Quest for Success
AJ Watts | Athletic Director at Porterville Unified School District: Building a Winning Mentality in Sports
When you think athletics, you think competition, resilience, discipline, and above all, the thrill of the game. Our chat with AJ Watts, the Athletic Director at Porterville Unified School District, encapsulates all of this and much more. AJ is no stranger to the pulse-pounding world of sports, boasting a career filled with unforgettable moments, victories, and lessons learned both on and off the field. From being an admirer of baseball great Ryan Sandberg to coaching a championship-winning team, AJ's journey is an inspiring tale of passion and dedication.
Imagine standing at the helm of a struggling team, your every decision making or breaking the game. How do you rise above the challenges, steer your team to victory, and build a robust, winning mentality? Diving into his 20+ years of coaching experience, AJ shares his insights on managing teams, handling individual egos, and the pivotal role of continuous learning for a coach. But it's not all about the game; AJ also delves into the wider realm of college athletics, shedding light on player relationships, the exhilaration of each game, and the significance of winning in major college sports.
Every journey has its ups and downs, and AJ's transformation from being an average player to a passionate coach is a testament to that. Listen in as we explore his unique approach to coaching, the importance of organization, discipline, and time efficiency in fostering a successful team, and the challenges and rewards of overseeing athletic programs. In a world where athletics can shape young adults and foster a strong community, AJ's perspective offers invaluable insights for anyone involved in sports, education or team management. So sit back, tune in, and let's stride together through the captivating world of athletics.
Quest for Success Links | https://linktr.ee/questforsuccess
When you think athletics, you think competition, resilience, discipline, and above all, the thrill of the game. Our chat with AJ Watts, the Athletic Director at Porterville Unified School District, encapsulates all of this and much more. AJ is no stranger to the pulse-pounding world of sports, boasting a career filled with unforgettable moments, victories, and lessons learned both on and off the field. From being an admirer of baseball great Ryan Sandberg to coaching a championship-winning team, AJ's journey is an inspiring tale of passion and dedication.
Imagine standing at the helm of a struggling team, your every decision making or breaking the game. How do you rise above the challenges, steer your team to victory, and build a robust, winning mentality? Diving into his 20+ years of coaching experience, AJ shares his insights on managing teams, handling individual egos, and the pivotal role of continuous learning for a coach. But it's not all about the game; AJ also delves into the wider realm of college athletics, shedding light on player relationships, the exhilaration of each game, and the significance of winning in major college sports.
Every journey has its ups and downs, and AJ's transformation from being an average player to a passionate coach is a testament to that. Listen in as we explore his unique approach to coaching, the importance of organization, discipline, and time efficiency in fostering a successful team, and the challenges and rewards of overseeing athletic programs. In a world where athletics can shape young adults and foster a strong community, AJ's perspective offers invaluable insights for anyone involved in sports, education or team management. So sit back, tune in, and let's stride together through the captivating world of athletics.
Quest for Success Links | https://linktr.ee/questforsuccess
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Quest for Success podcast. Today we have on a man. He is the Porterville Unified School District Athletic Director. He spent time as the Athletic Director at Benatchee, over 20 years in the coaching field and just a lot of successful teams and programs in the community of Porterville. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the man, the myth, the legend, aj Watts, to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me fellas Flattered beer yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:So let's, let's, let's talk, shop man.
Speaker 2:You know, let's get right into this.
Speaker 3:So we start off every episode with a mental minute. Let's do this with a pretty simple question who's your favorite baseball player and why?
Speaker 2:So, interesting enough, grew up in Tarabella. Dad was an educator, mom was a secretary babysitter. We didn't have cable until the day that I graduated from high school. So to say you know one baseball player, I wasn't watching a whole lot of baseball because we didn't have cable and it, you know, it wasn't on TV. My dad was, fortunate enough, he had quarter season tickets to the Dodgers, so I've been going down to Dodger Stadium since I was my kid's age. The first player I remember really enjoying watching, and the way he went about his business, was Ryan Sandberg. He's a second baseman. He probably profiled a little bit like me, shorter and stature smaller. I don't know if he was ever, you know, in the category of the greatest skill set, but I think he overachieved and, you know, did a lot of good things with his skill set. So probably Ryan Sandberg, yeah.
Speaker 1:AJ, you know you've spent over 20 years in coaching. Now you're directing athletics for the entire Portable Unified School District. What is like your most proud? It could be coaching, playing or directing, but what's your most proud moment thus far in your career? You know it's hard to.
Speaker 2:It's hard to come up with one the coaching side of things, all for different reasons. I had a team in 15, I had a team in 19 and I had a team in 22. And I want to be respectful to the teams before those. Those teams and the teams before them kind of led to 15, 19, 22. But all of those were accomplishments for different reasons.
Speaker 2:When I was at Portable High I inherited a program that was in good shape. It had some players. I think we went a conference championship in 12. And then in 15, I had it was my group, it was, it was my freshman that it came in I thought we had done a nice job of kind of bleeding them through the program and not rushing too many of them up, although we had a freshman up and the next year, you know, we had a sophomore up, all leading to 15. You know we went to a share of the conference championship. I had two pictures on that team just to give you an idea of of that group. Andrew Witton was a right handed kid for us, 6-2, 6-3, tall, slender kid. I had a finesse left-hander and Peyton True, and at the time in the EYL you you played 10 conference games. So the quick math is you know you got to collect 210 outs over 10 conference games and those two guys collected 209 of the 210 outs.
Speaker 3:That's a stat for you, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the the, the one out that they didn't collect. A kid named Darren Dashner came in in a game against Slayer Western at home where the game was in hand and we we just didn't have enough to beat him that day and he actually gave up a hard line drive to the center fielder for the, for the whatever the 210th out. But those two guys really were the middle of our team and did such a nice job on the mound for us had a kid named Angel Flores who went on to do really good things Left-handed hitting Zach Hernandez. I mean the it was just. It was a really good group, but it was my group when I took over a program that was in good shape. So that was. That was an accomplishment on the coaching side.
Speaker 2:And 19,. I took over at Manachi in 17. We weren't very good. I had a good group of kids. We didn't win a whole lot of games. 18 was kind of the same scenario, although we improved when loss wise.
Speaker 2:And then in 19, we were playing in the pro PT that Kenny Searcy at Slayer Western does such a nice job with and he's done such a nice job for a long time. We get in the lower division championship game. We played a really good game. We win it. We win that tournament and so things really started to change for us at the time that that tournament was going on, that we won. I think we're tied for first, but we haven't played portable high twice and we haven't played Western twice, so we knew we had some things in front of us that were going to be difficult. I can't really remember how well we did against those two teams, but I know that we didn't finish in first. We got into the playoffs. We were facing a really good right hander from Kingsburg. I got some advice from a coach in that conference on how to kind of combat him. It was flawless. It worked really well. We really had our way with them. The next game we played a tough Yosemite team where they had runners in scoring position often and they just didn't get the big hit, and some of that was them, some of that was us. We made some big pitches in critical situations.
Speaker 2:And then in the Valley semifinals we're at home against the Bakersfield Christian team and they were fantastic. They had a lot of talent. They had a kid on the mound, last name's Langston. We knew we were going to get them. They had a third baseman who was a freshman at the time that ended up going to Cal Poly. They had personnel, they were a good team and it got to a point in that game where now we had sort of put in all of our stuff and two years later things are there and we're able to develop and stuff like that and we're actually nobody out runner.
Speaker 2:Second, I have a catcher who we really liked Didn't have the greatest body in the world and I only bring this up because at the end of this it should make sense. But we put a sack on, tried to move the runner over to third, and Bakersfield Christian is some exotic wheel play that really never works and I knew that we had them in a bad spot because you usually work on the wheel play when you're putting in your bunk harvages and then you never go back to it. So we're unsuccessful, unsuccessful, o2. Like I said, the catcher doesn't look like a kid that can handle the bat and we put a sack bun on with two strikes and they're completely out of sorts. Like I said, it's successful. We remove the runner over.
Speaker 2:I think we're down two or one to move him over, whatever the exact situation was. They get so frustrated and so out of whack. They actually tried to pick to third and there's a buck to tie the game because the base was an occupied or whatever. And then a couple of hitters later or whatever, we hit a sack, fly to win the game. And then you know what? And I only bring all that stuff up in some of those details up because it was a thing where, okay, we're all on the same page, we all trust each other. If coach wants me to bump with two strikes, I'll bump with two strikes. You know, and good for me. It all played out and it worked and we won.
Speaker 2:We beat a team that was, skill set wise, that was better than us. And then, in 22, we went to conference championship. And you know I'm still at Menachie and we had it 1-1 since 1999. And you know it felt great to take those three teams and three different kind of scenarios and have relative success. Yeah, it was a good feeling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's shoot man. It's a lot of upcomings, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So this next question is for the athlete that's listening. You know, like Blaine mentioned earlier, you got 20 plus years of coaching. Pretty sure you have some favorite players. You know those kids that just you know they're hard nose, gonna do what you say, never ask a question and just go all out. Right. But in two more detail, what's your favorite kind of player?
Speaker 2:The overachiever. You know. I mean, you know you expect your shortstop, your three hitter, you expect these certain things from them and you know stats and what they need to do to help you be successful. But my favorite player is just the guy that's present. He's present all the time. It's not that he's on time, but he's present, he's willing, he's. He will accept those challenges without question.
Speaker 2:You know, and there's been so many of them, my teams, I even think our players, my former players, would agree that most of the time we weren't the most talented team and we had to look at offense and scoring runs as a series of bats. It wasn't okay. Let's get the leadoff guy on the two hitter on and let's let the three hitter get four or five RBI's and try to win the game six to two or whatever. We had to be balanced. We had to have, you know, expectations for everyone in our lineup and when something was asked of you, we expected you to get it done, whether you had ego or not, because some of them do, and that's okay. You know you learn to manage that as you mature as a coach.
Speaker 2:Some of those teams I was talking about, you know even the 12 team, the 12, the 15, the 19, the 22,. You know, all those guys had to allow me to hold them back a little bit so that the team could be better, and then the key to all of that is that they don't understand at the time is, if they do that, the all conference, the junior college recruiting the small amount of guys that have had that have had some division, one interest, all that takes care of itself, you know. So it's so hard to describe what my ideal player is or what my favorite player is. I mean, really one makes the other one better.
Speaker 1:You know, so it's not a question of just one.
Speaker 2:It's a complimentary thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like a link of chains.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. So there's no question and there's a reason why you've been coaching for over 20 years and you kind of briefly mentioned some of those teams that did struggle. You know you weren't always the most talented team and you had to work and move some guys around to benefit the entire team. So you know, a lot of times when we look at successful coaches, we look at coaches that are able to, you know, bring struggling teams up or respond to things right. So what approach do you take when your team is struggling? They're down and you're trying to rebuild, perhaps? What is that kind of approach that you take?
Speaker 2:I don't know if there's a clear answer for me, and there's so many variables. Are they young, are they old, are they mature, are they not? You know I've had just a few teams that really just allowed me to manage the game, and what I mean by that is, you know, I've had more teams than not, that you know you're still worried about some individual mechanics or fundamentals. You're still worried about some team defense or team offense, but those teams that allowed me to manage when you can. Okay, that ending is okay. We're going to be okay here. Now I'm going to start looking at the fifth and who we're going to bring in and who they're bringing to the plate. And you know I mean it's not USC or it's not the Dodgers, but there is some of that thought process even at the high school level. You're so fortunate when you have a team that will allow you to do that.
Speaker 2:When we're struggling, a lot of times we go away from things. I had a, I had a shortstop um 12 or 13 really struggled with the pop up. I mean he was, he was really good with with the routine ground ball and kind of moving guys around and some of the things we expect our short stops to do, but really struggled with the pop up. So you know, uh, posing team hits one one day and um ball goes up and he doesn't look at comfortable underneath it and he drops it, and I immediately go to my coaches and say shut up, don't say a word about it, leave it alone. Don't say one word about it, don't coach him up, leave it alone.
Speaker 2:We did, he got through it. I don't know if he was ever great at it. A lot of times too, and I see this, uh, you know, not not just in town, or I see it a lot of places, but we'd give guys the day off. Like you know, I've never been a four hour practice guy, I've always been two hours or less, and let's get out of there Now. That being said and I think we might get into it in a little bit you know we practice with some tempo and our occupation tempo is quick and it moved and and I take a lot of pride when we'd have people come and watch our practices.
Speaker 2:go, man, you guys can get a lot done an hour and 45 and I'm wondering why other people can't. I do know this. You know any, this is what I believe. Anything after two hours are not paying attention anyway. They're not mature enough to do it. They're just not there yet they're playing baseball. They're not working baseball, like you may, at the at the collegiate level. You know, even the junior college level that turns into work. You know so how those guys and gals at the junior college and college level handle it. You know that's, that's how they handle it. But for us we'd have scheduled days off and I'd I'd look at our schedule and I knew our schedule almost by heart, you know, six months before the season would ever start, and I'd kind of tell myself, okay, that's a pretty good day to give them a day off, right? I don't know if it. I don't know if it works, but it worked for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that's that's. I'm sure that's something you developed as a coach right, something you picked up along the way, or is that something you kind of did right at the very beginning?
Speaker 2:Absolutely not, dude, I was. I was learning until the day I stopped kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah and and I don't think that I Just don't it was never in my DNA To say, okay, we've, I've got this figured out right, never, ever. There was always something you know, our offensive stuff. As the years went on, you know my clubs were kind of known for hitting and running, moving guys over Fall starts behind them first and thirds and doing some things. And I would tell the kids every year, I tell the players every year, like if you guys are gonna hit a bunch of doubles and you guys are gonna hit all your lungs, we'll never do this, but we're gonna have this because I know at least for two weeks stretch You're not gonna hit. So we didn't want to just Not have anything to go to. We wanted something to go to and you know it worked. And you know we tried to take advantage of corner infielders or bad rotations and and, man, I tell you, when I, when I had the teams to do it, when we smelt blood, we went for it, you know we didn't stop, I mean, and that stuff kind of started to happen, it at Portable High, talking about what do you know when you're young and what do you know when you're older? I Wish I had some of those teams at granny hills back, you know, because some of that stuff would have really played.
Speaker 2:There's one of my all-time best friends in coaching, mark Gentry, who did a wonderful job at Delano high and and our careers Kind of started on the same path because he had a. He had a program that sort of had the same skill set that I had and you know, we weren't afraid to squeeze two times in a row, you know, and I joke with him even now I see him once every couple years, but we did that in 11 or 13 or or whatever it was. And so, yeah, you, you definitely mature and get better as a coach as years go on, for Every facet of your program. I'm we're just talking about the stuff on the field. I mean what, what I know now, compared to 23. It's not even close. Not I mean the 44 year old playing the 23 year old me or coaching against the 23 year old me.
Speaker 3:You wet the mop, I would be close yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and that's what a good coach does, right? They never stop learning, they never stop developing and Trying to just become a better coach and I run more successful programs.
Speaker 2:Well, and you know the I've watched your guys podcast. You guys do a really good job and you know some of the guests that you guys have had or are wonderful, wonderful people. I mean a lot to this community and you know you, just you never stop, and the word success comes up a lot in your guys's podcast right. And you know, for me, I, at some point in my career, I stopped thinking of it as a category and I started thinking more of it as a pursuit.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm you know, and I I'm sure that you guys have watched the last dance a hundred times like I have but I Think I thought this for a long time but didn't have the intelligence or or the the maturity to put it in the in the words of Phil Jackson. But you know, you're really only successful in that moment, sure, and those, those mutant competitors, it's almost, it's almost not gratifying because you put in all this time and effort and you finally get there, and you get to that point, and then, if you're truly a competitor, what's next? Right? Yeah, almost momentarily. Yep, you know, and that that can play mind games on a competitive person too. You know, like, well, what are you doing this for? When's wins it wins, it gonna feel final, it never really does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, never really does. Nick Saban talks about it all the time and you see him, he's almost motionless after most games, even after winning SEC title yesterday, like the guys, just like you know, pretty stone face like and you are, you could just see him and by knowing his style, he's, he's, he's danking so far ahead and they're already on the recruiting show for next year and the season hasn't been over, is even over yet, never. And so that's the mentality it takes and that's why you, you have you see successful programs like Alabama or Whatever it is absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean those guys and gals. They, they'd never stop thinking about what's next and you hope that when they get to the end of their career then they can enjoy sure yeah right it's off, yeah all that stuff. But yeah, it's um, it's, it's a, it's a thankless career.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those wins that I mean. Like you said, they're temporary. You know, that feeling that you get once it's all said and done and that accomplishment is, is, is yours. It's temporary, that feeling. It's gone. You're gonna go get it again.
Speaker 2:And you know, you talk about the SEC and you talk about. You know, in major college athletics, you know winning is winning and when Games are precious, as a high school baseball coach, you only get 28, sometimes 29, and then there could be some playoffs and stuff like that, but those are celebrations of your program. Every time you play, I Feel as though that should be a celebration of your program. It's, it's. It's not a sing-along, it's a concert. You know, you, you are Unapologetic, you are trying to prepare your team the best that you can. You take the field, you play for seven innings and you know. Then you move to the next day's practice and so it kind of, in some ways it it becomes this fog of a season, but you just keep moving through it. You know, cautiously, or sometimes above the speed limit or whatever, yeah, but you keep moving through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, and you almost enjoy like you almost enjoy the and this is gonna sound cliche because a lot of people talk about it, but you almost enjoy the process.
Speaker 2:And sometimes when you are struggling like how to figure it out, then actually when you reach that, that win or that championship, and and going back to what you know at 23 and what you know as you, as you get older and things like that, you really dive into the relationship with the players. You know and and you start looking at them differently. You know they're they're not a guy that's gonna get hits. For you, it's a guy that may not have had a very good day today and I need to cushion that with baseball and practice or whatever. But you know you, you just you start, you start to identify. Okay.
Speaker 2:I don't need some thump in the four hole. I need a guy that that I can depend on. Well, he's got a skill set, because they have to have that sure you know, he's got a skill set, but he's also dependable. He might work there.
Speaker 2:And so now you're getting a little bit more detailed on how you build, you know, just to line up on that day we're not talking about the other 22 hours of day, you know. So it's, it's just a never-ending process. You have to love it. You know, as a player, as a coach, you have to love that or it, just it, it will consume you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's, that's a fair thing to say for sure. So you know, let's kind of let's go. Let's talk about who you were before the coaching. Yeah, you know what I mean as a player. Tell us briefly about your, your come-up, you know when you first picked up the baseball High school college, and then we'll pick this back up into the coaching thing. But let everybody know who you were as a baseball guy.
Speaker 2:So average at best. I mean average at best and you know, growing up I was a one-two, seven, eight, nine hitter Really really enjoyed basketball, enjoyed hitting and football and the competitive side and the teammate side of football. You know I miss this a lot in high school, the 15 minutes that you're getting dressed before you take the field. That that's like a some sort of mythical land that people don't Get unless they're in it. And I played on arguably one of the worst teams of portable high my senior year. We went one and nine we beat a really bad to Larry Western team. They were nothing like they are now, but that you know, looking back, that part didn't matter.
Speaker 2:Getting that getting dressed next to Kevin and and some of my teammates and things like that and the guys I still hang out with today, when you don't even you're not prompted, it's not a coach coming in saying shut up, listen, pay attention, get focused. You're just there in the moment and You're, you're watching guys and you're paying attention. You see something different with them and it's it's a. It's a, it's a good feeling.
Speaker 2:You know, and, and I was different, I was. I I'm sure that I said I want to play in the big leagues, like every seven-year-old does. From early on, man, I knew I wanted to teach and coach. I was very, very different that way to a point where, when we could watch a basketball game on CBS, abc, nbc or whatever, yeah, I would watch coaches. I would watch their sideline demeanor and how they would react to a call or how they would react to a player that you know Must have, must have made a mistake, sure. And then you just start pulling things and I didn't even know I was doing it, but you, you see those things.
Speaker 2:I did, yeah, and they meant a lot to me, and so you, you, you, just start adding it to your, to your toolkit you know and, and then One day you get there and you're just doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah you're just coaching. I don't even really know why I wanted to teaching coach. My father was a good he. He left a real big impression on me and my sisters and my mom and had a very, very good Up-breeding. By no means were we silver spooned people, but I always had plenty to eat, nice clothes and things like that, and he was an educator, so there's probably some natural gravity towards that, but I Just wanted to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:You know, I always thought that I was a decent teammate and, you know, I think the guys could depend on me and and that's a good feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's a good, wholesome moral feeling, yeah, but yeah, I mean as far as player disadvantage when part of a college Went to a small college in Iowa and that was it position. So in high school and I think we'll get into this too in high school as a catcher and I was probably better, better than average defensively- I could throw and I could block and I could call a game.
Speaker 2:Senior year in football had a knee surgery. So even for me, who is a very average player, the game changed drastically. I went from somebody that was pretty quick to a guy that wasn't quick anymore and actually had to take a red shirt that at Portable College. And thankfully the coach at the time, my senior at Portable College, took another job or or went on to do something else. We had another coach come in. We were not very good and thankfully for me that probably allowed me to make the team.
Speaker 2:I had a good Freshman year for me hit north, 300, whatever. Again I was one, two, seven, eight, nine. That was pretty offensive club. We didn't pitch very well. And Then a guy from Iowa came in assistant coach and he was there my second semester of my freshman year, of my redshirt year, and then he was there for my first semester of the year I played at Portable College and for whatever reason whether it was my work ethic or whatever he kind of took me under his wing and taught me how to hit and it was enough to kind of give me a decent year In winter break. So we're in the first semester fall of my second year at Portable College winter break. He goes back to Iowa for Christmas with his family and gets a job at a very small college in Dubuque, iowa. So I play my spring semester and he calls and recruits me and whatever, and just worked out fine. So I went back there and played and had a wonderful time, had a wonderful experience in college.
Speaker 2:That's good. Yep In Iowa. In Iowa, yep.
Speaker 3:Still have contact with him. Yeah, yep, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I don't talk to him every day, but yeah, we still have each other's phone numbers in our phones, things like that.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of coaches who were some of the coaches that had a huge impression on you, that inspired you to not only get into coaching, but just kind of that's my guy like that he really had a huge impact on you.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, looking back as a parent now, we are so fortunate if our kids at a young age can have a fundamental coach and a coach that really knows what they're talking about, because a lot of times it's somebody gets asked to coach or forced to coach or whatever.
Speaker 2:I had a high school basketball coach. That and again, this is me knowing I wanted to teach and coach from a young age that his tempo to basketball and practice was quick and he always had a practice plan. And the practice plan wasn't posted. But as you played in the program you knew what was coming next. And I can clearly remember as a sophomore in high school on a varsity basketball team thinking to myself okay, when I'm coaching someday, this is what I'm gonna do, but I'm also gonna post a practice plan. And so I and then, as I got through college and really wanted to make a run at this thing, I wanted our baseball practices to be ran like a basketball practice. I wanted them to be tempoed and I wanted the transitions to be quick and I didn't wanna waste any time at all. We didn't have water breaks but the kids knew they'd get water whenever they wanted to. Like just little simple things like that led to me or that style of a practice plan and all of my players not all of them, most of them that come back they are very complimentary of the way we practiced.
Speaker 2:And then, as now you fast forward a couple years ago. I'm reading the book and I think it's. I don't even know if it was a book or some sort of coaching magazine or whatever, but Slauson Aigle, who is at TCU, who's now at Texas Tech, he's quoted as saying I want our practices and our offense to be like a fast break basketball team. So it all just kind of started to make sense to me even just a few years ago. So he was very impactful on the structure of my practices. I had a high school baseball coach that brought in some humor into how he worked with us and he wasn't a funny guy, he was a business guy, but he was very good at. This is what I need corrected, followed with some sort of comment that would get you on his side, and then he'd finish it with I need this done soon.
Speaker 3:You know, type thing.
Speaker 2:So all of those little things came into play and I wasn't going home and writing those down every night, but for one reason or another, I have a memory for some of those things and then, as you move on, you know, I can remember, clearly, thinking to myself I'm not gonna handle that situation that way when I coach hey, he handled that pretty good I'm going to, without ever, ever showing up with coach. I never in my life would I do that, ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ever, yeah, go ahead. That's interesting because I remember reading a book I don't remember which one, but John Wooden back in the 40s, 50s, 60s. He was noted for and he would put on clinics about practice and practice plans and then how they practice. Every minute of that practice was accounted for and he would have it on you know little three by five note cards and same thing, and that impacted a lot of coaches and you know now it's one of those things. A lot of programs, whether it's baseball, you know soccer programs, basketball programs do, and I remember even like when I played high school football, chris Likewise was very much like that when I coached with him and when I played for him, every five minutes was broken down, water break, you know different drills, so everything was accounted for. So you were intentional about your practice, you weren't wasting any time and it was efficient.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And when you talk about you know and I don't know if I want to jump to the script, but you talk about successful coaches I've always thought they're prepared, they're organized, strict, fair, disciplined and very time efficient.
Speaker 2:You know, I think those four things are a quality, whether you're coaching water polo or basketball or lacrosse or tennis. I think those successful people have those things To a point with our preparation. I was coaching freshman basketball for Rich Rankin when he was at Granite Hills and he kind of surprises the coaching staff with we're going to go up to Hoover High School and we're going to go to a coaching clinic and I thought it was the raddest thing in the world.
Speaker 1:So like, do I have to pay? And?
Speaker 2:you know. So we're going to Hoover and my expectations are okay, great, we're going to get a junior college basketball coach. We're going to get, you know, a successful, you know city school coach from the Fresno area. Well, it ends up being John Montgomery, who at the time was at Stanford and he was getting to the sweet 16 and up coaching them to go and say, where are your stuff? Like that. And he comes down and he pulls out an old projector and he just starts talking about how he planned his year out and he said that at some point in his career he would write down everything he knew about basketball, everything. And you know he didn't have the time to go into the details of that. But he did say, as my years go on, that one page turned into two and next year turned into four, whatever right. So when you first start coaching it's about a page and then by the end of it I mean it's too much, you know.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:So I went home and started thinking about some baseball stuff. And you know, you write down everything you have and then you take two or three things that are closely related a long alignment, a short alignment. Hey, that's a pretty good day, we can talk about both on the same day. And then you start to find some drills that accomplish both of those and then you put it on a calendar and I can't say that I did that like my last three or four years, because it was kind of there.
Speaker 2:I already had it for me, but that's what we did, and I would take my practice plans home and the one I had in my back pocket and I would write I don't like this or this was too long or so, and so didn't do that. This needs to be corrected. I put it in a binder. At the end of the year it would be labeled O2 or O3 or O4 or whatever. And for a long, long time I had, from the time I started coaching to maybe my 10th, 11th, 12th year and the crazy thing about it right, Without really going back to them. If you looked at them, we were doing the same thing on about the same day annually. So that was a neat thing for me.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:We were organized enough and the pacing of it in a high school baseball calendar, that was pretty neat. That's high level man.
Speaker 3:It is. I was lucky enough to witness this, as I, briefly, was out there with you in 2017, I think, and I remember the I'm kidding you now I remember the first day I was out of practice. Right, you give me a paper. I'm like, okay, cool. And I'm like, and I'm because by then I think I was like maybe practice already started. I'm kind of new, you already had your coaches and stuff like this. And I'm like, okay, this is different. And I'm looking at it and I'm seeing 415 to 435. 435 to 555. And then this one's like flat and I'm like, what the hell is this? And by the time I figured it out, you know it's your practice sheet and all this type of stuff, cause I've never seen something like this.
Speaker 3:And I'm I didn't coach that day. All I did was just observe, because I was in complete awe of how structured this practice was. It was so gosh damn time efficient. There wasn't a kid that had an opportunity or a chance to do something that they weren't supposed to be doing. It was bang, bang, bang. All right, practice over. See you guys tomorrow, oh, all right. Well, cool, you know. And I took that over to my training and I kid you not, you know cause? By then I was a six year. I was in my six year of being a personal trainer. You know, I'm still learning just as much as the next guy.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. And after that first day I'm like man. You know cause I only get an hour with the client? I'm going to take this over. I'm going to just do the same exact thing into my training and, sure as shit, it worked and it was perfect and every single client thanks me for it. Well, good, doesn't give them a chance. So I want to personally thank you for sharing what you took to the baseball program with me, because it skyrocketed my training. Man Of course man. It was awesome Glad to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean so going kind of into the back end, I guess, coaching a little bit. What is like, especially now you're, you're a director of athletics at Menachie. Now you're overseeing the entire school district, yeah, and then you get to see lots of different coaches and higher coaches and kind of what you're looking for Leadership style, like whether when it's when you're looking to hire a coach, or maybe it's just your own personal, kind of like leadership style, and it's not necessarily just you know the X's and O's, but how you run a program, how are you leading you know kids, how you're leading your own coaching staff. Everyone kind of has that mission statement, how they they're going to, they're going to lead. What is that for you? And kind of what do you look for when you're trying to hire coaches?
Speaker 2:Well, I think a couple of things you know. Even even when I first started coaching, you know, I may have thought coaching was very A to B, to C, to D, and it's not. It's, it is not mathematical, it's very artistic. So you know, saying this is what I'm looking for or that's what we need changes, sure, it's just different. It's you're not coaching the same thing, you're not doing the same thing.
Speaker 2:What I loosely say, and it's it's hard for me to explain it I'm looking for someone that I feel as though in a 15 minute interview, right, sure, that is going to be out, and from their program and without saying it in my mind, this, the slow little hamster, will. The expectation is that they are going to have passion for their program and they're going to know it inside and out, and maybe not day one, but as they go. Part of the passion is learning from their mistakes, understanding what worked, understanding what didn't, and I'm going to delete that, I'm going to add this. So that takes time and it takes patience and it takes grace, but you know it. I believe that coaching is such a platform or an avenue to impact, because you're going to impact your kids, whether it's positive or negative, you are going to make an impact. It is so dear to my heart that my expectations are for them to do sort of what we did right.
Speaker 2:You know, and sometimes that's not reasonable either. So you've got to step back and you've got to understand that. You know sometimes they're they're, they're looking for a suggestion or or looking for a different way to do things. One thing that is difficult in this position and I'm trying to figure out ways to insert myself is that you know you get off the campus life and you're you're. You're much more behind the scenes, right and, and you want to let people work and you want to let them, you know, develop and make mistakes and get better from them and grow from them. You don't have a lot of interaction with your coaches. You have a lot of interaction with your on-site athletic directors, sure, and you hope that they can, can move some of their own philosophies and their ideas into their people.
Speaker 2:It's one thing I'd like to solve. I would, I would like to, you know, have a summit. I think that we have some outstanding coaches in this district. I don't think that they need to go to Hoover High School. I think that they could go to a portable high gym and listen to our own interior coaches and listen to strength and fitness coaches like we have in this community, to learn and grow and ultimately, that's only going to impact our kids Absolutely In our community right, which is it's a big deal. It's a big deal to me.
Speaker 3:Absolutely no, for sure, you know. Yeah, a long coaching career. You know. I'm sure you've had a lot of people giving you some positive feedback and negative feedback. Yeah, let's talk about the negative feedback. How did you, you know, take that on? How did you possibly overcome it? You know what I mean when you heard something you quite didn't ask for, did not want to hear. But everybody has an opinion, right?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you can't take it personal you know, and I used to when I was younger.
Speaker 2:I wasn't mature enough you know, you used to take a personal and used to go to sleep thinking about whatever. You can't take a personal. Sometimes it's the truth. If it's the truth, you got to fix some things. Sure, yeah, sometimes it isn't, and you just stay true to yourself and you keep moving forward. I have a guy over in Visele of Jody Allen who who's kind of been my go-to over the years for for many different things and he actually doesn't like my practice. He says you well, you know you, if, if, what if? Your coaches are still coaching while you're doing your 15 minutes or whatever. And my rebuttal to that is I have an idea Of about how long it's gonna take and I also don't think that we should ever do anything for more than 1012 minutes. Mm-hmm cuz I just I think they need something new, you know, or something else right but you take it and you know you don't take it with a grain of salt.
Speaker 2:You you learn from it and you move on like no one's spotless, no one's flawless. And if you sit on somebody long enough, I don't care how good they are. If you sit on a coach long enough, You're gonna find something you don't like about them.
Speaker 1:Yeah and that's wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, an athletic director, if you're directing athletics, you shouldn't do that. Let them coach, yeah, let them be who they are, and if you have a correction for them and a reasonable expectation, then you better have the courage to have that difficult conversation with them. Sure, and if they don't change it now we have a different set of problems. Sure, right, but you know I don't get into the weeds and all that stuff. And you know our basketball coaches, I would never, ever go to them and say why are you pressing? Why are you doing that's, that's their thing yeah yeah, it's just, it's not who I am.
Speaker 2:You know it's not and it's not in my DNA for that type of stuff.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:We kind of talked about Practice plans and a couple things. I think the biggest thing and it's it doesn't get tricky with the, the CIF, and then even like you go to college, you say like how you could practice offseason stuff? But a lot of the programs are built in offseason, right, yeah, and that's why they're successful. So when you as a coach or as an athletic director, what does a Successful offseason program look like? And I mean, I know it looks different for each different sport, but what, what is a successful program need to do in the offseason to be successful and continue growing? Because each year is different, personnel is different, right, you got different teams coming up, different players coming through in your league.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I guess I have two different viewpoints on that. As an administrator, you want to offer them something to do in the offseason and it's really that simple. You want some sort of structure. It doesn't have to be nearly as detailed as as your season of sport, but you do want them to have an opportunity to go somewhere and get better.
Speaker 2:When I first started coaching, we were. We were gaining an edge or trying to. When I was at granny hills, not everybody was doing a fall program, not everybody was doing a summer program as the coaching went on. Now you're just trying to keep up because everybody's doing it.
Speaker 2:Um, I was always very much I wanted to see my younger guys in the fall. I want to see my younger guys in the summer. Now that that's not to mean that our older guys weren't expected to be there if they weren't doing anything. But I'll go back to angel flores. He's gonna. He has an opportunity to um to play with the marlin scout team in the fall or summer.
Speaker 2:I I can't remember what it was. It was awesome for me because I trusted the kid, he trusted me. I wanted him to go and play better competition, but then it gave me an opportunity to see some sophomores and freshmen that I'm not going to see again, because in baseball you practice at the same time yeah, you know basketball, um well, and you play at the same time in basketball. A basketball coach can watch their freshman team Now they've got to prep their varsity team during the jv game but they get a chance to see them in baseball. You don't, you know so. And then the other side of that, too, is when we would have guys go and play for someone else. Right, a lot of coaches, um, they're almost scared of that because, well, what if they learned something?
Speaker 2:I didn't care about, I wanted them to and, as time went on becoming a better coach, they'd come back and go. You know we're already kind of doing that stuff. Now they're surrounded right by better players. So you're talking about a marlin scout team and that's a huge benefit, right, I know you have a son. You have any children? No, when, when you, when they get older, when you do, um, if, if they're athletic minded, there is something, again mythical, magical. When you're surrounded by better players than you, something happens to you. Yeah, and you have to get better, right, you just and and you, I guess you have to get better, might not even be the right way to describe it, you just get better and you don't know you don't really know how or why and um you adapt.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you, this kind of this mutation happens and you just get better. But, um, you know we wanted our guys to play. We wanted them to play as much as they did and or as much as they could. And when I was younger, you know, mandatory as time went on, like if you need some time off, takes time off, it's no big deal like. But when I get you January 1, you better be ready to go. You better be ready to go. You know that was a big deal for us and and All of my players accepted that pretty well worked out pretty pretty well, yep yeah.
Speaker 1:How do you? How do you manage that? Because you know we always talk about the. There's always that um Debate between you know we we do see a lot of, especially in baseball, like wrestling, a lot of specialization going on there, right versus the three sport athlete that's constantly playing. But Nowadays, you know those seasons are overlapping, right, baseball, and you know, put your playing fall ball, you got football going on. Then basketball, wrestling and track, all that stuff right um, but for those kids that are maybe basketball players you know a football player and a a baseball player how do you manage that overlapping um and kind of encourage, still encouraging them to be those multi sport athletes, to get the best you know, to become the best athlete they could become?
Speaker 2:For me personally, I never mind. I I, I cared, but I didn't care if they wanted to go and play something else. I cared if they were going out on a date and said I can't be at practice. I cared if they were going to go to the movies and I can't be at practice.
Speaker 2:Right right if, if a kid wanted to go to basketball practice and then take a personal right as long as they were ready to go January 1, right for me, you know now, yeah, obviously, if they're playing basketball, you don't get them until you know your season of sport starts, but it's just, there's High school, is is four years. You never get back. You want, as an educator, you want them to be Involved. You want them to do as much as they can handle. Some kids can't handle so much, but you want them to be involved and and I feel like I did do a nice job of this I was always an educator first, just like a kid should always be a student first, you know. So there was. There was this perspective and and understanding, but again, as long as they were ready to go in.
Speaker 1:January and they communicate right. I think that's a big thing, just communicating.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a coach too. You got to have that. You got to make, feel safe about that, you know.
Speaker 2:And, and, and we would say this Listen, fellas, I don't need you to communicate like the president, but I do need you to communicate like a young adult. It's yeah, right in in our day and age it's. The communication is so easy. There's so many different platforms. You you can't tell me that you couldn't fire off a text, or even let one of your teammates know, or something like that. But yeah, we did expect them to communicate like young adults, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not hard. Nope, it's not, you know. So we, we sit here and you see words on the wall. You know success, hustle, persistence, determination and stuff like that, things that are all required, you know, for people that come in here to have a successful lifestyle. What are some traits for a coach to have a successful career that you would say in a few few chosen words?
Speaker 2:well, I think all this stuff is wonderful and it's motivational and it's great, but if you're not going to live it, mm-hmm, dude, the kids are gonna see, they're gonna see you. Right, they spot fake that. Oh, I mean, they're like detectives, mm-hmm. If you're not going to live it, if it's not going to be who you are, then either don't talk about it, yeah right or don't expect it. But it's just, it's got to be a part of you.
Speaker 2:You know, and I think that's what sort of blends those those high skill set teams and a quality coach is that he's not talking about her, she's not talking about they're actually doing it. You know, watching people spend time on a field or understanding that. You know they don't always get it right away, but A basketball coach, highly prepared basketball coach they're spending a lot of time off the court looking at film. A football coach I've seen it my own eyes when I was on campus in Menangee. Those guys are meeting on Sundays for hours at a time and the tricky part is sometimes you know you didn't have the skill set to execute on Friday night, but they were right back in there the next Sunday, you know. So it becomes infectious right.
Speaker 2:I guess, from from one to the other, sometimes it's team to coach and a lot of times it's coach to team. But all those things are great, they're highly motivational. But if you're not getting that as a player, if you're not getting that from your leader, they're gonna see right through that forget about it? Yep, every time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and kind of going back, successful coach. We've talked a little bit about like practice plans and running successful offseason programs. But Building a program right, if there's a couple things From a coaching standpoint you would kind of recommend, and what are those traits of a successful program from the ITES? Like you're looking at Whatever it is, menangee tell you what you look at a program and you know like okay, they're doing this, this and this. That's good, they're gonna be successful.
Speaker 2:So a lot of patients, if you're established a lot of patients. It goes back to maybe my time at at Menangee as a baseball coach Someone established as a baseball coach, at least in the county. Um, you know we had to have some patience. The stuff that we were doing I knew would work. You just had to have some patience and you know, uh yeah, the word of mouth thing For me is is better than any type of marketing scheme or advertising like it'll get around. You know this is what's going on over there. Um, you know they're relentless in their approach. They never stop coaching when practice is over. They are on to something else. You gotta be careful with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know, as a coach, because it can be very consuming and you have to have your family time, you have to have that decompression time, but it, it's, um, it's a relentless approach to growing your program. So I don't, I don't know if there's one thing that you have to have or two things that you have to have, but it has to be a part of you, has to be who you are, um, and I think sometimes there there are Listen fellas, there there's hundreds of coaches that know more about baseball than I do I'm at thousands, um, but when you have that coach that has the skill set to understand a long line, a short line, a coverage whatever, but they're not passionate about it, they're not believing in their program, they're not diving into every corner of it, every corner of a circle.
Speaker 1:You play to see through it.
Speaker 2:They'll see through it every time and once they do. God, that's hard to get back. It's hard to get that respect back. It's hard to get that trust back.
Speaker 1:Yeah it is yeah, when you say something. Yeah, I was gonna say on the other end of that, on the kind of director side of it, you obviously oversee a lot of programs now and you see other districts as well. Programs what's something that kills programs? Like actually like teams, that why they weren't successful. That's kind of a commonality in sports.
Speaker 2:Well, I mentioned it earlier, I've always thought that highly successful people or highly successful coaches or whatever CEO superintendents, they're organized, they're prepared, strict, prepared, disciplined, time efficient. If there's cracks in those, you're gonna lose a little bit of your program.
Speaker 3:You know if you're not organized.
Speaker 2:Well, what do you guys want to do today? Kids don't want to be there. Athletes don't want to be there for a single long. They want to be there for the concert. They want to get better, they want to be coached. They don't know how to get better. It's your job to make them better. You know, sometimes you've got to be aggressive with your team and your voice and some of those details, and sometimes you got to step back and kind of let them do. But if you get away from those four things as a trainer, as an educator in the classroom like we can have these boxed ways to teach a kid how to write a paragraph and they're wonderful and they're great and they work and we can have these boxed math concepts and stuff like that but as a teacher, whatever you're doing, if you get away from one of those four things, you're gonna have a tough time, right, you know you're gonna. And even the discipline thing you know discipline isn't you got in trouble, discipline is being on time.
Speaker 2:Right Discipline is knowing your signs, taking a pitch when you should, when you don't want to, staying disciplined on the strict side of things, Like when I first started coaching, we had this laundry list of rules right, Shoes need to be cleaned. They need to be polished, but they need to be cleaned. You need to wear your hat a certain way, you need to wear your belt a certain way, and you know. And if they cross that line with me, then I had a reaction Well, as my time went on, my line moved right, Because that stuff, it just it wasn't important, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't important enough to take away from our time together practicing. Sure, Right, but the one thing that didn't change is when you cross that line, my reaction was the same. You know so, and then and, and, and. Nothing I really do is is original.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Um, everything I kind of have done, I feel like as poached. You know, my laundry list of rules turned into Pete Carroll's Always protect the team. And what a wonderful rule that is. It's vague enough that it gives a coach all the leverage, um, you know, but it's still. It's still clear enough that you know, we, we all get to kind of define it, and I say we, all the team does if you're not going to class, you're not protecting the team. Yeah, if you're late to class, you're not protecting the team, because that could lead to something where you're not playing that day. Um, and you know, I think sometimes too, when people talk about discipline and and strict but fair discipline, it comes with this well, I've got to be loud and I've got to be aggressive. No, you don't.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We had a kid and um in 19, western's, coming to town. They come to our place. No, it wasn't 19. It was 22. It was it was just a couple of years ago Western's coming to our place. It's a Wednesday. We're out of school at 145 and 155 or whatever it is. Kids have to be back to campus or or spikes on by three or starting at four or 330 if you're starting at 430. He's a couple of minutes late. I didn't get mad at all. I just went and rewrote the lineup and got it back from Kenny and gave him a new one and we won the game.
Speaker 3:So you know it worked Now after that, that's over Punishments, over. Right.
Speaker 2:And he had six for us on a team that could hit. Yeah, you know he was a good player. Yeah, on a lot of my teams he would have been a four hitter or three hitter. Sure, um, but you know that stuff starts to happen, yeah.
Speaker 1:You win the game.
Speaker 2:That proved your point.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and then he didn't get to be a part of it, um, and to his credit, he was a great teammate that day and, and hat in hand, the next day and it was over, we moved on. He went right back into the lineup.
Speaker 1:Teachable moments, yeah.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Well, you know, but sometimes it doesn't lead to that. You might ruffle some feathers Right, Maybe not just with the player, but with the parent. Sure, you know. So, I'm sure you know you're not an ice cream man, you're not going to please everybody, you're. You're a coach that's making hard decisions, you know. So. I'm sure you might have had an encounter at once, you know, maybe twice throughout your career, with a concerned player about their playing time. You know, now, looking back at it, you know giving advice to a curtain coach or somebody who's looking to become a coach, what advice would you give them? You know, when they run into that, the stuff I see most of the time.
Speaker 2:Most of the time is that you have handled situation a a particular way. Situation B is very close to situation A and you handled situation B differently. Now a parent has the right to be upset and to question. You are going to have a handful of parents that just, they're not reasonable, they don't understand, they don't get it. So you stay true to yourself and just keep going. And that doesn't mean that I mean you lose sleep over it. I did, sure, I mean I'm not that guy, I'm not going to lose sleep over that because I did. But you just you stay true to yourself and you keep moving, you keep moving forward and you and you know that. And and back to the parent that is reasonable.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they just don't know, literally, sometimes they just don't know. I saw this a lot with freshmen's and sophomores, either from administrative standpoint or from my own program. We get few games into the end of the year and and he hasn't played, and mom or dad would wonder why he's not playing. And I'd say, well, you know they, they need to work on these things. Cause I tried not to talk about playing time, I tried to talk about what would help them get some or improve upon their game, but they'll look at you and go. Well, when he played last year he was guaranteed a quarter. Well, that, I'm sorry, mrs So-and-so, that's not the way high school athletics work. Oh, okay, and they just move on. Sometimes they just don't know, you know. So you have to have the curves, have that that uncomfortable conversation, and as long as they're, you know, as long as they're okay with it, they're not harassing you right after a game or whatever then then you owe them that a little bit. You owe them some communication.
Speaker 3:They are part of the program. They are I mean, they're a huge part of the program.
Speaker 2:And for a long time I made that mistake. Whitney got me to buy into this. That listen, if you really want your programs to take off, you're going to have to accept some of their help because, as a mistake to a mistake, I don't need their help. Yeah, you do.
Speaker 3:You need their help.
Speaker 2:Yep, you need them. You do Now, you don't. You don't need their help on the field, you know. But you need their help. Yeah, you know, and I was pretty fortunate I had a lot of parents that kind of understood how the process worked when I was at Port of Ohio and I had I had rosters from from 11 to 15, they're pretty good rosters and we had it kind of set up where you know, sophomores, juniors, just sort of had to wait to turn and credit to the seniors that were playing in front of them. They didn't let those guys have their job Right, and then that turned into its own little monster because the next guy would take over the next year and he wouldn't let the next sophomore or freshman have his job. I'll never forget 15, that team I talked about. We got walked off. In Valley semifinal, ridgeview, we get beat one nothing.
Speaker 2:Andrew Whitten, who I mentioned earlier. He's pitching a wonderful game. He's making big pitches and big situations. We're making critical plays that a lot of high school teams don't make, or my high school teams didn't make, and they're making the play in that game. We get walked off. They go to to their nine hitter ball one, ball two ball, three, three, two pitch.
Speaker 2:Kid flares a ball over our first baseman. Previous to that A kid had gotten on. It's tied, zero, zero. They're the home team. We have two strikes on the eight hitter. He singles or he gets on or something. He still second. The throw from the catcher is short, we don't knock it down. He goes over to third. Two outs, one hundred and third. Two strikes on the hitter. First strike away from getting the next inning. Little flare beats us over a six to first baseman, a guy named Dylan PV. Law enforcement now as as a wedding. That's a kind of a cool thing too to see one of your foreign players get married. But he's a kid that didn't play for us a whole lot as a junior. His senior year leads us to snowmrants.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:But. But that's a lot of credit to him and we were playing the right guys in his junior year. We had a successful team that year and so you know he probably didn't like it in his junior year. But I'm hoping now that he's whatever, he is 28 or something I'm hoping he's going. Oh, that's why that makes sense now you know, and not because of this podcast that he may or may not watch, but because it's organic and he just sort of understands it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, this one's. This isn't a question that that was on, but I feel like it's an important question. You know, because you had a few lineups where you had a guy that was behind the start and short stuff that could play, but it just necessarily wasn't his time. Yeah, you know, I think one of the greatest challenges in our community that sometimes the roster is short right, usually when you get your starting nine you're going to have to be in the middle of that's. Those are your dogs. You know what I mean. And Specifically, to help out the player, you know, when they don't have that competition behind the continually see, get better.
Speaker 3:You know how do you keep those kids intact. You know it's a long season sometimes, especially if it's not a winning season. You know what I mean. And they're like man, you know what, whatever I'm gonna show the brothers, he ain't gonna start that guy. He's half of what I am. What do you tell those type of kids? Or how do you approach them? You know, to get all of them All 26, 27, 28, 29 games have the courage, start the other guy have the courage to start the other guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, simple yeah, and I don't know if it's, if it's some Great coaching style or some great coaching philosophy. I Know for me. I was stupid enough to sacrifice a win to set the tone with some of that stuff. You only have to do it once. Sometimes it doesn't work, but not situation. I'm not because I've had that for I'm not gonna Go practice, not gonna play him. Don't, play him, don't, and you and you may sacrifice the win or you may sacrifice a better team on that day, but you're gonna get a better day, a better team, the next day. Thanks, yeah, you know, I mean it's really and and again, I wouldn't have done that at 22. I wouldn't have done that 22,. You know, I'd figure it takes you time to figure it out.
Speaker 1:You know that's a big time, yeah, and like the good coaches, do that right, Whether it's Kim Okiya LSU right now, and then you know Gino Talks about all the time with Yukon.
Speaker 2:you know Sometimes you sit that all-american if they're not doing what the right things are, not being responsible and taking care of business when you, when you talk about those great coaches, if you delete the resources that the SEC has and the financial backing that they have and the animal that major collegiate sports are, when you get down to the bare roots a Good high school coach, a good little league coach, a good collegiate coach, a good professional coach they're gonna have something that that sort of Unites them and it's usually in their philosophy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's usually in the simplest of things, yep. You know they don't get lost in uniforms, they don't get lost in this, they don't get lost in that. They get lost in in the bones that are creating your home, Yep, and and when you, when you dive into the coaching thing, like some of us have, you better have control of your house. Mm-hmm you know I have control of that, that, that's such a underrated word.
Speaker 3:Just keep it simple. Yeah, just keep it simple between being simple and being consistent.
Speaker 2:That's it, some of my biggest mistakes. I try to get fancy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, keep it very happens all the time in the damn gym. You know, I'll get you know that this social media is just Bruined. A good, honest fitness trainer.
Speaker 2:There's just no shortcuts yeah, shortcuts to being a player and and if they are the fraudulent, they're fake. Yeah, there's. You believe there is because the talent that you're playing with isn't very good, or playing against. There are no shortcuts whatsoever in the coaching game, in the playing game. They're not. You just you have to put in work. You know you can't replace reps.
Speaker 1:You cannot, you cannot nope In today, in today's world, things like that kind of mentioned. It was social media. From your perspective now, directing athletics, what are the biggest challenges of both the youth and high school athletics In in 2023, what are those challenges that we're kind of facing out there? The same? Have they? Have they changed?
Speaker 2:You know, I don't I don't want to be thought of as a little back in my day. You know, 100% right. I think that there has always been distractions. I think that there has, and now, whether it's it's this or that or whatever, I think there's always been challenges, distractions, I think sometimes, from whatever side you're on, sometimes you want them because it helps you excel.
Speaker 2:You know, I learned this from a high school basketball coach. You know he's telling me a story about one of the teams he he had coached and a pretty good player came into his office. Hey, listen, I don't think I'm gonna play this year. And he looked up straight in the face and said some of your teammates are gonna be happy and Some of your teammates are gonna be disappointed and the teammates are gonna be happy was probably a kid that was gonna play behind him. So you know you, you do. You try to manage the distractions and things like that and you say things like listen, when you are at practice, when you're at the game, I need your full conviction. The other time you can go. You know, talking about my line and and some of my rules. When I first started granted Hills, you couldn't be on your phone on a bus. Why would I care about that? Why would I care if they're on their phone, as long as they're ready to play now? Can you have the phone dug out?
Speaker 2:Absolutely not right time and place as long as they're ready to play. Why do I care if they're on their phone, and you know it it? I may be foolish to think this, but nowadays Think of this thing at homework, done on their phone. Why would I care if they're on the phone Right, as long as they're ready to play?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I, you know, I have this, this thing with you know, people of leaders and instructors and this you know, they always demand eye contact Sure, sometimes kids don't listen, you know better, sure, with eye contact.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna beat the kid up because he's not looking at me. Maybe he could hear me a little bit better because he's not looking at me. You know what I mean. But I'm not gonna lose him, you know, and make the situation directly about him or her Because he's not making eye contact about. You know with what I'm talking about. You know there's just simple things like that. You know, is it important to a certain extent, but is it worth it to go to dive into this? You know what I mean. To take five, ten, fifteen minutes from practice to just talk about that. You know I get it and it makes total sense. It makes total sense.
Speaker 2:Sometimes they're not ready for it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You try and see, you can get an eight year, eight year old in here. He's gonna walk into this gym. This is a beautiful gym. If you guys haven't been to this gym, you need to come to this gym, appreciate that. That kids, that he or she's gonna walk in here, this is like this is like Dodger Stadium to them. This is like jumping out of an airplane to them. So now you get him or her on that rack and you're trying to show them a simple box squad or back squad or whatever, and they may be a little embarrassed.
Speaker 2:They don't want to look at you right here, you're Michael Jordan, them, you literally that's what they think. You know. So, again, I think, reasonable expectations, understanding kids and their makeup. Everybody's unique, everybody's an individual. Now you try to blend them into an individual team, but some of that stuff, it just it doesn't matter. You know, like you know, back at granny hills, like you know, you gotta have shoes clean. Maybe they forgot, like, why am I not gonna play that kid if he just forgot, you know? Or I'm gonna stop making them do that or asking them to do that. You know, it's um, it's just trimming the fat and learning and moving on and but paying attention to it too. You know, and understanding, I'm trying to take this team from here and I'm trying to get them here now. This may mean 20 wins, it may mean one, but if I'm moving them, then we're doing our job, they're doing their job right, you know right, yeah, student athlete right.
Speaker 1:What's that relationship like between the academics and the, the athletics right, the player? And how do we? You know how do you have kind of approached that and making sure that they're taking care of business? You know Certain coaches have different Kind of approaches and plans to do that, whether it's study halls and things like that. But you know we do. You know some coaches or some programs do kind of see that struggle of keeping Athletes eligible throughout the season, making sure they're gonna meet the deadline, so they are gonna be eligible for the next nine weeks or that next quarter, whatever it is. So how do you kind of approach that as a coach and as a director of athletics?
Speaker 2:So, and again, I don't know if this will work for everyone, but this worked for me and we rarely had Ineligible players. We had a few, but we rarely had ineligible players and we talked a lot about it. I didn't do a whole lot of study hall, I didn't do a whole lot of grade check, but I would say, listen, if you don't have these grades, you're not gonna be able to play and I wouldn't make a big deal about it and I wouldn't lose my patience. I haven't been mad or lost my patience in years, fellows, like I can't remember the last time I've been mad. But here is the line and If, if you can't do this, then you're not gonna be here and listen, fellas, I'm not going to. I'm not gonna talk to a teacher for you. I, we're going to move on, with or without you.
Speaker 2:Most of the time they get it done. You know you can, you can be successful at school. Now, you know, I don't know if you can be, you know, a 4-0 student or whatever, but you can get your schoolwork done and and so but, but again, for me it just became a part of us. These are, these are the things that you need to do to play for us and sometimes play for me. You know you need to do these things. You need to be the young adult and take care of your academics.
Speaker 2:Now, if you need help, I'll come and help you the best I can, or I'll find somebody that can help you, right, right, but most of the time and I would hear this as a I would hear this, I hear this as an administrator you know well, coach isn't gonna let him play because he had to go home and do schoolwork. That's not okay. Like he signed up here, she signed up to play athletics. This is their reasonable practice time. They need to be there. And then what I see on the backside of that is They'd never go home do their homework.
Speaker 2:Yeah right they go home and they get something to eat and they maybe take shower, they kind of relax and they a lot of times they do their homework, but it's after that practice time, right, you know. So I never lost perspective on on what our role is as a coach. We are trying to Use athletics as a platform to get better grades, to stay Motivated, and I've had a lot of those players I really have and I, you know I we don't need to get cliche or getting in the numbers or say, listen, they would be, they wouldn't be a good human if it wasn't for athletics, right, but athletics kept them motivated enough to graduate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100% kept them motivated enough to Get good grades. You know, and our expectations as an athlete anyway is already higher than then some other programs. You know you have to have a 2.0 to play. Some kids aren't academic, um, and you know I've had countless players that bust their butt. Bust their butt, get a 2.0. I've had, and the same amount of players that just kind of go through the motions, get a 3.0, right right you know.
Speaker 2:So, again, it was and we would talk about this. We wouldn't talk about it a lot, but you know our programs. In my mind and I hope this bled into the players they were, they were living, breathing things. They that that program had emotion and that program it could. It could be stronger and on certain days it could be weaker, but it existed. It wasn't just this group of guys getting together for a couple hours a day, like the team was more important than the individual and I would say that my players, lots that listen for two hours a day. This team means more to me than than anything on the planet other than Whitney and my kids, but it definitely means more to me than you do now the other 22 hours of the day. It's completely opposite. I'll do anything that I can for you, unless you should or could be doing it for yourself those other 22 hours.
Speaker 3:So I mean you've overseeing a lot of programs, you've coached a lot of programs, you've been an athletic director of a lot of programs, but now you're sitting at the top of the whole entire district. Yeah, you know what are some challenges and rewards. You know, sitting in that desk now the check, the challenges for me is I miss campus life.
Speaker 2:I still like being around kids. Yeah, yeah, I miss the. I do miss coaching a tick, you know I I knew I was getting to the end of my coaching career. How did I not got this? Had I gotten this job or not gotten this job? Because I really started to enjoy the games more than Practices and I never felt that way. Had I not got the job, I probably just stuck around a couple more years, but I knew it was kind of getting to the end.
Speaker 2:But a challenge for me personally is, you know you're not around kids as much. Like I said earlier, you don't have that, that, that daily interaction or that time To to get with coaches and work with them. Sometimes they don't even know that they can ask for it, you know. So creating that relationship with them is important to me and I, and I think in a grassroots way, if you can create those Relationships and establish those relationships, I think things will start to increase. You know, and the the rewards of the job is that you know I I do oversee our athletic programs in a community that means so much to me. You know I've only been away from Portaville for three years in my life, you know, and Everything that I have in my life is because of athletics, and if we can just get that to a few kids, I mean the, the impact is done right, you know.
Speaker 1:Is that, what's it, what? What does I guess success look like in your role at this point in your career? Like, obviously, when you're, you know, when you're coaching baseball, it's not necessarily the wins and the losses, but it's seeing those kids go on and and have success, you know, after they graduate, all that stuff. So what does success look like and gratitude look like in your role today?
Speaker 2:It's a great question. I don't know if I've had enough time to kind of define that yet in my own, in my own head. I Know that that you're pursuing it. I, I hope that you know I can create relationships enough where a coach can come to me and say, hey, what would you do in this situation? Or or how did you handle that? I would hope that I have a relationship where I can hand some of that stuff off too. You know, we've got a guy out in Strathmore that is putting himself in a category that's elite. You know, and I'm talking on a national scale. I saw them play last night in a regional final and man, his team was looking sharp you know.
Speaker 2:So, again, we have successful coaches around and we have impactful coaches and using them and, you know somewhat, shining them, if you will, and getting them back in front of their kids, that grassroots approach, be fantastic. I'd love to say to you you know, we're putting in this project and we're doing that, we're doing that and all those things are great, but I don't know if that leads to success. That leads to a great place to go and play, sure you know. So all the behind-the-scenes stuff, that that you don't want credit for, that you shouldn't get credit for, I feel I think I could probably do a better job with that kind of connecting with those people and, and you know, just helping them be better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So I mean in a nutshell, you know what is. What is the future hold for AJ Watts and the Port of Old Unified School District as far as the athletic department go?
Speaker 2:you know, Port of Old Unified Carefully. Anybody says it's good shape man.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm an anti-high cross country. This one. Two value championships. Strathmore one value championship. You know things are cruising. Strathmore High boys basketball one. Farmsville tournament Port of a high boys basketball no, just won the Emanuel tournament. We had an all-time leading scorer at Manachi Couple week. Skill like things are okay.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:You know, things are okay, they're moving on the right boat rowing. Yeah, yeah, it is and you know, for me, like whatever, it'll be fine, you know, yeah, something'll come up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, yeah well, any final words or anything gonna Say we need more people like you guys in town.
Speaker 2:You guys are doing a terrific job. Thank you, yeah, appreciate it.
Speaker 3:I've been wanting to do this one for a long time. Yeah, well, you know there's a lot of people that want to hear what you had to say because you had the credibility for it. But you're your list of participants? No, not in the least bit. But it really appreciate the time for you coming down and talking shop with us and sharing the knowledge that you've gained within the last 20 plus years of your career. And you know, hopefully, a lot of coaches you know take, take tests of this and you know they pick something from it helps their program is really my pleasure.
Speaker 2:This is fun. This is this is not work. This is this is fun, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks, thanks, aj, for just setting that bar, that standard high, with not just athletics but, you know, building programs and just being a good role model in our community. So we appreciate that, appreciate you taking the time to come on today and we're looking forward to Coaches, parents and a lot of people to tune into this, to take some advice into their own programs or maybe their own children.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, if there's one thing, that two things, that you could take away From listening to coach Watts is keep it simple. Yep, it's they consistent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sir, yep, that's good. I think they appreciate it course.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Thank you I.