← Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen
Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen
Jackson, Ethan AND Matt Holliday | How the Holliday Family is Taking Over Baseball
00:34:02
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- [00:00]
A
Hey everyone, what's up? It's Greg Olson. I just wrote the very first issue of the Youth Inc. Newsletter and I wrote it for you. Whether you're a parent, a coach, an athlete, this newsletter is here to inform, inspire and entertain anyone who cares about youth Sports. Go to youth.innewsletter and sign up today. It's free. It's for our community and we are just getting started. We all want youth sports to be better. Join the movement. What's up everybody? Welcome back to a. To a really fun, probably a highly anticipated episode here on. You think. We, we kind of have a. An idea board where we say, okay, who are our ultimate guests? What are the stories? What are the families? What are the personalities that best wrap up the ideas and the conversations we're trying to have here on our youthink platform? And at the top of the list are the Holiday boys. And I'm sure they're household names now and everyone understands but Matt Holiday, obviously former big leaguer, all star everything. And the journey of his two boys, Jackson and Ethan, you know, number one overall picks, we think another number one overall pick. We'll, we're going to get into all of that. But, you know, in a lot of ways you guys kind of, you know, are the, you guys are the story of the youth sports scene multi generations. How do dads coach their kids? And we're going to cover everything and everything. So Matt, Jackson, Ethan, I appreciate you guys joining us here on you think.
- [01:27]
B
Yeah, thanks for having us.
- [01:28]
C
Yeah, glad to be here.
- [01:30]
A
Well, I think it's pretty fitting. So just tell us where you guys are. So we're going to have some video to this. So like that, that feels to me like when you walk in, it's like this is where it all started. Like this is the origin story of the Holiday boys. Like, where are you guys?
- [01:44]
C
So we're, we have on our property we have a barn. I say barn loosely. A metal building that has now it has a batting cage in it and a pickleball court. And this is where we do a lot of our hitting stuff. But we've really only had it probably for almost two years now of as a. With a batting cage in. And it was just kind of a sport court type basketball setup. But the boys wanted a cage and I wanted pickleball. So we, we've transitioned it into. Into pickleball and baseball. And so this is. We spent a lot of time here. I was telling you before we came on, this is the quietest space we have. We have lots of dogs and Loud dogs. And so this is. This is our best bet at quiet. And so here we are in our batting cage, pickleball arena.
- [02:38]
A
I love it. It feels like a very. A very fitting location for us to have this conversation because we're going to dive into kind of the whole story and where it all started. But I guess first things first. And this is for the two boys. So Jackson, Ethan, feel free one of you to jump in. So your old man, right, he's a.300 lifetime hitter. 300 plus home runs, 1200. I mean, the guy. The guy's done everything. So I guess the first question, baseball fans around the country want to know, like, which one of you is better than him? Like, who's breaking all of his records? Like, who's gonna sit at Thanksgiving and the holidays and be like, all right, I got the highest MLB batting average. Which one's it going to be?
- [03:14]
D
Hopefully both of us. Hopefully we can.
- [03:16]
B
Hopefully both can.
- [03:17]
D
Yeah.
- [03:18]
A
So. So dad's going to be in third.
- [03:20]
D
We're going to try our best. You know, it's a long road ahead of us, but we're going to try our best. We got our goal. We've kind of have a loose goal of, like, having the most home runs in a family or trying. Trying to do something like that. But I think Barry Bonds probably. Probably covers a lot of his dad's home runs, so we've got a long way to go. But no, it's pretty awesome to have a dad that had such an unbelievable career and we're lucky enough to be able to grow up and in that and be able to go to the clubhouse and hang out. But, yeah, hopefully one day we can climb to the. To the mountaintop.
- [03:53]
A
Is there, like a bet. Is there. Is there a bet amongst the families? Like, when it's all said and done, like, whoever's in last has to, like, is it like, you know, fantasy football drafts where, like, the loser has to do something embarrassing? Is there any. Are there any stakes on this?
- [04:06]
C
Maybe we should. Maybe we should make one.
- [04:08]
A
We should make them right now. I feel like we should make them right now. On. On.
- [04:11]
D
You think we have one for lifting for me and. And him a long time ago, but the big guy tore his hip in half, so he's got no labrum in there, and so we can't.
- [04:23]
C
I don't.
- [04:23]
D
I think kind of got a disqualified Matt.
- [04:26]
A
These guys don't understand how. How hard it is to get old. Yeah, I got her playing tennis a couple weeks ago.
- [04:32]
C
We. We had. We had a couple Bets on. On lifts. I. I think I'm still in good. A good place. Probably not the legs. The leg workout, just because as you. As you know, when you get done, you get done playing. The motivation to do an extremely hard leg workout is. Is just not quite what it used to be. So we had. We had something on the line for that. But I definitely think that there's. I'm open to having a competition and a bet that if, you know, if they can't beat me in certain categories, someday, somebody has to cash in with something. So if you've got any good ideas, big or small, we're all ears.
- [05:14]
A
Well, with the amount of money you've probably spent on literally 5 minutes before I just came on here, I had to buy my. So my kid now is playing middle school baseball, so now they're doing BB core. So for the first. I don't even know what a BB core bat is like. We were growing up, like, you just used your buddy's bat. Like, whatever bat they brought into the dugout, we used it. So I'm, like, researching BB core bats, and he's telling me that this bat stinks. And I look at it, it's 500, and it's hard for me to believe it stinks. I almost feel like your swing needs to be a little bit better. So I can only imagine how much money you've spent. So maybe there's like a. Hey, I'm keeping tabs here on all this. This batting cage ain't free. This barn, you're in a. Free these. You know, I don't know if they're getting lessons, because they're probably just doing it at home, but I'm sure their bill is pretty high that they could start paying off here one day.
- [05:57]
C
Yeah, I like that. I'll. I'll start keeping tabs. I'm gonna. I'll write them a bill at the end of their. Their career. If they can't beat me, then they'll pay it all back. Yeah.
- [06:04]
A
Tell my kids. It's like, we got $500 bats. We got three hits. Like, let's. Let's pick it up here. The hell are we doing? All right, so, Jackson, what. You know, you're. You got to be a senior. You pretty much live the life that your brother now is living. You've been there. You've gone through the. The highs and the lows and the ups and downs expectation. When you guys are having those moments, like, give us a little insight into what are you telling him? Like, what can you share from your experience, fame at a young age. We're seeing it more and more nowadays than ever before with social media. We know who the best players are in Oklahoma, we know who the best players are in California from the time they were 12, 13 years old. Going to select fest and all these things. So what is the advice you've learned from your journey that now you can pass and share, that you share with your brother, but now you can share with all of our listeners who may find themselves in a similar situation with their son or daughter?
- [06:56]
D
Yeah, I mean a lot of what Ethan just said is kind of what, what I've been telling him as far as like kind of how he's been handling this year. I mean, I was lucky enough to, to get to play with him and I mean, I wasn't the biggest deal going into my senior year. I wasn't expected to get drafted even in the top of the first round. So high school baseball was really important for me. And it's kind of something that really helped show all of the gains that I made in between my last summer ball game and my first high school game was training and developing. And that senior year for me was really important and it kind of led me to where I got drafted. But yeah, I think enjoying it and making it a priority to have fun and enjoy playing with your teammates in high school because it's really the last time that you get to just go out and play and you're not playing to earn someone's, I guess, approval and get promoted and all that. I think high school baseball is really fun. And as far as travel ball, I think just playing for a team that values the right things, that was something that was important for us. That's why we played for the Scorpions and we didn't go out and play for these teams that I guess pick their players and just like the coach said, alright, go out and play. We played for a coach that really was intentional about growing you as a person, teaching you the right things as far as being a man and also learning how to play the game the right way. I think honestly all of my travel coaches growing up were very similar in that department. From as long as I can remember, they taught the fundamentals of the game and how to play the right way as far as hustling on and off the field and controlling what you can control. And I was very fortunate to grow up and have a lot of really good coaches. I mean, outside of him, obviously, he was fine. Yeah, he was all right.
- [08:59]
A
Dads, they don't Know shit.
- [09:00]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [09:01]
D
So whenever he was at the field, I was, I was like I said, lucky enough to have a lot of coaches that were very, I guess, hands off when it came to hitting and kind of understood how to just teach us as little kids to play the right way.
- [09:15]
A
I love it. All right, so, Matt, now I'm going to kick to you. So, right. So you see your boys, and one of them's journey is obviously very young. The other one is kind of the next phase now as he transitions to a full time big leaguer and obviously had the success he had early on in his big league career. So now just talk to us as dad, right? So for all the families that are listening, you have a son, a daughter. They show early, you know, interest in sport. They show early, you know, abilities. Maybe they have some natural, you know, natural skill sets. Give us an idea of along the way when you knew it was time to push and encourage and challenge and when you knew it was time to, okay, hey, this, this, this could be a little bit too much too early. I think that's, that's probably the most common question and the most common issue that families are going through around the country is how do I keep up and give my child every opportunity to be successful and every opportunity to keep up with the other kids he's competing against in your own town, team, community, whatever. But also understanding, at certain age, at, at certain age groups, there's different levels of appropriateness. Right. There's different levels of seriousness and whatnot. So how did you manage that from the early days and how do you still manage it now with a big league son and a high school senior?
- [10:35]
C
Yeah, I mean, look, I think if your kid has a passion to practice, I always told him, like, if you like to practice, then, then you have a chance to do this and pursue this at a high level. If this is something you want to do in your free time, is come over to the, we want to go to the cages, I'll throw to you all day. Like, you know, it's got to be your idea. And so I think that there's an element of if this is what you like to do and this is what you like to practice, then I'm all in. I want you to pursue what you like to practice, what you're passionate about.
- [11:09]
A
Yeah, it's so, it's so true. And I'll tell you. So I grew, I played baseball growing up in a limited fashion. We played on the local town, you know, all star teams or whatever in the summer. But I. I stopped playing come high school and, you know, spent more time, obviously, playing football and whatnot. So I've really learned more baseball now, just as a dad, as a youth coach, as just being around my two boys who have played it since they were five, and now they're in middle school and getting ready to kind of move on to school ball, which is awesome. So I don't have the brain for baseball. I'm the first one to admit it. Like, if I caught one out of every three passes, I'd jump off a bridge, you know, and, like, this whole notion of, like, hey, you went over four, it's okay. Like, I have a hard time processing it. So, Matt, I want to. I want to jump to you here for a second. I think, again, I'll speak first person here. One of the hardest things that I've struggled with as a dad with youth sports is feeling, is finding the right coaches to say, okay, here's my son, here's my daughter. You've got them, you have their best interest, and I'm just going to go sit over there in the corner and mind my own business. When you find those people there, it feels like you've struck gold. And sometimes you find the complete opposite. So what was your approach when you're trying to place your boys on the correct travel ball team or you're trying to decide which showcase to go to and who's running it and what camp? You know, college coaches, all the things that come with it. What were some of the factors that you looked at? What were the red flags? How did you find the best environments to not only develop your sons as men, but also then obviously develop them as athletes?
- [12:43]
C
Yeah, I would say, first of all, I would keep him away from Mark Reynolds. So, I mean, that would probably be.
- [12:47]
A
Where that's probably been my biggest mistake. That's probably been where my. My son's career. Yeah, exactly. That's well said. No, he only had 299 home runs. I think it's kind of hard to be coached by a guy who's under 300, don't you think? I mean, how do you retire at 299, Mark?
- [13:05]
C
Yeah, I know. He's unbelievable. You know, I think for me, I think sometimes you ask questions, right? You ask other people that have been coached by maybe a potential coach. Like, you know, a lot of times when we move to new cities or something, and we're looking for a team to get the boys involved with. I think doing some research on the experience that other parents have had, I Mean, maybe, just maybe asking around, asking some questions about, you know, to me, it wasn't necessarily like, I felt like, you know, and this is. I'm a little bit, you know, I guess a really different situation when it comes to baseball because I didn't really care how much knowledge they had about necessarily hitting or. Or a lot of those things because I felt like that's. That was sort of my job as a dad who played major league baseball, was to help them with those things. But I really love, you know, the people, you know, like. Like he was talking about with Johnny Goodrich, who coached the boys in summer baseball with the Scorpions, because he would challenge them on the things that I would challenge them, make sure they were playing hard, playing team baseball. And it's not just a showcase that we're out here to hit it as far as we can and to throw it as hard as we can and to run as fast. You know, aimlessly running or, you know, trying to steal because you want to. You're just trying to accumulate stats. I think teaching them how to play the game and teaching them the right way that, you know, if there's a man on second, nobody out, we're trying to get him over to help the team get another run, to help the team win. Right? That there's a. There's a. There's a way to play that wins games, and there's a way to play where a guy gets up there and doesn't matter what's going on around him, he's trying to hit a home run because he's worried about what his perfect game rating is or what college scouts watching or, you know, trying to impress. To put it on his social media. I think that's dangerous. I think that if that's the motive, I, you know, that's, you know, I know my brother's the head coach at Oklahoma State, and knowing that he's. He would rather watch a kid fight like heck to hit a grounder to second to get the runner from second to third. That says more about the player and the character of the player than if the kid gets up there and hits the foul pole on the poolside. I mean, I think that there's. There's, you know, sometimes we get caught up in the wrong things of what coaches are actually looking for. And I think that that's. That's the sign of sort of where we are, and I think we're fighting against that. Right. Of everything is the best on social media. And, you know, everybody wants to post their. Their homers and this, this narrative that it's all about you, right. And it's taken away from some of the team team aspect of baseball and football and basketball. And so I think that I was looking for coaches and finding them places to play where it was a team environment, they're trying to win, that the coach was in it for the right reasons, which I think sometimes can be tricky. But I think that that's, you know, I think that that's. Sometimes it's. You find out later that maybe you got the wrong read. But I think, you know, try to do some research, try to figure out if other people have had good experience experiences with them. But to me, finding a coach that healthy wants to win. I mean I think sometimes, you know, when you're eight and nine, if you're slamming the clipboard because you lost the game in extra innings or you throw a kid 145 pitches so that you win the championship, like I think that there's a healthy balance here. But I think the emphasis on teaching kids how to play the right way is it was important to me and I think should be important to people experience.
- [16:46]
A
I want you guys to stay there for a second. I'd be curious the boys perspective of this because So I coach 12 year olds. So my son's sixth grade team, all of our boys live within 10, 15 miles of each other. We practice together every week. We go work out in the off seasons like it is a community travel ball team and a lot of these teams will come up against. We'll have teams from all we live in North Carolina. They'll have kids from Texas, Georgia, Florida, California, they fly in. It's a different roster every weekend and again to each their own. A lot of people find a lot of pleasure in that and I have no issues with that at all. People do what they do. But I'd be curious the two boys like what your perspective as you look back. Well Ethan, you're kind of still in it but Jackson, as you look back, when you look back to your early cult travel ball days when you weren't playing with your buddies at school, like what do you remember the most? Because I try to preach to the kids like we're going to remember the off season winter workouts when all 12 of the boys were all here together. And we're going to know that after a tough loss on Sunday and bracket play come Tuesday, the same 12 boys that lost on Sunday, we're going to come back to the field on. We're going to come back to the field on Tuesday and we're going to make some mistakes and we're going to figure out why we didn't handle that bunt in the last, you know, the last inning the right way and we didn't handle our cuts and we threw a ball away and whatever the issues were that caused, we're going to coach it, we're going to fix it and we're not going to just replace you, we're going to try to actually get you better to improve it. So as you guys look back, like what would you tell these 12 year olds that want to chase the top team and the top showcase and they want to just make sure their PG ranking to your, to your, to your point Matt, is where it needs to be here in your shoes. As you look back to those 10, 11, 12 year old years, like what was important to you, getting you to where you are now versus maybe what you thought was important when you were 10 or 12.
- [18:35]
D
Oh man, I think honestly when I was 10 through 12 most of my memories are like going on like different trips with, with our team and like playing travel ball in like Kansas City or like going somewhere else in Missouri and playing in the hotels and like ding dong ditching people and like running through the halls like that's, that's what I remember the most. But I'd say one of my more memorable teams was when I was like 12 years old and and we were like one of the best teams in Missouri and we went and rolled through every team and won every tournament and I still keep in touch with some of the guys that were on that team and I think we had like, we ended up having like eight kids that went and played Division 1 baseball or something like that. Something crazy. But I just remember having so much fun playing and winning tournaments and just playing the game the right way and we like to play, play together and we went to Myrtle beach and won tournaments there and traveled all around Missouri. But that's what I remember. I remember we would hang out off the field and on weekends and we were a pretty tight knit group for 12 year olds. Like you said, you got the same group of guys and that's what we had. I didn't end up playing really travel baseball until I was about I guess 15, 16 years old was the first time I started traveling and not playing for I guess a local team. Yeah, I mean that's probably the latest.
- [20:04]
A
And I think it's a great point. So you're the number one overall pick and when you're 10 and 12, granted your teams are good. Don't get me wrong. We don't practice all year because I don't want to win. We're not big like into the whole losing thing. I say, you find me a good loser, I'll show you a loser. Like, we got to teach these kids that performance and practice and being held to a standard actually results in success both individually and and collectively. So I'm with you on the winning thing and you win as many games as you can. But there was that community component where you are playing with your buddies and you're traveling and you're in the hotel and you're going for pizza after the game and, and hanging out. And then at 15, 16, I'm assuming you start going to play for some of those bigger national teams and you're flying in with other top future college kids or MLB kids where you're putting together really top tier national teams to go against other very top tier national teams. Is that kind of an accurate description of what you did?
- [20:53]
D
Yeah, I mean, I played up, growing up a little bit. I always played on, on older teams. I always play like a year or two up until, I mean until at my last year travel bowl, even, even my second to last year playing, I was playing on with teams that were seniors and guys that were a year older than me and, and I enjoyed it. But yeah, I think I was proud of probably 16 when I started traveling and, and I guess meeting up. But it was with that Scorpion team and I end up playing for them for, for two years. But yeah, I'd say I was on the later side as far as going to Atlanta and, and Hoover and, and all these tournaments.
- [21:32]
A
So what about. So Ethan, so, so your, your brother. Typically what I find is like the younger brother gets into it faster just because they kind of do what the older brother does. So Ethan, what, what was your baseball like? What, when did the travel real high level, competitive national baseball world start for you?
- [21:52]
B
I want to say I played on my first team in Florida when I was 14, maybe going into my freshman year. I want to say.
- [21:59]
A
So this is all big field. So you guys are all now on the 60, 90, you're all on the big field.
- [22:03]
B
It might have been a year earlier. It might have been going into my eighth grade. My eighth grade school year. Yeah. So pretty early. But like, same with Jackson. Like we, I played in Missouri with a really good team. We boat race teams and we played in big, big tournaments in Missouri, went to Kansas City, all these fun things. But we both played for the same Summer coach in Florida named the Scorpions. Johnny Goodrich was our head coach, so just having him was huge during that whole process. And yeah, I mean, travel baseball is awesome. There's some amazing things in travel baseball, but there's also some things that I would recommend people just being careful with and not getting too caught up in the media. There's a lot of social media going around and travel baseball and youth baseball, and I know kids love it, but just not just not getting your head wrapped around it too much. So, I mean, travel baseball is great. And yeah, we had a good experience with, with all of our travel teams.
- [23:02]
A
That's awesome. Matt, speak for your brother? I know he's coach at Oklahoma State and obviously you guys have a close relationship with a lot of coaches all around the country. All. What would you say to the families that. That say your kid doesn't get recruited at high school. Your kid's getting recruited off the summer circuit. He's getting recruited out of showcases. Go to everyone you can. None of the college guys care what he does for his high school team. Is that real or would you, would you counter that?
- [23:27]
C
Yeah, I don't, I don't think that's real. I mean, I think that obviously, if you can, if you, if you wind up in a pocket and at the USA team, you know, there's a, there's a tournament that they have that's got a lot of the, the top travel teams in Cary at the USA complex, right?
- [23:44]
A
Yeah, that's not far from us.
- [23:46]
C
You, if you wind up playing in that tournament, yeah, there's going to be a lot of college coaches there, but there's also a lot of college coaches. So say you live in North Carolina, right? So at high school, the NC State coach, the UNC coach, the Duke coach, coach, all those coaches, East Carolina, Norby will get mad. So those coaches are keeping tabs and hearing from high school coaches and they know the high school coaches in the area and they're friends with the high school coaches and they say, hey, hey, Coach Avent at NC State, like, you know, I got a player. You know, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a sophomore, a junior. You need to keep your eye on him. Like he's, he's a good player. So what does he do on the next off day they have, where that high school's playing? He drives over there and watches. Right. And so he invites him to camp. If kids want to get recruited, especially now that they've changed the rules a little bit where you can't get offered till your junior year and you can't take business until your junior year. If you want to get recruited, you should go to camps of the schools that you want to go to and if you can't afford that, then play high school baseball and, and do some, some travel if you can to. But the idea that you only get recruited if you play in every single perfect game or PBR tournament is not true. I mean, they found. I tell people this all the time. There was a guy named Bobby Jinx that pitched for the Chicago White Sox and scouts found him. He wasn't in high school, he wasn't enrolled in school. He was throwing a bullpen. He threw a bullpen in a bar in south or North Dakota somewhere and the scouts found it right. He ended up playing in the major leagues. And, and so the idea that somehow you have to play in X number of tournaments or you have to play in this term or that tournament for colleges to look at you to get a scholarship, to get recruited by the school that you want to go to is, is not true at all. It's not true. And it's, it's, it's actually quite the opposite. I think like you said, people. My brother goes to high school games all the time and especially in the area that he can get to, you know, on an off day or on a day where, you know, they don't have a game and there's a high school game.
- [25:52]
A
So.
- [25:53]
C
Yes. Are there some tournaments during the summer where there's, it's easy for colleges to kind of congregate and see a lot of players in a short amount of time? Yeah, that, that's true. But I think if, if I was recommending, you know, wanting to get looked at by a certain, a handful of schools, like if I was talking to you and your kids were interested in playing college baseball, I would tell them to go to the North Carolina camp, to the NC State camp, to the Duke. You know why? Because coaches are looking at kids there and they're looking and they say, oh, you know what, you got some talent for a 13 year old. I'm going to keep an eye on you and you should come next year to this camp and then now to build a rapport, you know, the coaches, because you're a dad and you got your kid at his camp and now all of a sudden you like what he does or you like this coach, you like that coach and he likes you. And now all of a sudden when you, when you sign to go to that school, you know what you're going to get. And I think that, to me, that that seems like the healthiest model to try to find a school in a school like your kids.
- [26:54]
A
Yeah. Because as a football guy there, you know, there was no such. Nowadays, there's like seven on seven. So that's like our version of travel baseball. But again, it's not the same sport necessarily as traditional football. But there you only got recruited out of high school, like, there was no such. So, like, I'm. It always, like, I can't wrap my head around it when I hear all these people, like, talking down about high school sports. That's why I love hearing Ethan. He's gonna be the top pick in the draft. And he's sitting here saying, I can't wait to play high school baseball. I can't wait to play with my buddies. Like, I think that is so important for all these other families out there whose kid is not going to be the first overall pick in the draft, let alone have two, and say, nah, it's all about the summer. My high school team doesn't work. My coach doesn't know any of these coaches. And I just sit there and I look at them and I'm like, man, I don't know who's telling you this, but I'm out of. I don't know a lot about baseball, but that just. That doesn't seem right. Like, that doesn't seem like that's the.
- [27:47]
C
Way it goes, you know, I think, you know, his first game, probably March 1st, there'll be. There'll be 50 to 100 scouts there. I mean, you know, I mean, if high school baseball didn't matter, why would they come? Right? I mean, they've already seen him play in the summer, you know, and so if high school baseball didn't matter then, then they wouldn't bother coming to high school games.
- [28:09]
A
Yeah, and they'll be there, no question. And if I'm on your brother's staff and I'm at Oklahoma State, and he says, hey, you need to go watch Ethan Holiday. He's not my nephew. He's just the next best player in the area. I want you to go watch him. You know what? I'm coming to watch him. I saw him in summer ball. I saw him at all the showcases. I saw him against the best talent the country has, and I know how good he is. You know what I want to see? I want to see how he interacts with his buddies. I want to see how his teammates that know him, that go to school with him. If he strikes out, they come and slap him on the ass in the dugout. Or they kind of look away and go, shit, he ain't that good. He's an asshole. Like, I. I could learn more about watching Ethan playing in a high school game with the people who know him the best and the community that knows him the best better than if he flew in to play on the best team in the country and he's just out there saying, hey, I just got to worry about me. Score means nothing. These aren't my buddies. These aren't my friends. I'm out here just trying to get mine. I can learn more about him in two innings. Watching him play high school baseball, and he could strike out every time. And I don't even care. Like, that's not why I'm there. So I couldn't agree with you more, man. You could learn. High school sports is where you learn who. Who you are, what you're about. And, you know, the way everyone else treats him in the dugout will tell you how he treats all of them throughout the course of the year.
- [29:24]
B
Totally agree.
- [29:25]
C
Yeah, I totally agree. That's been our experience as well.
- [29:27]
A
Well, all right, I got one more question for each boy, and I'm gonna let you guys roll. All right, so, Ethan, I'm gonna start with you. Just touch one more time. Just going forward, give me your goals, give me what you're. What. What is. I'm gonna step back. What does your life look like between now high school graduation and then again summer draft, and we'll let all that sorted out. Like, I think it's so Easy for my 13 and 12 year old boys to follow you on PG and follow you on all the showcases and play in the all American games and go, this kid is so good. He hits the ball so hard. I don't think they really know what you do on a daily basis to be the best player in the country. Like, give us an idea of your schedule, your day, your routine, what do you do that goes into what then everyone sees when they show up at the ballpark.
- [30:16]
B
Yeah, well, I don't go to school. I do online school, so that's kind of a.
- [30:21]
A
Hold on. We can't skip over that. You're burying the lead. Hold on, how do. Why do you just have enough credits? Or, like, how do you not go to school now? My kids are like, see, dad, you don't know shit.
- [30:31]
C
So when Covid happened, they offered a virtual, like, online version of high school here in Oakland, in Oklahoma. In Stillwater. And so Jackson, like, you know, nobody was going to school for a while, right? And then they kept the same program. So basically, you can still do your. Your school online here and be a Stillwater High student, but you just. Because it's blog scheduling. So you have four classes. So he has four online classes.
- [31:00]
A
So every. Every kid in America, right. Every kid in America right now is going to mom and dad saying, see, I want to be the number one pick. All right, so. All right, so now tell me your day, because I'm fascinated. Tell me your day. It sounds incredible. So it sounds like my day.
- [31:16]
B
I don't sleep till 11. Jackson says I don't sleep till 11. What time did you get up this morning? I Woke up at 8.
- [31:24]
C
8.
- [31:25]
A
That's a good. That's a good time. That's a good time.
- [31:27]
B
Yeah, I got up at 8. We went. We drove an hour and a half to Tulsa.
- [31:31]
C
We.
- [31:31]
B
We did our speed work and our agility. We drove home. We're doing this now, and then I'm about to go to practice, and then I'm gonna lift after practice, and then I'm gonna hang out with the family and then go to sleep.
- [31:42]
A
So obviously. So this is a public school.
- [31:45]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:46]
A
So this is a public school. Are you the only. Like, how many other kids on your team do this?
- [31:50]
B
There's three kids that do it full time, and then, like, probably half the team does it.
- [31:55]
A
They do.
- [31:56]
B
Like, I love it.
- [31:58]
A
So in essence, again, all joking aside for what the future looks like over the next couple months for you, you're really just able to get a head start on what pro ball slash college ball. You know, whatever direction you go, kind of. It's going to resemble more of what that schedule will look like. You're just getting a. You're just getting a little bit of a head start.
- [32:19]
B
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, we. We spend usually the whole day doing some sort of. Some sort of training to help us in baseball, whether it's lifting, going to the speed guy, hitting, taking ground balls, doing extra stuff before practice, doing extra stuff after practice, going to sport event. Like, we. We love going to sporting events. Like, we really respect. I really respect other athletes. I love watching them perform the stuff that they. They put so much time in. But, I mean, yeah, we get after it. Like, Jackson's been here for three months or so, and we've gotten after it every single day. And we'll continue to do that. We've always done that. It's something I love. Like, I love getting better every day. I love just thinking 1% better every single day. I like to think, like, earning my shower. I like to earn my shower at the end of the day.
- [33:14]
A
That's good.
- [33:15]
B
Yeah, I want to get after it. And we, we eat super healthy. We eat super clean. That's kind of been engraved in us since we were little with my mom and dad. So, yeah, we dedicate a lot of. A lot of time and energy into being, I guess, great baseball players, but also great humans and.
- [33:34]
A
Yeah, so I'm jealous. I'll be honest. I'm jealous. That sounds incredible. Listen, I can't thank you guys enough. You guys, when I tell you have been at the top of my list of like, how do I get these three guys all together and just tell your story as sons, as brothers, father, all of it is just everything that we talk about. And it doesn't hurt, obviously, that in a couple months it could go two for two for the holiday boys as number one overall picks.