Blue By Ninety - BB90 Episode 114: Get to know Tracy smith

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

The boys sit down with Head Ball Coach Tracy Smith and get to know his background, his transition to Ann Arbor, and setting up scholarships for the boys to get on the team.

This is the University of Michigan. Touchdown, Michigan! That's the beat of Michigan ball! And they've caught extra pass. And it goes to the wind! The three-pointer by Jordan Poole! Down the sideline! Peebles-Johns!

Touchdown, Wolverines! This is a presentation of Blue by 90. Find us on Twitter at Blue by 90 and shop the merchandise at blueby90shop.com. All right, welcome back to Blue by 90. I'm Justin, joined by Jack today, and we're in the baseball head coach's office with new head coach Tracy Smith. Coach, we appreciate you coming on today. How are you doing? Good. It's Sunday. It's kind of a rainy Sunday, though. It's not beautiful. It has been pretty nice, though, since you've been here, hasn't it?

I haven't been here much, honestly. I've been living out of a suitcase. I'm the college roommate that doesn't leave, but stay with my buddy Doug Mallory and the football staff and stand in their third bedroom. Just left there, but no, this is great. So appreciate the break from moving in. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so you came from, you've had a long storied coaching career already. We're excited to have you here in Ann Arbor and bring something new to the table as well.

But, you know, tell us, coming from Arizona State, what is the biggest transition that you think is going to, you know, the toughest transition that you'll think you'll have coming from ASU? Oh. I went straight into a hard-hitting question. All right, thanks for that. that you'll think you'll have coming from ASU? Oh. I went straight into a hard-hitting question. All right, thanks for that. Honestly, it's probably not even a baseball.

First of all, I'm happy to be back in the Big Ten with just the college vibe. It's a little different, and I'm excited about that. In fact, when I was on my interview, I went for a campus run and literally stopped in the middle of the campus and just was like, gosh, I forgot how much I missed this, you know. And so that's going to be, you know, what I'm looking forward to. But, you know, it wouldn't be right if we didn't talk a little bit about the weather. So I would say the biggest thing for me, because I remember the reverse of being a lifelong Midwesterner and moving to the desert and not necessarily Arizona State, but to the desert, you'd look up every day and see the sunshine. It took a long time. That first year

literally I was sending pictures back to everybody and saying, look what I get to see. So now going back to that will probably be the biggest difference. Institutionally though, as far as the baseball job, I actually kind of made a comment on Twitter the other night about, someone asked me, what's the biggest difference between that? My comment is good players are good players. You know, good teams are good teams, east or west. So, you know, there's going to be a lot of similarities because we're going to be a good team.

Love it. Love it. Yeah, and, I mean, obviously it's a very different situation from the Big Ten to the Pac, whatever it is going to be now. I don't even know. And it's going to be the Big 20 here soon Pac, whatever it is going to be now. I don't even know. And it's going to be the Big 20 here soon, I think, too. But, you know, it's you coming back to the Big Ten. You had a ton of success at Indiana.

And, you know, looking back on your first year at Indiana, though, it wasn't pretty, you know, right away, right? And so you were able to turn things around, though, and build what was an unbelievable program. What was that like to go into something and say, all right, you know, things aren't great right away, but we're going to get to a spot here where we're competing for national championships? Interestingly enough, I mean, even the context of taking Indiana program,

and I don't remember quite vividly, but I think it was either they were – Indiana had finished last place either two or three of the last years before taking the job. And so I had coached there as an assistant in the early 90s. And we won the Big Ten tournament, I think, against Penn State. So I knew we could win a championship. We didn't win the regular season. But when I was

offered the job, talking to my scout friends, talking to coaching friends, talking to basically everybody that I knew in my network, every single person except one said, do not take that job. You can't win there. And the one person that actually advised and said, hey, you should take was Bob Todd, who was at Ohio State. And if you recall at that time, I mean, they had it going on, and they were actually self-sustaining in terms of crowd and tickets. They built the big stadium. So they were really the blueprint to kind of how to do it. But I loved it because, yes, it did take us a while,

but the same thing that we've instituted, the same philosophy here, we talked administratively, and it's no secret, and I'm sure you probably have it on your question list at some point, about, you know, and Eric and I are good friends, but how they kind of, you know, took a little of the recruiting class on their way out. So it left us, it's leaving us a little bit of a void right now, but we're not going to go out and make short-term decisions. We're going to do this thing where let's get the right people in here. Let's make sure that the talent, the quality of kid, all of those things for sustainable success. I'm not, we'll use the portal, you know, and I think that's a quicker avenue for folks, but I don't know that that's

maybe or necessarily the right model here. And quite frankly, where I would be anywhere that wouldn't be – I like having guys in the program for an extended period of time. So that's how we're going to approach it. Very similar to what we did at Indiana to build it to what we had. Are there still guys in the portal from Michigan that are looking at kind of coming back? Or have you talked to any of those guys?

I know I saw Jake Marty, I think, was in there. And I think we got all the guys – I think pretty much everybody came back. That was going to? Yeah. Pretty much. I know there were a couple that left early that we never had a conversation with. But the ones that were in there, and it was Jimmy Obertine. Huge. I don't know if I want to say that.

He just wanted to, and I get it, transition's tough. And everybody's a little nervous. At that time, they didn't know who was going to be hired. Right. So it was a great way to protect themselves. And Michigan's philosophy as a department, because if you – and, Danny, you can correct me if I'm wrong off camera, Danny. If you go into the portal, the institution could actually take your scholarship

after a certain amount of days. And Michigan's philosophy was – and I thought it was fair in a coaching transition. They allowed the kids to get in the portal with no repercussion of being able to, so they could protect themselves. So it was good. That's nice. Yeah. But once we made the hire, we had conversations.

We had asked the guys to, hey, man, you might want to come on out now. Right. Yeah, just to send a good message. So Jimmy came back. Who else came back that was in the portal? Pretty much, I mean, there were a bunch of them. Man, I don't have, I can't. I know Jalen Jones, I think, went to Ohio State. Yeah. message so uh well with so jimmy came back who else came back that that was in the portal pretty much i mean there were a bunch of them man i don't have i can't jalen jones i think went to ohio state yeah um willie i don't we don't talk to him anymore man i like him too i'm just kidding

good kid sorry jalen yeah good kid wearing the wrong colors now still someone's jersey on the website yeah um but you know speaking of the roster too like let's say you know, speaking of the roster, too, like, let's say, you know, you're trying to fill the roster here. Just hypothetically, you had maybe, like, a couple washed-up baseball players that won that, like, played first base. Are you saying that these washed-up baseball players are still sitting on a blue couch? A little bit. A little bit overweight from his playing days.

Warning track power. Maybe another guy who... I think I've got a legitimate shot at a reliever. Every time that we throw a baseball, your arm is hanging off after three throws. Yeah, I can get a bat. He could give you maybe a batter

a game. What do you think? Let's do it. I'm all in for it. I'm looking for different arm angles and stuff. If you can throw a left hand, we'll take you in a hard way. Lefty? All right. I can go righty.

Well, we can work on that. We can work on it. I mean, the big thing that we're glue guys, for sure. Big culture guys. Culture guys bringing things to the table. You'll need that on the roster. Locker room. Locker room.

Oh, my God. Locker room would be in the best shape. Danny, we have a few spots left for that, don't we? We got some eligibility. Yeah, for sure. All right. be in the best shape. Danny, we have a few spots left for that, don't we? We got some eligibility. Yeah, for sure. All right. We'll talk about that offline here. But the answer is yes.

Okay, perfect. We got that on camera. Yeah, we did. That is a legally binding contract. We can go through any of those with scholarships later. I'm assuming it's a full ride right off the bat. We don't give full rides to baseball. You know that.

I know, I know. If we can get a little scholarship from each team. Yeah. Ooh, we can be multi-sport athletes here. Thanks, man. Yeah. All right. Golf.

Joey is. I mean, Joey Velasquez. Yep. We could be a culture guy for the football team. Basically, Deion Sanders. What? Yeah. Sure.

All right. So, you know, you're coming back here. Or not back here. But you're coming here now. and it's going to be, you've got big shoes to fill. You just talked about Coach Backage. He did a phenomenal job here. Everyone's aware of that and brought this program to a spot

that it hasn't been in a long time. Do you feel a certain pressure? Are you coming in here? What's your attitude coming in here to say, all right, do we have to win right away or how do we build it? I know you just talked about what you did at Indiana, but how are you dealing with all that stuff too? Well, the pressure to me is an internal pressure, not to get into great details.

I mean, the Arizona State job, which I'm coming from, is a tough job. I mean, it's arguably one of the toughest jobs in terms of when you balance everything out. So, it's not even on my radar. I mean, you know, and I'm being serious. Like, there's nothing that someone can say or write or whatever that's going to hurt my feelings. Like, I've been there, done that.

Yeah. You know what I mean? So, it's like that. We'll write good things about you. Well, you can do whatever you want. But that ship has already sailed. And so I'm at a point in my career, and I think about this a lot, like you're proud, you're competitive, you want to win, but I'm not doing it.

I mean, I didn't pack up to, you know, to do it for everybody else. It's just like one of those things where you've got to be happy with looking that mirror at the end of the day, put your head on the pillow, however you want to define it. Hey, did I do the best I could today? And so that's really where my mindset is. And, you know, I'm not into reading a bunch of the stuff, good or bad. So I just, I'm at a point probably where that stuff is just not even a you know i i do i want to do a great job here personally you know i didn't like the way it ended at arizona state and again it's not so much the on field because we had you know top 25 teams and you're unemployed right it's more of just kind of that competitive fire it's like i don't want to go out like that you know

and and now i've said this and I've said it multiple times publicly. I could have done the rest of my life and been a grandfather and worked for the Diamond Allegiance and been at the cabin that we talked about. So all of that. But when the job in, like, Michigan opened up and all the boxes that it checked in terms of the quality of education, the history of the program, the current and recent history of the program. That's the thing that I think is really, I made this comment the other day, we were sitting

around here and it was just something didn't happen. I go, wait a minute, weren't we just one game away from a national championship in 2019? Why are we fighting that? You know, so all of those things, I think lend this this self lend itself to be really one of the top baseball jobs in the country and you know we talked a little bit joked about the cold weather stuff like it ain't about any of that it's about the people that you have and my short time here it's i i love the folks you know everyone has come and said hey tell us how we can help all the alums of former players a ton a ton of them living in the area,

have all called or texted and said, tell us how we can help. Let's get together. Another thing, I don't know if you, but me playing at Miami of Ohio, we played Michigan a lot. We played Central Michigan. So it's funny, a lot of the guys that I played with are all kind of in their careers as high school coaches in the state of Michigan and around. So I'm getting guys reaching out to me that I didn't even know like hey man we played against each other back in the eight I'm like this is awesome so like I think it's a good fit

personally and professionally to go out and do this but the pressure piece of it I mean you know maybe talk in two or three years I may have an attitude but right now that's not even on the radar I like it I mean I that's the now, that's not even on the radar. I like it. I mean, to me, that's like the only way to go about it. If you're thinking about pressure, like worried about your job every day, you're not going to do a good job, right? No.

And you're not even really on the job yet. Like you are, but you've barely moved into your office here. Don't pan out. Don't pan out with cameras. Yeah, right. How unmovable we are. We'll get you some more gear. We'll decorate for you in here. Going back to your playing days too,

you played at Peoria, right? You played in Winston-Salem. As you as a player, what would people say about you as a player? God, he was terrible. Noodle arm. It's funny because i'll frame it like this like guys i always laugh of my players that play for me they're like man he's tough or he's hard you know he's whatever and then if you were to talk to my teammates that i played with they'd be like who are we talking about because i was always the guy that kept everybody loose you know even professionally um so I was I affectionately said I was the jack of all

trades master none because I went to college as a infielder got drafted as a pitcher pitched my first year went back to an infielder so I was kind of back and forth never really excelled at any of the ones but it was great for me professionally because I got to work with all different coaches of different positions. But I'd say I didn't work extremely hard. I didn't understand what it was. It was a different time, too, that we didn't have all the stuff we have now. So that also framed really why I do push guys that I coach and will push them here is because I don't want them to be me you know I don't want them to be because I did have some talent but I don't feel like I

ever truly maximize that talent because I didn't work hard enough if I'm being honest with myself and so that's one of the things I'll tell them in the recruiting process is I'll be relentless and our staff will be relentless on you because we owe that to you. Be the best version of yourself that you can be. So, but I, you know, I could still get out there and sling it around a little bit. I'm like you play some fungo golf out here if you want. I know you don't want to challenge me. I'm fungo. All right. Sorry. Are you, are you the fungo guy here or coach Greenspan? Ben Greenspan will claim that he is, but my fungo skills, I believe, truly are unmatched. Wow. All right.

We'll have to do some fungo golf. You put some. Okay. Anytime. I think we're going to be put to shame. I don't think Danny agrees with that. He's going to handle it. He's pretty good.

So it could be better. You put a cone out behind second base, I promise you I'll hit that cone. How many tries? Not many. Not many? Okay. All right. I'm sorry, not a BP.

Are you a good BP tosser? Is that why you didn't make it in the league? I don't know how to throw a ball. Oh, that was your issue. Not a physical ball. I don't know how to throw a ball outside the strike. Wow. You're like me.

It could be 45 minutes of straight BP, and maybe a ball or two might be mixed in there. That's pretty good. That's true. When you were pitching, what was your pitch? Did you pitch in high school before you played college? I did, yeah, I did. You know, upper to low 90 fast, but my pitch was a slider.

Okay. And that's probably why I threw too many of those things. tj i never got t well who knows back then yeah right you probably needed it right yeah um that's interesting um so all right so now you know fast forward obviously your your coaching career has been has been great so far and you're coming here to Ann Arbor. You know, what's the biggest thing that you're excited for to be the head baseball coach in Ann Arbor? I know Jack was there when you first did your press conference, and you said, right, you said, like, I really, really wanted this job. You know, what was the reason for that, and why are you so excited to be here?

Well, one, get back in the locker room and a little bit of is the personal piece of in in my mind at least yeah I'm kind of in the prime of the career you know it's like I've got a lot of wisdom a lot of experience I've been a head coach since age 30 I love the locker room piece of it I love the relationship piece of it so to be back in that environment, unless you've done it, you know, it's fun, it's stimulating, and you can be competitive. On a general sense, and I kind of alluded to it earlier, like I'm excited to be back to where the home team, rooting for the home team, you know, like I view this very similar to the time even in Bloomington where the town was the college, the college was the town,

and everybody kind of pulled for your school. And I point to Danny because he's an ASU grad. It was a little bit different vibe. It was more of a professional setting because if you look at Phoenix at large, people from all over the country move there. So there was not the sense of this is our team. It's like the Raiders playing in Vegas a little bit. Yeah. And so, like, and again, I'm not knocking it,

but it's like I'm excited to get back to that vibe of the community really supporting the team. Right. And so that just, you know, I think that's going to be something. And then, again, you can pick up the phone. I was explaining this to a recruit last night. You can pick up the phone and you can talk to any kid in the country. I thought I had my Michigan shirt on.

But when it says Michigan across your chest and your hat or you walk in a room, it is different. Like people respond to that. The example, I can't remember if I said this at that initial thing. I was going to this 3rd of July party. It's the best party in Malibu in L.A. Anyway, but for three years I'd go for three different institutions. So when I'm in Indiana, you know, and it's a star-studded event.

You know, hey, what do you do? I coach baseball in Indiana. And people go, oh, that's awesome. Hey, what do you do? I'm the head baseball coach at Arizona go, oh, that's awesome. Hey, what do you do? I'm the head baseball coach at Arizona State. Hey, that's awesome. But this last time, so I got named, like I got the job or the offer right before that deal. So I go to this thing.

Now I'm the baseball coach in Michigan. Hey, what do you do? Baseball coach in Michigan. Michigan? Wow. That's awesome. I mean, it just struck me. Literally, that stood out. Michigan. Wow. That's awesome. I mean, it was, I mean, instant, it just struck me. Literally that

stood out, but back to the alumni base of Michigan, I guess California is the second largest outside of the state of Michigan. But my point being the brand of Michigan is a powerful brand and not just athletically, academically. And when you marry those two, I want to be in that again. So, I mean, Ann Arbor is, I mean, it's named on every list as like one of the top college towns in the country. And it really is. It's unbelievable here. It's a different feel.

Yeah, it is cold a lot, but it's still an awesome, awesome spot. And, you know, I have good friends that are baseball alums, and they are super excited to come back and and be a part of things as well want to help you and help this thing keep on the train keep going in the direction that it that it was as well so um it's all it's all good stuff and um you know i think that like even when you talk about i'm sure you've talked to hutch over there in the softball uh softball facility and they pack that thing over there and you know i know even going us going to games in the softball facility, and they packed that thing over there. And, you know, I know even us going to games in the last couple years here, it's been bigger crowds than it ever has been here, you know, for Michigan baseball.

So I think, you know, you've got a head start a little bit more than some others, and I think it's so cool that you'll be able to build on that as well. And, you know, I think ultimately one day you probably want it to be the spot to come in spring, right? Well, and kind of drawing on what we were talking a little bit about and taking the job at Indiana. And I do and I agree with you 100 percent that the starting line for here is more advanced than it was there. But I'm not kidding you when I say when we took the job at Indiana, which everybody said don't take the job, you can't win there, there were probably 50 to 100 people that would come to the game, literally.

And I don't know if you ever saw the old Sembauer field, either one of you. I don't think so. It was a glorified, horrible high school field. Nice. And so back to, you know, and then we recruited to, you know, Schwarbers and grew that team in a number four national seed, recruited to that field. And I'm saying all that.

It's like I think people make a difference, and not just coaches, but the players that you have there. And for us to get it to the level, so we take the 50 to 100 people. My last year there, when we left in 2014, we were 2,500 to 3,000 a game. Wow. That's awesome. And then 5,000 when we brought in the stuff for the regionals. But back to, it wasn't just the players and the coaches.

It was really making a concerted effort to, hey, we've got to put a good product on the field that people want to come see. Right. And then when you show people that, hey, you're a bigger part success and that's what that's the message that's going to be loud and clear from this office is it's going to take all of us to get it to where we want to be including the messaging here glue guys yeah and and i'll just i'm gonna take my this is my opportunity to say this because i don't think sometimes people you know it's funny when podcasts or sites get on and they talk negatively.

I don't care if it's the football team, the basketball team, or whatever. Everyone thinks they're helping by being critical and negative on that, but what people don't realize is the impact that it has on recruiting. I would always talk about those types of things to folks. It's like, look, you're complaining about the problem. Well, you're also part of the problem right now. So let's not focus on that. How can we make this better? If we truly care about Michigan athletics and our student athletes,

how can we make that better to be the best we can be? And you may two years from now not want to talk to – I don't think that's going to be the case. You may not. But it's like still, at the end of the day, it ain't about you. It ain't about us. It's about those kids every day that are flooding that locker room. So what can we do to make that better? Love it. Positive vibes only. How does that make you feel? It makes me about you. It isn't about us. It's about those kids every day that are flooding that locker room. So what can we do to make that better?

Love it. Positive vibes only. How does that make you feel? It makes me feel good. Why? You were pointing at him. No, he calls me negative all the time. I have realistic takes sometimes, but they're not negative.

But if they're not like ultra positive. I'm more of an optimist. Well, you know what? I don't like to – I'm the same. Like I say, I'm going to paint a realistic picture. That's why I said, look, I'm not – I don't take offense if somebody writes a negative thing about me or says a negative thing about me as long as it's true. Right.

You know what I mean? And so I would say, as you're pointing out, there's always context to things. And so – Well, nobody just wants – you're not saying like oh i want everyone to no just like you know paint paint it the picture that it's going to be no you know rainbows here right because it's not going to be like that every single night and that's and so yeah so i just as long as it's fair and you know not two sides of the story, but it's accurate. And that's the stuff that can impede or facilitate an advanced recruiting. And again,

recruiting is the lifeblood of your program. Obviously. Going back to your days at Indiana too, is Schwarber the best player you've been around? Well, I mean, he's pretty darn good. It's funny, I just got a call this is interesting i just i just spoke this week to one of the guys was on that team sam travis who ultimately ended up making it to the boston red sox and sammy's still playing and he's got an injury right now but if you go back to those teams sam travis was the freshman of the year in the big 10 over schwarber sam travis i think was player of the year in the Big Ten over Schwarber. Sam Travis, I think, was player of the year in the Big Ten over Schwarber as well.

But what Kyle's done now is talking to somebody from Middletown actually today. So he's leading the National League in home runs. Yeah. Who's he with now? So if I don't say he's the best player, if you're doing that, then I'm not very smart. Yeah, right. Well, I mean, when you're – Phillies. He's with the Phillies.

Phillies, okay. I didn't know if it was Phillies or Nationals. So when you're, like, recruiting a guy like that, do you see that right away or was it, you know, did you feel like, okay, this guy's pretty good, but, you know, still got a lot to work on? Yeah, I mean, you know, and then our other product, you know, Torkelson, because that would be the one that would get a lot of comparisons at ASU. So seeing it right away, you can tell there's something different. In fact, you can hear there's something different when the ball comes off the bat. It just sounds

differently. But I've had guys that the ball comes off the bat differently. The separator of the the Schwarbers of the world, the Travis's of the world, the Alex Dickerson's of the world, the Spencer Torkelson's, and a few that are in that lofty category is this and who they are as people and you'll hear me probably say a lot and I probably said at that press conference you know I take my job seriously but not myself too seriously so I'm about you know the humility piece of it is huge for me and both Kyle Schwarber Torkelson those guys are some of the most humble human beings you'll ever meet. So that, to me, is the separator.

And I think what makes those guys so good, not just the physical. Yeah. And, I mean, have you been able to reconnect with Torks since you've been here too? Yep. I'm actually going to try to get down and see him in AAA. I hate saying that, but get down and see him in AAA. You've got to get him back up there. I know. I agree. Toledo's fun around the stadium, though. Yeah. Nice bars. I hate saying that. We could go down and see him in triple A. We've got to get him back up there. I know, I agree.

Toledo's fun around the stadium, though. There's nice bars. Fifth, third field. What are those? What are the bars? No, I'm just, what are those? I don't even know what those are.

I don't know what those are. I'm lost. We're an institution of higher education. Oh, yes. I go by myself. So, like, okay, so let's talk about

Torkelson then. A a guy talk about pressure i mean you're you're the guy right and you're the the guy in a program that needs somebody badly you know and you come up and and you don't you're not the guy right away that's performing like everyone thinks you are and obviously we all know in baseball like baseball probably more than any other sport it does take time to get used to professional pitching and 100 mile per hour fastball and then a you know nasty curveball what to go along with it how do you think you know a guy like tork can handle that type of pressure where you know you're going up and down and you're trying to figure it all out and all that stuff too.

Well, I think it's hard for any of us, you, me, anybody in this room, anybody on this planet, to even sometimes give advice. Because as I said, when he was sent down, you know, we communicated a little bit and I just said, hey, man,, it's hard to live up to those expectations of being the best amateur player because you're the number one overall pick, the best amateur player on the planet, and then try to match that. That's hard. Going back to the pressure question you asked earlier, I'm 50-some years old,

and I've had life experiences that can kind of put that stuff in it. Now you're talking about a young 20-something that has to deal with that and pressure far beyond anything, quite frankly, I've ever gone through. That's hard to do. So to remind him that in spite of being sent down, in spite of the slow start, you're still one of the luckiest human beings on the planet. Because you know why? Because you're playing baseball.

Not because you're the number one overall pick, but because you're playing baseball not not because you're the number one overall pick but because you're playing baseball you're getting paid to play a game yeah don't ever lose sight of that and if you can do that and keep both feet in today because that's the challenge for all of us is the minute we start trying to live up to what somebody's saying about us or what we should be or i need to get to this next step as opposed to being good right here that's when that's when the pressure starts impeding what you're doing. And I'll circle it back around to this job. That's why I've said screw that stuff. I am so thankful for this opportunity.

I'm going to enjoy it. That's the mindset that I've tried to say to Tork is like, you know what, man? You don't have anything to prove to anybody. And if you really want to break it down, you've got 8 million reasons why you don't need to prove to anybody. You know what I mean? So just go enjoy

the game and have fun. And once you can do that, and once he does that... I'll never forget, and I pointed Danny off screen, but it was his sophomore year after coming off, he broke Barry Bonds' everything at ASU. Everybody's like, oh, what a terrible slow start, blah, blah, blah. And it was like broke Barry Bonds' everything at ASU. Everybody's like, oh, what a terrible slow start, blah, blah, blah. And it was like he was hitting 380 at the time.

It just wasn't hitting a bunch of home run. And what you said, too, he's only been a pro for, what, two years? Two and a half years? I think second year. Yeah. So this dude's going to be really good for a really long time. I think, you know, obviously most of us here in Ann Arbor are Tigers fans. Um, and we're all excited about him and a lot of those young guys. So it's great to hear, you know, and I'm sure like, it's just, it's hard. People

think it's just automatic. And, you know, I think even obviously you see kids go from high school, then to college and then college to the pros. And it's like every step of the way, it just gets that much harder and that much harder, right? You're talking about all the wiffle ball warriors? Yes, exactly. Yeah, no, and that's why the pyramid gets shorter. And we were talking about Schwarber and Spence and why they're so good.

Even when I was playing and playing professionally, I played with guys that are some of the most unbelievable players I've ever seen. But other things take them out of that, whether it be like our friend Jack here hitting the bars and drinking themselves out. Don't get lost in it. Or the pressure gets to them or whatever. People don't understand how hard this game really is. And one of our favorite sayings, and our guys are going to hear this a lot, is

none of us know how someone's going to react when they're in an environment where someone's as good or better than they are. Because most of us in that locker room have been the best of the best of every team we've played. Now you put somebody in a competitive situation, you don't know how people are going to respond. That's why that pyramid gets smaller too. Some guys can't handle that. Yeah.

And so you talked about the way that Spencer Torkelson and some of these other guys, they differentiate themselves as they're good human beings too, right? Now, how in the world today and i ask this to any coach that we talk to the world of college athletics is tough there is now money involved there's the portal involved nil all that stuff and so many people talk about all right how do you build an actual team in the year 2022 in college athletics instead of the professional route and guys trying to get more money

or more whatever else? What's your attitude towards that on how you're going to try and build a culture up in this locker room and make sure that you guys are going out there with 50-some guys, right, but you're all one together? I think not to be transactional. And I know Coach Harbaugh has talked a little bit about that even in his coach talk, but not to be transactional, to make the relationships real.

Because even in professional sports, there are some locker rooms that are better than others. And I'll go back to what I said earlier. It's about people matter. So if you flood that locker room with the right people, coaches, players included, support staff, everybody associated with your program, and then you educate those within, you got a better chance of creating a good environment. Not that you're not going to have

guys that are going to think the grass is greener and I can go change and do this, but we try to do as good a job as we can in the recruiting process to vet that type of personality out and so for example and this is so relevant because we're going through right now with some kids there's a kid that you know a kid that we're recruiting now and you know he's getting his feelings hurt because we're not talking to him like every week and i'm like look that's not reality right you know so like our job in this is to create what reality is at the college athletics level and our relationships are going to be real real and authentic with you. It's not going to be I'm calling you because my alarm goes off and says, hey, man, send this, send this.

Like that's not. And we purposely don't call guys on the first day you can call them, too, because I always love that one. Hey, you know, why are you going to come? Well, they're the first school that ever, you know, called me. I'm like, oh, okay, that's a really good reason to, you know you know called me I'm like okay that's a really good reason to you know so we try to try to create what it really is so there's no surprises once they get here and I think if you can do that you got a better chance of having a good locker room I like it and and I mean that's like that's the key and I think coach backage did a lot of that right and that was he had buy-in here and

I think they had great attitudes of the, the cold weather stuff too. And that, you know, it just, it felt like a true group and I, I'm excited to see what you can bring to the table here as well. And I think, you know, how important is it to you to bring like, for example, a guy like Jimmy Elbertop back who, you know, has been involved here and you've got leadership still from some players. Instead of, you know, I'm sure it's tough to walk into a room of new guys and say, like, you know, you've got to build that trust with them. They don't know who you are, you know.

That's a great question. I mean, and really it was from the first time that I spoke to the team, I was driving to California to that event I was telling you about. Mr. Hollywood over here. And pulled over to do the Zoom with the team. I was driving to California to that event I was telling you about. Mr. Hollywood over here. Pulled over to do the Zoom with the team. That's the one thing I said on the call was like, look, I'm not Eric. Eric's not me. Not that his way is better or my way is better. We're just different. We do things differently. That said, I think our message and what we're trying to accomplish, which is creating quality

people for life beyond baseball and winning baseball games, I think our goals are the same. But there's going to be a different path to get there. And all I've asked for them is, like, be willing and open to change because it's not like we're going to come in and, you know, treat people like our – but we're not going to do it the same way you guys are used to. So come into it with an open mind, come into it with a coachable

spirit because we're in the business of winning. So our livelihoods depend on us doing the very things that I just said. So if you don't think our motivations are pure, I'm not in this to make you worse. But I think that's the challenge anybody faces. But I've done

this four times and it just just takes it takes time they've got to see it's that old adage they got to know that you care before you can really say anything that they're going to buy in yeah so that's why we want the sustainable success model i just and that'll happen over time i'm 100 confident in that i love it um what time are we at okay cool um i don't want to take up too much of your time i know you got to get back to your leaky cabin no that's taking care of him dan just got to get a lift in a day um so you know there's there's obviously a lot of uh you know a lot to do that you know i'm sure you got to some things. You've got to move into the office. You've got to get things ready. We walked in the turfs out getting things ready here.

What's the first thing on your mind as you're coming into this job? I'm smiling because I go back to that 30-year-old head coach. If all of these things that I walked into right now, a depleted recruiting class, an unfinished stadium, an unfinished this, an unfinished that, I'd probably be trying to solve all of that in like one day. I just got a different perspective now and we're going to get to all of those things, but the thing that we want to accomplish most is to make sure that locker room, that they get a sense of who we are and that trust thing, the build up, all this other stuff, we can get done in due time. And so what we have to do is, you know, keep the main thing the main thing

and not get distracted by some of the things that are going to take care of themselves and put ourselves in a position from a practice standpoint, yeah, we don't have cages right now, so let's find the next available option and not make a big deal out of it. Right. Because in the long run, it's not that important. Right. We'll get there.

Figure it out. We'll figure it out. Yeah. What do you guys have? I know you're getting to do new batter's eye right you're getting a turf are you putting any stands in the outfield uh not to my knowledge yet um no i don't think we are we're going to redo the uh orientation down the left field line to kind of create some more space down there and all all of these plans and things were in motion before I got here. I saw a little bit.

I just didn't, quite frankly, have enough time to dive in. I was like, go ahead. Eric's pretty meticulous on that stuff. So if they were designing it, I'm sure there was a reason behind it. But I think we start with the product on the field. We build that, and then we have the success that we all want to have on that. Then we can start. Doing all that. If we build a product on the field have the success that we all want to have on that, then we can start. Doing all that.

If we build a product on the field that's worthy of building stuff externally, then we're all for it. I think we put the Blue by 90 deck out there. That's what I was just thinking. We've got to get like a party porch out there. That would be awesome. A bridge from baseball to softball. People go back and forth and watch.

I'm not in tune to what the rules are around here, but that was one of my proudest accomplishments in Bloomington and Indiana is when we put a little, what you refer to, out on the left. And I was cracking up because the kids would come and they would bring their stuff and they'd have a great time. It became a thing. It was awesome. And I remember one time I said to them,

because they were getting a little rowdy out there, so I ran out during batting practice. I said, hey, we've got to keep it down a little bit, keep it clean, do what you want or whatever. Then I looked up like the top of first, and I saw people doing beer bongs. I was just like, that didn't go well. You can only control like a 21-year-old kid so much. That's right.

They were 21. Exactly. Right. Yeah, exactly. We would not condone otherwise. We've talked about it and obviously we built relationships with a lot of the players

from the past teams and stuff and we want to do our part as well in media and all that stuff to get you guys a great atmosphere, get people fired up about Michigan baseball. And we've come out to multiple games this past year. We're going to play in two this year.

You know, it's an awesome complex here that we have. It's awesome to have softball right there. Like, literally on a May Saturday when both are going on, it's so much fun to come out here. So here, and not that much has been serious up to this point, but here's what I'm going to say on a serious note with that. And this goes back to that lock and arms on that. Because I agree with you 100%.

It takes everybody. So I would say if you have ideas and you have things because your knowledge of this place is greater than mine at this point, is like what can we do to improve? What groups should we be having because what i have found and this is where i was actually in this little twitter thing you know even last night i i love to think i love outside the box ideas because if we just stay status quo we we allow the i will say the history of how well the most scariest one of the scariest statements is

we've always done it this way. I can't stand that. And not that I'm disrespecting the past. I think we have to embrace the past. But if we let the past tradition drive the momentum of our program, we are going to get passed by. We talked a little bit about NIL and things already. And, again, we can choose, and that's okay, all of us, to dig our heels in on certain things and say that's just the way we're going to do it.

That's fine. Well, then don't complain when your competitors are passing you. And again, I'm shifting gears. This isn't just NIL. This is anything. So I'm all about creative ways that we could, if it's reorient things differently within the stadium, I'm looking at the stadium, within the stadium to get more engagement, more fan thing.

One of the examples when we were at ASU, we built a batting cage. And so I think traditionally most coaches would just build a batting cage. What we did is we built a batting cage with an observation deck on it where the fans could look down in and watch the kids hitting in the cage. That's awesome. And we wanted to pull that out at the project at one point, but I was like, no, because this will make it unique and fun for our fans, which is that's what we should be doing.

And I'm really saying that to you guys. It's like if there's things that we could do better, things that we could do that we haven't done in the past, I'm all ears, man. I really am. Yeah. No, I mean, we talked about it this past year. I don't think we – we got out to a game. We didn't throw a tailgate.

But, like, we honestly want to get a tailgate going. I know. It's embarrassing on our part. Honestly. We had to leave room for improvement. Well, it is embarrassing because I'm going to call it a public challenge right now. You want a tailgate. All right.

We can do that. I promise you. We'll get out here on Ferry Field. We'll get it going. We'll get some students out here. I mean, I think we can. Cars will bring the whole thing. Some tall enough ladders.

We could get up on that building in right field. Oh, yeah. We're kind of joking around about it, but I do back to the Bloomington thing of there were no tailgates ever in the history there. And I remember vividly when they started doing the tailgating stuff, I was like, okay, we're turning the corner here. Oh, yeah.

But that's, you know, but that's our job to create that environment where people want to tailgate. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, so my wife played softball here, and I tell you what, the parents loved to tailgate. So we got to get – we'll start with the parents, get some students out there, get it going, you know. Everyone wants to have a good time, right?

I say we start with a bang. Let's just – let's get after it. We might as well. We might as well. I'm in. All right, perfect. Well, why don't we end it on that? Well, you know, I'm excited for the season.

This is going to be super exciting to see these guys, you know, get back into the weight room, into the facility. You know, you've got them coming on back on. When do you guys start fall ball here? Date? First workout is September 6th. September 6th. First workout. First practice is September 6th. September 6th. First workout.

First practice is September 18th. September, yeah. Okay. Okay. So, all right. So September 6th, though, the boys are back in the facility and getting ready to go. I mean, that's a couple weeks away, man. We don't have a facility to get into.

Well, all right. Well, we're working on that. We're working on that. We're going to be dropping by. We'll find something. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, fall ball is always fun. And then, you know, we'll come around February.

I'm sure you guys, that's when you start traveling. Are you going to travel out to ASU? Is that a – We actually – I did forget about that. The big difference is that first four to five weeks of the season travel. You're not home. I know. Because I remember going out to ASU.

I was like, oh, my God, man. We don't have to travel. This is unreal. But, no, we actually open at Salt River in Phoenix to start the season in that MOB event that's out there. That's cool. I mean, I will say in February here going out to Phoenix or Florida is like not the worst thing in the world.

Well, and one of the things, and this might be the appropriate time, one of the things that I would like to accomplish with our scheduling, particularly with that weekend, is I would love to go in that area every opening weekend because Oregon State did that. And they did. They'd come to Phoenix the first one or two weekends. And their fan base and alumni base began to expect it.

The crowds and the enthusiasm. It was like a home game for them. They took over Phoenix for the first couple weeks. And so that's one of the ideas that we want to bring is if our fan base and our alumni can have the expectation that every February or whatever, the Maize and Blue are going to be here in Phoenix, not only will you get the locals there, but I think you'll get people that will be planning their trips there.

So that's one of the things that we really want to work towards. I know softball already does that in Boca Raton as well because they go back there three or four times every year. That's kind of what now the difference between this is just me and the Florida is it rains more in Florida. That's true. They do get rained on a lot. So, like, I want to head west.

Yeah. And you guys will come and stop by. Yeah, absolutely. We'll have a party in Malibu, you know. I assume that we're, like, row, like, 1A and 1B on the plane there. Well, that was part of the scholarship, I thought. Right. All right, we'll talk to Danny about that.

I know he does the schedule. Circle back. We've got to check what we have available first. Well, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate you coming on here. It's been cool to get to hear everything from you, peel back the curtains a little bit on what you're about. And for a program, like we said, it's in a really great spot right now.

And, you know, there's a little minor setback here with the roster, but nothing that you can't tackle here. And for you to come in here and have the attitude that you already have is really exciting for Michigan fans out here. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be on here. I hope it's not the last invitation. Oh, yeah. It won't be, I promise.

We need a recurring guest here. Because you all heard the tailgate thing. Yeah, absolutely. We'll have to be on here. I hope it's not the last invitation. Oh yeah. It won't be our problem. Because you all heard the tailgate thing. Yeah, absolutely. We'll have to work on that. We'll have you on here soon but we appreciate you. Thanks. Go Blue! Go Blue!