BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
What if you could discover the secrets of the most successful coaches and athletes and become the best in the game. What separates the best coaches and players from the rest? Become the player coaches dream of having on their team. Step inside the dugout with the Baseball Coaches Unplugged, where every episode is a journey of triumph, resilience, and inspiration. Hosted by Ken Carpenter, a 27 year veteran high school baseball coach with a passion for unlocking the secrets of athletic greatness.
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BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
Coaching High School and Travel Baseball
Join us on Baseball Coaches Unplugged where you'll discover how Georgia baseball is at the forefront of a coaching revolution. Nick Pou, the transformational head coach at Jackson County High School, shares his insights into how coaching has shifted from merely focusing on the game to nurturing the whole player. Uncover the secrets behind Georgia's rich baseball culture and how it demands adaptability from coaches to cultivate both talented athletes and well-rounded individuals. Nick's experiences showcase how prioritizing personal growth and humility can lead to success on and off the field.
Explore the world of travel baseball through our experience with the USA Prime 16U team. Here, the art of building lasting relationships with players and their high school coaches becomes paramount. We dive into the challenges of ensuring pitcher safety and maintaining a healthy balance for young athletes. Gain valuable advice on choosing the right travel team for your child, emphasizing trust and the importance of observing team dynamics. The episode also tackles the tricky landscape of college baseball recruiting, including the impact of the transfer portal, and offers guidance for young players on making informed decisions beyond just the sport itself.
Finally, we share poignant stories and lessons from the travel baseball circuit, including how a contentious call during a game can teach invaluable lessons in sportsmanship and resilience. With the ongoing umpire shortage, we propose improvements to make officiating more appealing. Through an engaging interview with Nick Pou, we delve into the intricacies of high school baseball coaching, offering a treasure trove of insights for anyone passionate about the game. Whether you're a coach, player, or baseball enthusiast, this episode offers a rich tapestry of experiences and advice that extends well beyond the diamond.
Join the Baseball Coaches Unplugged podcast where an experienced baseball coach delves into the world of high school and travel baseball, offering insights on high school baseball coaching, leadership skills, hitting skills, pitching strategy, defensive skills, and overall baseball strategy, while also covering high school and college baseball, recruiting tips, youth and travel baseball, and fostering a winning mentality and attitude in baseball players through strong baseball leadership and mentality.
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Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged, a podcast that equips you, the listener, with strategies to elevate your coaching. You'll gain practical insights from some of the best coaches around the country that you can implement with your team. Today I'm your host, ken Carpenter, and on today's show, nick Pugh, head baseball coach at Jackson County High School in Georgia, and he's also the head coach of Prime 16U Travel and a Detroit Tigers scout team coach. He'll share how he changed to be a transformational coach, how culture separates the good teams from the rest, and you won't believe what he does in one day to be a coach and a teacher. Next, on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken Carpenter, presented by Athlete One. Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for baseball coaches, with 27 years of high school baseball coaching under his belt, here to bring you the inside scoop on all things baseball, from game-winning strategies and pitching secrets to hitting drills and defensive drills. We're covering it all. Whether you're a high school coach, college coach or just a baseball enthusiast, we'll dive into the tactics and techniques that make the difference on and off the field. Discover how to build a winning mentality. Inspire your players and get them truly bought into your game philosophy Plus, get the latest insights on recruiting, coaching, leadership and crafting a team culture that champions productivity and success. Join coach every week as he breaks down the game and shares incredible behind the scenes stories. Your competitive edge starts here, so check out the show weekly and hear from the best coaches in the game. On baseball coachesugged.
Speaker 1:Be sure and subscribe and look for a new episode every Wednesday. Baseball Coaches Unplugged is partnered with the netting professionals, improving programs one facility at a time. The netting pros specialize in the design, fabrication and installation of custom netting for baseball and softball. This includes backstops, batting cages, bp turtles, screens, ball carts and more. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches and cubbies. The netting pros aren't limited to just baseball and softball. They also work with football, soccer, lacrosse and cubbies. The Netting Pros aren't limited to just baseball and softball. They also work with football, soccer, lacrosse and golf horses. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707. Or you can visit them online at wwwnettingproscom. Check out Netting Pros on X, instagram, facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. Well, I'm going to go back to your first year as a coach. What would you tell that coach?
Speaker 3:uh, you know it's. I kind of tell myself this as I get older um, stay humble, um, you know it's. I kind of nick saban almost said it best um, you know, try to be more transformational. I know, early on in my days as a coach I was very transactional. It was very wins, losses and that's really all that mattered early on in my 20s. But as I got older I really started to focus more on becoming more of a transformational coach. You never lose. You learn and it's more about transforming the entire player, the entire person and the entire athlete. And it's amazing how many more wins than losses you get when you really focus more on that aspect of their life than just, you know, are they hitting these many home runs? Are they getting strikeouts? Are you getting wins? You know, if you're focusing on the transformation of a player, you're getting more wins, not only on the field but off the field as well.
Speaker 1:Sounds good stuff, like good stuff right there. I don't know how many coaches have been telling me that and it's just, it's the way to coach. And I was very much like you early on. When you know, every win mattered like it was the end of the world and every loss felt like the end of the world.
Speaker 3:I guess you could say oh, no doubt I tell people all the time, you know, I think I hate losing more than I like winning, but it's just one of those things that you know if you put your priorities where they're supposed to be and being transformational, you tend to be more on the good side than the bad side when it comes to those things.
Speaker 1:Yes. Well, how does the rich baseball culture that you guys have down there in Georgia influence the way you coach your team, because I'm sure baseball is pretty good where you're at.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. You know it's back when I was in high school, which you know, not too long ago it you had two guys throwing 80 miles an hour. You were a pretty good team. You know 80 miles an hour kind of used to be the measuring stick for pitchers in high school here in the state of Georgia, especially in the Atlanta area. You throw a rock and you're going to hit a high school that has one to two guys that throw 90 miles an hour. It is just the game has changed tremendously. The arms in this game have changed tremendously. You see, all of these players from the metro Atlanta area, one to two hours outside of Atlanta, that are just incredible ballplayers. I think Georgia is up there with Texas, california, florida, just these elite states that just pour out all that, these major league baseball prospects. I mean I think you could look at every major league roster and you'd see a lot of players from those states. Georgia's no different, not just Atlanta, but you go down to South Georgia and they grow them different down there. So I think you know every region that you play in here in the state it is loaded with 90 plus arms, guys that hit a hundred off the bat.
Speaker 3:It's. It's not easy, for sure, but it's also kind of changed the way that you know we play the game. It's it's really gotten back and I kind of like how the game's kind of transitioning back to actual I guess you'd call it baseball. It's not just, you know, pound the ball over the fence and try to hit as many home runs, and you know we kind of got in a phase there for a little while where it was, well, how hard can you throw it, how hard can you hit it? And we're kind of getting back to. You know, it doesn't really matter how hard you throw a ball, for we tell our pitchers that all the time. But you know this game has really made us coach more, coach better, and it's really prepared our players for the next level because of the talent that they play in our state every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I look back on my coaching career. In 27 years I don't think I had one player touch 90. And it's crazy nowadays, I guess.
Speaker 3:Well, it's not only that. But you know, a 15- 16-year-old's arm is not built to throw 90 miles an hour, it's just not. It's not developed to that point. So you know, the weight room is becoming even more important, not just for getting stronger, but let's talk about injury prevention alone. Our guys are in there in the offseason you know my assistant coaches here at the high school do a phenomenal job of you know, from August to when we start playing, it's about, you know, not only getting stronger but just preventing those injuries because, kind of like in basketball, if you want to get better at free throws, you got to shoot free throws. If you want to throw harder, you have to throw hard. So you know, it's all about making sure our guys stay as healthy as possible, even with their changing bodies and the 90 miles an hour these days. It's all about what we can do to keep them healthy throughout the season.
Speaker 1:You know, since we're on the off season, work outside of the weight room. Is there anything else you guys do to keep your team engaged throughout the year?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, other than the weight room, and the Georgia has a strict four on one policy so we can only work with four players with one coach in one location, so we can do that all the way up until official practice starts. You know it's as I've gone along with being more of a transformational coach, I've learned just how much more important culture is, more than anything. You know we're the Panthers here at Jackson County, so we have these things called claws and a claw. Not many people know that a claw is actually a group of Panthers and you know our guys kind of have jumped onto that and you know they. It's all about team learning each other's names, you know, getting to know each other.
Speaker 3:As they, you know, move along in the offseason process. They're focusing on their grades, their nutrition. They have weight loss or weight gain goals. You know we talked about academics and obviously getting stronger and you know getting better on the baseball field as well. So not only do we focus on, you know, the nutrition and the weight training in the offseason, but our team and our culture is probably more important than anything that we do. You know I see teams all the time. In Georgia there was a series last year. I don't know how many times the more talented team wins, because the talent in this state has just stretched so far, but the teams with the best culture, the best teams, the ones that you know know each other the best. They tend to come out on top when it comes to you know know each other the best. They tend to come on, come out on top when it comes to you know state championships and winning those rings.
Speaker 1:Does that tie into from my research? I checked it's called Patton. I'm sorry, patton DePaul.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, patton DePaul is. We have. We kind of started that this year with, you know, jackson County Athletics and our baseball program in general. You know Jackson County is growing so fast. I think it's like the fourth growing county in the entire nation. It's kind of like Atlanta, if you know anything about Atlanta. We have Gwinnett County that has grown so fast and Jackson County is kind of like Gwinnett County when it was first growing. You know we have 2,400 students at our school, which was originally built to be like a 3A school. We used to have 7A here in Georgia We've kind of scaled back to 6A. We might be the largest 5A school in the state. I'm not sure. It just continues to grow so fast. But the amount that we have, the amount of kids that we have, it just continues to grow so fast. But the amount that we have, the amount of kids that we have, it just continues to grow so much. But you know it's been crazy with that.
Speaker 1:We talked briefly about this before we started recording and you know, no coach no high school coach, I guess I should say gets into coaching for the money. And if you could explain what a travel day for you looks like to do what you do as a teacher and coach?
Speaker 3:Sure, you know my family. We live in Peachtree City, georgia, or Fayetteville, right out about south of Atlanta, about 20 minutes from the airport. I used to work at a high school there and I probably get up about 530, try to try to get over to the school, our school. We're supposed to be here at 730. So, driving through Atlanta, it's a good hour and a half to two hour drive in the morning, depending on what's happened on I-85 in Atlanta. Um, but, um, you know it's also a time for me to kind of, you know, get everything going, get get the brain rolling in the morning. Um, I like listening to plenty of podcasts, listening to a lot of baseball stuff, um, some sports radio, um, but you know, I, I tell people all the time, you know being here and being with Jackson County and the amount of things I get to do with USA Prime, it's absolutely been worth it.
Speaker 3:And kind of, like you said, you don't do this stuff for the money. You know, across the board, coaches are probably underpaid in every profession for the most part. Um, but uh, you know it's, it's when you go home in Atlanta, about three, 30 or five o'clock. That's the two, two and a half hour, three hour drive. Um, you know the the family takes a hit, uh, but you know it's it's, it's been worth it, uh, you know, having having the family that you know understands what a what a coach goes through, has been, you know, incredible.
Speaker 3:But you're absolutely right, it's not done for the money. But you know, when you get to see these kids the first group that I ever got to work with at USA Prime those kids signed their letters of intent this past week. So, you know, just getting to reach out to them, you know all the kids that I've had the pleasure of coaching in the past and get to see them sign and go on. I got to go to a player's wedding the other day. That's what it's about, ken. You can't put a price tag on that stuff.
Speaker 1:No doubt. What is something that you do as a coach or your team does, that other teams or coaches might not do?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, I think every team is trying to find who they are, what they do, what they do well. Last year was my first year here, just trying to figure out what we were, what we do well, and that's why I think that culture piece is so important. I tell guys that are going into being first year coaches you know, the biggest thing that you can implement into a program is your culture. You know, again, you're going to have talent everywhere, especially in our state, in our area. You know we have the defending state championship, the defending state champions in our region. So you know, everybody's good, everybody has talent.
Speaker 3:What? What sets you apart? What? What about? Your culture is going to set you apart from everybody else? And everybody's culture might be different. We may do things, we may say things, our terminology may be a little bit different, but in the grand scheme of things and coaching, all sports, you know, we want to make these guys better husbands, better fathers, better community members, and we get to teach them life lessons through two white lines and you know I learned a lot of my life lessons through the game of baseball. It is probably the biggest game of failure or the biggest sport that you have to deal with failure. If you have to deal with failure, if you can't deal with failure in this sport, you're probably not going to last very long. You're going to fail seven out of 10 times, and that's pretty darn good.
Speaker 1:So you know, just implementing that culture piece we feel like is something that sets our program and our team apart Switching gears. You're also the head coach, which you just alluded to, of the 16U travel team, usa Prime. What do you do to make it a positive three-part question what do you do to make it a positive experience with your players? How do you work with their high school coaches? And the one question that comes up all the time in travel baseball how do you avoid overuse of pitcher's arms?
Speaker 3:Oh man, you know USA Prime. It's the national group. Actually, I got to know them probably about three years ago when I was at Sandy Creek and Mark Nellis and USA Prime gave me the wonderful opportunity to be one of their national coaches. I started out with the 15U group, who are now seniors, they're not babies anymore. In the last two years I've had the 16U group.
Speaker 3:The entire national scene is a little bit different, I guess, than your average um, your travel ball, which is kind of spread out all over the nation. Now I think there's a perfect game tournament every weekend somewhere, um, but you know, we, um, we, we, basically we play about five or six tournaments in the year. Um, we, we go to carry. There's, you know, five or six tournaments in the year. We go to carry. You got your WWBA, you got your Beast of the East, that type of stuff.
Speaker 3:The World Series, usa Prime, has been special to me just because of the relationships I've got to build with these guys that are going to get to see these guys at the next level, division I, baseball playing professionally. I was texting with five or six of them just this week about how proud I am of seeing their development from, you know, when they're 15 years old to 18 and they're going off to sign and you spoke about staying in touch with their high school coaches. I've got to. You know, follow them. You know talk a lot. You know every single one of these guys at this national scene are so special and they're Division I in everything. They're Division I in the classroom, they're Division I off the field, they're Division I in their preparation in the weight room and it's so clear and that's one thing that's great that I feel like I get to bring back to you know, the high school realm is these examples of these players that are their age, that can show you know, hey, this is what it looks like, this is the expectation, the standard. You know everybody's not built six foot four, 215 pounds. That's tough to teach sometimes. But you know, working with guys like that, you know with you know Mark Nellis, giving me the opportunity to work with these guys, you know, every summer it's been an absolute blessing and you know it's the thing that you know. I'm not sure from a baseball standpoint, how much you know more I can give them from a technical, mechanical standpoint. They're already so polished.
Speaker 3:But it goes back to the cultural standpoint and you know there's no difference in coaching these guys than coaching your high school team from a transformational standpoint. You know there's a 15-year-old that's 6'4", 215 pounds, but you sit there and have a conversation with him, he's 15. You can tell just talking to him. So you know they have lives. They have stuff going on in their life.
Speaker 3:I tend not to even talk too much with them about mechanics. You know we'll talk about the mental side of the game. You know, is there something going on that's going to? And I tell them all the time what's going to set you apart from that other 15-year-old that's committed to Florida, that other 16 year old that's committed to the University of Georgia, and it's that small stuff.
Speaker 3:You know there's scouts that go to games, that go to our games all the time. It's great if you can watch a kid go four for four and hit three bombs. But you know that scout wants to see what you do. When you hit a ground ball to second base, are you going to run it out as hard as you can? How do you, how do you treat your teammates on teams like this? You know I mean you're you're you're not as very similar as you know, going to double A ball, or when you go to an SEC school, you're not the big daddy anymore, You're not at your high school, everybody's just as good as you. So what is going to set you apart? And, um, I feel like you know, with Mark's help, you know me, being able to be around these guys for as long as I have. It's made me a better coach from the mental side, you know.
Speaker 1:Just, you know, getting in these guys' ear and you know helping what sets them apart. You know above, you know between their ears and above the shoulders that can, you know, elevate their game at the next level and when they go professional ball, best advice you would give to a player and their parents when they're deciding to decide what travel team to play for.
Speaker 3:Oh, man, a lot of trust. You know, trust, trust is key. I would venture to say, go, go watch them. Go watch them on the field, see how they treat their players, see how they talk to their players. Um, you know, spend some time researching what kind of tournaments they play in.
Speaker 3:Uh, cause, you know, I mean I can't tell you how many different types of travel. There's 3000 different. You know canes and a while there's so many different teams out there. Um, but you know, just just researching, you know your level, understanding, you know what's going to, you know, be the betterment of you as a player, as a young man, and you know doing your research calling the coaches, talking to the national directors if national is, you know a scene that you want to be at, that goes a long way. But you know, not only just talking with them but also having the visual of seeing them play, you can tell a lot about a program. But just watching how they play the game, how they communicate with each other, and you know you can tell a lot from that for sure.
Speaker 1:And you said that your team maybe plays five or six tournaments the whole summer.
Speaker 3:That's it, these guys. Not only do they have their area code, tryout Team USA, all those types of things. It often baffles my mind when I go and talk to some of my high school players about I think you alluded to earlier about the amount of pitches that guys throw in the summer or the. You know, I know with prime. You know we really don't like to go above 75 or 80 pitches with a guy. You know we tend to stay in constant contact with you know their high school coaches as well about the use of these guys in their arms. You know we really only do five or six and we do five or six of the best ones out there.
Speaker 3:You know if you go to Cary, that's the national tournament every year they invite the top travel teams in the nation. Wwba is kind of like the one where they have 5,000 teams all come to one area. I tell you what if you want to see travel in Atlanta, come during the WWBA time, that is, it's about three hours everywhere. But you know just those five or six are really enough for them. You know the scouts are really able to be in one general area for those five or six tournaments but they have area codes and all sorts of different things that they're doing during that time, so that that really kind of maxes them out.
Speaker 1:What do you tell a player that you know, since you're getting guys that are legit baseball players and they're going on to play college baseball? What do you tell players about the recruiting process and how the transfer portal is playing a big role for college coaches, because college coach can pick up a guy in the portal, versus trying to bring somebody in and and try to develop them oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Um, you know, recruiting has changed so much from from when the, the transfer portal, really kind of hit. You know I'm blessed. The guys that I get to work with at the national level, they're probably going to get a really good opportunity to go in play right away, if college is even for them. You know some of these guys are going to be top 10, top 20 round draft picks. So you know, I don't know if, you know, college is even going to be their route. But I would say and I tell guys all the time, kind of take baseball out of it. You know baseball is, it's a blessing, it's something that you get to do right now and a lot of you guys get to have a lot of your education paid for through the game of baseball.
Speaker 3:But baseball is not a guarantee. Baseball is a privilege and you know, wherever you decide to sign, you got to think about well, you still have to live there, whether it's a year, whether it's two years, sometimes four years. That's a place where you're going to live and grow up and go to school and learn a lot of your life lessons. So I encourage them always take the sport out of the equation. Take baseball out of the equation. Could you see yourself getting your degree? Could you see yourself living there for four years? And if that's still a yes, then it sounds like you got a pretty good fit.
Speaker 1:Well, you kind of alluded to this earlier and I asked this of every podcast guest hate losing or love winning and since you've already kind of said you know the hate losing part, explain why.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that has kind of been ingrained in me since I was probably one or two. I really couldn't tell you I was. I still remember growing up I was sitting there playing mini golf with my family on a summer vacation and you know it wasn't that, I wasn't even winning the game. It's just I hate losing so much. I could be playing Kim me and you could be playing checkers and if you're beating me it's going to drive me crazy. I don't know what it is Something about. Just you know wanting to compete and be a competitor in whatever it is.
Speaker 3:I tell you know my coaches and you know my coaches and you know I get to work with Mark Nellis over at USA Prime. We both share the sentiment of we hate losing more than we like winning. You know winning's great, but that loss is. I couldn't tell you what it is. I think I drive you know my AD and my previous ADs crazy all the time. We may lose a scrimmage and I'm sitting there, man, we should have done this, we should have done this. Or you know I got to work with this guy on this and they're like Nick, it was a scrimmage, it's OK, it's just driving me crazy right now, but it's definitely the losing part for me.
Speaker 1:You've been around the travel baseball scene. What's the craziest thing you've observed on the travel baseball field? Oh goodness.
Speaker 3:You're going to get me in trouble with a perfect game. I think we had a situation this summer with WWBA where you know we're sitting there in the semifinals with a really good team, a national team out of North Carolina, and I think it was tied in the sixth inning and there was a foul ball and you know we got pictures of the ball. It was about 10, 15 feet foul, with all the electronics that perfect game has this year. I don't know how we're not able to do that yet, but you see something new every single day. I think this game I in no way have this game all figured out. I don't think anybody has this game figured out. I think you see something new every time you're out there. But again, that's what makes this game and what we do so incredible, because you know we're always learning, we're lifelong learners in this stuff and that's what that's what make coaching so incredible is that we're always lifelong learners and that's that's really what we're in it for is to continue learning and being part of these kids' lives.
Speaker 1:Should there almost be like divisions in travel baseball, because a team like the team you coach, that's elite level and then you get some of these. They're just it's such saturated with all these teams, you know it almost. You wonder about that sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's kind of there is something like that. You have these invitation tournaments like Cary, the USA tournament, the World Series, wwba is the one that pretty much if you pay you're in. So there is a wide variety of you know differences in talent. I mean, I'll give you for example I got to help coach prime with 15U this year. I saw 15 year olds throwing 64 miles an hour. I saw 15 year olds throwing 94 miles an hour. So you know, you see these wide array of you know talent, even even at 18, you you're going to see in the same disparity in WWBA.
Speaker 3:But I know Perfect Game has done a really good job of spreading, spreading those out. You know invitations for certain types of talent on teams. I know we have PBR down here. They do a similar type thing out at Lake Point, but I think they're doing better with the disparity of teams. I still think there's work to do. But you know, again, that goes back to you know you deciding what type of team you want to be on as a parent player, what type of you know? I guess the word is a challenge you're looking for as a player as well. So that kind of goes with the research piece.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no doubt about that. Would you? What's your experience there in Georgia been like with the umpires? It seems like there's a shortage going on around the country. Umpires it seems like there's a shortage going on around the country. But how could we make that a better to get more umpires and make it a better experience for everybody?
Speaker 3:fans players, coaches? Oh for sure. I mean. You know our, our umpiring groups, you know they, they do the best they can, especially with the numbers. I know we actually have to stagger our playoffs in Georgia just because you know, with the six or seven classifications that we have if we all started the playoffs at the same time we would not have enough umpires to cover all those games.
Speaker 3:So we actually have to stagger, you know, two days for this class, this half of the classifications, and two days for the next. We really don't have enough umpires to cover that until we get to around the elite eight. So you know the umpire shortage is real. You know it's coming down to. You know, sometimes it's about travel for umpires, sometimes it's about pay, sometimes it's about how they're treated Honestly, um, you know it's, it's kind of a a thankless job when you, when you really think about it, um, but again, most of the guys doing this kind of stuff, uh, they do it for the love of the game as well.
Speaker 3:Everybody I talked to they're out there because they love the game, they love the kids they're, they're kind of like us. They don't do it for the money, they just enjoy being out there doing that. I kind of hope we start to get a little bit more of a younger wave coming in. You know, I know, especially here in Georgia, you know I've seen some of the same umpires for 10, 15, 20 years out there. So you know they, they do a great job. They continue to do a great job. There's a strong push around here for getting more officials.
Speaker 1:I certainly hope it continues to go on that track. Do you address that during team meetings with your parents to make sure that you know, understand that they're human, they will make mistakes.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. You know we talk about it at our team meeting. We talk about it with our players. You know our players are not supposed to address the umpires. The only person that's supposed to address the umpire is the head coach. I'm sure it always works out that way. I'm sure no parents or other coaches say anything poor to the umpires, but it's always addressed. It goes along with our culture and what's expected as well.
Speaker 1:It's always addressed. It goes along with our culture and what's expected as well.
Speaker 3:Well, to finish up, your funniest slash, most memorable experience being a baseball coach. Oh, my goodness gracious that one might take me a little while. You know I would say my greatest memory. You know, I kind of put this on today for a reason. You know, we all kind of want to go and get these rings and these banners and all of these things. You know, eventually, ken, those things collect dust. And you know, one thing that will never collect dust are these players that we get to work with, the people they turn into.
Speaker 3:I got to go, I've gotten to go to three of my players' weddings and you know, to see them, you know enrich their lives. Two of them have had children. I got to hold a child of a player that I could. I mean, it just boggles my mind. You know, one of the first great catchers that I ever got to work with just got inducted into the, the Kennesaw state hall of fame, max Pentecost. He was a catcher for the blue Jays. That kind of stuff, just that. That's the stuff that you can't put a price tag on, that's the stuff that I will always remember, and just being a part of those guys' lives is probably the greatest coaching moment that I can remember. You know these. These guys will always remember the moments more than they'll remember games or a hit or anything. They'll remember moments more than anything. So that's got to be. Mine is just remembering all those moments that I have with these players during and after that. I've had the chance to coach them.
Speaker 1:Well, it's Nick Pugh, head baseball coach at Jackson County High School outside of Atlanta Georgia. I guess we could say All right. Thank you very much for taking the time to be on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
Speaker 3:Thank you, ken, appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1:Today's episode of Baseball Coaches Unplugged is powered by the Netting Professionals, Improving Programs one facility at a time. You can reach out to them today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707. Or visit them online at wwwnettingproscom. As always, I'm your host, Ken Carpenter, and thanks for joining me on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
