Better Men Better Ballplayers Podcast with

Ben Jones, HC of The Apprentice School.

Sponsored By:

• Netting Professionals
  • 844-620-2707
  • info@nettingpros.com
  • www.nettingpros.com

BIO

• HC of the Apprentice School since 2021 and won Small College World Series in 2022 (1st year)
  • Pitching coach for the Builders since 2007
  • Part of the Small College World Series teams in 2007, 2015
  • Former pitcher for the Builders
    • Winningest pitcher in modern era of The Apprentice School
    • The Apprentice School HOF class of 2020
  • USCAA Hall of Fame in 2018

NOTES

• • The Apprentice school 19 trade selections (blue collar), and 8 advanced trades (white collar)
    • 20% of enrollment get selected into advancement
  • ALL FREE
  • Start at $22/hr and finish over $30/hr
  • 6AM on the shipyard
  • Classroom 16 hours a week
  • Other 24 hours they are on the job training
  • Every 6 months rotated to different shipyards to learn
  • All year long
  • Annual leave (40 hours of vacation)
  • full benefits with company match
  • 6AM pull in, get out at 330, practice 430 for couple hours based on part of year
  • 3 time Small College World Series champion
  • NSCAA schools must have a low enrollment (max 4000)
  • Follow all NCAA rules and regulations (eligibility, etc)
  • 80% home games
  • Play D3, D2, JUCO, along with NSCAA teams
  • Manage workload based on their job and baseball - light on weights and off season conditioning unlike the traditional college student
  • Start 11/12 months - every monday with new starts
  • 250-300 people brought in a year

• ****This program will turn a high school graduate into a mature man or woman!

• Grades and attendance not satisfactory you can be dropped from the program
• Its not for everyone, but it is very rewarding
• Athletics contribute to teamwork, teamwork contributes to leadership
• AS.edu general admission website
• Gobuilders.com athletics website
• Guys that aren’t scared to work!!
• 1 other trade school that offers athletics
• 25% acceptance rate
• Team GPA 3.6!
• SAT not requirement for admission
• Required classes (minimum 4, like to see 6-8)
• Focus on math and science
• Any higher math classes?
• How many days you were late and/or absent
• We are investing into you to be successful!
• To see the guys graduate is the ultimate goal!
• Team grade policy - not getting the grades you will not practice and be part of team
• Tutors available - do our best to make the program work!
• Company first, school second, baseball team third and priorities need to stay that way
• We help them keep them priorities straight

Better Men Better Ballplayers Podcast

with Justin Hanley - William Penn Charter

Sponsored By:

• Netting Professionals
  • 844-620-2707
  • info@nettingpros.com
  • www.nettingpros.com

BIO

• HC of William Penn Charter
  • Associate HC/PC 2012-2017
  • Inter AC Champions 2014, 2017, and 2021
  • 4 players have gone to play pro ball during his time at Penn Charter
• He has help guide several players to college between Penn Charter and his time in travel baseball
• Former Director of Baseball Operations and Player development at Elite Sports Factory
• North American Baseball Account Executive at Silicon Valley FinTech startup, Pando, that uses predictive analytics to help professional baseball players mitigate their career risk.

NOTES

• Win loss and ERA are going out the window and looking more at whip, qab, and other processes
• Track bullpens and chart opposing hitters
• Do it on your own, and coach it up in between the inning
• There is nothing you can tell him that is goin to put him in a better position
• Be a voice of positive encouragement
• Strong up the middle
• Good relationships
• Tell me about mom and dad
• Analytical and due diligence mindset
• Big on self advocacy
• Summer camps to bring in the community
• Big on communication
  • Kid first, no parents
• Pillars
  • Self advocacy
  • Don’t care what grade you are
  • accountability
• Expect problems and use it has opportunity to teach leadership
• It more than just about the wins.
• We need to prove to them that we care more about them as people
• For every school that has their dream school, there is 10 kids at the wrong school
• Spend a saturday doing manual labor to build team
• School does great job bringing all types of kids together
• Video message to the team from alumni
• Players this is your program and your responsibility
• Representing your family at the same time
• Understand the common goal
  • You can’t do it on your own
  • Failure is going to find you
  • Lean on your teammates, your coaches
  • How are you going to play on a friday night if you can’t handle this chirping
  • You can tell who the last years state champion was not the PG 16U championship

Better Men Better Ballplayers Podcast with Anthony Renz Concordia College

Sponsored By:

• Netting Professionals
  • 844-620-2707
  • info@nettingpros.com
  • www.nettingpros.com

BIO

• HC at Concordia College (MN)
  • AC since 2018
  • Acting HC 2022
  • 2022 Conference tournament
  • 2023 Conference tournament and win
  • Most hits
  • Most conference players
• Bench Coach & Hitting Coach with Fargo-Moorhead
  • MLB Partner league (Pioneer, Frontier, American Assoc, Atlantic)
  • American Association champions (1st A.A title since merging)
• Former AC and GA Shippensburg University (2016-2018)
  • Regional 2017
  • PSAC tournament 2018
  • 4 guys played pro ball during time at Ship
• Indy ball grinder!
  • Las Vegas Train Robbers
  • Evansville Otters
  • Fargo-Moorhead

NOTES

• Powerful tool of Twitter
• Recruiting world at your fingertips
• Form good relationships
• Show I was a good coach and gain trust
• Work youth baseball camps to grind and learn
• Off season was CAMPS!
• The grind makes you better!
• Make sure the players know it is there program
• Player driven. Coaches put up guard rails
• Players win game, coaches lose them
• The guys after college are set up for success
• For 4 years we want you to feel like you are involved in the world series
• Our togetherness is second to none
  • Town ball, playing more together
  • Cobber baseball family
  • Be with a group of guys you can lose with**
• Team building days
  • Community events
  • Supporting other athletic events
  • Bus rides - Florida trips
• They should want to come to practice as long as the environment is good
• Winning helps the experience
• What can you do to make practice fun?
• Pick teams - compete more
• Balance of fun and intensity
• Conditioning mix of games
• Practice matters
• Everyday is a tryout
• You got to perform - playing hard is given and at end of day you need to perform
• Elimination in the cage - one pitch, in or out
• Create competition with the skills set in mind
• Reward BP “Dinger club”
• Hit the ball hard determines who you are
  • Line drives - right above the L screen
  • Gaps/HR - knock down the batter eye
• Group BP based on skill set or lineup
• Technology helps make live AB more realistic results, provide clarity
• Technology turns up the focus
• Train for higher EV
  • Hit a ton of machine
  • Weighted bat work
  • Hit plyo
• Barrel control
  • Throw two balls and always hit low ball
  • Reward batting practice or out of cage if you don’t accomplish task (put a value on each swing)
• 2 strikes
  • Unpredictable of 2K pitch needs to be trained with working on getting your barrel to the ball
• Manage your work - know your body
• Those who hit often, often hit
• Stick to what you believe in and stay consistent. Don’t over react with small sample size.
• Be where your feet are
• All in right here

Better Men Better Ballplayers Podcast with Eric Lassiter

Sponsored By:

• Netting Professionals
  • 844-620-2707
  • info@nettingpros.com
  • www.nettingpros.com

BIO

• HC of Windermere HS (started 6 years ago)
  • 5/5 state playoffs
  • 4/5 district champs
  • 3/5 regional finalist
• Former HC Tavares (1 year)
• HC at alma mater Apopka HS (6 years)
• Co Founder of Power Baseball
• Former WV Wesleyan College AC
• Director of membership for Diamond Allegiance

NOTES

• We are really big in the community and focus more beyond baseball
• Be the ultimate human being
• How you do anything is how you do everything
• Support other teams in the school
• Supporting little league tryouts, signups, etc
• Prep team, feeder team, little league nights
• When you feel the community supporting you its playing for something bigger than you
• Play for a bigger purpose
• Fall season for community work
• Grade checks
• 1 standard - don’t do anything that embarasses your religion, yourself, or your program
• Holding them to the expectations
• 9 to 5 - first 9 has to beat their last 5 on the field
• Everything counts
• Energy, effort, commitment to each,
• Fall season do little things to score points for 9 to 5
• Points for all types of ways to produce wins
• Running gets you better, not punishment
• Losers take care of the field
• Hold kids accountable on the travel scene will create good groups
• Win between innings
• The first tournament you set the standards
• Finding ways to stay active to improve
• Always an opportunity to get better and set yourself apart
• You have to have a skill set and it doesn’t matter how you may hit in a tournament
• How you fail is a big indicator of how you will succeed
• Baseball is how well you can fail
• 3-3 should be same energy as 0-3
• Each hitter can get into certain positions, which means they can move to get there
• What if your body is not capable of getting to that position. Can we unlock parts of your body to get to those positions?
• Power Baseball Foundation - board to help fundraise to help people who cannot afford to play travel baseball
  • Application to help with practice and planning. Players come out and we donate their time to help
  • Funded organizations that are not even part of Power Baseball
• The more good you do the better you will be

Better Men Better Ballplayers Podcast with Billy Emerson of Paul VI HS

Sponsored By:

• Netting Professionals
  • 844-620-2707
  • info@nettingpros.com
  • www.nettingpros.com

BIO

• HC of Paul VI HS
• Career record 336 - 191 (winning over 50% games in his career)
• PVI since 2003 season
• 3 Conference WCAC championships
• 4 VISAA championships
• 8 times nationally ranked
• Over 100 players in college or drafted
• Paul VI HOF class of 2022

NOTES

• Coaching in the summer is a way for me to learn and get better from the college guys
• Each year you are taking a big hunk of clay and hopefully by the end of the year you hope it becomes a masterpiece
• You win games you should of lost and you lose game you should of won
• If you want consistency you have to be consistent
• You have to stick to the plan
• Maintain a coaching staff that can stick around a long time
• Put together standards and values that you can stick to
• Focusing on development players
• Its also about developing human beings
• Using the game to create things that they can use later in life
• If you focus on the right things the baseball things take care of themselves
• End of season meetings
• Using the battles to do use as fire and do more than this year
• You can do things to foster team chemistry (this is how we do things)
• You can’t force it, you need to foster it
• You can’t fool the players, it has to be real
• You can’t force someone to love you
• Expose our guys to different types of people
• Classroom session in the off season
  • Pitchers and catchers, hitters, mental toughness training
• When a guy walks out of our program and he is blessed to play college baseball and he is prepared to step on campus that is an awesome thing
• Another huge win is when a guy comes back and says I know what you were saying
• We have objectives everyday
• Explain to the guys why and how this is gooing ot effect you now and down the road
• The game mirrors life because you have to sit there during moments of inactivity but be ready
• The value of paying attention to details
• There is a karma around the game and if you don’t pay attention it will bite you!
• Keep the baseball demons away from us!
• Every time we take batting practice we implement baserunning system
• Defensively we take balls live - making people make throughs at game speed
• Challenging the pitchers and hitters at practice with game situations
• Pitchers that have not gotten innings will be throwing more in practice of game situations
• Its about collecting outs. We need to get 21 of them as fast as we can
• This is an audition! For the regulars and for the guys who have not had an AB
• Keep stats in practice and it makes the process from objective
• QPA average - quality plate appearance - 60% or better
• 150 or lower strikeout %
• Pop up or routine flyball = airball (set goal for no airballs)
• Strike % and first pitch strike %
• Force bad contact as early as possible
• Defensively 1 error or less
• Turn as many DP as games played
• Always looking to take 2 until you can’t
• Reading dirt balls good secondary, read the trajectory, and take off
• Preparation, attention to detail, effort, focus, selfless, and toughness
• Aggressive in hitting situations - looking for FB
• 2 strike approach - the strikeout does nothing for us
• Execute when called upon
• Baserunning excellence - eyes up and hustle
• Pitch to spots, execute pitches > selection, make adjustments, rise to the challenge and post a zero
• Defense cherish outs - love outs as much as HR
• No play no throw - calculated risks
• The kids are our customers***
• What did we do to prepare them for the majority of their life?

Better Men Better Ballplayers Podcast with Matt Jones Shippensburg Univ

Sponsored By:

• Netting Professionals
  • 844-620-2707
  • info@nettingpros.com
  • www.nettingpros.com

BIO

• HC at Shippensburg University (Since 2008 17 years)
• Over 400 with Raiders, over 500 total as HC (Former HC at Elizabethtown)
• 2008 ABCA/Diamond Sports Company North Atlantic Region Coach of the Year
• 2-time PSAC Coach of the Year (2022 East, 2008 West)
• 2 College World Series appearances
• 10 PSAC Tournament appearances
• 4 NCAA Regional Tournament appearances
• 35 victories in postseason play – including a 10-6 record at regionals.
• Six Raiders (MLB) Draft
• Several other players have gone on to play professionally as undrafted free agents or in an independent league
• Overall, Jones has coached in 54 conference tournament games,
  • 21 NCAA regional tournament games
  • 5 College World Series appearances

NOTES

• IF you don’t like where you are at you get a new hat
• You have to keep recruiting your guys when they are there
• I want the player to be with my players by themselves
• The family to be with the players by themselves
• Make sure you take two visits before you commit
• No one gets married after the first date
• New facility allowed to never go inside
• Winter workouts to be ready for 20-30 pitches and trust guys to get it done
• Replicate the starters stuff on a machine
• In our program its still about the program
• It needs be team first
• The younger you are the more blinders you have to have
• As you get through school it will widen
• Moving guys around the locker room
• Changing hitting groups
• Moving guys around in study hall
• Purposeful seating or hotel roomates
• Checking up with guys at practice that have nothing to do with baseball
• Let them see me as more than a coach
• We don’t hide things from the team
• Most of the things kids dealing with are not full reality
  • No ugly pictures on IG
  • Not posting the 0-3, but will post the HR
• You still need to decide how much to of the truth to tell a kid
• Respect their feelings and understand where they are and how much info you give them
• Fortunate to have bosses that appreciate how we do business
• Number #1 rule - “Don’t be a jerk!”
• Its not all about winning the last game of the year
• I want the 90 minutes of the day at practice to be the best part of the day
• Be someone that someone wants to be around
• I am an educator, I recruit kids to a university, and guide them to what they are going to do the rest of their lives
• Ultimate responsibility of the university is to guide people in to being productive adults
• Coaches should Ask more questions than give directives to players
• Communicating and getting guys to understand what your saying and understanding it is their career
• We are going to have different relationships with all of you
• I will be here as much as you need me here!
  • Coach? I will be coach
  • Dad? I’ll be dad
• You have to be ok to admit when you need help
• I don’t have to do it, I get to do it!
• I work with the travel ball tournament parents to get them to realize that it does not matter in those tournaments
• Balance time with team time and individual time
• Record practice and spend some individual time
• Figure out how they learn and what they respond to

Better Men Better Ballplayers Podcast with

Mark Gibbs; St Johns DC

Sponsored By:

• Netting Professionals
  • 844-620-2707
  • info@nettingpros.com
  • www.nettingpros.com

BIO

• HC of St Johns DC
• 339–90–1 Overall Record, .788 Winning Percentage in 17 years
• 13, 20-win seasons
• 6 of the seasons St Johns has been nationally ranked
• Before their 2008 season, St. John’s was on the cover of Baseball America, the first team from the mid-Atlantic to ever be profiled in the preview issue.
• Gibbs has sent 124 players into college baseball from St Johns
• 17 players who were drafted by or signed to free agent contracts with professional teams.
• The Cadets have won or tied for 1 regular season conference titles (2007, 2010, 2012–19, 2021),
• 8 WCAC tournament titles (2011, 2014–19)
• 3 DCSAA titles (2014, 2019, 2021).
• Many Coach of the year awards (Washington Post, WCAC, USA Today, DCSAA)

NOTES

• The experience that I feel is best for kids and the reality it is, we need to find what’s best for us
• Staying together in the summer and fall has brought us bigger things that baseball
• Outsourced a strength coach (sports performance coach)
• The HC needs to monitor it all.
• Bring in people that the HC can trust and let them work
• A lot of what you are dealing with is not on the field
• If you have good people and you trust them that is the best
• Got to have good players and guys that are willing to work
• The guy was just a worker! His work ethic stood out
• They were very prepared in the whole system that prepared them for college
• Pitching, defense and baserunning is what you do to win games
• We prioritize pitching, not just fit it into practice
• In the live stuff we do, that is the most live baserunning situations we can get
• Play more live! Use the baserunners when pitching on mound
• Using their eyes to run the bases
• Base stealing and base running are taught in two different segments
• Year to year we focus on certain things more than others depending on your team
• You have to have guys that can do it (vault stealing/ new school leads)
• You have to have the time to teach it and put it into your program.

Rich Maloney Podcast Bio and Notes

Bio

• Head Coach Ball State University (2nd tour, 1996-2002 - 2013 - present)
• Former HC at Michigan (2003-2012)
• Over 900 wins in his career
• 16th active DI coach to reach 900 wins
• Winningest coach in Ball State history
• 5 MAC championships
• 4 time MAC coach of the year
• 3 Time big 10 conference championships
• 2 Big 10 tournament championships
• 4 Regional appearances
• Regional Championship in 2007
• Maloney has coached 65 players who were drafted 72 times
• six first round picks, all of them at Ball State
• Ball State has had 10 players drafted in the top 4 rounds under Rich Maloney
• FCA Baseball's Jerry Kindall Award in January 2017
• ABCA Ethics in Coaching Award Recipient 2023
• Former ABCA President (2018)

Notes

• Architecture classes worked a semester building a vision of the stadium
• I would of never had a chance to go to Michigan if it wasn’t for those boys
• I got into coaching because I love to be a mentor
• Those guys energize me and they fill me up!
• You gotta believe and have a driving force to be something special
  • In yourself if you will be a good player
  • In your teammates if you want to be a part of a good team
  • In your faith - it all starts with that
• Casting a vision for your players
• Try your best to get the most out of the god given talents
• Everyone plays a role on the team
• Read 2 books -
  • Hard Hat by jon gordon
  • CHop Wood, Carry Water by
• First day on campus we go through the book - highlighted and epitomize our culture
• Got to be really good at a lot of little things that culminate to really big things
• Competition events - winning team filet mignon, losing team hotdogs and mac an cheese, we all eat dessert
• Got to have that extra degree
• GRIT - dirtbags - biggest compliment you can get in our program because he does whatever he can to help the team win
• Baseball you have to conquer the mind
• The storm will hit!
• How are you going to handle that mental strain
• Sport gives us a great opportunity to help people grow
• You are blessed a lot if you have those relationships
• Easy to talk when its going good
  • Your friends come around when things are not going your way
• Comes down to the foundational truths you have
• It comes down to the details and have you to do the little things well
• Buy into your coaches
• Take the little things seriously
• Holding them accountable - when the game speeds up that’s not going to work
• Guys will gravitate to the standard
• When you believe in yourself you can make it through the tough times
• Winning breeds winning, and losing breeds losing
• Ambition and drive! If your not self motivated you won’t do great things
• You play on your energy when your young
• You guys built this because you guys believed and did the work