Cross-Functionality: Guest Co-Host --- Patrick Mur

Welcome to another episode. This is Cross Functionality. Episode 17, the show, the podcast connecting coaching, baseball and softball, male and female hosted by former college baseball and softball players. Unfortunately, that softball player isn't here this week because she's getting married, but we did dig into our respective foam books and we dug up Cassie's former coach at the University of Alabama. So please welcome, given nice round

of applause to championship softball winning coach at the University of Alabama. Roll tide Patrick Murphy. Pat, how are you? Thanks for doing this. Oh, yeah, no problem. I know that you guys, I'm sure you went through your role of decks and you got all the way to the end before you, but he said yes. So I appreciate it and I, hey, I love your story. I

love talking to former athletes and I am so proud of Cassie. She has a great gentleman that she's going to marry. We're all up in Connecticut. Just going to have a great time and celebrate her and her family and it's going to be an awesome weekend. But thanks for having me on. Well, and I'm glad to have you on and get a chance to pick your

brain on a lot of things. I want to talk about your journey, talk a little bit about that 2012 national championship team and of course what you look for in prospective student athletes in current day, 2022, because when I certainly played when Cassie played 10 years ago, it was a lot different when I was being recruited like Cassie 13 years ago. It was a lot different.

But let's start a little bit with your journey and where you began starting at a division to institution and then you made that jump to the University of Alabama as an assistant coach and then of course you were elevated. I'm not mistaken now. You have had a successful to say the least lack of a better term, almost successful career at the University of Alabama. But you

started at that division to institution. Where were some of the things that you learned there and that you've taken with you to the University of Alabama? Well, it was a small rural school in Maryville, Missouri. And I had been an assistant at Louisiana Lafayette and one of the players at Northwest Missouri, I knew from Iowa. And her dad and her and a couple other people had

called me and said, hey, our job is open. You should apply. And I'd never been there. I wanted to be a head coach, so I did apply. And the head coach had left like in November, which obviously is, you know, that is weird timing. Any head coaching position that leaves in the middle of the year. But so I think that helped me in terms of getting

the job. I got the job. I moved down there in January. I lived with the two baseball GAs because it was a quick, it was called an interim position. And I just absolutely loved it. It was about a 4,000, 5,000 person school, Maryville small. Kansas City was close. Des Moines isle was close. Omaha Nebraska was close. St. Louis was fairly close. You know, it's in a

great area. And just great people and. We had a, I learned a lot. Did it all basically. We played at a city park. The whole thing was just very, very enjoyable. We had a great year. Beat the number one team in the country like eight to nothing. Run rule them in a tournament. Had a great record. But at the end of it, they really wanted somebody

with a PE masters degree because all the coaches at Northwest also are professors. Right. And my master's degree is in mass communication with advertisers. And so then you went on to become the head coach. And you've led the University of Alabama to 11 World Series. And of course, you know, championships and, I mean, the list goes on and on and on. I mean, the 2020 championships.

Right. And at the beginning I started applying for jobs in the SEC. And then that's what the SEC started was ball, 96 spring, 97 was the actual plane. So I was lucky enough to get a job at Alabama. As the assistant coach for the first two years of the program. A very impressive resume. Now fast forward to that 2011 season first. We'll start there. Because in

2011, you actually signed a contract. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. And you're smiling. So I think I may be right. You signed a contract to become the head coach, the head softball coach at LSU. You actually signed the contract. But then you backed out and you remained at Alabama. And Cassie and I talked about leading up to that 2012 championship season in previous episodes. So

if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the podcast Apple Google Spotify. And of course, softball strength Academy YouTube page to watch the show. And there are so many things. So many, so many elements that were thrown in front of you guys road bumps that in 2011 that you had to deal with. But then there's that one unknown with you. And you almost left for

LSU. And then of course, went back to the University of Alabama. What was that process like for you and what made you make that final decision? I was, you know, that was, we just got back from the World Series. And I literally was getting off the plane. And I noticed my phone was ringing. And it was a Bat Rouge number. And I thought it was my

old head coach that I worked with at Louisiana Lafayette, who's my mentor and got me started. And it was actually the AD at LSU. And, you know, he was super good guy. And basically said, I'm going to make one call and hopefully this is it. And we want you to be our coach. And I was shocked. And, you know, literally we get off the plane. We

had a hell of a year. And you know, as a former athlete that that last final like out. You've worked 10, 11 months with this team with this group. And then all of a sudden, boom, it's over. Right. And, you know, it's just like, I mourned. And for like a month. And my family knows that. My friends know that like don't even try to find me

type of guy. And then boom. And, you know, it was a shock. It was, it was kind of a, obviously it was a great hit to my ego because, you know, that's, that was pretty cool that they wanted me. And I mean, they did that did everything right. And eventually we get down there and it just, you know, I had. Cassie and her senior class back

at home. And just that feeling of leaving them. And the whole thing just, you know, it was just. I could write a book on that 48 hours for sure. And it was extremely difficult to say sorry to LSU. And, you know, they did everything right. I probably did everything wrong. But at the end, you know, that next year, Jim. We won an athlete championship. And it

was just like how the hell did all this happen? And it all fell into place. And, you know, it was just, it's the weirdest journey I've ever been through. Here in that story, it solidifies my belief that everything in life is timing. There's a lot of things, external factors that are out of our control. And life is about time, all about timing. I feel like just

hearing you talk right there and tell that story that if it was a different year, everything that happened in 2011 from the tornado to that heartbreaking loss at the end. With that unfinished business, the early 11 months that led up to going deep into the postseason and then losing. Cassie senior class coming back next year, if it was a different year later after 2011 or before

2011. Would you have actually taken the job and never looked back or was it just those external factors that kind of came into play. That's a very good question. And I have no idea. But, you know, obviously, LSUs are great athletic school. You know, it's a flagship of that state. And anybody there, they know the Tigers and their, you know, Gerard had built this beautiful stadium.

It was probably one of the best ones in college softball at the time. And the whole thing was just surreal, really. And the tug of being an Alabama from the very beginning. That was probably the biggest thing. You know, I can tell you what every player in the history of our program or where she's at, if she's married, if she has kids, what her job is,

the whole thing. Every one of them. There's about 160 alarms right now from 1997 to today. And it was just like this, you know, when we have a reunion, 88% of the people come back. And it's seriously a family reunion. And so that that tug of all that. And it's really played into it as well. You know, it sounds like you hear that. I heard a

story once. You hear that a lot about a lot of coaches. I heard a story once about Bobby Bowden. He had a player who played for him back in. I think it was the early 2000s. Maybe it was the late 90s. And this is when he was getting older into his life and do his 80s. And that player went up to him and introduced, reintroduced himself.

And Bobby said, oh, I remember who you are. So it's an amazing attribute that coaches can remember all the players that they've had. And then however many players that was, was now, let me ask you one more question about possible when you were possibly going to leave for LSU. And when you turned them down, you had that phone call that said, Hey, guys, I'm not coming

anymore. Were you worried that this was going to black ball you from the coaching industry? And were you comfortable with saying, you know what? I might be at the University of Alabama. I may be their head softball coach for the rest of my career, or as long as they may have me. Well, the the. The system actually called me on that Sunday morning. And we had

we go to church together. Him and his wife were big, big fans of the program, you know, and he was the. The top boss of the Alabama system. So there's three schools, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville and Birmingham. And he called and you know he's like, you know, how can we make this ride? And he said, I'll send the school plane. I mean, he basically. Submitted everything and and

say, I'm going to go back to the University of Alabama in 2012. What approach did you take as a coach? Cassie and I talked about it last week. How you coached your players to be able to coach themselves. You were very, very good at that. But what approach did you take with you, yourself, your coaching staff. In getting over the hump that year. This is, again,

the fall of 2011 going into the 2012 season. What approach did you guys take? That you know, would be foolproof to get you guys to that elusive national championship. Well, you know, there's, you can work the hardest that you can possibly work. You can, you can be in like plan with everything that coaching staff does. You can buy in. You can, I mean, everything you can

do perfectly as an athlete, as a coach, whatever. And at the very, very end, if somebody hits a Texas leader that hits the, the chalk line and it's fair by half an inch and they have the winning run at third. You lose. So, you know, in sports, it's a cruel, cruel game like that because you could do everything right. And at the end, not win it

all. Yeah. And you're done. We had gone eight times. And I think that was the eight time that we went. And after every year, I'd come back. I do like a complete overhaul or study of the program, strengthen conditioning, academics. Everything, athletic trainer, the whole thing, coaching, position coaching, everything, the players, the coaches. I mean, and I'd always say, what are we doing wrong? What are

we doing wrong? What are we, what do we got to change? And, you know, sometimes it was just. Luck of the draw, you know, we got, we got a bad call one year at third base where, you know, the ball missed my third baseman's glove. And they call it a fair ball and two runs scored. We lose, you know, three to two. And it was like

the seventh inning. You know, things like that. And, but if you can look yourself in the mirror and say, I did everything that I could possibly do to help my team win, whether you win or lose, you've done it right. So, you know, and that team was kind of like that. We've had a lot of teams like that, to be honest with you. And it's just

a, uh, in the end, it's, you have to remember the bigger picture always in sports. So it's not about the almighty W or L because we were, we rarely see that. We're gonna say, we're gonna win or we're gonna lose whatever. We don't use those two words. It's, you know, remembering the bigger picture always that this is setting you up for the rest of your life.

You're gonna learn these lessons right now. And when you have, when you get married and when you have kids and when your, you know, parents get older and all the things that hits you in life, you will, you will be prepared for it. And, uh, always remember the bigger picture. It's not about the W. So, and I think that's the way to get the best of

the best of the world. I think that team has it or had it. I think a lot of my teams realize that because, you know, Jim, there's only like you know in college baseball. There's 307, I think division one softball programs. Only one gets to raise the trophy in the end. What do the other 305? Tip their caps to, you know, are we all considered, you

know, also rands or whatever because we lost. So there have been a lot of things that we've been doing. It has to be a bigger picture involved. And, you know, in your plan for something bigger than yourself, you're gonna have lifelong friends like Cassie probably has 15 former teammates here this weekend. And three coaches and it's gonna be incredible. And if we weren't like that. This

the crowd that's here would be here. So I think that's the cool part of the intercollegiate athletic program is the friends for life. And, you know, you can pick up the phone and start talking to somebody. And even though you haven't talked them for three years, it's like you saw me yesterday. So the bigger picture is the most important thing. Yeah. I think I just found

the title of today's episode by the way. Thank you very much. Sometimes the episodes write themselves. It sounds to me. What I gather, everything that you just said, you've instilled this in your players and in your program. That's kind of one of the main pillars of your program. And you see it with someone who you work with. In the athletic department at the University of Alabama,

Nick Sabin, he's instilled certain pillars in that program. And players fall into that system. I'm not talking about the X's and O's. I'm talking about the other external. It's the word of the show. By the way, there's other external factors. And it seems like that you've put together a plan for your program. That's been full proof that doesn't really involve the X's and O's. It more

involves just the program and the health and longevity of a successful softball collegiate division one program. I definitely believe that. And you know, he calls it the process. Right. And I see him every Sunday at Mass. We're both Catholic. And he never misses. When lose or draw, he's always there, which is very admirable. But he definitely has a system in place. And he also never talks

about, we got to win this game. And he doesn't want to look at the scoreboard at any time. The scoreboard is a revelant. Because you're playing to beat the guy in front of you. And you want to beat him for four quarters, not for a quarter, not for half, not for three, but for four. And can you do that? Can you dominate him for four quarters?

Just like a pitcher for us. Are you going to pitch really well for three innings, five innings? Are you going to dominate him for seven innings? So he'll come to talk to the team as well. And always in the spring because he's way too busy in the fall. But every time he comes, you know, everybody, you know, you kind of hear it from somebody else and

kind of saying the same thing that I say for years. But when it comes from somebody else in a little different way, man, it hits home. And every single time he has a message that resonates with everybody on the team. And what I love at Alabama is I love that I'm a spring sport. And he's a fall sport. And we have had our soccer team this

year. Number one in the country got the number one seed in the NCAA tournament. It just beat somebody last night, nine and nothing. But we get to, you know, in their right across the street from us on campus. So our kids and their kids have become really good friends. I'm really good friends with their coach. And everything that they do, we get to talk about everything

that football does. We get to talk about it. Maybe something happens that wasn't good. I get to learn from that and maybe we not do it in the spring. So I absolutely love having a fall to go through learn from coach, save and learn from Westheart. And I'm a boss country team at Alabama, both one SEC championships. So you get to see all that success. And

then you kind of like, okay, this is what we want to do. This permeates throughout the whole athletic department. So when he comes, so when he comes in, it's like hearing that other voice, other than your parents voice, right, when their parents try to teach their kids or try to coach their kids. They hear it from here a different voice, but the same message. It's just

it kind of resonates differently, I guess, right? Wow, absolutely. So if you were to come in, and talk about intangibles, you would be, you know, Godlike. But even though I had just said it two weeks before that, you know, just a different message. But it's almost like when somebody else affirms the message that I'm giving, it just, it's solid. Right. And we had several of our

alums come back a couple of weeks ago. And Cassie was one of them. And she got to talk to the team. And they just absolutely, absolutely loved, you know, everything she had to say and how she said it and her presence is just so professional. And it was just so good to see, you know, Kayla bro was another one. She talked about being the best lead

off in the country. Excuse me. And just everything that they said really hit home with everyone of our players. Sure, sure. So the reason I bring up the 2012 national championship team and winning that, you know, I know there's some sort of, I don't want to say too much about it, but there's some sort of documentary that's coming out about that team. I want to get

your thoughts because Cassie and I have discussed it just about how crazy that final championship game was with the rain delay. And I mean, people were bouncing off the wall. How did you keep the girls calm? And because at the time when the rain delay happened, you guys were in the deficit. How did you keep the girls calm and get them. And then you were in

the deficit to reshift their mindset, that focus to then later on once the rain delay was over coming back and winning that championship. Well, it was almost like a, you know, we were supposed to start it. I think it was seven. Yeah, and then we had a delay and then shoot. I don't think we started until 10 30 maybe. And now you're sitting in a makeshift

locker room. And you know she said that she mentioned how it was really, really good. The conditions in the locker room weren't exactly, they weren't exactly pristine for lack of better. We were running out of snacks. Yeah. Yeah. Every five minutes I'd walk, I've watched a player walk across to see what's in the snack table. And it was win-lain like crazy. We're worried about that. But,

you know, little games and charades and cards and, you know, you name it for a three hour rain delay. And see there's nothing on TV because they were going to mess us up. We were bored in the locker room. But once we got out there, it was, you know, it was for all the marbles. And, and we had another rain delay. And we just, we just

wanted to play. And our fans and our, our dugout, obviously showed that on TV. And, you know, was 16 years that year. You know, we never lost two games in a row. All year. And I think we were, I don't even remember 16 or 8 maybe. We played 68 games. We never lost back to back. And we lost the first game of the series, the money

night. And then I was like, you know what? Let's see because we've never lost two games in a row. And, and then we scored eight runs against one of the best fitters in the country in the next night. And then won the finale. And, I just think with, with those 16 years and everybody had a different personality and Cassie was more business like than, than most

of them. But, you know, everybody's personality blended perfectly. What they brought to the table just fit in tremendously. And we needed everybody, you know, I say this all the time. You're. Wanted appreciated and needed on the team. So you definitely wanted. You're really appreciated. But you needed to. What you bring to the table is needed to us for us to win. And so many. Not necessarily

kids nowadays, but I think parents don't realize that you don't have to play. You don't have to be on the field. You don't have to be on the court to help a team win. There's there. We had so many kids that year that, you know, we had 10 people in the lineup because, you know, D H and. Right. That's true. But there was 10 kids not

playing. Those 10 kids, if we don't have those 10, we don't win. And I just I wish that parents would realize that their kid can bring so much to the table. And then I just, I just, I wish that parents would realize that their kid can bring so much to the table. On the bench in a role position. It just it needs to be said over

and over and over because, you know, if we only had 10 people, we never would have one. We had to have another 10. Yeah. No. Is that like a, like a depth thing is what you're saying. Yeah, I'm just just all the intangibles that. Those young ladies brought to us was unbelievable. Right. Right. Two of them are on my staff right now and they didn't play

that year. Yeah. It's not like them because you're the number one pitcher. I'm going to love you more and your ring is going to be big fat ring and the girl that's the pinch runner. She's going to get the tiny ring. That's not the way it goes. Right. Everybody's ring is the same size. No matter how much you play. And I'm, you know, we're going to

love every single one of you the same whether you play or you don't play. And if you go four or four or over four, we're still going to love you no matter what. So you take the coach out of the equation and then it becomes just you versus the pitcher. And when that can truly happen, I think they play a lot more free. So I think

it's about what they know about a position or skill. If they are number one, a great person. You know, I can trust them. Their demeanor. The more I'm in this and the longer I go. When I first meet someone. The demeanor is what I look for. When I first talk to you before we got on camera. I was like, I could be friends with this guy.

I appreciate it. Yeah. It's because I'm good. I'm both going to crunch fitness. I just gave crunch fitness and free plug by the way. Crunch fitness. You owe me channel side. In Tampa. Maybe I got a Northridge fitness in Tuscaloosa. Okay. You're enough. Okay. So they got a blood too. Yeah. But that demeanor part. Like can you talk to a six-year-old as easily as a six-year-old?

And I think you probably realize this. But not many kids. So I think it's about 18 to 23 right now. Can do that. It's impossible. The cell phone is ruined. That part of conversations. Right. So the demeanor work ethic, team player. Can they communicate? And the two ladies that are on staff now, one is Jaden Spencer. Who is a freshman on that team. And then Ryan

I Murray, who was a south bar on that team. And Jaden is our director of ops. And Ryan is assistant. And I think the other thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to do that. Hopefully they would say that I'm not a micro manager. When I say you're going to do this, then you're going to do this. Like the pitching coach. That's his show.

And that's not my show. So just do your job. And I'll let you do it. We're running out of time here. But I do have, we do have a little bit more time for a couple of other things that I'm interested in with you. I do wonder. You mentioned now with 18 to 23 generation and the cell phones and everything. How is recruiting change for you?

Because now you're looking at recruiting videos or at least you have the capability to watch players you might recruit seeing what they're doing, what they're saying on social media on Twitter on Facebook, maybe not Facebook anymore. I think that was kind of like a Cassian me type thing back in our generation. You can watch their videos on Instagram. You can watch their videos on TikTok. Players

are watching other players on those different platforms. And maybe there's some jealousy that comes into play as well. Maybe added pressures. They're trying to get recruited by this school because this person getting recruited here. How have you navigated recruiting in the year 2022 going into 2023 with all of this new technology? Well, I think, you know, like I probably I believe we're going to be able

to do that. Lucky, you can watch a kid, five, eight games, whatever. And you can say that kid is an athlete. She can run, she can throw, she can hit, she can play defense. Okay. That's the easy part. You and I could go to a field together. And I guarantee you that both of us would pick out the best athlete. I believe that. And they're probably

playing up the middle, right? Could be, you know, probably in summer, ball in high school. Yeah, sure. But when they come to campus and sit down, down on the couch in the clubhouse, I say that like you're here because obviously you're a great athlete. But what I want to know is what's inside you. That's the difficult part. And, you know, our rules are September 1st, we

get to call, write, text, whatever. The very first time. So you're junior, you're in high school. I'm going to call you. Well, a lot of schools will offer immediately after one phone call. And I'm like the slowest person in the world. I'm an American to recruit because I want to know what I'm getting when they get here. Much as possible. So I'm asking tons of questions.

I'm calling people. But when they get here, I say that to this, I want to know what's inside you. So when the, you know, what hits the fan. Right. How are you going to react? And it's one of my favorite questions I ask every person. And, you know, if I recruited you and your parents were sitting on the couch. And our clubhouse, I would say, Jim,

if you come to Alabama, do you know what an intansible is? And then some kids will say, yes, sir, or whatever. And they say, no. And I'll explain it to them. And then I'll say, you know, a tangible thing is something that you can see touch or feel. And, you know, I could see that you were a great athlete. But an intansible is something that you

can't see touch or feel. And it's kind of something inside you. Your parents would know exactly what I'm talking about. They could tell me right now. Jim's going to bring this to the table if he comes to Alabama. But I want to hear from you. So then I'll say again, do you understand the question? If you come to Alabama, what type of intansible would you bring

to our softball family? And then a light ball goes off. And most of the times the young lady will say, yes, sir, yes, sir, I got it. And then I shut up. And I embrace the pause. Nobody says a word. You know, the parents are sweating now because. And then I always say, you know, there's not a right or wrong answer. I just want to know

what you could bring to the table if you come here. And then when they do answer, some kids just blow you away. I mean, like, like, there's been a time where I literally got up, gave the kid a hug and said, I want you on the team. Yeah. And other times, not so much. But it's a really good question to ask. And, you know, summer juniors,

some might be a senior. But they're all old enough to kind of realize, okay, what can I bring to the table if I do come here? So it's a great question. I love to hear all the answers. We just signed a kit. You know, this past week that. I'm telling you her intangibles are so off the chart. Yeah. Like I mean, she reminds me Cassie. So

I let's brought up Cassie. And again, episode 17 of Cross Functionality against co host this week, University of Alabama softball national championship winning a coach. I might add Patrick Murphy. Pat, I wonder with Kent when you were recruiting Cassie, what did you see? What intangibles for your look? Because he was a great athlete, obviously, a great hitter. What did you see, though, with her intangibles when

you're recruiting her? Was she one of those people that you got up and hugged right away and said, I want you on this team? Yes. Absolutely. But what it was with her was her summer ball coach. You know, he invited me up to watch. And of course, the first at bat I watched she hits a home run. And she's got a sweet swing and lefty, lefty.

I love that. But then he started telling me some of her personality traits. And then we had one of her neighbors, who just a really, really good guy used to work for Nike. He emailed me unprompted. And I still have the email to this day. I've kept it forever. And it was, or I think it was around 2007. That's a long time ago. And he's like,

he says, you know, dear coach, Murphy, I'm a neighbor of Riley Boaches. And, you know, I know, you know, that Cassie's a great player. But let me tell you some things that you might not know. And he just went on and on and on about her character about her off the field. And I mean, I'm thinking, this is a neighbor that knows this much about her.

How does he know all this? And, you know, the first meeting that we had with her as a freshman, we do these things called great expectations. So the coaching staff sits in a round table situation and the athlete comes in and she sits across the room from us. And I have a piece of paper and I have Cassie Riley Boacheship at the top. And it says

great expectations. And then there's about 10 points on this sheet of paper. The only number on the paper is the GPA. And that's number 10. So it'll say expected GPA fall semester. And then we can see the next day. You know, 2008, 3.8 or whatever it might be. The coolest part of all that is when we put that number in, almost every kid has hit it.

I never include batting average. I never include ERA and never include fielding, nothing like that. It's all character leadership team made based. So we go over these. I'll say, Jim, you read the first one. And then you read the first one out loud. And then we go around the room. And it's like we're back in third grade. We read them out loud. And at the end

of every single one, I look at the young lady and I say, Cassie, can you handle this? Yes, sir. So all of those. And so after we read her 10, I brought out the email from his name was Tom Dumser. And I said, let me read you this. And now it's two years before that he sent me that. And I said, Cassie, if you can do

half of these things that he's described, you're going to be good as gold here. And then her senior year before her meeting, I brought it out again. And I said, Cassie, you had done every single one of these things that this gentleman described that you would do. I mean, I just, I can't say enough good things about her and what she brought to the table. And,

you know, the things she did behind the scenes, like I probably don't know half the things that she did to help kids on the team, her teammates, things that she would say, it's just, you know, those type of kids, that's what I'm, that's what I'm really looking for. All in team 100%. You know, and the first thing I'd say at every team meeting is the sooner

you realize it's not all about you, the better off in life you're going to be. Yeah. So get out of yourself and get into the team. Right. Yeah. She lived that for four years. I can't wait to hear some of the back stories. Now I'm going to have to ask her in episodes that are coming up. So in 1912, we've got a lot of episodes. So

I'm going to be asking her more, more about this. And then, and certainly I might have to ask her about that email. She will be back by the way next week. But there's one more question. I do want to ask you and Pat, I do appreciate you doing this today before we let you go. Cross functionality, episode 17, subscribe, we're going to get your podcast email

us to Jimbo podcast 21 at Gmail.com if you do indeed have any questions with all the new trends, though, just looking at on the field with baseball. I see it in baseball. Now I worked in professional baseball for almost 10 years. I see I've seen how the analytics has really taken over the game in many facets of the organization, both in the front office and down

on the field. It's kind of refreshing to see a dusty baker, 73 years old, just win the world series. But with all these new trends and the new technology, the Hawkeye and baseball, for example, last motion technology. How do you pick and choose that the right technology, the right systems that you may use on the field to make your team better? Well, I think it, you

know, we got to hire a director player development this summer. Probably one of only five or six Division 1 softball. And Adam Arbor is his name. And he actually was an assistant coach when we won in 2012. So he was very welcome back. And I kind of let him run that show. But if you go way to them and spread yourself out way too much, it

just becomes this. You get a headache because there's so many things. And so I told him I was like, I want you to concentrate on five or six, not 25. Because you could literally do that. You know, I've got friends in college baseball that they own every gadget imaginable. You know, it's just it's unreal. It's just. Awesome to see, but you know, when it comes down

to it, if you can't communicate and relate to the kid, no matter how good your analytics are, they're not going to perform. It still comes down to it is a human being. With a bat and his or her hand. If he's in a slump analytics ain't going to do crap for him. It's going to be somebody that puts his puts an arm around him and say

you got this. I believe in you. And none of that has anything. You know, I'm going to do with analytics. So I think a dusty baker shows you that you can teach an old dog. Nutrix. Nothing against Mr. Baker. You know, right. But we get the same thing. Oh, Pat about Mike Rizzo, who won the World Series in 2019 with the Washington Nationals came up as

a scout. He's not the organization from everything that I hear and have learned about the Nationals. They're not as analytical heavy as some organizations. That's kind of the same premise that you just talked about with dusty Baker. And you know, for him to, and I think I read something to about where they would come into his office and talk about stuff. And he was receptive and

they were receptive. And it's got to be this two-way street. But I love to read stories of major league teams and the chemistry and all that stuff. And it's like it's something brand new, which is crazy because we've been doing it forever. And when it happens in the major leagues, like the Astros were a great example of, you know, they were still getting booed and, you

know, just hated everywhere they went. And then that made them closer as a group. And I got a buddy that's the B-writer for the Houston Chronicle that follows them for 162 games. And I tried to read every story he wrote about them. And it was amazing how close that those gentlemen got as a group. And, you know, in the end, it was a great idea. It

was cool to see how the chemistry was just incredible. And in a major league environment, you know, it was fun to watch. What kind of edge has analytics given you and your program, if any, at all? I think, you know, we were really, really fortunate that we're at a school that can afford some stuff. So that in itself, like we can actually purchase stuff. And then,

like, I think, I think that's a great idea. Adam has shown us that the bat speed is a lot faster in practice than it had been in the games this fall. We get to play eight fallball games. So he's already got some stuff, some data that he can use. And so we would tell the team, it was like, look, you know, you're crushing me and BP.

But when you get in the game, why are you tighter? Maybe you're, are you trying not to swing and miss or, you know, whatever. And so we, we've talked about that. But we've probably got four things that we use on a daily basis. And we're looking at another one. So, you know, I just don't want to get it to to spread out. Yeah. Make sense. So

next week, Cassie will be back episode 18. And we will be discussing creating a training plan as coaches for your players. That'll be next week. Pat, I do appreciate you. Doing this today, do you have any final thoughts, anything that you'd like to plug? Anything that you'd like to say before we sign off here? Well, I just thank you for having me. And, you know, Cassie's

just one of the greatest kids we've ever coached. It's just absolutely love her and her family to death. And I did want to put a plug in for her book. And I don't know if you guys have talked about it before. But she wrote a book after we won the National Championship called finished it. And you can get it anywhere really Amazon. But, about three weeks

ago, I kind of reread it. And just some of the things that she remembered and included in the book. I was just, I could not believe that she remembered so many little details that happened during the year. And it was, it's a really, really good read for anybody that's a coach of a Baton Ball sport, any sport really. And then another thing is, you know, a

lot of people love to come watch us play at the Rhodes House. And we try to put on a show. And it's an event. But we're going to do tickets pre-season. So we sell out a lot. So if anybody wants to come and watch us at home, get on the internet around probably February 1st. And you can pre-purchase tickets, which is the best way to make

sure that you get in, especially if you're traveling from a long ways. So I'd hate to have somebody drive from Iowa. And then come to the Rhodes House and have a sign that says, sold out today and not see us play. So, but thanks a lot for having me on. I'm happy to be here. I appreciate, you know, that was a better plug than Cassie Duh.

I mean, there's a lot of things that Cassie's good actually. I got to work on her work on her plugs because at the end of shows, I always ask her what she has to plug. And I mean, she hasn't plugged her book. We're now 17 episodes in. So we've got, we've got some work to do. But she's coachable, as you know, which is, which is very

good. All right. Thank you for pat for joining us episode 18 next week. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and we will talk to you next Wednesday. Take care. Bye.