How I Learned To Ignore The Naysayers

When I was 23 and had just wrapped up my bachelor's degree and one and only summer of pro baseball I had the opportunity to interview for the Head Baseball Coaching position at my alma mater. This position was far from a prize but my dream had always been to be a coach.

Now let me give you a little history - the baseball program at this University had never had a winning season, never been to the post-season...Really hadn't been very good at all. The program was generally regarded as one of the worst in the NAIA (the collegiate division they were a member of.) The baseball program had only had two head coaches in their history, one had been an All-Star in the Major Leagues and was regarded as one of the "biggest baseball names" in that part of the country. The next coach had been a 3-time state coach of the year at a local high school. In spite of having generous amounts of scholarship money and great credentials, neither of these coaches could make the program a winner. Because of the lack of success the University decided to "de-emphasize" baseball and eliminate the scholarships.

Did I forget to mention they also decided to pay the coach $5000 a year?

Due to the schools change in direction - the coach resigned, the pool of candidates for the vacant position was thin and I "won" the job. The pay was poor so I continued to train athletes and accepted a part time job as the schools Strength & Conditioning Coach to subsidize my income.

As you can imagine, most everyone (actually EVERYONE except me) expected me to fall flat on my face. "If the two biggest names in baseball from that area couldn't even muster a winning season with scholarships, a 23 year old guy with no experience and no scholarships would be lucky to even win a game" most people thought. But I never really even contemplated failure. I wrote the following goals for the program on an index card and kept them in my wallet:

1. To win 2/3 (.667) of our games. (The school had a winning percentage of .381 to that point.)
2. To win 30 games in a season. (The school record was 19)
3. To make it to the NAIA Regional Tournament. (The team had never even made the conference tournament)
4. To receive recognition in the national coaches poll. (approximately the top 15% of all teams nationally)

So I read everything I could get my hands on, visited the most successful programs in the country like LSU, Miami and Georgia Tech and decided to do things differently than everyone else was was competing with. I read marketing books to learn how to recruit. I had our team lift weights aggressively and do SAQ work when everyone else was still leery of heavy lifting and doing distance running. I approached the tactical side of the game differently. I didn't even have a sign for the Hit & Run.

I my first year, we won more than we lost. By my third year we won 35 games, made the Regional Tournament and were ranked in the National Poll. In my 5th year we finished 5th at the NAIA World Series and won 48 games.

I decided to leave coaching because I wanted to own my own business after 6 years. But during that span our team won 194 games and lost only 86 (.693), was nationally ranked the final four years and led all of college baseball (over 2000 teams) in hitting over the six season span. All of this while having one of the smallest budgets in the country.

I know this was a long post...But every time someone tells me something can't be done or I can't accomplish what I want to, I think back to this. Then I say: "Stick around, you'll see."