← Most Valuable Agent with Matt Hannaford
Most Valuable Agent with Matt Hannaford
What I See as a College Softball Coach and the Dad of the #1 Prospect in Baseball
01:07:39
Loading summary
Transcript173 lines
- [00:13]
A
All right, we're joined here today by Kevin Griffin. And I feel like it's, it's only appropriate that I give you a proper introduction. So I feel like we're going to cover so much today. So number one is you are the father of the top prospect in all of minor league baseball. Connor Griffin, you are the head softball coach at Belhaven. You are also, correct me if I'm wrong in the athletic department as like an associate AD as well. Is that correct?
- [00:37]
B
That's right.
- [00:37]
A
Perfect. And so what I'd like to get into today, I guess before we kind of just jump into very specifically softball, baseball related questions, tell us about your, I guess, upbringing in the sport. Whether it was from the coaching standpoint, the playing standpoint, but I do feel like I want to level set so these families ultimately understand, like why should we be listening to, to Kevin throughout this interview?
- [00:59]
B
Well, I obviously growing up, I played basketball, baseball, had a chance to play some college baseball and ended up playing a little bit of semi pro baseball, independent league. And then I decided I wanted to get into coaching. So I coached high school basketball for over 20 years from between Georgia and here in Mississippi. Actually moved here from Georgia in 2000 to coach college basketball at Belhaven University. And so I did that for three years, got married, didn't want to be on the road recruiting all the time. And so I went back to the high school level here for eight or nine years coaching basketball and fast pitch softball. And then Belhaven called me and wanted me to come back in January of 2011 to take over the softball program. And here I sit 16, 17 years later still as the head coach at Belhaven.
- [01:55]
A
What's nice about that too is I feel like there's a lot of coaches that watch this, you know, just specifically thinking about like what makes a good coach. I feel like you can probably speak on that. What was it about? Maybe your, the way that you saw sports, athletics that that made you think like coaching. I, I, I know that I want to get into coaching, what, whatever sport it was.
- [02:14]
B
Well, it's the next best thing from being a player, right? You can do something that you love, be around the sport every single day and you can impact lives of young people. And I felt like first of all, when I got into coaching, I was a young person as well. I was only 21, 22 years old doing it. And so I wasn't much older than the kids that I was coaching that first go around. So I was still wanting to impact them. And you find yourself in that situation more on their level because you know what they're going through because you're almost the same age as them. I was an assistant coach at the time, but once I ended up getting a head job, I could kind of relate a little bit to what they were going through. And you know, how I knew that they might handle criticism or handle success or handle failure. And that's really why I wanted to get into coaching, so I could help impact young people.
- [03:09]
A
When you think about kind of a trait that is needed to be a successful coach, what jumps out as maybe like the first thing? Because I think a lot of. I think a lot of people would hear what you just said and say, like, I can empathize with that, right? Like, I wasn't good enough to play professional baseball, but, you know, I still want to stay around the game and I still have so much to give to, you know, other players maybe my same age. What is something that you think that that individual, like, needs to understand about the role of a coach and what, you know, not from an instructor standpoint, but more from like a leadership standpoint?
- [03:40]
B
Well, you got to have patience, number one. And the second thing, and I think it's critical, I really believe you can't treat everyone the same. A lot of people may disagree with that. And like, you have to discipline this player just like you would discipline the next player. You have expectations for one player just like you would for the other. I think that's completely false. Every. Every player is different. Their clock ticks differently, right. From what motivates them. So how you can discipline some people may not handle a certain way that you talk to them the same way that somebody else does. So I've learned a lot about how to handle players from one player to the next. In regards to. Everyone's not the same.
- [04:27]
A
If I mean from an agent standpoint, I feel like I can empathize. You know, one of the worst things that, that an agent can do is, is treat this business like it's cookie cutter, right? Like, what worked for, you know, Albert Pujols is going to work for somebody like Austin Riley. And that is undoubtedly not the case.
- [04:42]
B
Right.
- [04:43]
A
So what I do love about this conversation, though, so far is so many of these parents on some level, like, they. They are the first coach, right. As a dad to three boys, right. All have played baseball. And I know that you have a younger son who's I think a 20, 28, if I'm not mistaken. And obviously Connor, and we talked about him a little bit. What would you tell these Parents from that perspective, like, what advice would you give them about how to properly manage that? And I don't mean from the standpoint of like, make sure you're doing this with your son. But it's more about from the coaching perspective, what should they be doing to help, like, nurture their son's involvement in whether it's baseball or softball?
- [05:26]
B
Well, number one, they've got to enjoy and love what they're doing. They can't feel like that the sport's being pushed down their throat.
- [05:32]
A
Right.
- [05:33]
B
Just because a parent played it doesn't mean that that's what the kid wants to do. I've seen so many examples of trying to think of. Clint Hurdle is one that I follow him a lot. Former Pirates coach, currently with the Rockies, I believe. And he does a great, great job of talking about how his kids didn't enjoy the sports that he enjoyed. And he found. He found himself watching his kids do other things other than baseball. And he loved that. He feels like that's the best thing for his family because he's super supportive of what his kids wanted to do. You can't force it down their throat. That's when they'll just run away from the game. So I find I found myself over the years, we put our kids in multiple sports. Soccer at an early age. I'm glad they didn't end up playing it, but. Right. But they were athletic and they did a good job in that sport, but that's just not what they wanted to do. It ended up being baseball, basketball, and football. And all three of my kids case they all dabbled in football a little bit at the junior high and high school level. So I think it's very important that you don't force a sport down your kid's throat and you just let it come naturally. And if they love it, they love it. If they don't, they'll find something else to do.
- [06:57]
A
Yeah. And I will say, I think, you know, we're obviously in Jackson, Mississippi, and I do. I. I found this personally that in there's various states. Right. Like, you know, Georgia, we'll even break California up into kind of two Northern and Southern. But, you know, Southern California, South Florida. I feel like a lot of these or areas, they. They think that the player needs to hurry up and play one sport early. Right. And maybe it's a fear of missing out. Maybe it's wanting to maximize their opportunity. But I continue to talk to scouts and front office executives, and everybody says the same thing, encourage multiple sports. Right. And Michael Garciapara who's a scout for the St. Louis Cardinals, but also he runs his own travel organization, which he calls kind of a college development program. And he says it too. He's like, look, I mean, even his personal experience. So he played four sports in high school, and the scout that recruited him, he ended up being a first round pick. He was Nomar's brother. First round pick by the Mariners. The scout would specifically talk about how he moved at shortstop was directly related to him playing soccer in high school. Right. And so it's just one of those things that I feel like so many of these, these parents will maybe force that a little bit too much, and then they no longer get the ability to, to grow athletically like they otherwise would do. You find in softball that these girls are only playing one sport more, maybe more so than, than baseball players?
- [08:26]
B
Yeah, I don't think so. Coming up. I think they all dabble in different sports.
- [08:31]
A
Okay.
- [08:32]
B
Even at Belhaven, at the college level, some of my best players that I've ever had in my program also played volleyball in the fall, but they would play volleyball in the fall, miss everything that we did in the fall as far as workouts, show up in the spring, jump right in. And they're so athletic, so good at the sport of softball that they jumped right in. And they were, they were all Americans.
- [08:55]
A
And from the mental side, too, that's the other thing that I think we don't want to lose sight of. Right. Is when you, when you have a kid, let's just say, who's 11 years old and he doesn't play anything else. Right. You know, male or female, when you go into, you know, baseball full time or softball full time, naturally I feel like the burnout is, is a lot quicker. Right. So when you have somebody and you're talking about volleyball, even in college, they show up to softball now and it's like, it's fresh right now. They're hungry to do all this other stuff. It's different. They haven't been doing the same exact thing for year, you know, year after year. So I, I love that you said that. And I certainly encourage people to, to play multiple sports. Let's talk a little bit about Belhaven. So.
- [09:38]
B
Your first year there was January of 2011.
- [09:43]
A
And so correct me if I'm wrong, I did a little digging on softball. Was that the year they went from 40ft to 43 or was it the next year?
- [09:53]
B
I think it was prior to that.
- [09:55]
A
Oh, it was prior to that. Okay.
- [09:56]
B
Right.
- [09:57]
A
So were you involved with softball before.
- [09:58]
B
That at all, just at the high.
- [10:00]
A
School level, what changed in the game of softball? I guess when they moved it back, like did it change the game and how it was played at all?
- [10:06]
B
I think it, it helped offensively a little bit to back the pitcher up a little bit. But you know, in Mississippi you didn't see it as much because softball wasn't as developed in Mississippi as it was in other parts of the country like California, Georgia, Florida, Texas. But so you didn't really see it a whole lot in Mississippi because fast pitch was relatively new, late 90s, early 2000s. That's when it kind of got kick started here. And really the last eight to 10 years is when it's really taken off here in our state. But especially from a travel ball perspective and teams that are really good going out playing in these national events like the Colorado Fireworks and Sparkler and going to the Legacy in Atlanta and Chattanooga and those places. So it was really hard to see much difference when it moved back here in this state as it might have been in other states that were, that had been playing it a lot longer.
- [11:07]
A
Do you encourage your girls to watch baseball?
- [11:13]
B
I don't really encourage it. I think they just do.
- [11:15]
A
Okay.
- [11:16]
B
Because that's really what is in their face all the time on TV during softball season and during the summer now you have a lot more Athletes Unlimited is providing a lot more softball coverage on national television. And in the summer you can just about turn over, turn on a softball game every night.
- [11:36]
A
Right.
- [11:37]
B
If you have like ESPN, ESPN2 and then the ESPN plus package. So there's a lot of softball for these girls to watch. So I really don't have to encourage it too much and talk a little.
- [11:50]
A
Bit about travel softball. You've obviously experienced the travel baseball side when you're recruiting for college. Is it similar? Right. Like if you were to show up, you know, when Conor was going through it and you're going to the. Let's just say it's the worldwide bat in Atlanta. And you know, every college for the most part is there recruiting these baseball kids. Are you, are you seeing the same thing? Like are you going to these events and are you recruiting travel softball events or is it more camp related? How are you finding the influx of talent that you're recruiting?
- [12:20]
B
Yeah, it's both. We don't recruit travel tournaments a ton just because we're really juco heavy with our team. Over 70% of my roster is junior college transfers. We don't do the portal a whole lot. I've had one or two Girls transfer in from other four year schools, but most of our roster is junior college related. Now we do go out and we bring in the occasional incoming freshmen and we find those players from travel ball events. But I usually find those players at college camps. I go to LSU every year. I work their camps twice a year. Betsarino, the head coach there, is a really good friend and she's really good about picking up the phone and calling me and saying, hey, I saw a player. I think they'd be a great fit for your program.
- [13:07]
A
That's great.
- [13:08]
B
And we have a good relationship in that regard. Pat Murphy's another one at Alabama who I talked to a lot. And the thing I like about both of those coaches is we talk more about life outside of softball than we do just softball. But back to your question. I really feel like the travel scene is blown up and all these players locally feel like they've got to go seven states away to get recruited. And we just don't travel that far. We don't have to because our program's in such a good spot right now. That word of mouth really helps us with our recruiting. People call us and tell us about a player. And so I encourage any family or player that's watching this. Don't limit your options because there's really good Division 3 softball, there's really good Division 2, and there's really good Division 1. There's really bad in all three of those as well. And I'll have people call me up all the time, Matt, and they'll say, hey, I've got a player. They can't play it at the Division 1 level, but I think they would be a great Division 3 player. And that's kind of offensive sometimes because there's some really bad Division 1 programs. And outside of the Power Fives, I feel like we can compete to win A lot of conferences across the country in Division 1, even though we're Division 3, we're not going to win the Power 5 leagues and probably not going to win the Southland Conference or the Sunbelt. But there's a lot of really good leagues that we could win. So it's kind of offensive when people call us up and say, I've got a player, I think they can play for you, but they can't play it the Division 1 level. They may not even get on the field for us if they can't play at that level well.
- [14:50]
A
So I want to shout out Walter Beatty because he had you on his podcast and you know, he's somebody who his son Played, you know, he obviously coached D3 in baseball. And what's interesting about what I heard when you were on his podcast is you did talk about. Or maybe he even asked you, you know, when you really look at the differences between, like, a D3 program and, like, a D1, it's not that at the D1, the players are so much better. It's maybe that there's more depth. Right. And so that is something, you know.
- [15:18]
B
Speed of the game.
- [15:19]
A
Right. Like, I played junior college baseball, and what was great about the program that I went to is if you could go there and play, you know, you would leave that place and they would send you to lsu, they would send you to Miami, you would go to Long beach back when, you know, Long beach was, you know, probably sending more players to the big leagues eventually than anybody. And so I. I guess if we could pivot a little bit and talk about the business side of college athletics, because you're in the athletic department. How has the business side of college sports changed in the last. Call it, five years?
- [15:52]
B
Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that it's changed tremendously for the worse, right, From. From the standpoint of NIL and. And that sort of thing. People are no longer going to schools because they love that school and. And they love that program. They're going because of a school that can give them the most money. And you see that more at the Division one level, the big power five level, but you don't really see that a whole lot at the D3 level. You might have some D3 schools up in the northern part of the United States that. That are dabbling into the NIL stuff, especially with, like, football programs and things like that. But at the college softball level in D3, you don't see it. You don't see a ton of that. Players may go do a car commercial or something locally in town, and they're not going to get a whole lot of money out of that. But nothing like football, for sure, and Division 1 softball.
- [16:53]
A
Yeah. The thing that comes to mind as we kind of like dive into this is obviously what we're doing all seeing over the last week or so has been this Lane Kiffin stuff, right? And this may be a little controversial, but one of the things that I continue to go back to and think about, and whether you agree with what he did or not, is college sports is in a place right now where, whether it's players or coaches, everybody is taking an opportunity from a personal standpoint. And that is something, when you talk about the business of college sports, it has completely changed things. Right. A coach who, what you would otherwise say is in a really good situation at Ole Miss, he's like, hey, I think I can go to lsu. And whatever his reasons were, I would imagine on some level, after doing some research on it, he felt like he could recruit better at lsu. Right. And you know, players have a hard time understanding that. They feel like he needed to be committed to the program. But what's interesting is, you know, the coach does it and gets a lot of backlash, but when players do it, maybe there's not so much backlash. And so I, you know, I feel like when you said earlier, it's changed for, for the worse. I agree. Right. Going back 10, 15 years ago, when you're a player, you would, you would say, yeah, like maybe I grew up, you know, rooting for usc. Right. The Trojans. So I would go to USC because it's always been my dream. It didn't matter that they were going to pay me the most. It's. This was my dream where today it's, yeah, I mean, let's. I've got five offers, they're offering me the most. So, like that's making my decision.
- [18:26]
B
Yeah.
- [18:27]
A
And not that college sports wasn't a business before. It just wasn't a business at this level, as immediate as it is. And so somebody recently had said, and I can't remember who it was, but basically, you know, they say it's college, but it's really like the minor leagues in a sense. Right. Like these are kind of professional athletes on some level earlier. And I do feel like that that idea is almost leaking even more so into amateur sports. I remember, you know, 10 years ago now, maybe there was a kid who was like 13 years old on the COVID of Time magazine and it was basically all about how travel baseball is now being professionalized. Yeah. So if we could dive, I guess a little bit back into this softball idea in the softball sport, help bust, I guess a myth that you think a lot of parents believe about softball and college softball that isn't true.
- [19:26]
B
I think the biggest thing is from Division 1 to Division 2 to Division 3, parents think that just because you're at Division 3 and it's non athletic scholarship that you're not getting money. That's the biggest myth at our level. We, we give a lot of money to not just athletes, but to the regular student as well. I'll backtrack to when we were in the naia. We were in AIA for years and our average scholarship for My team was around $8,500. That's when we were given athletic money and we got word that we were going to transition into Division 3. Well, obviously Division 3 is no athletic money. It's all academic. Well, when I found out that we could convert all of our players from athletic money to academic money, our average scholarship for our players went from about $8,500 to just under $20,000. When I made the call to tell some parents that, you know, some parents were so misinformed that they still wanted it to be athletic money, I would tell them, why does it matter where the money comes from? It all comes from the same pool of money. It's just what you call it. You're. You're still getting a whole lot more money to come to school here. We had a few players that would leave and go to another school for lesser money because it wasn't athletic money. And so that's one of the biggest pieces of misinformation about the Division 3 level is that just because it's Division 3 and it's non athletic scholarship, you're still able to get really good money at most schools that you might would want to attend.
- [21:09]
A
Oh, interesting. Yeah, I didn't know that. What, what if, if you had a daughter who is 10 and you were entering into kind of like the formative years of. We're going to now develop her into being hopefully a really successful college softball player. How are you designing the next. Call it five to eight years of.
- [21:32]
B
Her development if she's how old?
- [21:35]
A
Yeah, starting at 10.
- [21:38]
B
I think it gets really. It used to, it used to get really like serious at 12 years old, which is ridiculously stupid that a 12 year old would get offered by a college program. It was all the Florida rule. Right. I think back there was a kid who got offered as a 12 year old or a 6th grader by University of Florida. It's been 8 or 10, 12 years ago now. I think that offer started changing the whole dynamic of when colleges could actually start offering kids and that age started pushing older and older. But now at this day and age, you can't even talk. A Division 1 coach can't even talk to a player until they're a junior in high school now, which I think is great. It lets the kid be a kid and navigate the whole process of where they might want to go to school a little bit slower than it used to be. Everything was happening so fast. So I would say just take your time. Don't make it as serious as it is. It needs to be until you need to make it serious. And that's about that 10th and 11th grade year. But it's, it's really tough to, to navigate with a kid when you've, your kids being hit from all different directions. Parents are getting calls from not just coaches, but if your kid's good enough, especially in baseball to play, you're getting hit from the agent side and you're, you're getting hit from all different sides. So just let them be a kid as long as they can be a kid is my best advice.
- [23:16]
A
Yeah. And going back to the old way of things before it was, you know, August 1st of your, your junior year. Yeah. You could commit them at any point. Right. So you see these kids in 8th grade committing to this college and then fast forward when that kid is 17, 18 years old, now they're a junior or even a senior. You look at the numbers and you realize the majority of kids at that point either haven't developed like they were expecting. And then the, you know, the university doesn't have the scholarship form anymore and they encourage them to go somewhere else. Or the kid now, maybe he committed to a smaller school and now he wants to open things up and go to a bigger school. So it was some crazy percentage. It was, and I'm just going off my memory, but it was something like 80% of the kids, if they committed as early as 13 years old, would never even, you know, still have that same commitment when they were going into that, you know, junior senior season. So I agree with you. I think allowing kids to develop more naturally and just be a kid and not worry about the business stuff quite yet is only going to make things better. So that is of all the things that have changed. I feel like that is a good rule.
- [24:19]
B
That is, it's great.
- [24:20]
A
Yeah, it certainly, it certainly improved things, you know.
- [24:24]
B
And backtracking to your conversation, you're talking about Ole Miss Lane Kiffin and said players are able to leave all the time. They just up and leave. Why, why shouldn't coaches be able to just up and leave? My comment thinking back to that would be coaches are supposed to be more mature. The players aren't mature enough at that point in their life to realize what is right. Coaches know what's right. Right.
- [24:51]
A
They should. Anyway.
- [24:52]
B
Coaches should know what's right and you should know how to prioritize what's more important to the program as a whole. And if you're in coaching for the kids, you know, be there for the kids.
- [25:04]
A
Yeah.
- [25:05]
B
I could not imagine leaving a Playoff run. Leaving kids hanging in a playoff run. They've worked their whole careers to get in this situation. You as a coach have worked your whole career to get into this situation where you can go compete for a national championship and you let. They can say money isn't a factor. That's crap. Money was the big factor. Maybe not as a salary, because he was already making big money, but nil. Money was a factor. What could they give? The kid was a factor. But I just look back on it and say the adult is supposed to be the most mature person in the room in that situation. The kid is not supposed to be the most mature person. So I don't like equating the two things. Players are going to leave because they get really bad advice from people. Yeah, adults should be able to make their own responsible decisions in those situations. So just had to go back to.
- [26:10]
A
That a little bit and it makes me think about. So I'm actually reading this book right now. I'm a Christian man, and I'm reading this book by Tim Keller called I think it's Counterfeit God. And what, what. What came to me when you said that is, you know, a lot of our focus in the world today is success. Right. So we've make that our idol, in a sense. And when you take. Whether it's a coach, whether take a player and. And their idol becomes, well, I gotta do whatever I can to have the most success possible. That will lead you to make decisions. And in Lane's case, I know that. I'm sure he feels like this, I had to do it. It was the best thing for me. When in reality, if you had somebody grounded and rooted in, why am I actually coaching? I'm not coaching for myself in a sense. Sure. If I. If I'm really good at this, I'd like to think that I can make it a career and make a lot of money and that all, all that stuff is going to take care of itself. But my foundation is I want to develop young men. Right. And if I was a parent and I was coaching somebody and we were picking the university, that would be the biggest thing for me I'd be looking for is what are you committed to? And you can tell pretty quickly whether that coach is committed to success or if that coach is committed to, like, pouring into your son and doing whatever he can to like, help him develop, not just as a good athlete, but as a, like a successful human being.
- [27:28]
B
Yeah, that. That's a great point. And I always say that you should do things for a Cause and not for applause. That's. That's something that I always tell my players. If you're trying to do something just for a pat on the back, then you're not doing it for the right reason. You should be doing it for a cause. I've coached a long time. I finished second in the nation three times now. Haven't been able to win the big game. I'm to the point where I would love to, but as long as I'm. I'm not coaching to win that big game and get a pat on the back. I coach for a cause. And I want my players to. To experience the opportunity to get into a big game and give themselves a chance to win a big game. If you can play on the very last day of the year, every year, if you strive to do that, whether you win it or not. I feel like I've. My cause is putting my players in that situation so that they can experience that joy. Yeah, I get into situations sometimes where. Comparison. You've heard the, the comment. Comparisons. The thief of joy. You start comparing how many wins other program coaches have over how many that you have and how many national championships over. Well, their resources may be different. Their. Their recruiting base may be a lot wider. I don't worry about that stuff as much anymore as I used to, more so than doing things for a specific cause for my player's sake, to give them the best opportunity to experience success.
- [29:10]
A
I love that. Do it for a cause, not for applause. Yeah. On some level that relates to a lot of things. Right. It's the applause is a byproduct of doing other things well. Winning is a byproduct of doing all these other things really well. Eventually having the success, getting to the big leagues is a byproduct of putting the work in. And if you can take that mentality and you. You could truly apply that to anything. If you don't do it for those reasons, though, and you flip that upside down. Right. Like I oftentimes on this podcast talk about, too many families have this hierarchy of focus where exposure is number one, competition is kind of number two, and then development is number three. And I've always said that needs to be upside down. Development needs to be the number one thing, and then a byproduct of developing the right way. You're going to use competition, going to tournaments and showcases and competing to test the development. And then a natural byproduct of doing both of those things really well. You're going to get the exposure.
- [30:12]
B
Yeah. I think people Practice not enough these days. They play too much. Like, you go play all these travel ball tournaments. You may play 70 games in a summer, you may practice five times.
- [30:26]
A
Right.
- [30:27]
B
A lot of travel ball these days. People are just showing up at a facility two states away, and that's the only time they ever see their teammates is they show up and play. They don't develop any chemistry and that sort of thing with their teammates, and they don't practice and develop as a team. They may be practicing at home, they may be developing as an individual, but are they getting good coaching? Sometimes I think we play too much. Yeah. And compete too much when we need to be developing. And, you know, from a parent standpoint, you hit the nail on the head. People chase exposure. You go to too many exposures and you get exposed. Yeah. I mean, that's just the honest truth. You. You want to go to an exposure event, you want the coaches there to see you look different than they did the last time they saw you. If that's only two weeks apart, they're not going to notice a difference. But if you spread that out and you go to an. An exposure event in November and you don't go to another one until March, maybe they see a difference.
- [31:36]
A
Right.
- [31:37]
B
Because your body might be different, your athleticism might have changed, your skills might have changed. But sometimes I think that we get stuck in the mud of just chasing the exposure deal. And sometimes to get out of the mud, you got to take your foot off the gas.
- [31:54]
A
We. And I think parents are so, like, if I had to visually give parents almost an analogy, they feel like this window of time is closing. Right. So it's like, oh, my gosh, we have to maximize this time. What do we do? We have to go and it's so it's more. We have to do more. When in reality, no, you have to probably do less.
- [32:13]
B
Less is more a lot of times.
- [32:15]
A
Yeah. And so Craig Holman, who obviously put us in touch and introduced us, you know, he talked about it when I had him on the podcast, where he's like, yeah, you. If your sole focus is exposure, you're going to go to an event and you are going to get overexposed. And then what message is that sending to? Whether it's the college, these pro scouts, whomever it is that you're trying to impress, that's the stuff that's going to ultimately do you more harm than good. So, yeah, for what it's worth, I think that is a very, very important point that, you know, there's a reason why on, you know, I don't know how many of these. I've done 120 of them at this point. And like 80% of the podcast, what you just said is literally what these guests are saying, the same exact thing. So it's just a matter of parents receiving that and not thinking like, oh no, this is just another person who doesn't get it. Like, and again, your son who you know, and I want to make this clear, parents listening to this may say, oh well, your son, you know, is, is the top prospect in all of minor league baseball. He was a first round pick. Like, he is the golden boy of the sport of the moment. Tell us what you did, what are the five things you did? And if we do these five things, maybe our son's going to be the next Conor Griffin. In reality, it's so first off, he's got some God given talent, right? You certainly were able to do things well with him. But as you look back now at your journey with Conor, as he was kind of going through travel, baseball, what are some of the things that you look at now where you say, oh no, we did that really, really well, Maybe unknowingly, right? You kind of like dumb lucked your way into doing it that way. But as you reflect back on it now, what are some of the things? And maybe there's only one thing that comes to mind that you're like, now that was really smart that we were able to do that.
- [33:58]
B
Well, the biggest thing is we didn't chase the exposures. We talked about that earlier. He only did one or two of those true exposures where you go and work out and they give you your running speed and your throw and speed or arm v low and that kind of thing. As a parent and as a coach, I refuse to spend money to go to those things for people to tell me what I already knew, right? Like, I've got the technology to know those numbers. I know what exit belows are. I know how hard he could throw. I didn't need a radar gun for that. I've been coaching the sports long enough to where my eyes could tell me that. So I refuse to spend that kind of money to go to have people tell me what I already need. Probably the best thing we ever did was we started out local and played local until Connor ended up going to some college camps and getting on college campuses. When he got his first offer in eighth grade, it was from Tulane University. Jay Ullman, who was there at the time, gave him his, his first offer. And then Ole Miss came right behind it a week later.
- [35:09]
A
Travis Jewett there.
- [35:10]
B
Then he was. Yeah, he was the head coach and then. And Jay was recruiting coordinator. But then Ole Miss came right behind it and he got his first offers in eighth grade. And at that point, we started making sure Connor played on good enough teams that he could go get in front of even more coaches and that sort of thing. But we didn't do it every weekend. It was maybe once a month we'd go play in a big event. And that's probably the one thing I think that we did well. And we did everything on our timeline. We didn't let college coaches dictate our timeline and force him into committing. And we made sure that Connor made his college visits. We wanted him to experience the experiences. At the time, you could only do five officials. We wanted him to. To take his five official visits. We wanted him to enjoy the process and have fun and not commit as an eighth grader because we knew the coaches may not even be there anymore by the time that he got out of high school. So I feel like we were very wise and in making those decisions for him to let him enjoy the whole process. And I think in turn, it helped people want him as a part of their programs even more because we kind of slow played it and did it our way.
- [36:27]
A
Yes. You just said what I was going to actually say in response to what I heard you say, which is you slowed things down for him to really enjoy the experience. Right. And through that slowing of things down, I'm sure he was able to just be a kid.
- [36:42]
B
Yeah. And I don't know how many people know, but Connor skipped his 10th grade year of high school. He reclassed and went from 9th grade straight to 11th grade. A lot of people thought we were doing that strictly because of the draft and wanted him to be younger at the draft and that sort of thing. The God's honest truth about it is we reclassed him so that he would not have to talk to college coaches every night as long as he had been doing it since eighth grade. He was picking up the phone, he had to call them. They couldn't call him. But we sped it up just so he could get on his college visits faster and make a decision quicker to eliminate all the distractions of having to talk to college coaches every single night. That's why he reclassed in the beginning, was to get on campuses a year early. It ended up working out for the draft because I believe if he were not 18 at the draft, I don't know that he would have been in the situation that he was in just because for Some reason an 18 year olds looked at differently than a 19 year old for whatever reason, even if they're talented. But that's really why we reclassed is so he could start the recruiting process and really get it done and not have to deal with that distraction every single day of the week.
- [38:06]
A
Yeah. So to give everybody who's listening to this some insight, you know, there's plenty of studies that have been done with major league baseball teams where the earlier you can get to the big leagues, it increases the likelihood that you have a more successful career. So when these pro teams are scouting these players, any one season may delay things right now it doesn't mean that if Conor wouldn't have changed and he would have been a little bit older at the draft that he wouldn't have been, you know, valuable. It just may have changed things. Is he getting drafted as high? You know, maybe he's still a first rounder but he's getting taken 25th, right? Right.
- [38:41]
B
Yep.
- [38:43]
A
At what age did you say, you know, I don't know like if this, if he's a first round, like, but this kid's different. What age was that for you.
- [38:54]
B
As far as professional baseball goes? I would say his junior year in high school.
- [38:59]
A
Okay, I love that because I think a lot of parents think, oh no, it's at 10, right?
- [39:04]
B
Yeah.
- [39:04]
A
No junior year. So he's 16 years old.
- [39:07]
B
Yeah. At 10 years old we weren't thinking anything. At 12 years old, I was thinking, okay, he's got a chance potentially to be a really good college player. At 14, I thought he could be a Division 1 SEC type college player eventually.
- [39:25]
A
Yeah.
- [39:26]
B
We weren't thinking professional angles at that point in time. His junior year when we started getting, you know, emails and calls from the scouting industry and, and that sort of thing and we had chosen, we decided we needed to choose an agency. At that point it started getting real and that's when we realized that this professional thing. Did we know he was going to be a top 10 pick? No, we didn't know that. We knew he had the work ethic to, to potentially be that. But you don't know what these teams are thinking. Right. It's all a business and they want to, you know, if they can get, if they can get a discount on a player, they're going to take a discount. And when he got to be a senior in high school, we realized, okay, he's good enough that we're not going to allow him to take a discount. We're not going to let him be that type of player. He'll just go to lsu.
- [40:18]
A
Right.
- [40:20]
B
That, that would be a huge piece for his development to just go ahead and go to LSU and instead of taking a big discount. So fortunately we didn't have to do that. The Pirates were great through the whole process and they were completely honest with us and, and we knew that when they took him that it was going to work out wonderful.
- [40:42]
A
So what's interesting is you're describing the ages where things started to kind of take shape a little bit. At what age did he go from playing more regional stuff to maybe more of these, like national events?
- [40:55]
B
We did a little bit of it at 14 and 15, but it was not really until the 16 year old age group that, that he entertained going to. We never did Jupiter, but it's a really good event. But we just chose not to do Jupiter because I didn't believe in playing baseball in November.
- [41:14]
A
Right.
- [41:14]
B
Or, or in late October.
- [41:16]
A
Right.
- [41:16]
B
Just didn't want to do it physically. And he was playing other sports too, so it was, it was taken away from football and basketball also and we didn't want him to miss something big at his high school and it hurt his, his teammates, it hurt the rest of his team as far as them being able to, to win games. So that was just a decision that we made. But it wasn't until about the 16 year old age group that we started doing national stuff.
- [41:43]
A
Right. So what's nice about that though is like, it feels like it's this really comfortable ascension where you're, you're seeing that he's good. All right. He's going from being somebody in your mind who's like, all right, this guy could be a pretty good college player. Then he gets a little bit older. Oh man, this guy could be like a legit SEC guy. And then now the draft starts to become real. And I would imagine part of that analysis for you where it started to take shape was, oh yeah, we went to this event and there are some pretty good players there and he got, you know, 10 hits over the weekend. Right. And so all of a sudden, and not to play the comparison game, but you start realizing, man, he's holding his own. What's interesting about that is there are so many players, good players in pro ball, they'll go to high A and they may spend two years there. The first year they're just kind of getting their feet wet and then they'll realize, oh man, I can do this here. And then the second year at High A, they'll go off, then they'll go to Double A. And like, the same thing applies. I think parents sometimes think, no. Every single tournament, every single game he plays, this kid's gotta show out. No, I mean, I've. I've had executives on the podcast, and they talk about how important failure is for these kids, development. I, you know, just did a podcast with Austin Riley and his family, and, you know, Austin was somebody who. He gets drafted in the first round. He goes down to the GCL in. In Florida, and he's over 23 with 18 strikeouts to start his pro career. And he says, he's like, if I hadn't gone through that, I don't know if I'm ever going to learn how to get out of the failure. How has failure been a part of that, that experience with Conor? Is there an event that you remember where it's like, oh, man, he wasn't good that weekend, but that failure actually helped him become the player he is today?
- [43:30]
B
Yeah. And I'm going to backtrack a little bit and. And then answer that question. When he was you, you asked the question about what Something good we did through the process. We let him stay in his own age group when he was 8, 10, 12 years old because I felt like it was good for him to experience playing his own age group, experience success. And he played up with his brother for two or three years and not experienced success. He may not even love the game.
- [44:01]
A
Is that Cannon?
- [44:02]
B
Cannon was his older brother, Cadence, the younger brother. But we kept him in his own age group until he was around 14 or 15, and then we let him play up. I think it's important to get into the right travel organization who understands that and who will help you navigate through the process. The Knights Nation Baseball out of Mandeville, Louisiana, was the perfect scenario for Connor. It was perfect because they let him play up, but then if he wanted to go back down and play with his own age group, then they were okay with it as well. So back to your question about experience and failure. Connor started his pro career kind of like Austin did. Connor was 2 for 2 in his first two at bats. He's like, man, I can. I can do this.
- [44:50]
A
Yeah.
- [44:51]
B
And then the next day at bats, I think were strikeouts after that. And, you know, he had to really take a hard look at. Okay, this is. This isn't going to be as easy as the two for two I started out. It's going to be tough, and it's going to take some. Some hard work and I've got to put in extra work outside of the games and stuff like that. So he experienced. Experienced that failure and then it just made him better because from that point forward, I don't know that he really experienced any failure the remainder of the minor league season. Yeah, quite honestly now he had some streaks where he went, you know, 0 for 2 or over 3, but I don't think he ever went 3 at bats or more without getting on base at least. So the year after your junior year for baseball purposes is your most important year. For, for the draft, you go to the. We had the MLB Pipeline PDP that year, the East Coast Pro USA trials. Those were three huge events. Well, the last regular season at bat of Connor's junior year of high school, he hit a home run, but he dislocated his shoulder on. On the swing. His shoulder popped out of place and. And he didn't get to hit the entire playoffs. He could pitch and play defense, but he couldn't hit. That was something that really threw him for a loop because he couldn't be on the field and compete.
- [46:23]
A
Yeah.
- [46:23]
B
With his teammates. And those big events were coming up really quickly. So he had to rehab for six to eight weeks and he went to the PDP in Cary, North Carolina. And the first time that he swung a bat, not BP or anything, but the first time he took a swing was in a game. And that was the first swing he took in eight weeks. And he struggled at pdp.
- [46:50]
A
He.
- [46:50]
B
He didn't know what his shoulder was going to feel like. He was putting the bat on his shoulder. He was wrapping it around his head. He was doing everything possible to alleviate the potential of pain because he didn't know how it was going to feel. He had a miserable event. He went to the East Coast Pro the next week. The first two days of the East Coast Pro, same thing, just bad. And he's like thinking that his. His future's just in jeopardy because everybody in the industry is there watching you, watching him play, watching all these guys play. And finally he called me one night. They don't stay with us at those events. They stay with teammates. And he said, I don't know what to do. And I said, son, you're just going to have to cut it loose and let it fly. And you're not going to know how it feels until you just trust it and just see how it feels. If it feels terrible, then you'll know it feels terrible. So the next day he went out to East Coast Pro And I think he was 3 for 3 that day with a home run and a couple of doubles and shoulder was fine. The next week he had to go to California, to the USA trials. Lit it up out there, ended up making the team, going to Taiwan, had a great event in Taiwan, didn't strike out in 27 at bats in Taiwan. And from that point forward, everything just clicked. But we had to listen to all the criticism, all the negativity. People saying that he had a hit tool problem and they didn't know the why behind it. We couldn't say anything. We had to bite our lip.
- [48:21]
A
Yeah.
- [48:22]
B
And if we just said I had dislocated shoulder, then we probably wouldn't be sitting in the situation because people would probably not have drafted him as high as they did thinking that he had an issue. He didn't have any issue at that time. He just had to heal.
- [48:37]
A
Right.
- [48:38]
B
But people didn't know that. And he had to experience that, that failure and listen to all those people be critical of him even to this day. You hear he had a hit tool problem back then. No, he didn't.
- [48:50]
A
Right.
- [48:51]
B
He was a great hitter. He was worried and he didn't know how his shoulder was going to feel, and that's why he was doing what he did. So I just sit back and laugh at those people who are completely clueless at the time who just spewed that venom about a kid and they didn't even know the situation. And we couldn't stand up for him and say anything about it because we didn't want it to hurt him. So he had to experience that failure to finally experience success. And I think that made him the player that he is today.
- [49:24]
A
Well, and we're in an odd world today where, you know, social media, you post a picture of somebody, you know, let's say you post a picture of your son or he posts a picture of him hitting at a. And when players are ranked really high, naturally there's a lot of people out there that could be haters.
- [49:38]
B
They have an opinion.
- [49:39]
A
That's right. And we're in this world where you could read these comments if you so choose. And it's no different than if someone were to send you a text message. So I always tell my players, like, don't look at the comments. Right. And I, I recognize that it's next to impossible. Right. But it's like fans having your phone number and they're sending you a text telling you what they think about your game. Right. So it's, it's one of Those things where it. I, I do think down the road we're going to have a lot more mentally strong players because they're having to deal with that way earlier than they ever have before.
- [50:13]
B
Social media is a game changer.
- [50:14]
A
Really. Is.
- [50:15]
B
Really is good good negatively. Yeah.
- [50:17]
A
Good or bad, depending on your perspective.
- [50:19]
B
Help promote you.
- [50:20]
A
Yeah.
- [50:20]
B
But it also can cause you to start doubting yourself.
- [50:24]
A
Right. How was the, the in home visit kind of experience for you guys? Because I always tell these families it's, it's, it's so wild. Right. It's obviously an honor. Right. Anytime a pro organization wants to come into your home. But it's interesting because they clearly have an agenda. Right. They're trying to, you know, extract as much information as possible that they can hopefully use. And I don't want to say against you, but in a sense, like, yeah. I mean, they're trying to figure out like, you know, especially for someone as talented as Connor, it's. We know why you're good. Tell us why. Maybe there's some issues here and we're not just going to come out saying what's wrong with you. Right.
- [51:03]
B
Yeah. And, and Joey and Casey with Excel did such a good job of putting parameters on these home visits. Like we limited it to an hour and a half.
- [51:11]
A
Yep.
- [51:12]
B
And we would always stack more than one in a day because the first person that went knew that, okay, we've got to end at this time because you've got somebody else coming in. So we didn't want to drag it out. And we had a few on single days that would stay there three, three and a half hours as long as you let's. And we're not a family. We weren't going to push them out because this was an honor to have people in our home. But you know, the area guys come in, they just, they want to sit there and chit and chit chat and chat it up as much as they can. But yeah, you're right. You, you want to make sure that you promote your kid in the, in a positive way and answer all their questions. But we kind of sat back as parents and we let Connor, we let him have it and he did a great job and I think he interviews well and I believe that he was a very mature kid and he could handle that whole process. But I don't think he would have been as good at that had he not gone through the whole college recruiting process and had to talk to college coaches and, and that sort of thing. It really helped prepare him for the pro. The Pro side of things.
- [52:18]
A
Right. And I always tell families, you know, you got to like give your kid a little bit of grace to going through that process. Because other kids who are 17, 18 years old, like, what are the decision that they're having to make at that point? It's like, what am I eating for lunch right here? Connor is saying like, oh man, do I want to go sign? Do I want to go to college? Right. So it's certainly a much more pressure packed decision that, that anybody needs to make. But I do want to shout out Jay Johnson at lsu, who I have a great deal of respect for. How was the going through the draft? You know, we'll go like a month before the draft. How was the experience knowing, all right, you have a really good opportunity at college? We don't know how the draft is going to go necessarily. Hopefully it goes really well. But was that something that maybe you guys as a family or Connor kind of carried that was maybe a little, a little challenging?
- [53:10]
B
Jay made it tough.
- [53:11]
A
Yeah.
- [53:12]
B
Because he's such a great developer and, and just a great guy. It even went back as far as when Nolan Kane was at LSU and started the recruiting process.
- [53:22]
A
Absolutely.
- [53:23]
B
When he left, left, we were kind of bummed. But they ended up in a good spot with Josh Jordan and, and Josh is a great guy. But Jay, what we loved about him is he would come into our house even during the whole draft process and he had a book about 50 pages deep showing us why it was still a good thing for Connor if he had gone to lsu, all the players that had come through that program that had capitalized monetarily by going to school first and then going to the draft and he made it tough. I mean, he, he, he sold impressive. He sold it really well. And, and I think everything that he showed us was factual. There was nothing he was just making up. He had facts to prove it and he made the decision very difficult. But in the end he knew also, if Connor's a first round pick and he's a top 10 guy, he's not going to be able to turn down life changing money. Nil. Money in baseball for incoming freshmen is nothing compared to what they give to the transfer portal. And this day and age, when you hear baseball families say, yeah, my kids getting $2 million to go to X University, I just, I don't tell them this, but I'm just thinking in my head, you're, you're full of crap. Because I know it. Connor could have got. And it was not anywhere close. Close. Now the portal Kids are getting a whole lot more money, but generally you're not, you're not getting money.
- [54:56]
A
Yeah, there's a lot of information out there. And I think sometimes families, they hear the dollars that are being thrown around in football and they think it's the same in baseball. It's obviously not, but. Yeah, I mean, I just, you know, there's a story that always comes to mind with this that actually has nothing to do with college, but it's more about equipment contracts for players when they get to pro ball. And, you know, two teammates will talk and you'll get a phone call from a player being like, hey, my teammate says he's getting 100 grand from Nike. And it's like, he's not getting 100 grand from Nike. Right. But it's. I think sometimes families like to talk generally about, oh, yeah, we've got a couple million bucks coming.
- [55:31]
B
Oh, and LSU is really honest about it from the get go. They're like, listen, we, this is all we can do. This is, I mean, you can't do much more than this. And, and so they were very honest from the get go. But I will say that one thing Jay did that no other college coach did through the recruiting process is he would get on zoom calls with Connor and break down a swing and they would talk hitting. He did that for a year and a half straight and no other college coach ever got on the, on the phone or on a zoom call with Connor and talked about his swing. And, and that's what swayed Connor to lsu. He's like, if I'm getting this kind of development now and I'm not even with them, what am I going to get if I am with them? So that was a huge piece to Connor making his decision to go to lsu.
- [56:22]
A
Well, we were talking earlier about what makes a good coach. And, you know, we were talking when I brought up the, the counterfeit God, you know, narrative. That is something. I will say that when you meet Jay Johnson and you talk to him, you know that from a foundational standpoint, he is in it for the right reasons. When he tells you things about your son, it's not a. He casually is just shooting from the hip like, no, no, he's done his homework. He knows all about your son and he cares. And that comes off so clear.
- [56:49]
B
Yeah, you know, we'll get Derek Curio. I mean, he chose to bypass the draft and he would have been, he would have been a first round draft pick, but he chose to go to LSU and now he's going to be a top 10 pick. If he's not a top 10 pick, then people have missed the mark. That kid had a great year last year. If he has another great year this year or even close, he's going to be a top 10 pick and it's going to be all worth it for Derek. Derek's a great kid. Connor and Derek are great friends and I can't wait to see what he does this year.
- [57:21]
A
Well, it is going to be exciting watching what happens next year with Conor. But as we wrap up, we have a couple of minutes left. I always like to end on kind of like a, a rapid fire scenario because I love just getting kind of, you know, really quick answers. First thing that comes to mind. So I'm going to, I have about six of them here that I want to run through. So the first one is what's one thing parents should stop doing at games immediately?
- [57:47]
B
I'm probably guilty of this, especially at basketball. And, and that's why I broadcast all of our high school games. So I can't yell. I knew you were a natural.
- [57:55]
A
Okay.
- [57:55]
B
Yeah. So probably stop coaching your kids from the stands and, and I say that as a guilty, as a guilty guy, but I think that's the one thing they should stop doing and stop comparing to, to other kids. Just let them be a kid.
- [58:13]
A
So put your softball coach hat on here for a second. What is one, one red flag that makes you back away from a player?
- [58:21]
B
Fast body language, how they, how they respond to certain situations and if they let it show on their face or not.
- [58:31]
A
What's harder to coach? Talent or attitude?
- [58:34]
B
Attitude for sure. Especially if it's a bad attitude. You, you're not going to generally make a bad attitude a good attitude. You might as well just cut them loose.
- [58:43]
A
Right. You can improve somebody's talent, but if they have a bad attitude, that's almost not even coachable. Right. What is your biggest coaching pet peeve?
- [58:55]
B
I'm a superstitious guy, so I, I'm a creature of habit and I can't stand if players step on lines when they're running on the field. Especially when I had to chalk it off. Yeah, I like to salvage it. But probably my biggest pet peeve is a player that just walks onto the field and doesn't sprint to their position every single time that they take the field, whether it's practice or whether it's a game.
- [59:22]
A
Yeah. Because you can control that. It's the easiest thing to do.
- [59:24]
B
Right.
- [59:24]
A
Effort. I love that. What do you think the best trait is for a Teammate, a vocal leader or a lead by example?
- [59:33]
B
That's a great question. You always need vocal leaders because you don't have players a lot of times. Sometimes you go years or seasons where you don't have anybody be a vocal leader. So I love a vocal leader. But players that lead from within by example, you're going to have better teams because of that.
- [59:56]
A
Love it. Okay, last one. If you could outlaw one youth sports trend, what would it be?
- [60:04]
B
Walk up music at travel ball tournaments. There's no need.
- [60:09]
A
I have not seen this yet.
- [60:10]
B
No need for people to have a boombox in a fourplex with three other games going on and having walk up music for every player that comes to the field and some AI generated announcer calling out their name when they walk to the plate. And this happens at 6, 7, 8, 9 years old. It's the craziest thing and it's a distraction to the other games that are going on around you as well. So that's probably something I'd, I'd love to see just be gone out of the sport.
- [60:44]
A
I love it.
- [60:45]
B
Softball or baseball.
- [60:46]
A
Yeah, I mean, I, I have not seen this yet, but I'm, I can tell you right now that would drive me nuts still. Right. It's like, what are we doing? We just go play baseball.
- [60:55]
B
We played a travel tournament one year in South Carolina and I'll be quick with this. Yeah, we played a team. We heard how good they were. They were out of Atlanta, Georgia, and they drove up in a bus and they literally rolled out a red carpet and announced their players getting off of the bus.
- [61:16]
A
Oh, come on.
- [61:17]
B
In the parking lot. This was at 12 years old. And I'm thinking, good lord, we're fixing to get our brains beat. And I think we ended up winning the game like 12:1. And if you're going to go to that extreme and have a team bus and roll out red carpet and announce players getting off a bus. You better not lose. You better not lose the game. And we ended up, I think we run ruled him in five. And I was just. That's. I've laughed about that since that happened.
- [61:45]
A
That's hilarious.
- [61:46]
B
That's one of my biggest memories that I laugh about with seeing what other teams do and how they handle things. That's just. That was pretty funny.
- [61:56]
A
All right, last thing. Is there anything that we didn't touch on today that you feel like, you know, parents need to know this?
- [62:06]
B
I really think we covered a lot of what I was thinking and wanting to get out of this. But just let your kids Be kids. And that. That's the biggest thing that I will say. Don't. Don't force it down their throat. And we touched on that a little bit. But, you know, the one thing I will say is your kid is trying to please you more than any other person. They're not worried about what little Johnny, the teammates, family, thinks about him. They're not worried about a college coach at 8, 10, 12 years old. They're worried about what you as a parent think. And if you realize that they're trying to please you, first and foremost, more than anything in the world, you'll have a better relationship with your kid because of how you'll respond to their success and their failure. Just treat them as your kid. Don't treat them as somebody that you're trying to get to the league one day. Yeah.
- [63:04]
A
So I just did a podcast actually, on the difference between expectations and agreements that, that parents have with their kids. Right. Expectations are these things that live in your heads that it's like, well, I expect my kid to give 110%. I expect my kid to turn into this type of player. But they never, ever really sit down and have a conversation with their son. And a parent may feel like, well, no, my son knows what I expect. But in reality, it's not so much that they do or don't understand it. It's have you given him an opportunity? Have you had the conversation where you've asked him questions about, this is what I expect. Are you agreeing to be committed to this? Because when they don't have the conversation, naturally, when the kid does something on the baseball field that maybe goes against what they expected, what happens? The parent's frustrated. He's angry at the pair or at the. At the player. And the player naturally is defensive, saying like, come on, mom and dad, like, you're too hard on me. This is a little ridiculous. Which then naturally leads to burnout or just frustration or the thing that every parent complains about, which is, my son doesn't listen to me. Right. So instead, sit down, have a conversation. It doesn't need to be contentious. It. Just ask him a question. Hey, what do you. I know what I want to get out of this for you. What do you want to get out of this? And are you committing to actually doing the thing that I think you should do to get that?
- [64:25]
B
Yeah. And I've had to have that conversation with all three of my boys over the years. And even at 19 and in pro ball, Connor, he. He'll tell you, he said it before on podcast that he knows that I have expectations for him because I know how good he can be. And I'm not going to ask him to try to do something if I don't believe it's going to help him. Or on the flip side, I'm not going to tell him not to do something if I think it's not going to help him. Yeah, I have that conversation with my oldest son, Canon, when he was playing baseball. I. He knew what I expected out of him because I knew how good that he could be. And he was very good at listening and trying to do what I asked him to do. Cadence. The same way right now in basketball, he's on a team where he don't have to be an offensive contributor. But the biggest thing he's got to do is he's got to give effort. He's got to have a great attitude. He's got to rebound and play defense. He don't have to score because he's not asked to. He's got to accept that and be good at those things. And then the rest will come as he gets older and, and, and he's going to have to be the leader in years to come. So. All my kids, they know what I expect out of them, but I'm not going to be mad at them when they don't accomplish what my expectations are. And I think a lot of parents have a negative relationship with their kids because they get mad at their kid if they don't live up to their expectations. And that's not a good father, son, mother, daughter, father, daughter, mother, son relationship to have if, if you treat your kids that way. So, yeah, love doing this today. I appreciate you having me.
- [66:10]
A
Absolutely.
- [66:10]
B
It's been fun.
- [66:11]
A
Tell everybody if they want to reach out to you, their daughter plays softball. What's the best way to communicate?
- [66:18]
B
Email K, Griffin. G R I F F I n@belhaven edu. And people a lot of times misspell Bellhaven. It's only one L. So K. Griffin at Belhaven and my wife's cell phone number. No, I'm just.
- [66:35]
A
That's great. Yeah.
- [66:36]
B
She'd kill me.
- [66:37]
A
I love it.
- [66:37]
B
But our contact information is on our website.
- [66:41]
A
Okay.
- [66:42]
B
We've been a top 10 program for several years now. Finished national runner ups two years ago. We've got a good thing going at Belhaven. And just if you've got a good softball player, don't limit it to Division one. You can come, have a great experience and have a chance to compete for championships at a place like Belhaven. University.
- [66:59]
A
I love it. We mentioned Clint Hurdle earlier. He actually just came out with a new book, Hurdle Isms. Go check it out. And then I mentioned Walter Bey. You should check out his podcast as well, which is a really good resource. BD Baseball. And another good resource for everybody is Matt Antonelli, who is an ex pro ballplayer who's now coaching a college as well. So thank you everybody. It's been a blast. Kevin, thank you. It.