Two days after I finished my college playing career I got my first job coaching college baseball. I spent the next months thinking about writing a piece to myself explaining why I wanted to coach so in the future I could reflect on why I was so drawn to the coaching profession as a young kid. 12 years later it still hasn't been written and I regret not doing this. It would be so great to see these thoughts that were the foundation of a career that has shaped so much of my life.
Over the last year the number of calls I received and conversations I had with people regarding the culture we had in our baseball program at Lower Columbia College was incredible. Good friends, respected colleagues and people I had never met reached out to know more about what we were doing inside the program. There is no question that what we had was special. The way that so many 18-21 year olds sacrificed so much of themselves for each other was truly unique. The number of people who asked about our program with wonder suggested that this culture we had was noticeable from the outside as well.
When asked about what it was that made our teams tick it is impossible to name just one thing. It is more like a complex interlinked web of small details that formed our culture. As the months passed, I even found myself trying to pinpoint exactly what it was that propelled our program. Urged on by others and wanting to learn from the regret of never recording my thoughts of why I was so drawn to coaching as a 22 year old, I decided to try to record what I believed to be the core and foundation of our program.
The Dream
We didn’t talk about goals - just dreams. Goals are boring and elementary. Accomplishing a goal sounds more like an obligation than a passion. Dreams are the kind of powerful vision that can propel people to do things that others can’t even fathom possible. We encouraged our players to formulate their dreams for their lives and then put every ounce of their existence in to these dreams.
For me, the dream was to develop players in a way that could impact them their entire life by using the tool of baseball to teach skills that would be beneficial for them long after their baseball careers were over. University of Washington football coach Chris Petersen uses the term “Built for Life” to explain his philosophy of what he wants for the players in his program. We stole this phrase and added a twist to make it our own by changing it to BUILT4LIFE as our philosophy was four pillars that were areas that we wanted our players to develop.
These BUILT4LIFE pillars were:
Athletics - We wanted baseball to be an enjoyable experience for them in which players learned how to win. Learning to work with others to achieve a dream is a valuable skill that was taught through athletics.
Academics - Statistics suggested that over 99% of our players would earn more money throughout their life in something other than baseball. We stressed the importance of academics as it would eventually be the skill that would be relied upon to support their lives.
Leadership - Many of the lessons we taught our players were in hopes of developing them to be leaders. We pushed players to be great communicators, value dependability and be organized so that they could be leaders on the field and also for the rest of their lives.
Citizenship - We stressed that players carry themselves in a way that expressed integrity and humility on campus and in the community. We valued being an integral part of both campus and the community and emphasized this by being involved and treating everyone with respect.
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| Developing players on the BUILT4LIFE pillars was the dream. |
These were areas that could set these players up with skills for success the rest of their lives. We were fortunate to have our passion - baseball - be the tool through which we could teach these skills. It was our belief that it was our responsibility to develop each of these pillars in each of our players. Developing these pillars in the players was the dream that fueled everything we did in our program.
This dream established the vision for the program. To accomplish the dream we leaned on a set of values as we worked toward the dream. These values were intertwined very delicately to form our foundation. While the words below highlight the values we strived to have as our core, it is important to point out it was not always a smooth direct ride with 100% perfect alignment in our actions with these values. There were mistakes, failures and challenges every day. When all was said and done, however, these principles made us who we were.
Expectations
It was our focus to create as much clarity as possible for what we saw as the foundation of our program. It was our feeling that if a player was doing something that was not meeting our expectations during performance this was our fault as coaches. We needed to do a better job of explaining the expectation and holding the player accountable to the expectation during our preparation.
This teaching ranged from how to properly field a ground ball to how we would wear our uniform. We would even go as far as teaching the players the expectation of how to stand in a team huddle so they could best retain information.
Away from the field there was an expectation that was clear on where players needed to be and when they needed to be there. Other topics included where to sit in the classroom to be most successful, how to treat women at a social gathering and the honor it was to represent such a storied program.
There were not any details too small to address what the expectation was. Ultimately, the universal theme for our expectations was to work to be the best we could in literally anything we were doing.
There were several ways we implemented these expectations. The most critical were the Baseball 101 sessions each fall before team practice started. We would meet five or six times for 20 minutes in a classroom and use videos, guest speakers and articles to aid us in explaining the big picture expectations for the program.
Once we started team practice we began each practice with a team meeting at home plate. Each day we would have the practice plan posted by 11:00am for our players to memorize so they could plan their attack for practice. The first thing on the plan was a quote of the day that was selected to fit whatever our team needed that day to best promote our mindset.
Players were responsible for knowing the quote of the day before practice began. To start practice a player would be called upon to recite the day’s quote. We would then discuss the quote as it pertained to our team and that moment and then begin practice. Often this meeting lasted a total of 90 seconds while occasionally meetings would last 30 minutes and would even include guest speakers and or videos in a nearby classroom.
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| Practice always started with a quote that was discussed during Baseball 101 to start the day. |
The time we spent meeting depended on what the team needed on that given day. It was a great way to establish and reinforce the expectations of the program.
We reemphasized these expectations every day through drills and post practice/game meetings. We went out of our way to include these concepts in signs around our facilities and even on our apparel.
We went to extremes to make sure everyone knew what was expected and there is no doubt that these details were at the core of our program.
Accountability
We could have set the clearest expectations in the world but without accountability these expectations were worthless. As we prepared and performed, there was an accountability to the expectations that remained clear and constant for everyone in the program regardless of their role.
The basic principle of this accountability was the expectation of “DO YOUR JOB” for the team. This is a concept stolen from many coaches, most notably Bill Belichick and Nick Saban. In its simplest form, everyone on the team has a specific job to do in anything they are doing.
On the field we prepared tirelessly to be sure that everyone understood their job and had prepared their skills to the best of their abilities for any situation that may come up in a game. On every pitch, the expectation for everyone was DO YOUR JOB. When everyone in the program executed their job on a pitch it was nearly impossible for us to fail.
This was the ultimate teamwork. Players felt a responsibility for their brothers they had prepared with and gave everything they could to do their job for the team on every pitch.
Breaking down the “DO YOUR JOB” mentality to be a separate task on every pitch allowed players to slow down the game. We emphasized the importance that the last pitch did not influence the upcoming pitch and total focus must be put on the upcoming pitch. This created incredible consistency in our performance as players had the tools to eliminate human emotions such as frustration, anger and negative thinking that can be so detrimental to consistent performance.
This accountability to DO YOUR JOB was a standard that reached well beyond the playing field. Our coaching staff had roles that were clearly defined so they knew exactly what tasks they were accountable for within the operation of the program. Day to day field set up for practice was assigned to specific players for tasks such as putting out field screens, filling water coolers and opening the press box. There was accountability to every expectation. We spent every day striving to keep this expectation consistent throughout time and made sure no one in the program was above the accountability.
To implement the accountability there was always immediate and direct consequences. The word consequence has such a negative connotation but in our program it was simply a result of an action. Our consequences were both negative and positive.
The most simple form of these consequences were verbal. We took pride in being direct and honest communicators in our program so that there was not any confusion about the expectations or the way we were meeting the standards. If something needed corrected we aimed to correct it immediately. If someone was performing exactly what we expected we would go out of our way to publicly praise that player so everyone had a better understanding of the expectation.
An outside observer may have been surprised at how direct we were with our communication. There was certainly some tough love in the form of honesty. But players and coaches did a wonderful job of being receptive to the direct communication as we understood how this directness eliminated confusion and led to results.
Other forms of accountability came with added conditioning, added chores around the stadium or removal from team activities. None of these negative forms of accountability were enjoyable for the players - that was the point. But our goal was to remind players of the pain of letting down the team and shape their behavior during preparation so that they could reach their dreams during their performance.
There were several forms of positive reinforcement that were a part of our accountability. Hitters were rewarded with small stickers on their helmet for plays that went generally unnoticed in the stat sheet but were vital in helping the team win. Throughout our competitions in practice, winning teams were excused from field chores for the day. Special gear was made as rewards for groups and individuals who won competitions.
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| Players would earn helmet stickers for execution as a positive consequence. |
We experimented with countless teaching tools of varying success in our time. Nothing was more effective than having cause-and-effect consequences for performance preparation. Players began embracing the details and the expectations that were in place. The team would celebrate a 2 strike foul ball on a tough pitch while we were on offense and well executed PFPs became sexy on defense. Our dugout would erupt when we got hit by a pitch - an undervalued offensive statistic that we led the entire country in from 2016-2017.
Eventually the positive consequences became more powerful than the negative consequences. People were more excited about the reward of helping the team win than they were just trying to avoid the negative consequences. The accountability became a respected and understood piece of the process toward achieving our dreams. This is when the performance reached a new level of success.
Ownership
We worked to create expectations and accountability that were very detailed. But we tried to make sure the expectations and accountability were a foundation and not a restrictive boundary. We wanted everyone in the program to feel like this foundation was their launching pad to explore and experiment ways to become the best at whatever it was they were doing during their time in the program.
This freedom and creativity founded one of the most important traits of the program - ownership. The vision was that everyone understood what was expected for them to do their part of DO YOUR JOB and they could take ownership in figuring out techniques and strategies that best allowed them to do their job.
By allowing players and coaches to take ownership for their job, it made them feel like the program was truly theirs. We wanted every member of the team to feel like they had a major piece of the group’s performance. This created the highest satisfaction in success and a hunger to improve in failure, both of which are powerful human feelings that shape behavior.
For performance, there were some check points in our technique for different fundamentals but we strived for players to have the freedom to allow their athleticism and preparation to take over. We were sure to provide necessary skill instruction and thousands of reps but were very weary of overcoaching. In order to perform at an optimal level players had to be able to have their focus on competing and not constantly trying to find mechanics for a perfect swing or throwing motion. The more we coached technique, the less a player would be focused on competing and allowing his natural athleticism organize the body to produce the desired result. We stressed coaching with simplicity in the teaching and unwavering lofty expectations to allow the player to find the path that best worked for him. Knowing that the team was counting on them to DO YOUR JOB was the best motivator for players to take ownership to become the best player they could be.
We worked to have the same kind of ownership in our coaching staff. We would start every year with a day of a coaches retreat where every coach had a list of his responsibilities within the program. I wanted the coaches to see those responsibilities under his name and find his way to make them the best they could possibly be.
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| Staff responsibilities were defined to create ownership in the roles. |
An outfield coach would be left completely on his own to devise the development of the outfielders while the pitching coach would be left completely on his own to devise the development of the pitchers. The expectation was that we had coaches who stayed up at night and woke up first thing in the morning trying to find a way to make their players the best they could possibly be.
As a head coach the last thing I wanted an assistant coach to do was feel like he had to read my mind and think “What does Eddie want me to do with the outfielders today?” I wanted them to think critically and creatively about what these players needed for their development and construct a plan for this. Ultimately I hoped that they felt an ownership that allowed them to feel great pride in their groups successes and heartbreak that inspired improvement when their group failed.
Internally, this was one of the toughest challenges I had as a head coach. Almost daily, other coaches would do something within their responsibilities that was not the plan that I would have come up with had that been my responsibility. But I knew that as the head coach if I tried to coach everything I would end up coaching nothing successfully because my efforts would be spread too thin. I wouldn’t be able to accomplish with a group of 35 what another person could accomplish if that 35 was spread in to smaller positional groups with group leaders (the other coaches) that used their expertise in their position group to fulfill our common mission to be the best we could in whatever we were doing.
If the other coaches felt like they had to read my mind to figure out how or what I wanted them to teach within their responsibilities they would not have been able to reach the peak of their potential either. They needed to be able to think creatively and trust their teaching instincts to come up with their own plan to make their group great. This was the ownership we strived for.
Fortunately I always knew that our other coaches were putting their hearts and souls in to their piece and were very connected with the players they worked with. They did a great job of consistently delivering the players the tools they needed for development.
Every once in a while I questioned a plan or a teaching of another coach so much that I felt it needed changed. In these situations I tried to approach the coach in private and ask him why he was doing something a certain way. I found this answer gave me a better understanding of what he was trying to accomplish. Because I knew they had a great feel for their players and they put so much thought in to their plan, I would usually have them continue what they were teaching.
There were just a few times I still objected to what they were doing so much I would explain to the coach what I was seeing and why it needed to be adjusted. Then I would have the assistant coach make the adjustment with the players so that he still had the credibility and influence with the players in his group.
Fortunately, our coaches were incredibly talented. This type of correction probably happened a total of five times from 2015-2017. As much as I did not want to get in the coach’s way, if I did need to change something I felt this strategy helped the assistant coach maintain his feeling of ownership for his role on the team.
It was our hope to create this feeling of ownership for everyone in our program. We wanted each individual to wake up every morning feeling a responsibility to prepare to perform their job the best they possibly could for the team. This ownership was a strong feeling for so many in the program.
Trust
The biggest “rule” that our players would tell you about our program is that lying was not an option. It was understood that mistakes would be made. We would address issues, often with some consequences, but lying was simply not an option.
This honesty was emphasized so much because trust must be at the core of any great team. As a coaching staff we worked to establish this trust with the players from the second they were introduced to our program as recruits and demanded honesty from them and their families throughout the process.
Our basic approach in recruiting a prospect that we wanted to be a part of our program was simple: We introduced the player to our vision for the program, highlighted the many benefits that we had to offer and explained what the day to day schedule was like in our program. We would then tell them that we wanted them to be a part of the program but it was most important that they go to the program that their heart felt most set on.
We didn’t want anyone in our program to have any regrets about being there. We worked too hard and challenged each other so much that if a player had doubts about being a Red Devil, these challenges would eliminate these doubts and the player would have wished he were somewhere else. We needed guys who were all in to what we were doing and we recruited with very little attempt at persuasion.
Lower Columbia was a challenging place to be a baseball player. We prided our program on toughness and players knew this when they decided to become a Red Devil. When the preparation was demanding players had already been warned. There was nothing fake about the recruiting process and based on reports from players who chose to come to Lower Columbia, our recruiting process was unique in how direct and realistic we were in explaining our program. This created an initial trust between the coaching staff and players.
Inside the program there was a point to over communicate. This created clarity and that clarity created trust. When we communicated person to person or in group settings we demanded eye contact as that is a tool that promotes honesty and builds connection between humans.
There was not sugar coating. As noted earlier, we addressed issues directly. Tough love is a hard, but wonderful teaching tool when it comes from the heart. As coaches we took great pride in following the advice of Cubs manager Joe Madden who once said, “If I am honest with you, you may be mad at me for a few days but if I lie to you, you will hate me forever.”
We made a point to explain our reasoning behind a lot of decisions that negatively impacted individuals or groups on the team. Players didn’t always like the news but the decisions were respected. This was trust.
To allow players to best manage their time, we would email the team schedule out at least a week in advance. This schedule was detailed down to the minute with the understanding it was always subject to change for weather or for anything else that may come up with. 95% of the time we stuck to this schedule. If we had to make adjustments to the schedule we immediately notified the players of the updated schedule and explained to them the reasoning behind the schedule change. In the world of college athletics where time management is critical for the student-athletes, this communication built trust.
There was a respected understanding from players that the coaches were authority figures but also would be in the trenches with them fighting for our team’s dreams together. We would do some workouts with players. There were field work duties that were the responsibility of the players but the coaches took on the majority of this work load. During labor intensive projects at the field that involved the entire team, our coaching staff was eager to get our hands dirty side by side with the players. We held ourselves as coaches to the same standard as players when it came to showing up early, uniform dress code and other expectations.
The connection we had between players and coaches was unique and special. There is no question this relationship was rooted in the trust we had in each other.
Most importantly, the players trusted each other. This trust was founded in the character of the people we recruited in to our program and was complemented by the direct, honest communication that was commonplace in our culture.
Our players’ trust in each other grew to a new level through the preparation they each put in to being able to DO YOUR JOB for their teammates when it was time to perform. The players welcomed challenges in all aspects of their training. Almost every player would arrive at the field to work on their skills and pre practice routine 45 minutes to an hour before practice officially started. In the classroom and on the social scene they had each other’s backs and strived to be the best.
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| This tweet from player Michael Forgione epitomizes the trust our players had in each other. |
These sacrifices they made in their preparation allowed them to have a trust in each other when it was time to perform that emanated throughout the ballpark and eventually created an aura around the program that sent ripples to every corner of the baseball world. This belief the players had in themselves and in each other was key to our success.
Toughness
Toughness was a mindset that we emphasized and trained every day. The word tough immediately creates images of a person with a lumberjack appearance and a bullying demeanor. There were certainly physical components to our toughness but we preached it in a way that was much more than just a physical facade. Toughness was summed up in the consistency of our expectation and mindset to DO YOUR JOB physically, mentally and emotionally AT ALL TIMES.
Every team in the country comes to the first practice of the year with great energy due to the excitement of being on the field and what could be accomplished in the upcoming season. On the 12th day or the fifth week though, average and even good teams have energy levels that go up and down like the stock market. We demanded that the team approached every day with the same consistent, championship dream energy. We emphasized that every day we prepared or performed, everyone must show up physically, mentally and emotionally ready to compete and develop. This was not something that could waver and it was critical that we had this consistent toughness.
Physically our toughness was rooted in the expectation that everything we did was designed to simulate the game as much as possible. Everything was done at game speed with the belief that if we practiced fast the game would be slow. (Alternatively, practice slow and the game moves fast). Players were expected to dive, block balls, slide hard and get hit by pitches in all of our preparation. When we scrimmaged we simulated a game as much as we could with signs, base coaches, pitch calling, scoreboard and even a national anthem to create a physical experience in our preparation that was as close to a performance experience as possible. When players did not exhibit the toughness needed in this preparation there were immediate corrections sometimes with consequences for accountability.
We spent hours throughout the year working on the mental toughness that was needed to be great performers. A performer who consistently performs near the peak of their potential thinks in a way that is completely counter intuitive to human nature. We emphasized a mindset that went far beyond the basic primal instinct of survival and to a zone where a person performs at the highest level no matter what obstacles come up.
We worked tirelessly to design preparation that would develop individuals and the team in to champions and then taught how to mentally separate that process in to a tunnel vision focus based on the DO YOUR JOB and do it ONE PITCH AT A TIME mentality. These were mental skills that we worked on and emphasized daily to create a toughness that revealed itself in the consistency of performance.
We also worked to recognize and understand basic human emotions. To perform at elite levels we had to be able to manage these emotions. The foundation of this focus was to create a belief in oneself and the team regardless of the circumstances. Performance is dictated by the performer’s thoughts. Thoughts are portrayed through a person’s verbal and non verbal communication.
We had a constant focus on teaching how one’s words and body language must be controlled in order to perform with consistency. If someone made a “soft comment”, coaches and players would immediately call him out so that he could recognize his thought that had come out in words. Soft thoughts were anything said that focused on an uncontrollable. Bad field conditions, poor umpiring, nagging owies and coaching decisions to name a few. Another popular “soft comment” was talking about how good an opposing player may be.
Equal to “soft thoughts” was bad body language. A sulk, a pout, a palms up... anything that displayed frustration and took someone away from having total emotional control to focus on the DO YOUR JOB approach. We knew that if we could slow down and even eliminate these thoughts and actions of weakness we would be able to put all of our emotional energy toward what we could control.
When an individual or team has the toughness to prepare every day with a solid plan that pushes them beyond their comfort zone they begin to approach their optimal performance level - their ceiling. Our goal was to control our preparation and performance with this physical, mental and emotional toughness at a championship level at all times. Players and coaches did an amazing job of embracing this toughness.
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| This sign was mounted above the wall where our players exited the field every day to stress the importance of being consistent in our preparation. |
This consistent toughness tends to fade on so many teams because it can be seen as boring and monotonous by most. The people within our program grew to embrace this toughness. Within our team, fouling off a tough pitch with 2 strikes, dominating the thoughts toward the next pitch after making an error and eliminating thoughts about how an umpire’s call altered an at bat became celebrated as much as home runs. This commitment to toughness was a large part of the core of our performance.
Relentlessness
We tried to prepare in a way that we were ready to dominate any situation that could ever come up when we performed. No matter how much we prepared, however, it was inevitable that adversity would be common throughout a game or season. We demanded that everyone on our team acknowledge this and prepared to handle the adversity with an attitude of relentlessness. We knew that adversity would hit but more importantly we knew that how we responded to the adversity is what would define us.
We started by intentionally creating adversity in our preparation. Especially during fall practice we would challenge individuals and groups to the point of failure every day. Drills would be designed to cause players to fail at least some of the time if not most of the time. The expectation would be perfection - clearly unattainable. There would be accountability when this expectation wasn’t met. We designed our preparation this way because people perform to the level of the expectation. While reaching perfection may be impossible, improvement was sure to come along the way.
This also taught players to handle adversity. Most of our players were always the best players on their high school teams and had never experienced failure before. These challenging drills and expectations taught them how to recognize and how to respond to the thoughts and emotions of failure. This first taste of adversity was a valuable teaching tool in developing our relentlessness.
Throughout our winter workouts, our Dirty Devil Challenge became legendary as our players competed against each other in various physical challenges. The intent was to make every individual understand the mindset of relentlessness by finding new physical and mental limits. As players did this they would constantly fight through the adversity of discomfort and failure as they competed. It was one more way to train the mind how to control the body.
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| The annual Dirty Devil Challenge Obstacle Course helped contribute to our mindset of relentlessness |
Each winter we would spend four mornings running what we called doubleheaders. Coaches and players alike had a bittersweet appreciation for doubleheaders as we lined up on our warning track at 6:30am in 30 degree temperatures to run through and plank in the mud puddles that formed on our warning track each winter. The actual doubleheaders were not enjoyable for anyone but the mindset they produced in the way they could replicate the thoughts of adversity during a game day were priceless.
There was a lot of sacrifice put in by our team but the relentless attitude we played with was unmistakeable. When adversity struck during a game we recognized it as just part of the process. Our minds reverted to our preparation and simply worked to find a solution to respond to this adversity.
I will always remember this relentlessness best during the quarterfinals of the 2017 NWAC Tournament. We were ranked No. 2 playing No. 1 ranked Everett. Both teams had established ourselves as head and shoulders above the rest of the 30-team conference throughout the season and our home field was standing room only that night. These external factors created a hype that makes average players stray away from their preparation and try to perform in ways that are not optimal.
After giving up a leadoff double in the 2nd inning we made two Little League type errors dropping a routine fly then throwing a ball away on a routine double play. During a mound visit after the second error there was an incredible calm among the battery and infielders. They had prepared and played side by side for nine months and over 50 games. They believed in themselves and in each other.
Despite starting the inning with the bases loaded and 0 outs, the pitcher and the defense did a great job of managing the adversity giving up just one run. We went on to win this pivotal game 5-2 on our run to a championship.
After the game fans, family and reporters all wanted to talk about how we “tried to lose the game in the 2nd inning”. In my heart I knew the poise the team played with when adversity hit was exactly what WON us the game. This relentlessness won this game for us and many more.
Win Anyway
These two words became the cornerstone of our program. They could be found on hats, uniforms, undershirts, graphics and a gigantic dugout sign. While the words could be seen in a lot of places, it was the way that they were lived within our program that made them most clear.
We initially had a culture that was too eager to make excuses and lacked the grit required to overcome common and even reasonable explanations for not performing at an elite level. We searched for a way to capture the theme that excuses were not acceptable in any form and decided to use WIN ANYWAY as our program’s motto. It was a positive way of saying no excuses and was simple enough that it could be remembered and repeated by all. Lastly, it was incredibly universal in how it could be used.
During our first preseason Baseball 101 in the fall of 2014 we asked the players to brainstorm distractions that could get in the way of their success. The team did a great job making a list of about 25 topics such as weather, instructors, homework, umpires and girlfriends. As players volunteered their ideas they would come up and write it on a large plywood board. Once the brainstorm was over, we reviewed the list that was now written in sharpie on a large board. We then turned the board around to the other side and showed it to the players. Unknown to them, it was painted our colors and read WIN ANYWAY in large font. We went on to explain that everyone has distractions. The distractions can be used as an excuse or just an obstacle to plow through on the way to success. We mounted the sign in the home dugout where it still hangs today.
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| This 3-foot by 4-foot sign hung in our dugout as a constant reminder of our mindset. |
Over the next three seasons the theme oozed out of every corner of our program. The words remained visibly printed everywhere. Coaches and players would simply say “win anyway” to each other to address the mentality needed when someone would explain challenges they were facing. The mentality could be seen in the way we played. A great example of this was that the 2017 team trailed by 1 run going in to our last at bat four times and ended up going 4-0 in those games.
The phrase did not stop at the field. The WIN ANYWAY mentality was entrenched in every aspect of our program. We taught that if players who lived one mile from campus should leave their home by 7am for our 7:15am weights. This way if the car wouldn’t start they could jog to campus and easily make it on time. We emphasized time management and starting papers and projects early to avoid unforeseen circumstances. The team’s performance in the classroom matched the performance on the field capped by the 2017 team who had a 3.3 team GPA and 27 of 28 players above 3.0.
There is no question that this mentality of WIN ANYWAY propelled our team on and off the field but this mentality can be helpful in nearly every situation. Anything that is worth doing comes with challenges and the WIN ANYWAY mentality can be such a great tool to find success as obstacles come up.
Closing
We use words to try to capture the complexity of the brilliant world. We may say something as it becomes a thought in our head or add permanence to an idea by putting it in writing. Music and videos add tones to these words to portray emotion. But no matter how perfect and eloquent the words we choose may be, words always fall short of truly representing the senses and feelings of the human experience. These words below are no different. There is no way to fully capture the honor it was to be the baseball coach at Lower Columbia College.
To the community: THANK YOU! From day one I was welcomed in by strangers and made to feel like Cowlitz County was my home. So many of you became close personal friends. These are friendships so genuine that they are sure to last a lifetime. I will never forget an early morning in August 2014 that changed my life and our program. Driving down Industrial Way at 4:15am to meet friends for a day of fishing on the river, it might as well have been Times Square with the heavy traffic of trucks and workers hauling timber and other products to and from the industrial part of town. I was immediately inspired and thought to myself how I wanted to make sure our team always had the toughness and grit of this town. We spent the next three-plus years using this as the model of what we wanted our team to represent. Your example made the people in our program better. Hopefully we did the same for you.
To the players and coaches who wore the Red Devil uniform before my time in Longview: THANK YOU! You also made me feel welcomed from day one. The tradition and expectations you created pushed us to be better. Whenever there was a challenge or obstacle in the way of our dreams your legacy screamed motivation through every corner of Story Field and the Red Devil uniform. You were an inspiration in everything we did.
To my friends and family: THANK YOU! From life long friends to the most recent, your support was unwavering. Lunches, dinners, fishing trips and memorable nights at the house during the tournament will never be forgotten. It was so great to have my wonderful family at so many games. During the game I probably acted like I didn’t know you were there but I knew exactly when you came in the ballpark until when you left. It was great having all of you there so often. I have to say a special thanks to my parents. You came to so many games and were a glue that kept everything together. Lastly, I don’t know where to begin when it comes to my fiancé, Jennifer. I will always remember the rock you became for me during the time at Lower Columbia.
To the coaches I got to coach with: THANK YOU! When we began working together we would always meet and diligently spend hours going over responsibilities and baseline expectations. The vision was always to set a foundation for the expectations and then let your creativeness and passion allow you to DO YOUR JOB at an elite level. You exceeded this vision daily with what you did for the program. You made me a better coach and person. You became great friends. More importantly, you developed our players on the field while showing them what it meant to be a man in the way you lived your lives.
Finally, to the players: THANK YOU! We pushed you every day to find new limits. We demanded your best. We challenged you. And with everything we did you responded in a way that inspired me to be better every day. It is said that entitlement and laziness have overtaken America’s youth. You transcended this notion in the way you took so much pride every day to work to earn everything. John Wooden once said “Finding the right players who put the interests of the team ahead of their own requires finding mature individuals who understand that what helps the organization ultimately helps them.” This quote epitomizes the Red Devils. At a time when individual success is valued more than team success by so many, our foundation was built by you all who were wise enough to live Coach Wooden’s words and put the TEAM first. The team and individual recognition you earned was a direct result of this wisdom.
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| After the 2017 NWAC Championship current and former players celebrated together with the trophies. |
I can’t begin to explain how lucky I feel to have been a part of these teams and to stay in touch with so many of you still to this day. What we were able to accomplish working toward our BUILT4LIFE pillars - athletics, academics, leadership and citizenship - during your time in Longview was more than I could have ever dreamed of. But the biggest wins for you all are still to come. Getting your first jobs and promotions, becoming a husband and one day being called daddy will be bigger than anything you ever accomplished on the field. It will be a wild ride with ups and downs and highs and lows. Remember that the path to doing what is right and working to be the best you can be will always be worth it. Hopefully the skills you learned in your time as a Red Devil can be a guiding light.
WIN ANYWAY!
