Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, parents and coaches, are your kids using the right glove? The most important skill for youth athletes to learn is how to play proper catch. The problem is most youth gloves are made with bad leather and are too big for small hands. They actually make it harder to play catch. That's why former Major League Baseball shortstop Kevin Smith created Cali Gloves. Cali gloves are crafted from 100% Japanese kip leather and are the perfect size for kids.
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It's the glove Kevin wishes he had growing up and the glove all his teammates want for their kids. Visit caligloves.com to learn more and help your kids play better catch.
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[00:01:11] Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I am Andy Kirakidis, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How are we doing today?
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Great.
[00:01:20] Speaker C: How are you?
[00:01:22] Speaker D: Good.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: We saw something on. On X Twitter, formerly known as Twitter, from one of my favorite professional coaches for, for those of you who listen, you might know that I'm a. A rabid 49ers fan, happen to be a big fan of Mr. Kyle Shanahan, but he was giving a speech to some high school quarterbacks and some high school football players, and he said some stuff that I thought was very poignant. I think it's very, very true. I think oftentimes it, it doesn't get thought about enough. And I think we're in an era right now where with social media and recognition being a big thing, that it's really easy as a young kid, specifically a high school athlete, to gravitate towards people who.
I don't want to coddle is probably not the right word, but people who are going to really work really hard to either agree with you or make you feel really good. And what he's really driving at with what he's saying is that a good coach is a coach that challenges you. A good coach is somebody that tries to bring the best out in you and isn't trying to be your friend. Right. We all know that good coaches, you know, tend to have good relationships with players. And, you know, there's, there's an element of friendship there. But I think at the end of the day, the really good coaches are able to draw a pretty thick line between that and Their, their job is to get the best out of you. And I think you've seen some examples of some guys that are, you know, seemingly, you know, kind of polarizing guys like, like Danny Hurley, who coach guys really hard and they have a really high expectation and they challenge guys and they're trying to get the best out of these guys. And I think that, that coaching at the college level, specifically the higher levels, is more the norm than people want to recognize. And I think for me, when I saw that speech from Kyle Shanahan, it resonated with me because I think it's really important for high school players and college athletes to. You have to embrace coaching and you have to understand that good coaches are challenge you. And good coaches, their job is to pull the best out of you. Not to agree with you and make things easy for you, but to, to, to make sure that they're constantly putting you in a place to get better and they're going to challenge you on the small things and they're going to hold you to a really high standard. And I think at times in the, the system that we're in right now and, and just kind of how things have evolved that I think it's easier for kids to gravitate towards people who always tell them what they want to hear.
And I think good coaches just to a certain extent kind of do the exact opposite. And my personal stance is that as you go through the recruiting process and you get into college, that you should, you should gravitate towards the people who are going to challenge you. Because I think that's ultimately how you figure out how good you're going to be.
[00:04:13] Speaker E: If you're the parent of a high school baseball player with college aspirations, you already know the recruiting process can feel overwhelming. Endless showcases, non stop emails and big promises with very little clarity. That's why we recommend Diamond College Showcase Camps, the nation's premier academic baseball showcase. At Diamond College showcases, every college coach in attendance is there with a purpose to coach, instruct, evaluate and recruit. Every player is seen, every player is engaged, and every family leaves with a clear understanding of where they truly stand. This is not a mass camp. College coaches run the drills, evaluate every athlete and provide honest professional feedback that you can trust.
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[00:05:07] Speaker C: is the place to be.
[00:05:08] Speaker E: To learn more, Visit Diamond College showcase.com
[00:05:16] Speaker C: Sure. I don't know if It's.
I think it would be a better phrase is they tell you what you need to hear.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: You know, I think that it's. It's hard.
It's hard coming out of the recruiting process and showing up on campus for a large portion of student athletes because in the recruiting process and this is this weird dichotomy in, in college sports really like there's it in high school you play on a team and really which your high school team is just the guys at your school. So the coach is just bound by who goes there, you know, travel, you can do whatever you want.
And then college, you get recruited to go play at these schools and then if you're lucky enough to play professionally, you just end up with whoever is the coaching in that, that organization.
College has this weird kind of dichotomy where you're going to recruit these kids and you.
In order to get the kids and to, to commit to your school like you, you want them to like you.
And you hear the thing about, you know, relationship building and you know, it's all about relationships and this, that and the other thing. And it is largely to, to. But it's to a certain extent you're building the relationships in order to that that you have the trust that you can coach those kids. There's a high level of trust with a Danny Hurley, with a Bobby Knight who's not our era, but we grew up watching him when we were younger.
And guys that can are going to tell you what you need to hear and challenge you to get the most out of you. From a coaching perspective, I think in recent years, it's, I don't want to say it's flipped. I think that there's, there's different avenues that coaches use in order to do those types of things. I think there's a little bit more of an idea of how certain kids handle certain situations or, or adjustments and however it might be.
But I think that as a. From a coaching perspective, and I guess I would be speaking to the coaches here, like you need, you can't, you can't change that for every kid you have to recruit the kids that are going to be able to fit how it is that you coach so that you can handle and manage your roster and your athletes based off of how you coach, knowing that you can do the things it is that you want to do in order to get the best out of them. I think that it's very hard to change your style of coaching if you have three kids on your team that don't like being talked to in front of everyone on the team because they feel embarrassed. Well, like we all watch to do it. Like we can't talk about it in front of everyone.
And it's not necessarily an embarrassment thing. Like that mistake might be a coaching point to, you know, we've talked about this thousand times and we continually make the same mistake. And also this is what I'm talking about for the other players like to see. Like this is a situation where we should have done X, Y and Z instead of abc.
But I think that back to my original point of, and I'll bring this full circle here, you want the kids to like you in the recruiting process, to ultimately say yes to come to your school. And then when you get there or when the kid gets there, it's a little bit of a different relationship, right? Like in the recruiting process, you kind of feel like it is a friendly, ish relationship, almost kind of peer to peer. And then when you get to college, it's, it's not going to be that. It's going to be coach to player.
And I think sometimes younger kids can struggle with that because it's like, well, he never said anything really negative to me in the recruiting process. And they're not necessarily saying anything negative to you. You're perceiving that likely as being negative because you're not, you're not able to do what it is that they're asking you to do yet. And they're coaching you to get you to the point that you need to be at now. I think nowadays there's a lot more in the recruiting end where kids are kind of told in one way, shape or form, like, hey, this is what we need to work on when you get to campus in order for you to get a lot of burn here.
But you will get coaching at the collegiate level and how you respond to that coaching is ultimately going to play a large role in your development at that program, how much you're going to play, whether or not you end up staying at that program. Some people don't like to be coached. And it's going to be a hard, it's going to be a hard college career if you don't want to be coached, because you're going to get coached, you know. So I think that it's, it's, it's a very, very great video to watch if you're a high school athlete, because I think that there is a lot of truth in what it is that he's saying, right? Like you don't want to just have a coach that's just going to always tell you that you are the best. Because if you start to fail and not have success and our game is predicated on failure, and they just keep telling you you're awesome and you're not making any adjustments and it's not getting better, then what?
You need to have somebody who's going to look you in the eyes and be like, hey, if you want to make it to the next level.
And that could be anywhere, right? Like the next level in college, the next level, you know, as a junior, as a senior, the next level professionally, whatever it might be. These are the steps in which you need to take. These are the things you need to do. We need to get better on, you know, sliders away. As a, as a hitter, you can't handle spin away. So we need to work on spin away. The book is out. Everyone knows that you're going to get spun to death. We're going to sit here and we're going to figure out how we can recognize that pitch better, how we can be on time better, how we can find barrels, all of those things.
You know, it might be you're not there defensively, right? You know, hey, the bat, the bats there. But, you know, defensively you're fielding at an 890 clip and we can't run someone out in the infield who's going to feel that 890.
So what do we need to do in order for our prep step for reading balls? Do we need to position better? Whatever it might be, but you're going to get coached and you should seek that out as a player.
Because I think that a lot of people, especially in the, you know, when you're getting recruited, and I think it's different for this era of kids than it was for us, where there's a lot more access to development facilities and people and things of that nature that aren't coaching.
And you, you have to be able to understand that you, the guy who.
This is not a knock on what I'm about to say, so don't get it twisted, but the guy that you are giving money to is, yes, he wants you to get better, but probably not going to continually tell you all the time that you're not good enough to be able to play at the next level, right? Like, you're paying the money. It's going to be hard for them sometimes to be like, yeah, it's. This is short. You're not going to be able to do it. Where, if you make it to college, the guy who writes the lineup, whose job is on the line, he's going to tell you, you are not good enough yet. And that might be, like, that might be the first time that you have that hard conversation.
And I'm, I'm generalizing. I'm not saying that happens everywhere. I'm just saying, like, I think that that, that is a microcosm of kind of where we're at sometimes when you have these tough conversations and what could potentially you be facing when you get to the being coached aspect of when you get to college. But, you know, make no mistake, you will be coached. And I think that you should seek that out as a player of fine people who are going to, you know, challenge you, who are willing to tell you the truth and tell you where you, you know, what you need to do in order to get better so that you can continue your development process so that you can start playing, have. Find success in your collegiate career and either have a great college career and, you know, that's it, or have a great college career and hopefully, you know, maybe you go play professional baseball. But surround yourself with people that are going to. That are going to legitimately. And it goes for players, too, right? Like, surround yourself with people on the team that want to get better and, you know, your development will likely take off, you know, but I, I'll get off my soapbox. But I just think that it's. There's a lot of truth in what he said, and I. It's a refreshing take in 2026.
[00:13:34] Speaker D: Parents. If you've ever felt overwhelmed trying to navigate youth sports, there's a new resource designed just for you. TeamMatch. TeamMatch is an online platform built to streamline how families find the right youth sports teams by location, sport and skill
[00:13:49] Speaker B: level all in one place.
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[00:14:15] Speaker B: I got to imagine that he probably runs into that even at the NFL level where, you know, you have to have some tough conversations with guys because that's as, you know, that's as cutthroat as it gets. I mean, you're. You're literally coaching for your job every year, and you got to coach guys up and you, you, you know, guys probably, you know, you made it to the NFL. And I mean, who knows how often you've actually been told that you need to make an adjustment or we got to change how you do this, or you're not doing this the right way, or, you know, whatever it is. But know, in my experience as a coach, you know, a decade of college baseball and. And having played for four years, is the guys who embrace the coaching, whatever style it comes in, it comes in a variety of different styles. But the guys who embrace the coaching, the guys who actually seek it out, who are constantly looking to find another little bit of an edge, that are asking questions of how and why. Right? The why question, I don't think is a bad thing. I think maybe 10 or 15 years ago, people would be off put by, like, kids wanting answers. But I think it's a good thing now when kids are inquisitive and they actually are interested in, like, trying to understand exactly what we're trying to get at. I think for a lot of kids now, we have so much information that they have at their fingertips that I think they can ask better questions and they can better understand exactly what you're driving at. But the best players, the guys who have success at the next level, they embrace coaching.
They. They look for it, they want to improve.
And if you can get in that mindset as a player right now, as a high school player, where you're constantly looking for that next edge, right, it doesn't mean making all kinds of crazy little tweaks in that you're making adjustments just to make adjustments, but you're constantly looking for feedback. You're constantly trying to find ways to make sure that you're. The things that you do well, you continue to do well, and then you're trying to close the gaps and the things that you need to improve on, like, you hit on a big thing with the defensive stuff. And I think that it's one of the conversations that I feel like I have with a lot of kids, and we talk to a lot of coaches about is guys don't put enough time in on the defensive side of things. And I think that. That, you know, being able to hear information like, hey, you want to play in college and you're a shortstop. Like, we have to get better on the defensive side of the ball, or if you're a catcher, we have to become a better receiver in order to get to where you want to go, and somebody being able to look you in the face and say, hey, you have goals.
[00:16:40] Speaker C: Right?
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Because I think there's a big difference between saying hey, you can't do it, you know, and being able to look a kid in the face and go, hey, this is what you want out of this, right? You want to be the start and shortstop here. Well, here's what you got to do to get there. And the kid who can sit across from that coach and go, tell me what I need to do, and they leave that room and they've got a plan and they've got an understanding of what the expectations are, what's needed from them. Those kids are successful. And I've sat in the room where we've had these conversations with kids, and they walk out of there and you see the best version of that kid when they leave that room, because they now have a full understanding of, hey, here are my deficiencies, here are the things I do well, and if I want to get the role that I'm looking to get my hands on, this is what I have to do to do it. Those kids do a great job. The kids who walk out of that room and are mad that you told them that they have stuff that they have to work on. That's what I think.
Kyle Shanahan, to a certain extent, is driving at that. Like, the kids who embrace it and the kids who find people who are willing to have those honest conversations with them and they're able to take the information and run with it.
That's gold.
Those kids are going to be successful because they can hear, hey, you're not good enough right now, or you're not doing something at a level that you need to be doing it at in order to be impactful for our program or you want to get recruited. Hey, you run a 74 right now. We've got nine months to get you faster. Here's what you need to do. And you go and you run with that information versus saying, well, coach called me slow, and having that type of reaction. Like the kids who were able to be coachable, the kids who seek it out, they have so much more success in the recruiting process, but then they're better prepared when they get to college, when there's a. The standard is going to be higher.
So the bare minimum of what you're expected to do is going to be a lot higher than you've ever been asked.
But the level of coaching is going to be more direct in most cases, and there's less room for error. Like, you don't get as much Runway to figure stuff out. So, like, you need to take your coaching and you need to get to work on the things that you're being told that you need to improve upon.
So I thought it was awesome.
Something I think you could probably just, you know, pop in the search bar on Twitter. But I thought it was a really good conversation for Kyle Shanahan. And I think it's pretty cool that an NFL coach would take the time to address high school players.
So.
Go Niners.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: Anything else you want to perform? We will, we will mix in the Niners into this podcast
[00:19:19] Speaker B: NFL draft coming up in a couple days. Big, big night for the Giants too.
[00:19:22] Speaker C: So we got two picks in the first 10.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Anything else you want to add to that?
[00:19:27] Speaker C: No, sir.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: All right, well, be coachable. Go find somebody who wants to coach it.
Talk to you next week. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball.
[00:19:52] Speaker D: If you want to find out what
[00:19:54] Speaker B: me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
