It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog about something other than the Connecting the Dots Baseball Conference. The winter time is my prime time for writing because it’s a quick lull before the season starts. Writing helps me get my thoughts into ideas that can be actionable. My growth as a person has been expedited since getting to Maryville College, because my job title aligns with exactly what I want out of my job and more importantly, life. Here are 3 reasons why I feel like I’m in the perfect position in life right now.

1. Time with my family
2. Go where you’re wanted 
3. Time to better myself as a person

These 3 points mean a ton to me. Taking the time to sit back and realize why I’m happy has been crucial. There’s one word that is involved in all 3 of the points and that’s time. Time is all that we have. It’s always ticking away and realizing that we can do whatever we want with it is very empowering. Choosing the profession of a college baseball coach was taking me down a very dark path that did not line up with my core values for a while back in the day. The combination of Maryville College, Clint Helton (head coach) and NCAA DIII have shown me that college baseball can be done differently, and for the better for everyone. Before I begin the elaboration of these three points, I’ll leave you with one quote that I live by ever since I read it in 11 Rings by Phil Jackson. 

“What you do for others, you do for yourself. What you do for yourself, you do for others.”

To get a better understanding of who I am before I talk about my family, I highly encourage you reading this blog first, Why I’m Unapologetically Myself. If you have read this already…then you know about my Core 4. They are Bill, Linda, Kelly and Taylor. My Grandparents/Parents, my Mom and Wife. Pretty confusing I know. My biological Mom has passed away, time is not on my side with my grandparents, and long distance was always been a thing with Taylor and I- as we both were busy back in college. I’m not special when it comes to this. We all have our own issues with time. I was just forced to deal with the issue of time at an earlier stage of my life. It was at the end of summer of 2019 that I realized that the time I was spending in baseball did not align with what I wanted out of life. I was about to go into my 4th year of college coaching making less than 6k per year. This did not sit well with me, because I wanted to provide for my family and spend more time with them. Taylor was there to keep pushing me to chase my dream, even when I knew it would be much safer to settle down in Florida and get a high school coaching job. It was only a month later that I got the job here at Maryville College. Since then, I’ve found that NCAA Division III was the perfect fit for me. I get to spend way more time with my wife. I get to stay with my Grandparents/Parents on recruiting trips and spend way more time with them. I also get more time to reflect and think about how thankful I am for the time that I had with my Mom- Kelly. 

Reflection is something that I did not have time for in my days of working in Florida. I was always on the road going somewhere and when I got home, I was focusing only on where I wanted to be. I am so thankful for my time now because this reflection is helping me prepare for the inconvenient truth. My Grandparents who raised me are in their 80’s. They are my best friends and the only people I talk to nearly as much as my wife. I have been forced to prepare for life without them. I recently read “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande and asked my Dad to read it as well. It’s a book that I didn’t want to read but I knew that it was very important that I did. The book covers how important it is to have tough questions answered before it’s too late. Pain of death is something that no one wants to discuss but you are either going to go through the pain of it with the people you love before it actually happens, or after the fact alone…once they have passed. I know the pain of not getting the chance to have these discussions before the fact. It’s awful. You may be wondering why I’m divulging all this information. The reason is because death and the process of moving on from people is something that no one can escape. This is something that everyone who is reading this will have to deal with. I want to help you prepare for these moments in life. Yin and Yang means so much. You cannot escape shitty situations. You can prepare for them, though. Think about everyday occurrences. 

• Netflix binge → Tough Morning / No Netflix → Easy Morning
• Tasty/unhealthy food → Fat cells/bad health — Boring/healthy food → Good physique/healthy
• Sedentary → weak / Active → strong 

You can either be in charge of the things that suck and reap the benefits, or you can take the easy way out and have no control of when the tough times in life come about. The way that I’m embracing this now is my decision to take a Head Coaching Job for a Summer Ball Team  West Palm Beach this summer. Being away from my wife for this amount of time is going to be really tough. Baseball has always taken us apart from each other and since being at Maryville College, this has been the most time that we’ve been able to spend together. It’s been wonderful and I wish that I never would have to leave her for a prolonged period of time ever again in my life. This isn’t the case. My professional goal is to become a head coach of a small college. My wife and I are not the type of people to sit back and wait for our goals to fall into our lap. I knew that to continue progressing towards my goal, I needed to get back out there this next summer and be a head coach. Tanner Rekalitis talks often about how you don’t get hired to learn but to produce at your job. I needed to get back in the saddle for the 3rd time and lead a group of men through the summer. Now what Job would be the right fit? I had found out in the summer of 2019 that the traditional summer ball format would not be it, because of the toll it takes on the mind/body. I needed something more structured that would allow me to be a better person while doing it. In short, something that doesn’t require 30 hours of driving a van in a week. I then saw the posting for a head coach in the Collegiate League of the Palm Beaches. The league is 30-35 games in Palm Beach with all the games within 30 min of each other with time to develop as a player and coach. I got the interview and took the job. Now, I will be away from my wife but also I’m only 3 hours away from my parents which, in terms of time, means the world to me. Taking a sacrifice on one end to meet the accommodations of another aspect of time. Make time to reflect on what matters and things will work out. 

This second point is why I found out the small college level is for me right now. I was moving back down to Florida and going to start a job with Eckerd College a couple years back. I had done work with the Yankees in the past so I decided to reach out and see if they needed any help. It just so happened to be that they did. Long story short, I kept nudging my way and ended up getting an official part time job. This led to a year and half of working for the Yankees and Eckerd/St. Petersburg College. On most weekdays I would go into the Yankees complex from 7-12 and then head on over to the college. I was so lucky to have had this opportunity because I got to see what part of baseball that I wanted to be a part of. I did not have the opportunity to play affiliated professional baseball, so I got to see what it was all about. It was a wild ride but ultimately I found myself being more excited to go to work at the colleges. Another addition to this is having a purpose and feeling wanted. I never got that while working with the Yankees. This is at no fault for anyone that I worked with. The entire Performance Science department for the Yankees are outstanding people that I still talk to. It’s just that my role was obviously bigger at the college because it had to be. If you want to learn more about how when an entity gets bigger it becomes weaker and less genuine, read “Anti-Fragile” by Nassim Taleb. 

I started writing this blog and my second point changed. A big reason as to why I’m writing is important. I went from “being with guys figuring out their way in life” to “go where you’re wanted”. Why is this? Guys in professional baseball are trying to find their way in life as well. It just happens to be that my experiences in life give me way more credibility to players at the small college level…rather than professional baseball. This is something that I hope all working professionals can figure out sooner than later. It is better to work for that local company rather than go work for that big corporate company. Why, you ask again? Would you rather be with people that have mutual respect for one another and know everyone at a personal level or be somewhere that you are just another fly on the wall? I am wanted at Maryville College. Clint, Head Coach, does a great job of letting me know that. My players are extremely appreciative of what I bring to the table. Would I feel this way at a big D1 or professional baseball right now? The chances are slim. I am so lucky to be at a place that wants me. 

The last point is something that I need to keep reminding myself of daily. If you don’t take time to evaluate what you need day to day, your life will feel like it’s not yours. The process of taking self-inventory allows you to gauge whether the tasks at hand for the day line up with where you want to go in life. If you start to just accept tasks given to you as something you have to do, then your life is not yours. At Maryville College, myself and the athletes have ample time to take care of themselves. We all have preconceived notions of what makes us happy and fulfilled. Take time to sit there today and think to yourself, does this make sense? I did this when I was at Catawba when I had to start setting sights after playing college baseball. I asked Taylor what she wanted me to do when it came to a profession. It was going to be a college baseball coach or strength and conditioning coach. To her, there really was no choice because she knew how much baseball means to me and my life. She knew that at times it would suck being the wife of a baseball coach, but when we were together she would have all of me because I was fulfilling my calling. I would be where I grew up, where my parents loved watching me be and where I could be at peace. This is just my journey and it is my hope that I can create an environment for any player that I come across that allows them to take this daily inventory, so they can be as confident in what they want to do with their life. Remember, take care of yourself so you can take care of others.