Imagine being a bat boy for the Texas Rangers, rubbing shoulders with the giants of the game, and then going on to lead your own high school baseball team to record wins. That's exactly what our guest, Johnny Johnson, the head baseball coach at James Clemens High School in Alabama, did. Johnny takes us through his extraordinary journey, from his days with the Texas Rangers, sharing encounters with legends like Nolan Ryan, Juan Gonzalez, Pudge Rodriguez, and even future President George W. Bush, to his current role molding young athletes.
Now, Johnny isn't just any coach; he's a maverick who believes in playing an aggressive and pressure-filled game, a strategy that saw his 2021 team set a school record for wins and steal their way into the Alabama all-time list. Listen as Johnny shares his philosophy on nurturing instincts in his players, the significance of base running and bunting, and how his unique coaching style has consistently led his team to victory.
But it's not all about wins and records. Johnny also dives into the reality of high school coaching, the challenges posed by the changing landscape of recruiting due to travel ball, and the common pitfalls players and parents fall into during the recruiting process. Hear firsthand the wisdom he's gleaned from his years of coaching, his favorite drill, the Ball Stop Scrimmage, and his insights on the importance of tough love in molding a formidable team. This episode with Johnny Johnson is a grand slam for any baseball enthusiast or aspiring young athlete.
Imagine being a bat boy for the Texas Rangers, rubbing shoulders with the giants of the game, and then going on to lead your own high school baseball team to record wins. That's exactly what our guest, Johnny Johnson, the head baseball coach at James Clemens High School in Alabama, did. Johnny takes us through his extraordinary journey, from his days with the Texas Rangers, sharing encounters with legends like Nolan Ryan, Juan Gonzalez, Pudge Rodriguez, and even future President George W. Bush, to his current role molding young athletes.
Now, Johnny isn't just any coach; he's a maverick who believes in playing an aggressive and pressure-filled game, a strategy that saw his 2021 team set a school record for wins and steal their way into the Alabama all-time list. Listen as Johnny shares his philosophy on nurturing instincts in his players, the significance of base running and bunting, and how his unique coaching style has consistently led his team to victory.
But it's not all about wins and records. Johnny also dives into the reality of high school coaching, the challenges posed by the changing landscape of recruiting due to travel ball, and the common pitfalls players and parents fall into during the recruiting process. Hear firsthand the wisdom he's gleaned from his years of coaching, his favorite drill, the Ball Stop Scrimmage, and his insights on the importance of tough love in molding a formidable team. This episode with Johnny Johnson is a grand slam for any baseball enthusiast or aspiring young athlete.
Today on the athlete one podcast.
Speaker 2:I led the baseball that started the Ventura fight. So I was running baseballs that night and sitting on the on deck circle on my stool and Nolan throws it Ventura. And here goes the big fight, you know, and I'm watching Bo Jackson out there, man handle people or whatever. And and so we move over on the cooler and sit on the coolers on the top step and watch the fight. And so it gets calm back down and everybody's back on the field and I go and sit on our bench and George Bush, who had wasn't even governor of Texas yet and surely wasn't president yet, it's the owner. And he leans over to me and the other bad boys, like did y'all get their bad boy? Just joking with knowing that he was an employee of the Rangers? Right, I mean, but it was just funny. For what an experience to be on the field when that.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the athlete one podcast. Modern high school baseball coach Ken Carpenter takes you into life's classroom as experienced through sports. Go behind the scenes with athletes and coaches as they share great stories, life lessons and ways to impact others.
Speaker 1:Today's episode of the athlete one podcast is powered by the netting professionals, improving programs one facility at a time. The netting professionals specialize in the design, fabrication and installation of custom netting for baseball and softball, including backstops, batten cages, bp turtles, screens, ball parts and more. They also designed and installed digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches and cubbies. The netting pros also work with football, soccer, lacrosse and golf courses. Netting professionals continue to provide quality products and services to many recreational, high school, college and professional fields and facilities throughout the country. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707. Visit them online at wwwnettingproscom or check out nettingpros on Twitter, instagram, facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. And now to my interview with head baseball coach Johnny Johnson. Hello and welcome to the athlete one podcast. I'm your host, ken Carpenter. Joining me today is Johnny Johnson, head baseball coach at James Clemens High School in Alabama. Coach, thanks for taking the time to join me here on the athlete one podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Ken, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, every guest that I've had and I've had 77, I believe, so far has a unique story to tell, and yours is probably the first that I've came across. That jumped right off the page when I was doing some research on you and I got to start off with you are a bat boy for the Texas Rangers. What happened to your awesome experience?
Speaker 2:It was a great experience and really, I think, where I really really really fell in love with baseball.
Speaker 2:You know, I was 16, 17 years old, growing up in Arlington Texas, and I got the bat boy for the Rangers and we're talking old school Rangers now like the old, old stadium, like two stadiums ago now at the old Arlington Stadium the last two years of that and got to be around Nolan Ryan his last two years and you think about Juan Gonzalez and Pudra Rodriguez and Rafael Palmero and Conceco. I mean they had some big time guys come through during that time. Now we weren't very good, but what an experience just to be in the locker room with those guys and go out and shag BP and George Bush was the owner at the time sitting right behind me every night. You know it wouldn't like today where we're behind a screen and all that. We were on a bench with a skull cap on on the on deck circle, you know, and so it was just a tremendous time in my life and really where I think I felt even more in love with baseball than I already was.
Speaker 1:How does one go about becoming a bat boy?
Speaker 2:Well, it's just like anything else is who you know. You know, we just happened to have somebody from the front office that worked at our church and or they went to our church and he got me an interview with the clubhouse manager, and, and so I went and interviewed and and really was lucky to get that job, because I know there was quite a few and and it helps knowing somebody, and then it's just what you do with it, right? You spent two years working hard and doing things and actually ended up winning a bat boy the year award and I was the first ever major league baseball clubhouse manager scholarship recipient, so I had to apply for that and ended up winning that little bit of scholarship money when I first went to school, to college.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, that's fantastic. And you know a lot can be said that when you take on a job, you, you do it 100 percent and you and you really do a good job at it There'll be benefits at the end.
Speaker 2:There's no doubt, and you know something you want to pass on. We talked about coaching our sons off the air and you know my son has actually been blessed enough. We live in the town of Madison, alabama, that has the, the Rocket City trashpanda, as a double A team, and so he spent this summer bat boying for them for the first time ever and it actually has done a good enough job has been asked of being the clubhouse, is an assistant clubhouse guy a bunch and has really loved that side of the game and and is curious about continuing in that side of the game. So and that's what I told him when he went into it just keep your head down and just work hard and do whatever they ask. Right, and we've all started that way with its coaching or other careers. It's just keep your head down to your job.
Speaker 1:So and and that's probably one of the best minor league travel nicknames out there the trashpanda.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he told me the other day they were the number one sold merchandise in all of minor league baseball. I didn't, I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to get to the good stuff here with you, because you're you're such a good coach and I, in my research, I love digging into stats of highly successful coaches, and a number that jumped right off the board at me was in 2021. Your team, your high school team, stole 204 bases and you had nine players that had double digits stolen bases. It's safe to say you're, you're aggressive and you like putting pressure on the defense.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know. I think you know if you get labeled as a certain type of coach, you know whether it's a you know pitching guy or whatever. I mean the base running side of things and pressure or something that I think we're definitely known for at both my stops. You know, at Fort Payne High School, before James Clemens, you know spoken at some conventions on aggressive baseball and I just think at this level that game plays. You know, I know the pro game got away from it from a lot for a long time, but I think at the high school level you got to put pressure on 14 to 17 year olds and make them make quick decisions, and so I love the pressure bunt game not necessarily sack bunts, but pressure bunts.
Speaker 2:I think that the stolen base still plays at our level. I think that you know even the way you take the field or how you play defense and how you attack a strike zone. All that is aggressive pressure baseball, and so that's something we preach in 2021,. You know it was the first time we set the school record for wins. We did it again last year and you know those kids bought into what we were selling on the basis and in really no-transcript it's a mindset, but then they had some instincts to go with it. Right, some of that stuff you just can't teach when it comes to instinctual baseball, and we can teach the process of it till we're blue in the face, but you got to have kids that understand it and actually process it. And that year was a special year and I think we ended up I think third or fourth on the all-time list in Alabama and stolen bases. So we definitely turned them loose, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, like you said, the players probably love that style of coaching. I would think.
Speaker 2:Well, you know the what is the Earl Weaver waiting on the three-run homer or whatever you know at our level doesn't play a whole lot because we don't always have gas that can hit the three-run homer. And our ballpark is a big ballpark for high school, you know. And so you know where there's other programs that have maybe bigger physical kids or they have small ballparks for both. You know we don't have that. We've got kids that are normal-sized kids and kids that are athletic and we play in a big ballpark, and so that style of game matches what we have. And if you ever look, look, I have not won a state championship, and you know. But if we ever do get there, and when we do get there you know it's played in a college ballpark, and so you know that style of play plays no matter where we go, and that style of play doesn't go in a slump very often. You know we can find ways to score without getting a bunch of a-sits.
Speaker 1:Well, I got to ask you've been doing it for quite some time. Opponents know you're going to steal when you show up at their park and how. You know the number that was that goes with 2021 is you were successful 80% of the time and you had nine guys stealing. You know what's the secret to that success? I mean, is it you say they buy it's funny.
Speaker 2:I don't know that. There's a huge secret right, like I think and I get to ask that question a lot by other coaches is hey, can we sit and talk bass when I'd love to? I don't have a ton to share, right. I mean, like you know, we've tried a lot of different things the Mike, talrico and Roberts and all those guys I love listening to those guys speak about bass running and we've tried a lot of that with the, you know, new school leader, the vault leads, and we do do some of that and some groups get it, and 2021 group really did.
Speaker 2:You know, last year we struggled with that, had to go away from it some, and you know that's where the instincts come in, right. But the biggest thing is creating a mindset in your culture like how we practice, how we reward taking the extra bass even not just stealing a bass, how we reward stealing. Like we'll scrimmage early in the year and if you get caught stealing or you try to take a stretch a single into a double, we'll just put you back on the next bag, like we're not. We don't want them to feel defeated and feel like we're scolding them for getting thrown out early in the year. We want to build a mindset of fearlessness. We practice diving back into the bag a lot because we can't be worried about being picked off and be aggressive and so we have to know that we can get back. So we practice that a lot and we're lucky.
Speaker 2:Now especially, I used to beat up my outfield grass awful working on dive backs. We have turf on our infield now on one of our fields on campus, so we can practice on that turf more, not tear a bunch of stuff up or ourselves. But but you know, just creating a total mindset of fearlessness is important, and that's the I think that's the secret sauce is how we as coaches handle failure in the things we're asking them to do. I heard somebody one time talk about you know, if your dog gets on the couch and you don't want him there and you pop him on the behind or scold him, he's not going to want to get back on that couch. Well, if my guy gets picked off trying to be aggressive or steals a base and his timing is bad and I scold him coming back in the dugout, he's not going to want to steal anymore. And so changing our mindset as coaches was important in creating that culture.
Speaker 1:That's great because I had Tim held on from Cincinnati Molar and I was talking to him about when they were in the state championship a few years back. They set the record for the most stolen bases in the state 12, wasn't it? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I heard that that's crazy. That's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's, it's, it's a mentality and you know, I think that's the way the teams that are good and the coaches that are good out there across the country, they, they, they love that aggressive mentality.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think something else that does and this is something that a lot of people miss is it makes the other teams worry. We may not steal at the next game, we may not lay down a bunt the next game, but they spent a lot of time this week worrying about bunt coverages and stolen base holding guys on. Like they're gonna spend an unordinary amount of time worrying about that for big games against us, whether we do it or not, and I think that's an advantage. You know, when you talk about aggressive baseball, I think just how we get on and off the field is important. I think it sends a message and it's not just the message of man, we're gonna be high energy or whatever. But you know we have a whole deal and I stole this from somebody a long time ago and I can't even remember where I got it from collegiate baseball newspaper or whatever. But we time them getting on and off the field.
Speaker 2:Well, if we get our on our first hitter of the inning on deck batting gloves, helmet on, ready to take his practice swings before their first warm-up pitch, they get a plus on this little chart we keep If we get on the field defensively and throw our first warm-up pitch before their last guy gets to the dugout, they get a plus on our little chart.
Speaker 2:We keep and in our mentality it's not just about hustling people thinking we're crazy, it's I get to watch five warm-up pitches before I get to the plate, I'm ready to hit, I get done throwing my five warm-up pitches and we've thrown it down before he's got his batting gloves on, ready to delete off, and we get out number one because he's not ready, you know. And so the little things that make you sway a game just by a little bit of hustle. And on the side note, is the umpires love it right, because especially early in the season when it's cold I know y'all know about cold in Ohio, but even in North Alabama it's cold early and so umpires too. Man coach, I appreciate you guys how they get on and off the field, get this game going Well. That's because there's so many other benefits to being hustling and being aggressive right, and it doesn't require talent.
Speaker 1:No, and that's another thing, we're not like I said.
Speaker 2:we don't have the monsters that some of these schools run out there. I don't have a ton of draft picks, but it keeps us competitive by playing the game that way.
Speaker 1:Well, you were a high school pitcher and you pitched at the college level and then you took that and became a D1 pitching coach at the at what it used to be is the University of Texas. Pan American yeah. Now Rio Grande Valley, now right, yeah. What would you tell? What do you tell your incoming freshmen to your high school team who won a pitch at the D1 level Because you were recruiting coordinator also? So you kind of know what you're looking for at that level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unless you go check our record back then I may not have known what I was looking for, but no, I'm just playing. What a great experience coaching in college was, and especially at that level. I mean I got to see a lot of good baseball. I mean we played Texas and Texas A&M in Arizona and Nebraska and Oklahoma. I mean we traveled because we were independent at the time and so first I have any chance to get in. We had to play a tough schedule and so you saw some of the best players in the country and obviously the good Lord is going to bless some guys and some guys aren't going to be blessed with certain kind of talent.
Speaker 2:The biggest thing I think has helped us on the mound in my pitching coach TJ Ory is my associate head coach, been a college pitching coach as well, and you know we're on the same page with this is we chart a 3p after three pitches. That's all one pitch warrior guy, you know deal, you know win the 1-1, all those things. But if we can throw multiple pitches for strikes and just attack the strike zone, hitters get themselves out and I don't think that changes at any level. Obviously you got to be have better stuff at higher levels and you may have to start throwing the halves of the plate at times, but if early on the count, I can just attack, hitters are in the disadvantage and that's a tough mentality for young pitcher to understand because they get it caught up into what other people think and the ego of the situation.
Speaker 2:And, man, I don't want to give up a hit.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't want to have a ball hit hard, even if it's foul. That kind of, you know, changes their mentality and in the reality of the situation is Hall of Famers are getting out 70% of the time and so if we can get them to understand, I have the advantage and just throw it to the middle and let it work. I actually saw a tweet this morning before we talked from a guy and I don't remember who it was, but the Tampa Bay rays talking about them taking guys and turning them into something special, and that was his deal when he got traded there. Their mentality was just throw your nastiest stuff to the middle of the zone and let it work, because the chances you hit in the middle of the zone are very slim anyway, right, so just be nasty to the middle of the zone and get outs, and so if we can get them to have that mentality and overcome the fear of what other people think, if I, if I give up a hit, that's the big thing.
Speaker 1:Well you've been on both ends of it. Now You're a high school coach and you've also been a recruiting coordinator at the college level. What are some mistakes that you see high school players and their parents making in the whole process? Wow, that's boy.
Speaker 2:we could talk for hours. You know, the landscape has changed so much since I was in college baseball. I mean, you're talking, this is my 20th year in high school and so the landscape has changed on how recruiting happens. The travel ball phenomenon is, you know, taken over how you recruit. You know, when I used to recruit back then I was going to junior college tournaments, I was going to high school games, you know, and and now they spend a lot of time at their school and now they spend a lot of times at their summer league stuff. And in the summers we didn't do a ton back then because there wasn't a ton. You go find an American Legion game or something like that. But I spent a lot of time fishing in the summers. Maybe that's why our record wasn't very good, but you know, by the time we got to summer a lot that stuff was done. Now it's all in the summer, but even that's gotten watered down. So I think the biggest thing is they've got to Trust the coaches there around that are gonna have connections in your area.
Speaker 2:I think the travel ball deal is a necessary evil at this point.
Speaker 2:My son has played at his whole career, who is now senior. But I think the travel we do and that is crazy Like my kids from North Alabama don't need to go to Florida and North Carolina Because those people aren't recruiting my kids and those men, my kids aren't going over there to play like they're gonna play in somewhere In Alabama maybe Mississippi, tennessee, georgia. But I think we spend a lot of money Going all over the country to play in these tournaments, chasing scholarships that are not there and from places that are not gonna recruit our kids, and so having some kind of realistic dialogue with your parents, with your players, about where they fit or right now. Are you a junior college guy, are you a division 2 guy? Are you a power 5 guy? Your power 5 guy, go travel the country because that's legit, right. But if you're gonna be a local junior college guy, there's no sense in spending that kind of money and going All over the country when ultimately, you're gonna play at the local junior college right.
Speaker 1:How do you? You know you experience it, but now you're, you're also the parent too. So is there anything we can do to get, I want to say, like travel Tournaments who are making a boatload of money off of this, to Try to make it a better experience for everybody involved?
Speaker 2:Boy, it's gonna take a Monumental mind shift and I don't know how that happens. We've had this discussion and look and I talk about size of my mouth a little bit, because we have two fields on campus we're blessed with that, and one of them has a turf infield. We host PG stuff almost every weekend. You know, being in Huntsville, alabama, which is a metropolitan area, we're close to Nashville and Birmingham and so a lot of teams will come in here and play and they're not the biggest PG tournaments but they're. It's basically what your old rec league was. Honestly, if you look at the town that shows up in Madison, alabama, every weekend to play PG events, it's it's the talent level of the old rec leagues Good players, not your very top end, right and. And so we make money off the travel circuit. I mean we do. It's helping pay for that turf. I mean it is what it is, it's a business.
Speaker 2:But I just think it would take a monumental shift of you know when, when I was in high school in the early 90s, the first travel teams were starting to show up the Dallas Mustangs, the Fort Worth cats, and they were loaded I'm talking about division one talent. They were going to these showcases. Then they would play in their Connie Mack Whirl series in the Mexico. So they still played in the league, but only the best of the best played with those guys. The rest of us were playing for our local leagues with our local teams. You know, lamar high school was playing against a group from Martin High School and Sam Houston High School in that all-ington area, and then we'd take an all-star team and go play somewhere and have a ball together, which is what turned into travel baseball, right, that little all-star team. But now everybody's got a travel team and so it's just.
Speaker 2:I don't know how you get it back to your more localized situation and still have there be a business aspect to it, because there's too much money being made. I just feel like the top-end guys need to keep doing it. I think some of the lower-end guys are getting lost in that shuffle. And you even look at the world would bat and there's 420 teams over there. When we went last week and you got teams that are really competitive and should be there, and then you got teams that are in there getting beaten 19 to woman and it's been a ton of money to come down there, get killed from New York or wherever, and I feel bad for those teams because they're caught up in the money grab.
Speaker 1:I feel like Well, you know, you see a lot of things on Twitter where coaches like yourself and you know I experienced because we like you we we hosted these travel tournaments. What message would you send to coaches to? I was always big on Take care of your dugout and, you know, make it easy on the person it's hosting you, because Some teams do a great job and other teams just leave it a mess and it's a lot of extra work for a coach that Isn't getting paid a whole lot of money in in high school baseball.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's tough because you, you know that's one of the things the guys that do it right, you know, leave it better than you found it and pick your stuff up and take care of things. And you know we host a lot of events and we've got some that do a really great job of it. And then you get, you know, with that turf infield, there's signs all on the dugout. I need bigger signs, I guess. No seeds, no gum, no spikes, right, and I'll show up and there's seeds spit all over there that you got to rake up and do it by hand. And and then you know you got a mound out there. That's all tore up because guys have been in spikes all weekend on it and you know, so it's, it's part of the.
Speaker 2:I Guess it's part of the Good and bad of hosting, you know, and same goes in the stands. I mean, a tent will break and somebody'll just leave it over there For you to deal with, right, you know it's just people have different views on what's what's appropriate, what's not. I guess and you know it is what it is part of the doing business. I guess it's no different than having a restaurant or whatever else. You're gonna have people that respect what you have and people that don't. You know, I don't want to complain too loudly because people may quit coming right. We want to have a nice facility where people want to come back and we want to keep it nice and and so, with our coaches do and Parents and people like that do a great job and work hard to keep our place nice, where people want to come back.
Speaker 1:You know I always think about when I go to the grocery store and you see that that cart that's sitting next to a car and all they had to do is go 20 more feet and put it in a.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Same deal, same deal well, when you Made the transition from a college coach to high school, what were some of the big adjustments that you had to make? Who, how did you go about doing it that made you the successful coach that you are right now?
Speaker 2:Boy, it wasn't overnight like I thought it would be. I promise you that. You know, because I went from coaching college baseball and doing a year of independent ball to Coaching at a high school that had not had a whole lot of excess success at Fort Payne in about a decade or more and teaching elementary P to kindergarten to second graders. So that was a huge adjustment the first few years on all fronts. But I think the biggest thing was I treated all of them like they were on scholarship and college kids. For a while I was tough on them Probably, yelled and screamed and said some words I shouldn't have said, and you know I was young and figuring it out still, and and I was taking over a program that hadn't been asked to work a whole lot. It was just something you kind of did during the offseason for football, right, and so we didn't even have an athletic block, everything was after school, you know. I mean it was just like Starting from ground zero in a lot of ways for a program that was gonna be run correctly and it took me about three years of being that guy and figuring out. You know this is not working. You know my guys still love me. I still talk to a lot of those guys, I mean, and they joke on how soft I am now compared to what I was when we first got there. But you know, maybe they needed some tough love early on and then I had to figure out some middle ground. If they had to figure out how to work, I had to figure out what high school kids needed and realize they're not all on scholarship, they don't love it like I do, but we can all work hard and get better. And you know, those first three years were tough. I mean, we went eight wins, seven wins, five wins, and I thought, man, I cannot coach. What have I done? You know, I should have stayed in college or whatever you know, because you think, well, I'm coming out of college, I can take this high school team and win immediately. Right, you know?
Speaker 2:And and really the best advice I got, there was an old coach that used to retire from Miami, of Ohio and lived in South Texas and when I took this job I ran into him before my first season at the national convention in Nashville and he said man, I'm so glad you took that job. And I'm like why are you glad I left college baseball to go to Fort Payne, alabama, you know, and he said you're gonna really learn what it means to be a real coach. He said in college you're pigeonholed, you're a pitching guy, you're a hitting guy, you know, you. Whatever he said, you're gonna have to learn everything now.
Speaker 2:And I didn't get that until about that third year when I was trying to figure out how do we turn a double play. You know what I need to teach my hitters here and you know, and what buck coverage and all those things that you don't think about when all I got's my pitchers. And so you really the base running, right, I mean, I'm up the slow, slow-footed pitcher my whole career. So now that base running and bunting is kind of my thing and I love it's because I had to learn it and and. So by year four we jumped to 20 wins and then we went on a roll for about eight years of 20 plus wins and, in some area, championships, and you know. So that transition was tough, me learning all those new things and then trying to figure out how to deal with high school kids and parents.
Speaker 1:If you could go back in in your career as a high school coach and can get a do over on something, what would it be?
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, that's always a tough question because Going through those things made me the coach I am now right. Like I had to have some of those failures and tough times to figure out what need, what I needed and how it would work. You know, I wish I would have learned some of those lessons earlier coming in. I may be not so confident in who I was as a coach it to not see that I needed to change, you know, but who's to say, the program would have been where it was in year four if I wouldn't have been that tough guy. Like it's such a Hard to go back and say, hey, I want to change x, y or z.
Speaker 2:I Wish I would have taken some of this aggressive stuff I really know now and know better on how to put it into play for, like my 2011 team, like we were aggressive in 2011, that was, we were 31 and 10 at Fort Payne that year In a really good by the best team I had there, most athletic for sure and we stole a ton of bases because we were just aggressive. But I didn't have a plan for it. Right, it was just mentality at that point, knowing 10 years later what I know about some of the stuff on the base pass in the game and how we do some things now, but we could have really been dangerous in 2011,. Right Like you'd like to have some of this knowledge you have as an old coach back when I was younger. But as far as changing things, you know, I don't know that I would, just because I needed those experiences to become who I am now.
Speaker 1:Definitely. Well, since you know, you kind of let into it for me there what? What is a drill that is your favorite drill that you love to teach your guys every year, that maybe some coaches out there don't do it, or you know, it's just your drill that you do every year with your guys?
Speaker 2:You know we're talking about the aggressive side of the game. One of my favorite things and this is a team this is a scrimmage deal. It's called a ballstop. Scrimmage is what we call it, and you know whether it's coach pitch, whether it's off a live arm. You know, really the coach pitch version of this is really good because you get a lot of reps and kids get balls and play more.
Speaker 2:But basically the way it's played is if I get a single, I've got to stretch it into a double. You cannot stop running that base as aggressively until the ball stops you. So if I hit that single straight at the left filter, I've got to go for two. If I hit the double you know ball into the right center gap and it's a double, but probably not a triple you've got to go to third. You cannot stop going until the ball stops you.
Speaker 2:And for us, in teaching the aggressive side of the game, we learn what we can and can't take extra bases on. Well. And the other thing is there's no failure right. Once I get thrown out third, I just go back to second. If I get thrown out stretching that single into a double, I just go back to first and we play it from there. So there's no failure, there's no fear of failure there.
Speaker 2:So not only we learn what we can and can't take extra bases on, but it's forcing my defense to run clean cuts and relays Like we for them to try to get that out. So from the defensive side, they've got to be aggressive to go get the baseball to cut it off. They've got to hit a cutoff man and make a good throw to third or wherever it is Like. Defensively, they've got to play the game cleanly and at a high pressure situation so that ball stop scrimmage is wonderful. In my opinion, it's one of my all time favorites and, like I said, it's all the conditioning you need off a coach pitch, because it is nonstop run, run, run, cut balls off, make throws. You don't have to play it very long and everybody's gassed and you've had a great end of your practice or whatever, conditioning wise and getting some high pressure situations.
Speaker 1:I love that because it you know, it teaches every part of the game, and probably one of the things that drives me crazy is when you see a kid get a single and you know they barely round first and then they're taking their batting gloves and slipping on their oven mitt and it's like I like to see those guys get out there as far as they can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, drives me nuts to see that. And I actually coach first base part team. That's something a little different that we do too as a head coach. I coach first and boy, if they do that, I'm on them pretty hard usually If we're not at least giving us a round to see what happens, you know if you're going to bobble it or throw it away like, give yourself a chance, right.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, let me ask you that, since you mentioned it, why coach first base rather than third?
Speaker 2:You know I coach third all my career at Fort Payne and in the last few years I started to have a discussion with my assistant about switching and you know, at that time I don't know he really didn't want to take over third. I don't know if he was ready to take what he felt like was that responsibility. And so when I took the job at James Clements I mentioned coach or earlier who's our associate head coach, who's been a head coach in high school and been a college coach and he and I think a lot alike when it comes to aggressiveness stuff, and so he was comfortable at third. Well, with a lot of new base running stuff we were doing, I felt like me being at first base was more advantageous from talking those guys through reads. When are we going to shuffle? When are we not? When are we in an old school? You know 12 foot leap, all those things. It allowed me to be there and talk those kids through that.
Speaker 2:There's a lot more that goes on at first base than people give credit. We can't score unless you get past first base and we really want you at second or third and so I may spend the whole game at third base and never have a guy at my back Right If the day is going wrong. But I'll have a lot of guys at first base and so I felt like I could impact the game on the base running side a lot more being at first base, and so I switched to that and had a guy trusted at third to make the big decision right, do we send you or do we not? And so it's worked well for us and you know I give signs and everything right there at first base. We just do it a little backwards and it's allowed me to really talk through some things with base runners that you normally wouldn't get that opportunity to do or you'd have to have a guy that you trust over there to do that. Like, if your assistant is your base running guy, then let him be over there.
Speaker 2:But since I was the base running guy, I just felt like that was a better spot for me. And really the first guy that never saw Danny Heap, I don't know. He played with the Mets and Dodgers back in like the 80s and he was the head coach at Incarnate Word College in San Antonio and when we I played against him and then coached against him out there when I first coached and job and he coached first base and I never knew why and why that mattered until I was in high school and coached and base running and thought you know, that makes a lot of sense. I saw Coach Heap do that. I'm going to go to first base.
Speaker 1:There you go. I like that. Well, I know that you got to get your son off to a college visit for this morning, so what I wanted to do was I love to do rapid fire at the end of the podcast and kind of things and see how you respond to them. If you can make one change to high school baseball, what would it be?
Speaker 2:One change to high school baseball. You know it's not a rules deal. I think the biggest thing that drives me nuts at this point is the way some of these teams act. You know, and maybe I got a little bit of an old-school mentality to me and, look, if you want to hit a bomb and flip the bat a little bit or watch it, I mean that stuff's whatever I really do.
Speaker 2:But some of the taunting that goes on from dugouts and you know teams that do that, or or just the look at me mentality that that is, you know, in a lot that's what we see in the big leagues a little bit and we see it on Sports Center and Twitter. And you know the social media deal of hey, how many likes and dopamine hits can I get from my likes has taken over the baseball a little bit and we've lost the respect for each other, I feel like, and so that's something baseball wise. It's crept in the high school game that I don't think belongs at all and it's kind of little soapbox I've been on the last couple years. I feel like.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, if you could trade places with one professional athlete for one game, who would you pick and why? And your choices are Michael Jordan in the playoffs, shoah a Tani getting a chance to pitch and bat in the same game, patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl or Tiger Woods went in the Masters. Oh.
Speaker 2:God, those are. Those are tough ones right there. I think it would probably be Shoah a Tani. Just because, you know, as a kid I grew up I'm a huge Nolan Ryan fan, obviously being from Texas and bat one his last two seasons and all those things and I always wondered man, what is it? What would it feel like to throw one pitch a hundred miles an hour, right, like? I just want to feel what that feels like and know that I can go in and dominate somebody. So To be able to do that and turn around and hit 1 500 feet, just to do that for one day, would be pretty amazing From a baseball standpoint.
Speaker 2:Just because not many guys I know everybody thinks everybody throws 97 to 100. Now no, they don't right like on TV. We're seeing the best of the best, right, and so to be able to do both like he does I saw stat the other day through his first hundred games. Him and Babe Ruth are like neck and neck as far as wins and losses and also a number of home runs or something you know. So he's doing something that we have not seen since Babe Ruth right and may never see again in our lifetime. So I think, oh, tani would be the guy. No, what a rapid-fire answer was it.
Speaker 1:What has been your best experience as a high school coach?
Speaker 2:Best experience as a high school coach. Oh God, that's tough too, you know. You know it's really not the wins, right Like it's other things that I think about that are good experiences. There's been emotional moments, you know, whether it's hugging a seniors neck that you really care a lot about. You know we do a best buddies night every year with our special needs kids in our town. You know they got a Madison best buddies group that we do one out a week with those those kids that are special needs come out and Hang out on the field before the game or us, or go to a miracle league. You know the art coaches association, which I'm a part of, is big on the miracle league stuff. You know those things are bigger memory Memories for me than even some of the wins. You know the wins you forget about and it's really those experiences. So you know I can't nail down one, but it's really the emotional grab of those experiences that there's something you'll remember more than Whether we want an area championship in 2011, right.
Speaker 1:Right that, I totally agree with you on that. And to finish up, I gotta go back to the Batboy. Okay, Best story or funniest story that the average person wouldn't know about your times as the Texas Ranger Batboy. Do you have like a great Nolan Ryan, or?
Speaker 2:well, this one's easy, this one's easy, and I think other people have heard this story before, so I'm so. I was the Batboy that provided the baseball that started the Ventura fight. So I was running baseballs that night and sitting on the on deck circle on my stool and Nolan throws it Ventura. And here goes the big fight, you know, and I'm watching Bo Jackson out there, man handle people or whatever, and and so, and, and. So we move over on the cooler and sit on the coolers on the top step and watch the fight, and so it gets calm back down and Everybody's back on the field and I go and sit on our bench and George Bush, who had wasn't even governor of Texas yet and surely wasn't president yet, it's the owner.
Speaker 2:And he leans over to me and the other Batboys like did y'all get their Batboy? Just joking with knowing that he was an employee of the Rangers, right, I mean, but it was just funny. For what an experience to be on the field when that happened. Number one, one, the most iconic Moments in all of baseball. But then the turnaround and George Bush, did y'all get their Batboy? You know so Funny story. You know those, those stories from Batboy and I, sir good.
Speaker 1:That's. That's fantastic. That's that. That could be one of the best answers to any rapid fire. I've done it. I love that. So, coach, I I can't thank you enough for taking the time before you have to get out there and do a college visit with your son and getting up early this morning and doing this. I, you know it means so much to me as a, as a fellow coach, to get a chance to talk to someone like you, and I really think that anybody that listens this podcast will will Take away some great info that they can apply to their coaching or playing experience. And once again, it's Johnny Johnson, head baseball coach at James Clemens High School coach. Thanks again.
Speaker 2:No, thank you for having me. I enjoy your show and all you're doing for the game of baseball.
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