push the degree.
We can want the degree Mom anddad can want the degree.
Everybody can want the degree.
You gotta want it at the end.
Now we can trick you intogetting it.
By just trying to stay eligible,then all of a sudden you walk up
your wake up your senior yearand you're like, Hey, you know
what?
You getting a piece of papersaid you finished.
(39:06):
And so we've done that too.
But I just think, again it'steaching these young people to
grow up and be great men.
And there are a lot of thingsthat go into that, but a lot of
that is accountability toyourself.
Did they change their tune whenyou talk about that?
When they say, I'm gonna, I'mgonna study these hours.
Yes.
It's always when you talk aboutthe reality, do you hear a
(39:28):
change in I do.
And they're like, oh, I hadn'tthought about that.
And I was like, no, you hadn't.
And I'm like, but generallyyou're telling me you're, dude,
you're studying 40 hours a week.
I don't think you need to dothat much.
Yeah.
And that's one thing that'schanged, we used to do study
hall back in the day.
And and then I quit doing it andI was like, I just wanna see our
GPA was like half a point higherwhen we didn't.
(39:51):
And I think it's because most ofus, you make us do it right.
First of all, we're not gonna doit probably with our hearts and
but you let'em go do it on theirown, they're gonna do more and
they're gonna do a higherquality job.
And so that's our philosophywith everything.
We're limited obviously with theNCAA hours and so we give'em
just a taste and then you know,you wanna really go get better.
(40:16):
You've got access to thefacilities.
Hopefully we're doing a good jobcoaching.
You now go be as good as you canbe.
I love it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's the way the worldis going in a good program.
We're disciplined.
You walk off the floor, you walkoff that field you're still got
that Angelo State on your chest.
(40:38):
Amen.
Doesn't change.
You're in a classroom.
Doesn't change.
So I love that mentality and Ithink it's so important for
young men and young women tohear that.
Being an adult it's hard, butbeing an adult means there's
rewards that come with it.
I if you're willing to commit toit.
So yes, for sure.
(41:00):
I love it.
Coach, can I can we do a littlerapid fire with you?
Yeah, go ahead.
Is there a, is there somethingthat you've read?
Is there a book, is there apodcast?
Is there somebody that you know,somebody, a mentor that's giving
you some advice?
Is there something you recommendto young coaches?
Anything Grant Taf is everwritten.
(41:20):
Winning, I believe.
He's got some great things forteachers classroom teachers as
well.
I grew up in, in Waco, I went toBaylor.
That guy was my idol growing up.
Strangely enough he came toBaylor from Angelo State.
And so I've gotten him to speakto our team several times.
That's awesome as he getshonored here.
(41:41):
But nobody better motivator thanthat guy.
What's the best advice you'vereceived as a coach?
Oh, man.
Don't mess with happy.
And that's Mark Johnson.
That's the title of your podcastepisode.
Don't Mess With Happy.
I love it.
Yeah.
Mark Johnson, who, a former,hall of fame coach former head
coach at Texas a and m that Igot to work for a little bit.
(42:03):
And first of all, e everythingwe do at our program is
patterned off of what we didthere.
But in this business I.
A lot of people you can get intoa right race.
And he was like, Kevin don'tever mess with happy.
And it, it's, boy, it's reallygood advice.
Perfect.
I wish somebody would've droppedthat on me when I was a
(42:24):
26-year-old head coach.
'cause it would've, I think itwould've saved me a lot of pain
in my players.
Yes.
Yes.
So that's great.
Whenever I see my guys over thelast 30 years, we get together
for an alumni thing or reunionthing.
There's always, I always getteased about things that I would
say over and over again.
Is there is there a Coach Brooksphrase that your guys always
(42:48):
tease you about?
'cause you always say it.
It's, oh, there's a lot.
There's a whole YouTube channelif you wanna go watch'em all.
I wish I would've known that,but I'm gonna go check it out.
Anyway, they hadn't done theimitations as much in the past
few years, but yeah, there's aton.
Let's see.
I, I think there's some yearsthey just start in the fall and
I'll say something, they gowrite it down on the
refrigerator and they have, abook at the end of the year what
(43:11):
are we doing, or why?
But I do say why a lot.
But there, there's a lot, one ofmy favorite ones and it makes no
sense.
Okay.
That's it.
This doesn't make any sense, butit makes sense, right?
I talk out of both sides of mymouth quite a bit.
You gotta trust your teammates,but you can't trust them.
(43:33):
That's one.
And when I explain'em in mymind, they make perfect sense.
But yes, they make fun of me allthe time.
Oh, God.
So anyway, I love it.
I love it.
You sound like an old Yankeescatcher for some reason.
Yogi Berra.
Oh gosh.
Yeah.
So anyway, but.
It's, as that's, it's one of thebest parts of this is when they,
(43:57):
when your players arecomfortable enough with you to.
To get on you when you Yeah.
That's a good place to be.
It's a great place to be.
Yes.
It really is.
We're, when we're so hard onhim, and we're constantly
pushing'em to their potential.
It's so nice when it just clicksand coach ain't going nowhere.
He ain't giving up on me.
He ain't quitting on me evenwhen he is hollering at me.
Me.
(44:18):
So the fact that you have thatand you've always had that is,
is such a big deal.
So that's cool.
Is there one word.
That describes Kevin Brooks as acoach.
Oh, gosh.
Man, one word I, that's tough.
Competitor is really about thebiggest one I can think of.
(44:40):
I love competing.
Yeah.
It shows.
Coach, thank thanks so much fordoing this first segment with
me.
It's such an honor to talk toyou and such pleasure to listen
to how you've built this programand how you've sustained it.
And, but the real joy for me isto see how much fun you're still
having and how much you stilllove the game and being a part
(45:01):
of these young men's lives.
So thank you for doing thistoday.
Awesome.
It was an honor, and thank youfor having me on.
For you.
Good luck the rest of the way.
Thank you.
What a conversation full ofwisdom, humility, and an
unshakeable competitive spirit.
Coach Kevin Brooks has done itall at Angelo State, started a
program from scratch, built itinto a national power, and kept
(45:23):
it there with consistency, careand character.
But what stood out most to metoday wasn't the accolades or
the titles.
It was his commitment to stayinggrounded and his passion for
doing things the right way.
He's not chasing the next shinything.
He's leading with intention.
He's building young men throughbaseball, and as he reminded us,
he's not about to mess withhappy.
(45:45):
I love that.
Coach Brooks, thank you forbeing a competitor, a builder,
and a true example of whatsignificance in coaching looks
like.
Now if you enjoyed this episode,be sure to follow, subscribe,
and leave a review Whereveryou're listening.
Share it with a coach, a parent,or an athlete who needs to hear
this message.
And make sure you check out mywebsite, coach matt rogers.com.
(46:06):
That's where you'll find freeresources, weekly blog posts,
one-on-one recruiting strategysessions if you're starting this
recruiting journey.
And you can get your copy ofsignificant recruiting, the
playbook for prospective collegeathletes and be on the alert.
'cause you want to make sureyou're subscribing to my
newsletter.
I've got new books coming out,I've got new journals coming out
(46:27):
for college athletes.
So make sure you're payingattention to that.
Now before you leave, don'tforget, come back this Monday
for a special bonus episode ofsignificant Recruiting where
Coach Brooks and I we're gonnadive deeper into the recruiting
side of college baseball.
You won't want to miss it.
Thanks for listening, and we'llsee you next time on The
(46:48):
Significant Coaching Podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.