Scott Jackson - 2026 ABCA/Soldier Sports NCAA Div. I Assistant Coach of the Year, UNC

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Welcome to the abca's podcast.
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I'm your host ryan brownlee.
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This episode is brought to you by Rapsodo Baseball. Great coaching starts with knowing what to work on next. Rapsodo gives coaches the objective data, video and instant feedback they need to make every rep more purposeful with 20 plus hitting and pitching data points, live on live capabilities, seam orientation, scripted sessions and more. Rapsodo's Pro 2.0 and Pro 3.0 units help coaches dial in on player development for their athletes with pro level data and ball tracking technology. From establishing baselines to validating adjustments and tracking progress, Rapsoda takes the guesswork out of development. Measure what matters, train with purpose. Learn more by emailing salespsodo.com or visit their website rapsodo.com baseball
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this episode is sponsored by Netting Pros. Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time. Netting Professionals specializes in the design, fabrication and installation of custom netting for backstops, batting cages, dugouts, BP screens and ball carts. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen turf, turf protectors, dugout benches, dugout cubbies and more. Netting Professionals is an official partner of the ABCA and continues to provide quality products and services to many high school, college and professional fields, facilities and stadiums throughout the country. Netting Professionals are improving programs one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707 or infoottingpros.com visit them online at www.nettingpros.com or check out Netting Pros on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. Make sure to let CEO Will Minor know that the ABCA sent you.
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Now on to the podcast 2026 ABCA soldier sports NCAA Division 1 assistant coach of the Year Scott Jackson is one of the most respected assistant coaches and recruiters in college baseball, someone who spent more than two decades helping build winning programs and develop players at the highest level. Jackson has been a key part of some of the most successful stretches in both North Carolina and Liberty base, taking the 2026 Tar Heels team to the CWS Championship Series. During his first stint in Chapel Hill, Jackson helped The Tar Heels go 345 and 156, make three College World Series appearances, reach six straight NCAA regionals and win the 2013 ACC championship. Jackson was also instrumental in building those Carolina rosters, helping recruit eight first round MLB draft picks and more than 40 players who went on to be selected in the draft. If recruiting classes were consistently among the nation's best, including the number one ranked class in 2014 and another top ranked class in 2016. Then Jackson took over as head coach at Liberty, where he went 246 and 181 over eight seasons. He led the Flames to five 31 seasons, three NCAA regional appearances, program record 43 wins in 2019 and Liberty's first a Sun championship. Along the way, 15 of his players were selected in the MLB draft and 16 went on to play professionally. Jackson's coaching journey stops included Campbel, Barton, Walford, unc, Wilmington Liberty, and even the Wilmington Sharks in the Coastal Plain League, where you're on coach of the year honors. Today we're going to talk about what it takes to recruit at an elite level, develop players from professional baseball, build championship programs, and ultimately create a culture that consistently produces winning baseball. Let's welcome Scott Jackson to the podcast
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here with Scott Jackson, ABCA Soldier Sports NCAA Division I assistant coach of the year, but second stint at uncle but successful run at Liberty was also though at Liberty's assistant, Uncw Wofford Barton Campbell. But great year for North Carolina this year. 54 and 14 and played in the championship series in Omaha. So, Scott, thanks for jumping on with me.
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I'm excited too, man. I appreciate you. It's good to connect with you and I'm just looking forward to spending some time with you.
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Yeah. And when you came back, I text you that and you're like, you know, I was going to ask, is UNC probably the only job you would have left as a head coach to be an assistant again?
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Absolutely. I mean, I loved it at Liberty. It was great. The administration there was incredible to me, was incredible to our program. You know, relationships are at the crux of anything you do. And the deepest relationships that I have in my professional career are right here in the building. So I wanted to be with those guys. And not to mention the family side of it. It's the only place I ever wanted to coach when I first started coaching, so just, just thankful to be back.
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How special is it to be with Coach Forbes?
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Yeah, you know, he was in my wedding. We were both single back in the summer of 2000, and he was the head coach of the Wilmington Sharks and I was his assistant. And it was a lot of time together and a lot of baseball, as, you know, in the Coastal Plain League. You know, it's just about every day. And so we just connected and had a relationship that, you know, we really hoped that one day we'd be able to coach again. And, you know, he, he was instrumental, obviously in getting me Here the first time I was here with Coach Fox for eight years, and then just to be back with him, you know, there's a trust factor there. We know each other well, and I think it. It helps, you know, our program and certainly our players as well, feel like
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the Coastal Plains League and the Northwoods League kind of kicked off the craziness of college summer baseball.
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Yeah, I do, too. You know, the Coastal Plains League was great. You know, it gave, I think, all of us a chance to, I guess, you know, take that next step of being a head coach in some, you know, way, shape or form, and to be able to prove to yourself that you can do it. And, you know, to be able to manage a summer roster sometimes isn't easy. It's even more difficult now than it was back then. But I think those two leagues, along with others, have been, you know, just a great piece of college baseball from. Not just player development from. But from coaching development as well.
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Go through your different stops for people that maybe don't know this, because I think good coaches can coach, and you've coached almost every position on the field. Just go through kind of your different stops and then your responsibilities for on the field stuff, because you've evolved over time with. With your responsibilities.
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Yeah, that's okay. So I had just finished playing college baseball and stuck around as a graduate assistant cutting the grass, you know, at Campbell with baseball, soccer, and softball field. And I had actually worked camps as a player for Steve Traylor, who was the head coach at Duke. And he left Duke to take the woffer job and had $3,000 for me as my salary. That first year, I got an old locker room to live in and a card to eat my meals in the cafeteria. And so that was my first job. And then I went to Barton College with Todd Wilkinson and again had to take care of soccer, softball, and baseball. That was the biggest. I guess the biggest part of my job description was to be the groundskeeper out there and was able to work with the hitters and the pitchers at Barton, and that was great. And then I got a chance to go back to Campbell and play, or, excuse me, coach for the. For the program. But the head coach that I played for, Chip Smith, was still there and basically had to teach two classes, lifetime wellness classes, and got a chance to, you know, work with the position players there. And then that summer, I was the head coach in the Coastal Plain League, and Randy Hood approached me, who coached me at Campbell, who's now the head coach at Wilmington, and asked me if I Would, you know, want to coach the pitchers at UNC Wilmington. And so I gave it some thought and, you know, said, sure, I'd love to. And for some reason, Coach Scaffold hired me at UNCW with zero. I shouldn't say zero. I worked with the pitchers at Barton, but not much experience, you know, as a pitching coach. And thankfully we had older pitchers. I learned a lot from them. I was there in Wilmington for five years. It was awesome. Great experience. Three regionals, just a blast. And then went with Jim Thoman to Liberty as his pitching coach there and was only there one year before Coach Fox hired me to come to Carolina to go back to working with, you know, the position players. So it's been great. It's been something that I don't think you see much now. You know, Coach Fox was really big and Coach Scaff as well. Hiring the person first, you know, and then letting them have some responsibilities that maybe they were or weren't ready for and gave me a chance to prove myself. And so then after eight years with Coach Fox, I was the head coach at Liberty for eight years and then came back here in the summer of 2024 to be, to be back in Chapel Hill. So here we are.
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More fun coaching headers or pitchers.
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You know, I think maybe the hitters just because you can't throw a bullpen every day, but I've enjoyed both of them. I think anytime you're a pitching coach, you have a very unique relationship with your pitchers. And, you know, it's something that I've really enjoyed that piece of it in my career. When I was a head coach, I always just loved to watch, you know, guys like Brian Gaines and Matt Williams and Tyler Robinson do their job and because if you don't pitch, you got no shot and you know, to have those guys, it's an important role and I've just been fortunate to be around some really good ones.
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How do those one on ones go? Because I've had those two with pitching for maybe somebody that hasn't had to deal with those one on ones with pitchers. Just talk about those a little bit. Because it is a very unique relationship between coach and pitcher.
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Yeah, I mean, just getting to know, you know, a lot of different areas, you know, from a pitching standpoint, you know, there's stuff, you know, just watching, watching them grip the baseball, something that, you know, maybe seems so simple, but paying attention to all the details that go into how they move, what they're trying to do, what, what's easy for them to Execute what's not easy for them to execute, how they can grow to take the next step. Can they manage the game? You know, the game management part of it to me is, you know, that's huge, you know, especially as a starting pitcher because we need you to stay out there as long as you can. And, you know, can. Can you keep it to one or two runs? Can you manage that part of it? How can we help you manage the game? You know, your routines, not just, you know, in between starts, but in between pitches. I think there's so many things that go into just mastering the ability to be your best and be at your best when you take the mound and then put yourself in a position to be able to perform, especially if you're a reliever and do it, you know, multiple times a week. And I think that takes a lot of trust. I think you have to have a really good strength coach. You have to. A really good, you know, just a program that's all encompassing, that's holistic for a guy to be able to grow and do what he needs to do in college to hopefully give him a chance to continue to pitch.
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Beyond that, you brought up good, a good point and good advice for somebody who's maybe not coached that position about relying on your players and getting feedback from your players. You got your pitching coach for first time running your staff and relying on your current players to kind of help you through that process of coach, which you got to drop a little bit of your ego for that. But it is great advice, like if you haven't coached that position before, rely a little bit more on your players to help you through the process.
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That's exactly what I was able to do. We had Jake Mullis, Chris Coughlin and Brad Overton in the rotation at UNCLE when I got there. Yeah, and they were all, you know, they were all seniors and, you know, I wasn't going to be the guy they had all had success. So, you know, just, hey, tell me what works for you. How can we best facilitate that? I don't have any new ideas. I learned way more from them than they probably learned from me. I just wanted to put them in a position to continue to keep moving forward, you know, and taking steps that they needed to take and be able to, you know, start their, their pro career. And all three of them were able to do that. And you look back on it and, you know, they pitched in that program for, you know, for three, four years and put themselves in a position to, you know, to do that. And it wasn't because of me. It was just because of what they did and how they went about their business and how prepared they were. And, you know, you got to give credit to Sean Doty and Brandon hall and those guys that were there when they were young.
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Another good point too, about staying out of guys ways if they're having success, no question. Which is hard as a young coach because, you know, you want to help guys, but if they're putting up numbers, like they're making your job easier, just get out of the way.
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Yeah.
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And asking them and trusting them, like, what do you think the next step is for you to take another jump, you know, whether it's offensively and trying to find out maybe what their weaknesses are or what are some things, whether it's a third pitch or, you know, being able to do some things as a hitter, to slug a little bit more, you know, take a little bit more chances, take a little bit more risk with some things. You know, those are all things that I think we can help players have more confidence with. And at the end of the day, you know, we're coaching confidence just as much as we are, you know, the exit velo and the. And the. And the velocity on the mound.
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How similar personalities. Coach Scaff and Coach Fox.
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Very, you know, very the two best managers of a program I've ever been around. And when I say managing the program, I'm talking, you know, from academics to dragging the field to just being able to be prepared and organized in every facet. Those two guys, I mean, I. And I'm sure Coach Forbes would say the same thing, you know, that we wouldn't have had the chance to be head coaches and have some success doing that if we weren't around those guys as much as we were.
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You stop to touch the field.
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I love to touch the field. I love.
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I do too. I miss it like you miss it. I'm like, that's probably one of the few things that I like, miss miss is actually doing field work.
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Yeah, we got off a little bit early. Our grounds crew had left, but we got off a little bit early. I think it was last Thursday and the pitchers had about 30 minutes before they got out. I just jumped on the mower and cut the outfield. I love that, you know, that real mower and that Bermuda grass, man, I'll never. That'll never get out of me. I can promise you that at turf field, at Liberty, I missed, you know, that grass. The natural.
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Yeah. But shout out to Liberty of giving you everything that you need for people that don't know about Liberty's program and haven't been on that campus, they've done a tremendous job with the baseball program of giving them everything that they need to be successful there at Liberty.
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Yeah, they certainly have. I mean, Ian McCaw is just an incredible leader up there, I don't think. And I've told other people this. I don't think I was ever told no. If we needed something, it was either yes or, you know, hey, give me some time and let me figure out, you know, how we can make this work in time. And Mickey Garride, the assistant AD up there, just extremely supportive. You know, you feel the support as a. As a coach there, and it trickles down, and you feel it as a student athlete, and they want to win just like everybody else does, but they certainly. Their actions and what they've done for that program. They speak loud, and I'm happy for Bradley. They got back to a regional up there, and I'm always pulling for the Flames, unless we're playing.
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You guys have done a great job in the portal. What are some keys to getting it right? Me, as somebody who got out 19, like, I never had to deal with that, and I feel like you guys have gotten it right. It's such a short window, you know. What are some keys to getting it right with guys coming in out of the portal?
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Well, I think, you know, the identification part is we do. I think we do a good job of that because we're so collaborative, you know, as a coaching staff. And if there's a player that we think we like, you know, the access to video and data now is. It's, like, better than it's ever been. To be able to jump on synergy and watch them at bats. And, you know, sometimes the. The kids will send some BP video, then you've got true media. You've just got all the data. And we've got a process that we go through to kind of check some boxes of, you know, what can this kid do? Will he fit in our league? You know, some of it's been, I think, too, that we put. We put them in the lineup. You know, what we've. What we've recruited them to do ends up coming to fruition on the. Like, we recruited Owen hall to play center field. He didn't play center field at George Mason. You know, Jake Schaffner. We recruited him to be our shortstop. You know, and so when you. When you go through that process and you feel good about it and you give kids chances to stay out there and prove themselves. I mean, obviously they're talented, but, you know, you want to walk in the door and you want to feel a comfort level of, okay, you know, I feel good about playing center field here. The coaches are playing me in the scrimmages, you know, in the positions that I was, you know, told I was going to play when I was recruited. And so with that, I think they settle in and you get the best version of them earlier than later. And I think we've, you know, we've done that here. And those guys. I think the catching situation last year is probably one of the better examples, if you will. You know, we had Macon Winslow, but Colin Heineck chose us, too, from Georgia State. And sure enough, one of them caught 36 games, I think, and the other one caught 32. And we told them we wanted to split time with them. And one of them, you know, was hopefully going to DH while the other one caught. And it ended up being a really, a great situation for us, but one that we felt so good about at the end of the year because it's exactly, you know, the kids have to earn it, but you can't overdo it, and you can't have five catchers and, you know, you can't. You can't clog it. And the kids want to come here because they know they're going to get an opportunity to do what we had discussed in the recruiting process, and that's just something we feel really good about.
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But you also get lucky with guys staying healthy, too.
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Absolutely.
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That's catching a scary position to fill out because it's like if. If one or two of those guys go down and you're trying to rely on your third and fourth guy to, To. To be back there every day, it's going to be a long season.
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Yeah. No, and that's what happened to Macon. He. He got a check swing off the forearm and couldn't catch, but he could still hit. And we didn't miss a beat back there with Colin. And both of them are, you know, Macon's with the Phillies now and Collins with the Cubs. It's just. It was a great. Just a great story, if you will, or just a great example of, you know, guys that, you know, were all about the team and they ended up where they wanted to go.
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With the addition of more staff members and. And a few more dead periods. Recruiting wise, is there a little bit more balance on the recruiting side, or is it still as crazy it's always been?
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No, it's I mean, it's still, you know, it depends. It can be as crazy as you want it to be, as, you know, there's always an event and there's always somebody to go see. But, you know, I think it at this time of year, especially as we're getting ready to come out of this quiet period in September, I think it really. The biggest benefit is going to be the guys in the clubhouse that are out here on the field that we get to spend. You know, you're going to have your coaches there. I remember there was times when, you know, I would be gone for, you know, from a Wednesday to a Sunday, and you miss. You miss maybe three or four scrimmages and you come back and hitters want help, and I haven't seen you in the batter's box, you know, for three scrimmages, and let me just try to watch you for a couple days, you know, and we can talk about it. And then you're gone again, you know, the next weekend. So I think that's the biggest part. The players are going to see the benefit. They're going to. They're going to benefit from it the most, more than anybody.
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When do you guys get going in the fall with full team stuff?
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September 7th.
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So you get right into it then.
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We do. Yep, we do. Yeah. We like to give our pitchers the chance to be able to use that off season. That's been our formula to keep those guys, you know, healthy for the most part. And I think Coach Gaines does a great job. And we. We usually start as early as we can with the pitchers in mind.
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Do you guys have anybody that goes out on the mound in the summertime?
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Yeah, we do. We had a couple that went up to the Cape this summer. We had Boston. Flannery pitched in a starting role so that he could kind of manage his innings. You know, those are the things that I think if you find the right place in the right situation for a pitcher, you can take care of them, they can develop, they can get better, and they can come back here and be ready to pitch in the fall. We like most all of our guys to pitch in the fall, if they can.
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Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, you still got to have them get. I know some schools shut guys down for the fall, too, but that would be hard for me to have a guy on campus and not. Not see him perform. Do you have like an innings limit for guys through the whole year, or is it pitches or how are you guys managing workload from spring, summer, and then into the fall?
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Yeah, that's. I mean, Coach Gaines and Coach Forbes, they, you know, we have the luxury that Coach Forbes was, was a pitching coach. And so he always has that lens in mind of taking care of our arms and being able to manage the workload. If you look back with Kaden Glauber as a freshman last year, you know, he threw 90 innings. And if you just go back and look at the usage, I mean, I thought it was incredible how, you know, we managed, or Coach Forbes managed his workload to be able to be the national freshman of the year. And a lot of those innings came, you know, out of the bullpen, almost all of them. You know, so that's, that's something that, that just takes a lot of communication and a lot of planning. And Coach Gaines is already probably working backwards from, you know, opening day to make sure that those guys are shut down in the fall when they need to. And, you know, what, what rest they need to get in between their mound work, you know, in the fall, and then starting to get ready for the, you know, for the season. He's, he's always looking ahead and obviously he's got a great resource with Coach Forbes to be able to kind of cross check everything and make sure we all agree that we're putting our guys in the best spot possible.
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At what point did you all know that Kaden was going to be able to do that? That's not an easy thing for a freshmen to take those innings out of the pen because they're used to starting their whole lives. Like, at what point were you guys like, okay, this, he's gonna be able to do this?
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It was probably, I would say, his, his third or fourth outing last fall. I just remember we all, you know, the scrimmage was over with and we all went back in that coach's locker room and we're like, holy smokes. Like, not only is he taking a velo jump, but the change up's good, the sliders, you know, ridiculous. And he's just got it, if you will. You know, from a makeup standpoint, one of our, our undergrad student assistants, he just, he kind of referred to him as like an assassin because he just goes out there and he thinks he's better than everybody else that gets in the batter's box. And he didn't do it in a, you know, an obnoxious way as a freshman, but you could just tell by the way he carried himself that he's, he's a little different.
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Yeah. What about the five for five? You like it does it clean some things up?
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I do. I mean, I think it simplifies things. I think it gives kids, you know, a chance to be able to kind of know, you know, okay, I've got these five years, however I want to use them. There's a lot of kids here that in our program that I'd love to have them around for five years. You know, I think if you make it to that fourth year in any program, Gavin Gallagher maybe is a good example where, you know, he's kind of like the face of Carolina baseball, if you will, you know, and he's back here for his fourth year. And if you asked Gavin, like, hey, what if you didn't get what you wanted in the draft again and you had to come back for a fifth year? I think he, he would love to, you know, and I think you just become part of the university, part of the program, part of the school. When it becomes such a big part of your life that, you know, those kids, if they want to be here for that fifth year and they, you know, they, they fit what our roster needs to look like, then I think it's great for them.
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I think with the proposed draft stuff like hard slot, I think some of that stuff helps the fourth and fifth year guys even more now because they're not going to get hamstrung in the draft because they're old. You know, if they get picked in the hundredth pick, then they're going to still get paid. So I think that helps college baseball even more now.
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Yeah, I mean, college baseball, gosh, we could have a whole nother podcast on just how far.
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How good is it?
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It's incredible. Yeah. And when you have older players like that, the product is going to stay at a higher level. And, you know, I'll be interested to see, you know, if, if Major League Baseball strikes, if, if college baseball takes center stage this spring, that would be really cool for our sport.
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Would you tweak the portal at all? Would you tweak the timeline or any. With the portal? How would you tweak it?
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Yeah, I definitely would. I think. I think you should be able to go to Omaha and enjoy it. If you get to be one of those eight teams and, and don't get me wrong, I, I've certain. I certainly enjoyed it out there, but that was my first time going and experiencing, you know, managing the portal while you're out there. It's definitely a thing, you know, it's. It's something that's difficult, you know, and you want to try to get on the phone a lot, and you're talking to players and you're talking to agents and you're trying to manage that while you're trying to prepare for another team and scouting reports and, you know, so you, you want to, you want to be able to, I think, simplify that a little bit. I liked some of the stuff that I saw in Craig's email that maybe had some ideas of how to change that and shorten the window. I think that's, I think that's, that's the right thing to do is to shorten it. When do you open it? When do you close it? I think you're going to get some different opinions there, but I think, I think it needs a few tweaks, and I don't know if I have all the right ideas, but I think taking a hard look at it and really trying to do what's best for 95% of the teams is the right decision. And based on what I read in Craig's email, that's kind of what he's. What the ABCA is targeting and what we need to target as a group of coaches.
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I think if you can bring the draft back to closer to where it was too, I think that cleans a lot of stuff up, too, because he talked about summer. I think where the draft is right now, it's hurt you guys from, like, who's actually going to be around. And it's killed summer baseball, too, where the draft is now.
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Yep, it has. And it's changed the way players approach summer ball, especially if you're eligible. The portals changed the way kids approach summer ball. So I think there's a lot of things that we need, we need to take, you know, a hard look at. And, you know, I don't know that we'll be able to get the day of the draft change. I don't know whose decision that is. It's certainly Major League baseballs and, and hopefully we can get to a conclusion that works for just about 95% or whatever the percentage is. Let's do, let's do the majority.
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Any tweaks to nil?
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Oh, man. You know, I think there should be a cap that's, you know, that's, that's me personally. You know, obviously, RTV contracts in the acc, they're not what, you know, they are in the Big Ten and they are in the sec. You know, I think if you look at it, it's. It's been a good thing. You know, NIL is certainly. It's got value for players to be able to capitalize, you know, on their success while they're in college. And I think the, the crux of it is good. Where, where does it need to go and what does that need to look like and can we cap it? You know, I think there's a bunch of different opinions there depending on where you are and, you know, what league you play in.
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Do you do anything to decompress after the season?
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Well, fortunately and unfortunately, when you, when you played as long as we did, you, you don't have much of that summer, you know, to get out and recruit. So this summer, no, I haven'. I haven't stopped much, but most summers I'll, I'll take, you know, a few days with my wife and go to the beach.
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So I, I mean, how have you. I mean, I've been able to take a breath and they're back on campus,
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so it's like, I'll take that every summer, though. Play that long and play on June 25th.
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I'll.
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I'll take that part of it and, and have, have plenty of time, you know, eventually, at the end of my career, after my career, to decompress.
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Yeah. Do you guys. Does the message change at all this fall for you guys?
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You know, no, it's, it's, it's, it's just goes right back to the process starting all over again. And I think that's why you coach. Right. It's just so much fun this time of year when we're in a quiet period and we can't have any visits until September 1st. You know, we've got these two weeks here to just really be with our team and get to know the kids and try to figure out what kind of pieces we have and where we think we can go with it. You know, you want to be optimistic. Obviously you are every year this time of year. But I just think Coach Forbes does a great job of, you know, you can talk about Omaha. We all kind of, that's kind of a given here. But to be able to just talk about the day to day and the process of what it takes to be able to show up down here every day and think about where you want to go and what you want to do. Those are great. You know, it's a great thing to do, but you got to act on it every single day. And we've been fortunate to have a guy like Coach Forbes who gets it and does a great job making sure our players get it.
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How's your fall development changed over time, over the course of your career. What have you tweaked as far as how you're prepping guys in the fall, if anything, or what are you still using too, that you've always used?
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Oh, that's a great question. You know, I think using the fall to just to have a fundamental baseline at every position of the things that are not. Not going to be negotiable. This is how we're going to approach a fly ball, a ball on the ground in the outfield. This is how we're going to receive behind the plate. This is what we're going to try to do. Just trying to add a lot to the toolbox that in my opinion, once you start to scrimmage from a position player standpoint, once you start to scrimmage, if we make a mistake in the game, then we have something to go back to, like here's why we made the mistake. And this is not, I guess, performing with those fundamentals that we're trying to instill or install, however you want to look at it from. From the get go. So that's kind of where we are right now. One thing that you can't get mad at the players if you haven't coached it right like you can, you can get frustrated at what happened, but it's not the player's fault. If we don't have a tandem, we're not in the right place with a tandem rel play or, you know, we don't glove spin a ball to give ourselves a chance to throw a batter runner out at second. You know, there's just so many little things is if there's something that we've already taught them that we can go back to and be able to, I guess, continue to allow them to improve with. You know, that's just our daily fundamental defense work. We hope that that takes over to. It's just the way we do things around here and our guys, you know, eventually it takes time, but you know, they're pretty good at figuring that out. We had an unbelievable defensive team last year and really that's my focus most of the time during the, you know, during the fall because we got all winter to hit. You know, it can snow and we can get in the cages and hit. We got traject. We got plenty of ways to get better offensively. How is traject incredible? It's all about how you use it and you got to make time for it. You got to have an understanding of the fact that it's going to be difficult. You got to get in the right Headspace as a hitter and allow it to make you better and not get frustrated with it. You have to have somebody who runs it and is dedicated to finding video, training the machine and making sure that the metrics on each pitch are accurate. And you know, you're in there watching the shapes on the video, you know, and trying to get them to match identical in the, in the cage. So it's been a lot of trial and error. We feel like we're really good at it. You know, I'm sure it'll continue to evolve, but it's been an unbelievable training tool.
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Which style of ball are you guys using in there?
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I think it's called, I think it's called an R10.
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They're the lighter balls, right?
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No, we use, we use. We had talked to a lot of guys in pro ball, some guys in the big leagues. You know, there's. What we found is the lighter balls. The, the pitch shape isn't what it needs to be sometimes, especially with the heater. If you've got a guy that's got a carry heater, the ball is just not going to have the hop at the plate that it would if you put a, you know, a regular nine ounce ball in there.
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And some of the haptic too, like, because I, I know it saves the wear and tear on their hands because it's lighter, but you still don't get some of the instant feedback that you do with the regular baseball too, if you're squaring it up or not.
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Correct. And like the exit velos, like that's. That's exactly right. You just, you have to get in the right headspace in there because the machine's gonna, you're going to feel like you smoked a ball and it's going to say 87 miles an hour. Like you just have to get out of that part of it and really understand the windows that we need to look in and what the guy's stuff looks just to pitch shapes and get. I mean we have rounds where we just take, you know, you're just in there trying to just see shapes and get used to, you know, what you're getting ready to see. I think it's like, you know, when the game starts, you're probably, if you train right, you're probably. It's the equivalent of being in your third or fourth at bat off the starter if you've done your job off the jack.
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You talked about the league with your newcomers. I mean, how are you helping them make the transition in the fall? Because your league is Tough and what got you here may not get you there. So it's that fine line of letting them do what they do, but also knowing that they may have to make some adjustments before the springtime.
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Yeah, you know, we're in the middle of, you know, just some basic stuff right now, you know, trying to understand how we want to attack the carry heater. You know, that was, that's been our last two days on offense. You know, we've done some, some breaking ball stuff. We like to do a lot of mixed rounds because in this league you better be able to get your hacks off on off speed pitches that, that are in the zone, you know. So those are things that we're trying to get our hitters, you know, our young guys to understand and some transfers to understand. Like hey, you can't just take the 20 breaking ball if it's there, you know, get your, get your a swing off on it. Because this league is tough and you get to two strikes, it gets even tougher.
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What are some tips to handle in the carry heater?
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Well, I think, you know, I think a lot of guys try to go get the carry heater, you know, they want to be able to catch it out front, if you will, whatever. And the more you try to go get that ball, you're just going to continue to stay underneath it. You know, I think some different cues of letting the ball travel or swing a ball above the carry heater, you know, just getting used to being able to trust that I'm able to stay above that and, and get my best swing off. You know, I think it's different for every hitter and that's our job, is to learn the cues that those guys need. And some of these older players will come in with cues of their own or they've got a great approach and really just watching them and then talking through it with them like, hey, you're underneath all those, like what can we do to get, give you a chance to square those up. And so as we talk through it with those guys, you know, everybody's going to be a little bit different. But you know, that's what we found for the most part, a ball above or letting it travel a little bit has probably been some of the most successful things that I've seen with hitters.
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How are you handling baseball? Baseball iq. I mean you talked about tandems, but some of those new guys maybe have never even been taught like what a tandem supposed to look like.
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Yeah, that's where I think the best, the best place is the Players lounge. Instead of just jumping out there and trying to, you know, hit a bunch of balls and you're yelling across the field, we're not in the right place. I think if you go in the players lounge and you get the whiteboard out and you show them this is how we're going to do it, or you get some video out that says or that shows this is exactly what our tandems need to look like. Notice, you know, where our. Our guys are. Notice the spacing. I think when those kids have a chance to sit in there and see things and visual. Have that visual connection with what you're trying to teach them versus just running out there on the field and trying to do it. But I think they retain a lot more and there's a lot better understanding.
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Then once you get through the fall and you've seen a guy all fall, then what type of adjustments might you make in the winter? What's the winter look like before they go home?
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Yeah, I think at the end of the fall, you know, we'll sit down and just, you know, hey, here's some areas that, you know, are glaringly weak that need improvement. This is what you need to do to be able to, you know, to take the next step. And that can be, you know, a variety of things. Obviously, we want to. We want to have all of our position players be able to defend at a high level at some position. You know, that's tough sometimes to go home, excuse me, and get a whole lot better when you're not playing in a game. So what can we do while you're at home to be able to, I don't know, continue to build athleticism, being able to change direction, you know, you being just a better mover in the box. You know, there's just so many things that, you know, we have to trust our guys. I've always thought that's the biggest challenge of being a college baseball coach is having them for three months in the fall, and then we got to just send them home for a month and trust that they're going to continue to go down that road and not try to change things, especially offensively with, you know, all the things that are out there now and the ideas. From an offensive standpoint, will you make
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many tweaks with guys in the spring once they get going, once they start competing?
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Yeah, you know, I think obviously we played. I think it was 69 games last year. So you're just going to have some ebbs and flows with that. You know, I think our job is to Continue to. Our hitting coach does an unbelievable job of just making sure that we're watching our guys. We're using our camera system here. We're watching the spots that they get in, capturing the video of when they felt that they were their best and being able to, you know, send that to them on their phone so that they always have it. And just. Are we getting into the right spots? You know, those. Those are the things that. Are we firing from the spot we want to fire from? I think sometimes during the season you can see, you know, some guys maybe get a little bit wider, some guys, you know, maybe start crashing a little bit. Some guys, you know, their hands are getting too deep, the bats getting a little bit wrapped. You know, just keeping an eye on those things on a regular basis is what it takes. And like I said, Coach Weirs does
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an unbelievable job with that great coaching point there. I think especially young coaches, you focus so much on when guys aren't doing things right. And in season, it's the reminders of, like, hey, you're good. Yeah, this is what you're doing when things were great. And like, just keep hammering that at them because they are going to get it handed to them sometimes. The league you guys play in, you're going to get it stuck to you sometimes as a hitter. So you need those constant reminders like, you're good, man. Like, just here's. Here's what it looks like when you're good. Just try to stay that, Try to bring that to the field every.
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Every time and understanding yourself, right? Like, I mean, if you. If you're. If you're more of a vertical swinger, like, you don't have to. You don't have to barrel every carry fastball at the top, but if you just. If you can clip them back and foul a couple off just to get to the next one, you know, sometimes that's all it takes. And so I think that's our job as coaches, is just to remind them of who they are and let's be really good at what you're good at and if we can continue to close the gap in some of those other areas, then, you know, you end up having a better product. You know, when it's time to compete.
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Your players that have made it the big leagues outside of talent, what made them different?
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I think it was just, you know, it. The makeup of. Of. Can I stay in the right headspace for an entire season and continue to improve and continue to understand that I'm going to fail? You know, I can't imagine pro ball. I didn't play pro ball, but I. I communicate with our players, you know, that are in the middle of a 144 game minor league season. And I kind of like going back and looking at their months. You know, like, you break it down from. From April to May to June to July, and it's kind of fun to see, you know, how bad your month of May was and then how good your month of July was and. And just talking to them about what they did to continue to improve and get out of that, you know, the rut that you're in, you know, that takes. That is a skill. That is a skill that will get you to the big leagues. And that is a skill. If you don't have it, that will keep you from getting to the big leagues. And I think that's the biggest separator that I've seen that, you know, just talking to those guys, that's what it takes. And if you don't have that, you have to either learn it or pro ball's going to spit you out, man.
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Have you guys tweaked how you handle Omaha with your players at all?
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Yeah, we have. You know, I think it's funny you asked that, because I called. I called Tony Vitello. We were talking before that National Championship series, and I just asked Tony, hey, do you have any advice? And I thought he. I thought he gave some really good advice. He said, just be careful with that pregame BP on the field. And he said, I think our guys, you know, maybe spent a little bit too much mental energy because you're excited and you're running around out there. And so we, you know, we didn't do much of that out there. We hit in the cages, and, you know, it gives you a chance. There's only one cage behind your dugout, and, you know, you just get back there and there's no distractions of, you know, 25,000 people and the big old scoreboards and, you know, the. The carnival going on out there, it's just, hey, we're getting ready to hit and then the game starts. And I think that's what gives you the best chance. If I had to do it all over again, hopefully. Hopefully we will again soon, I don't think I would have changed much. And got some really good advice from some people out there.
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For people that have never been down in those tunnel areas, they are small. The hitting area at Charles Schwab is a teeny, teeny hitting area.
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Yeah, it is. It's, you know, you Got to kind of stand back from the net and make sure, you know, you're not going to get smoked. Yeah, but, you know, good memories there, man.
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I'll.
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I'll take. I'll take having to take BP in that little cage any day of the week.
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You know, you guys are really consistent all spring. I mean, what do you attribute that to? Because you got out to a great start and then you just kind of carried it throughout the whole season pitching
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when you, you know, when you pick, when you pitch, when you pitch like we did. I mean, you know, our rotation just, you know, it stayed. I think that's rare now. You know, we went the Carroll, Lynch Boaz for pretty much the entire, you know, entire year. Guys start to settle into their roles, you know, you know what to expect from them, and I think that's what, you know, just kind of buffers everybody. Right when the game's getting ready to start and you got a good starting pitcher on the mound, I think it's easy for your team to settle in. You know, we never really got too far behind most. Most games, so our guys always believed, you know, we were going to come back and win. Our pitching was going to keep it right there. I just think that does a lot for the headspace of your team during the season and during a game when you can pitch like we pitched.
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And I think you guys do a great job. You said it earlier about managing workload with your arms. You do a great job with keeping guys, for the most part, healthy all year because you manage work workloads.
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Yeah, it's. It's an art. I mean, you know, you. You have to have experience with it. You have to trust your players. You also have to tell them, no, you're not available today. Don't put your spikes on. You know, that's. That's hard for some relievers to hear, especially in the postseason, you know, when they all want to pitch in, in big moments. But, you know, that's something that, again, you know, Coach Forbes does an unbelievable job of. Because he, you know, he did it. He was a pitching coach at this level for so many years.
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What was your biggest adjustment, taking over as head coach at Liberty?
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You know, I think the biggest adjustment for me was to. Was just to kind of trust other people to do things that I had done my whole entire career. You know, the recruiting was probably a number one. I think the hardest part for me was maybe that second or third year of being a head coach to where there was players coming into our program that I had not seen play because my assistants went out and recruited them. I think that was the hardest adjustment and probably the weirdest feeling for me.
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Yeah, how do you get over that? You know, how can you help with that? Because that's tough if you don't have that type of relationship with a guy built up. Like, if you've recruited him the whole time, how do you work through that?
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Well, from a coaching standpoint, I think it was always important to meet as a group and to communicate on what our needs were. Can this guy, can Ryan Brownlee do these things? You know, and sometimes we all love a player and we want to go after that player, but does he fit? You know, for us at Liberty, if you were right handed and you had power, it didn't, it wasn't going to play because the wind blew out of the west and Liberty's ballpark for a right handed hitter. I mean, you can't hit a two iron out of there some days, you know. So I think continuing to say this is what we want our roster to look like and this, this is the type of players that are going to win games in our stadium where we're going to play, you know, 30, 34 home games, you know, those were the type of things that we continue to, you know, to, to just always remind ourselves and meet about. I tried to take a lot of pride in the visit. That was kind of. I felt like my assistant coaches did all the work on the road and did a lot of the work on the phone and got those kids to campus. And then once they got to campus, I felt like it was my job to spend as much time with them so that I would get to know them and get a gut feeling on what type of kid and family we were dealing with. And so that was kind of my approach and my way to kind of, you know, I guess maybe always have that recruiting piece of me that, you know, the visit was something I always try to take pride in and take it off of my assistant coaches. When the kid got to campus, then
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with that head coaching experience, how'd that help you going back to being an assistant?
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I just, I, I felt like I was able to help Scott. I feel like I'm able to help him a lot because in my opinion, if we're doing our job as assistant coaches, you know, he should be able to come out on the field and practice, you know, and be able to connect with players and be able to talk to guys, interject here and there and just kind of be able to, to see everything you Know, to connect with the pitchers to, to go down to the bullpen or go down with our guys that are in catch play and not worry about, you know, what's going on, you know, with our. With our ground balls that day or, you know, any type of defense that we're doing as a team. You know, it allows him to just be able to be the head coach that he wants to be. And that I think one of his biggest strengths is, is his relationship with players and connecting with everybody on that team.
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What are some keys to hiring the right people?
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You know, that was one thing that I knew when I was getting ready to be a head coach. It is the most important thing you're going to do as a head coach. You're only going to be as good as those assistant coaches are. And when I was a young head coach in my first few years, you know, I knew who all those assistants were that were out there because I was on the road with them. Obviously, you play against them, you know, and you know who all those guys are. And then the more you're a head coach and the less you're on the road, the. The lower number of assistants, you know, and you can. You've connected with. So I think, you know, there's. There's kind of those two areas. I think as a head coach, you still have to get out on the road some, and you've got to be able to know who's out there and what that looks like. And, and that's when you get to know guys. I mean, we're sitting there watching, you know, a game at. At Lake Point, and the game's out of hand and we're waiting on the next one to start. And, you know, you start talking to whoever about their family and how's their seat. You know, that's how you really connect and get to know guys. Because at the end of the day, I think going back to, like, Coach Scaff and Coach Fox, they always hired the person before the. The baseball knowledge. And that's. That's something that I learned from them, that I think that's the best way to go about doing it. You can help guys learn to get better on the field, but you can't change character, integrity. Like, those are things. You either have them or you don't.
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How do you handle the ups and downs during the spring? Because there's a lot of outside noise now. Like we talked about it, this is the best time for college baseball. But now everybody's paying attention to college baseball, so people are going to know when you're doing well and people are going to know when you're not doing well. So how do you handle the ups and downs and, and eliminating some of the outside noise that's out there?
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Well, I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot from Scott with that. When, when you've got the ups and downs of the season, the people that matter most are the people in this building and our coaching staff. And no matter what happens, good or bad, I mean, Scott Forbes never has a bad day. He's always in a good mood, you know, and I think that's one of his, if not his best trait. And so that trickles down to the rest of us. And you know, I've been back for two years and we've been fortunate to have two really good years, but we've had some bumps in the road during those. And you know, when you show up and you're enjoying being around the guys you coach with every day and it makes it fun. And you know what? We're all going to figure this out together. That's how you get through it. There's no question.
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Have your time management skills developed over time.
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Good. I mean, you know, I learned like,
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you're doing right, man, you're busy, you guys are busy. Like, what do you feel like you're doing right, me with, with your daily schedule or even like your 12 month schedule?
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Well, just getting, getting, getting up and getting in here, you know, those are the things that, you know, you get more done when you're in here at, you know, 6:30, 7:00', clock, you know, your day slows down. We're going to meet as a staff every day between, you know, nine, ten o'. Clock. So, you know, trying to get a lot of, of your own thoughts and your own planning and preparation done before you meet as a staff. And it's, it, it simplifies the meeting if, you know, Coach Forbes says, what do we want to do today? Instead of looking around like, you know, waiting for everybody, you know, I'll just interject like, here's what I think we need to do today. This, this, this and this. And we'll kind of chew on that and go back and forth with it a little bit. And I think it saves a lot of time and it gives us a lot of purpose and a lot of continuity as soon as practice starts.
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How are you balancing recruiting for you all? Because at a school like yours, everybody's in play, everybody in the country is employed play to come play at North Carolina. So how are you sifting through? I think your guys jobs everybody talks about. Well, it's easy to be at those places. I think your guys jobs harder than other places because you're not limited on who you can go after.
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Yeah, I, you know, we've, we've, we've been talking about that a lot, you know, since August the first. You know, you. It's funny because, you know, August, the first hits and it feels like all of us are going after like the same, the same group of players, you know, and it's like this sprint to see who can get them to campus and who can, you know, who can have, you know, show their place off, you know, first and get guys, you know, thinking Carolina or whatever school you're at. You know, I'm never going to be comfortable with being, you know, calling a kid on August 1st and then after the first or second phone call, we, you know, we've been eliminated. We're not, you know, we're not one of the schools that they want to go visit. You know, that's, that's not a good feeling. You know, I guess in a good, in some ways it could be good. You didn't waste any time, you know, but I think, I think just the, the whole, the calendar and the way it works now is it's taken a little bit, you know, to get used to. You know, you've got the portal in there as well, you know, so. And then the visits, it's, it's, you know, September 1st hits, man, and just. It's like a tsunami of, you know, there's a visit almost every day, you know, so it's a little different in that regard. I don't know. How do you handle it? You just take it one day at a time, you know, you teach one day at a time, and you can't sacrifice your own team and their development and their time and their practice for recruiting. So you got to manage that part of it as well. Obviously there's going to be a little bit of overlap there, but, you know, just managing all of that and trying to get a feel for, you know, the best way to navigate it, you know, trying to have six or seven guys in for a football game, I don't think that's a very good, you know, way to go about doing it. So can we space it out? If we space it out or push a visit back, are we going to get eliminated? You know, there's just a lot of balls in the air, it feels like. But communication and relationships are always going to be the best part and the crux of recruiting. So I feel like that's what we have to be good at.
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How thick is your skin as a recruit?
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It's gotten a lot thicker, I'll tell you that.
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You don't know nobody that's had to go through that like you guys that have been doing it for a long time. I have a lot of respect for you guys because the, the skin is extremely thick in the recruiting process. Because it has to be. Because it will bury you if you allow it. Yeah.
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And you know, it's, it's sometimes it's not who you get, it's who you don't get in recruiting, you know. And so, you know, I think if
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you look at it from that, my dad said it all the time, sometimes the best ones are the ones you don't get.
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That's right. And you manage, you know, you, you, you, you're gonna end up. We always say that we're gonna get our guys and for us that means we're gonna get good players who want to be here that have never, you know, never wavered, never thought about going anywhere else. You know, after they commit here or after they decide or after they visit, they just, they know that this is, you know, this is where they want to be. So we'll hold on to that. I think, you know, sometimes when I was younger, you used to get mad and you used to get, you know, a little hot headed with it. But I've, I've learned that, you know, it's, it's North Carolina. It's a great place to be if, if you, if you don't want to be here 100, that's fine because there's a lot of guys out there that do.
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Plus with the portal now, like, there's so many options. Like you never know what might happen three, four years down the road. Like you never know.
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Yep.
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Just, hey, good luck to you. But you never know. There might be a circle back around moment at some point.
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No question. No question. Don't burn any bridges. And there's no decision a kid makes that's worth getting upset over. Disappointment for sure. Especially when you feel like you have a really good relationship with a kid and you really want to coach him because you like being around him. That's probably the most disappointing part. And the family part too. Sometimes you just fall in love with a family. You think of the world of them and unbelievable visit and man, I really want to coach this kid. I want that family as part of our program. And sometimes it doesn't work out, but that's all part of what we do.
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Any recommendations for youth high, youth players, youth parents, youth coaches right now, Eat
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a bunch of food and lift a bunch of weights. That's, you know, that. That's probably the one thing that I've got a son that's a 20, 28, and he's a. He's a football player, he's a quarterback. And the one thing that I've seen, you know, with him is the creatine and the football weight room have done wonders for him, you know, as a baseball player. And so I think that would be my biggest advice to be ready when you get there and find people that are going to tell you the truth at what level that they think you could play at. I think that's one thing that's missing in a lot of circumstances from a recruiting standpoint, is you don't have somebody in your circle that's going to just be bluntly honest with you.
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We've lost some of that, too, though, because I think sometimes people are scared to be honest with, with people now, especially as a high school travel coach.
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Yep. And I mean, the most unbiased person that's not taking your money to train you as a. As a hitter, as a pitcher, or, you know, with your strength and conditioning, or the guy that's not taking your money to be on a travel team. I mean, I've always thought the high school coach is the greatest resource for any player and any college coach because they get the chance to see you in a different manner. They see you. They may teach you in history class. They may watch how you interact in the hallways with females, with buddies, in the lunchroom, and not to mention the practice part of it, and how, or how much or how little they have to deal with your family in the, you know, in the high school season. You know, there's so many things that I think that that high school coach can help us with, but they can also help a player with.
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How did you handle youth sports with your son?
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I just went to the game and tried to celebrate game day with him. I've never went to one single practice. The only practice I may have seen was before he got his driver's license and I was waiting to pick him up, and they weren't quite finished yet. I think just trusting them with their own career and you can. You can work as hard as you want to. If you want my help, just ask me. I'll always. I'll never say no. You know, he still wants to hit all the time, and I'm going to find time to throw to him in the cages. But if they don't love it, you know, it's just. It's never going to work. My oldest stopped playing travel ball because his love was basketball, and I think maybe he thought I was going to be upset about it, and I thought it was wonderful. You know, hey, go. If you don't enjoy baseball practice because there's too much standing around and you want to go to basket, I totally get that. I totally get that. So I think you just got to trust them and let them do their thing. And, you know, if they want your advice, they'll. They'll ask for it. But I think we. We maybe as parents sometimes want to give more advice than they ask for, so that'd probably be the way I think we handled it.
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I said that on somebody else's podcast last week. I said, if you're. If you're a high school school parent and your child does not like to work on their own, like, yep, don't even worry about it. Like, if they're not willing to go work on their own, like, start putting money in a college fund and pay for college that way, because at some point they're going to stop. They're going to stop doing. Really love it.
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Yeah.
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What about advice for parents? They're sending their child off to college for the first time. You've been on college your whole life. You've seen the ups and downs of entering on a college campus for the first time. What are. What are some tips for parents that are sending their kid off to college for the first time?
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Yeah, I think, you know, it's. It's letting go is part of. Of their growth. You know, they're gonna. They need to make some decisions on their own and. And suffer the consequences, whether it's good or bad. I think we fear that. But I think if we all look back on some of the things that we had to figure out, it made us who we are today. I think it's tough. I worried, you know, with my oldest when I dropped him off at Liberty, you know, had. Have I done my job? Because your job's over, you know, for the most part, you know, with. With get being a chance. Get having a chance to kind of be part of their daily routine. So I don't know if. If you love them and trust them, they're gonna, you know, they're gonna. They're gonna call you when they need you. I can promise that. And I think that that big part of understanding that it's part of their growth and it's something that's going to be great for them. That's the lens that you need to look at it through.
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If you could go back and tell your 25 year old self something, what would it be?
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Oh my gosh, that's a really good question. When I was 25, to enjoy, to enjoy the, the cutting the grass, the things that. My life was very simple back then. If I look back on it now, when I was 25, man, I didn't have much to worry about and to enjoy the moments at home with my wife when it was just the two of us. And I don't even remember what we did back then. But you know, I would say to just that, that those are some really good times that you always kind of looking at maybe what's next for your career or, you know, are we going to start a family? But just to enjoy those days and those moments, because I look back on them and they were some of the most fun I've ever had, you know, in my career.
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All right, give us your fail forward moment. Something you thought was going to set you back. But looking back now, it was one of the best things that, that ever happened to you. It could be personally or perhaps professionally.
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Yeah, it has to be. My dad leaving when I was a senior in high school, I thought, you know, things were just going to unravel, but it forced me to say, okay, you know, I, I've, I've got to go figure it out on my own. My mom had two jobs. She was a teacher and she worked at Hendrick Lexus in Charlotte. You know, when I was growing up, she had, she had two jobs. She was busy as she could be to try to get to provide for my brother and my sister and myself. And so I looked back on that and thought it was going to be, you know, just extremely devastating. And it was one of the best things for me. And then as soon as I got out of college, man, I had to go, you know, I had to figure it out. I had to find a job. And, you know, I think that really helped me because when Steve Traylor called me and said, you want this job that pays $3,000 a year? I did not hesitate. And baseball's been good to me. I didn't know, you know, I didn't know if I was going to stick through coaching and end up making it my career. But I just knew I loved baseball and I love to mow grass and I got to do both. So why not?
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I didn't matter how much. First time I met you, I knew you were going to be good.
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Well, I appreciate that.
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Just that personality, like you're genuine human being, so just unbelievable.
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Well, thanks, man. I feel the same way about you, brother.
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Have your morning routines. I mean, you talked about getting early. I'm an early person now, and I wasn't for a long time. I'm an early person now. I value my, my early mornings to myself. That quiet time that I, I get, whether it's working out or doing the other stuff that I do in the mornings. Like, how has that evolved for you over time as far as your.
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Yeah, I've just learned, you know. Yeah, I just, I've just learned that, you know, if. If you want to slow your day down and you want to be able to enjoy the moments of the day, you know, the things that you're not. I don't think you're really truly present if, you know, you get sped up during the day and things start to stack up on you, and there's only one way to avoid that, and you got to get up and give yourself that time and it slows you down. It gives you some foresight. It gives you a chance to knock some things out. I mean, if a player walks in your office, you know, you need to be there for him, right? That's, that's our job as coaches. And if you've just got too much on your plate or things are just too sped up, you're not really going to truly, you're going to try to connect with them, but you're ready for them to get out of your office so that you can get back to what you're doing. And that's not how this profession should work.
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You excited about the convention this year?
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Get on stage.
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I am.
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Get your award?
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Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited. I was talking to Coach Forbes about that, you know, last week. So, yeah, I lived in Naperville, Illinois, hadn't been back to Chicago much, so I look forward to that. And yeah, it's pretty, pretty unbelievable honor. I'm honored.
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What are some final thoughts before I let you go?
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Final thoughts are, first of all, about that award. I mean, it's, it's. I don't know. I've, I've gone to the convention. I've seen guys up there, you know, that have been recognized. I think the recognition always comes from having good players. So those are the, that's the reason for the award. And not to mention the other guys here in the building. I Think Coach Gaines and Coach Wurzbicke are equally deserving of that. I love the abca. It's always been an unbelievable resource for me, not just from an information standpoint, but the people. I just think college baseball has incredible. Just incredible people that are just genuinely good, they're smart. And I think our sport, college baseball, we as a group, are the most resilient group of coaches in college athletics because we figured out how to navigate more stuff than any other sport in the ncaa. And I think that takes a unique group of people, and I'm just honored and proud to be one of them.
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I'm proud of you all, too, because every time, like, they'll be like, yeah, it's wild sometimes, but they will figure it out and it'll be ye. Better great than it was before. And, like, I give all of you guys so much credit because the game is in such a good place, but it might be even better five, ten years down the road because of you guys that are in it.
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I mean, looks.
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It's crazy to think how far we've come, but I. I'm not. I won't be surprised if it's even better than what it is right now.
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It will. I mean, that's. You know, we've. We. What we had, you know, 25%, 11.7, and, you know, now we've. Now we've got full rides and, you know, it just. It keeps growing and, you know, it's. It's because of the leadership. I mean, you know, Dave and Craig, those guys have done an unbelievable job. And, you know, they've taken the bull by the horns and realized how important that position is, and, you know, they've surrounded themselves with the right people. And I think there's some voices in our. In our league, or, excuse me, in our. In our sport that are. Have incredible wisdom that you have to be open to and you got to listen. And that's how change happens is when people listen, if you don't listen, it's never going to happen. And I think a lot of people that get to help, you know, change the sport are really incredible listeners, and that's an incredible trait to have.
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Thanks for your time, Scott. So happy for you, man.
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All right, brother. Thank you.
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It's always fun to interview an old friend for the podcast. Coach Jackson has always been a person you root for because of how he's handled himself on his coaching journey. He's one of the most kind and humble people we have in the game. Congrats to him and the entire Tar Heels program on this well deserved honor. Thanks again to John Litchfield, Zach Hale, Matt west and the ABC office for all the help on the podcast. Feel free to reach out to me via email our brownleebca.org Twitter Instagram or TikTok CoachBCA or direct message me via the MyBC app. Ryan Brownlee signing off for the American Baseball Coaches Association. Thanks and leave it better for those behind you.
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And you know that way yep Wait for another day
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and the world will always return as your life I was there before your name and you know that I wait
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wait for another
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day.