I remember the first few days of switching my twitter over to more of a professional development page, and I started following a bunch of coaches that are spoken highly of. One of the first coaches I followed was Jerry Weinstein. I saw Jerry posting some great content on the catching position and loved all of it. At this time, I had tied my identity to being a catching coach so I was always drawn to any information on the subject. Shortly after this, I attended my first ABCA convention in 2019 in Dallas, and I saw Jerry in the front row at almost every talk. To be completely honest with you, I thought this might’ve been all for show. Boy, was I wrong. I continued to go about my time at the convention, paying attention to all of the catching talks and listening in here and there on talks about hitting and pitching. When I left the convention, I was frustrated because I knew that my knowledge of catching was just as good as anyone there, why wasn’t I getting any attention? 

Throughout the next two years, I started to transition into more of a holistic baseball coach and as I’m making this transition I start to notice more things about Jerry. A lot of people talk about how much he knows about the game, which is undeniably true. That wasn’t what set him apart from other coaches, in my opinion. There’s some people in the baseball world that are only known for their knowledge of what they speak about, Jerry is not one of them. You can hear Jerry’s former players talk about him all the time. He was a great coach along with having this abundant knowledge of the game. How did he get there? 

In my last blog, How Audible Change My Life, I talk about how listening to audio books has changed my life for the better. This is one of the ways. It has given me a completely new vantage point on why Jerry Weinstein is so beloved, and I think that he’s the model that every young coach should strive for. In books like ‘Range’ by David Epstein I have found out why being curious about everything is good for both your professional and personal life. “In a wicked world, relying upon experience from a single domain is not only limiting, it can be disastrous.” This is when I realized why Jerry sits in the front row of all of these conventions, he is genuinely curious about what everyone has to say. This is what I want to be as a coach, and how I want to live my life. Curious. 

I have spoken on this topic at length because I got caught up in the status of social media. It’s easy to glorify how much a coach knows about the game of baseball, but they often don’t talk about anything else. I want this to change. I want coaches to be more vulnerable online and in person. Share their stories of when times were tough and let their players know they’re human and they also make errors both on and off the field. I was never coached by Jerry, but he’s shown me what being curious for a lifetime does for you. It gives you an immense amount of lifelong friends and life that is worth living, because being curious never stops and keeps you constantly learning new things.