Say Hey

I had heard stories about him growing up playing summer ball. They were horror stories. Running his players until they all puked, screaming and yelling all the time, running his practices like military exercises, etc...So you can imagine my hesitation to play for this guys’ team when they called and wanted me to play with them the summer after my junior year of high school.

I met Coach Ike for the first time in person at our first practice after the high school season ended in the summer of 2003. I introduced myself and shook his hand, and he looked at me and said, “Is that how you shake somebody’s hand? You better do it again and make sure it is firm this time.” Oh boy, here we go, I thought, and it is only day 1! This is going to be a long summer…

I decided to switch this post up a little bit and talk about something a little different, after getting a tweet from my sister about wanting to read something about motivating players as a coach. So Kel, here you go!

From an outsider Coach Ike probably seemed like a nut, crazy, maybe even an asshole. At least, those were most of the stories I heard before I had ever met the guy. Turns out, he was the best coach I’ve ever had, and I was never a better ball player than when I played for him; I would have never gotten a scholarship to a Division 1 school to play, and I probably would not be the man I am had I decided not to play for him. Truth is, I’ve never had more fun playing baseball than the two summers I played for Coach Ike.

His practices were intense, insane, (insert adjective for crazy here). They would teeter on the edge of 6 hours sometimes. You had to thank him for water breaks. If you didn’t thank him you owed him 25 pushups. Most of those hours upon hours we spent at practice we didn’t even have gloves on our hands. We were mostly just talking the game. (True story: he split us into four groups and put us at each base, no gloves, and we had to throw the ball around the diamond 100 consecutive times without dropping it, with no gloves, and we did it). The most fun I ever had, however, was the practice that it rained. Diving practice was something I looked forward to each year, no matter what you had to dive, and if you didn’t lay out you ran a lap around the warning track.

Games were even more intense. It was the 1^st inning of the first game I ever played for him. The third batter for the opposing team hit a line drive scorcher through the hole between short and third (I was playing shortstop). Coach Ike came out of the dugout and screamed, “Bobby, did you lay out for that ball?” I shook my head, I mean hello, it was obvious I didn’t, it was a sure base hit. He took me out of the game right there in the middle of the inning, ugh, and this was only game one, what a long summer this will be. When I got to the dugout he called me over, and I thought here it comes, better get the ear plugs ready. But he calmly looked at me and said, “Dude, you can’t make that play if you don’t try. It’s all about making plays.” From that day on I laid out for balls no matter what.

He was unorthodox, not every player could play for a coach like him, and maybe he was a little nuts. But he knew baseball, and he loved to teach it. When asked why he was so great, I often say he could motivate a camel to find water in the middle of the Sahara Desert. He got the absolute, 100%, very best out of each of his players, and he did because his players understood he wouldn’t accept anything less. His mantra was “Confidence is everything.” At the first practice he asked who here thinks they can hit? And the stupid 17 and 18 year olds that we were, we all raised our hands, and he said we were all liars. “If you can stand on one leg, pee down the other, smoke a cigarette, and still hit a curveball, then you can hit.” He broke the swing down in a way I had never learned before; he had pictures upon pictures upon pictures of major league swings, and how they all had the same basic fundamentals. After our first hitting practice I got home and my toe was bleeding, and we didn’t even hit live pitching!

But maybe my ultimate favorite thing he did was how he gauged how focused we were as a team. He had a rule, whenever he said “Say Hey,” we, as a team, had to respond with “Say Hey.” Didn’t matter if we were at practice, in the middle of a game, talking after a game you had to do it, and if you didn’t it was a quick 25 push-ups. His reasoning for doing it was he could tell how focused we were by how close to unison we sounded. The first couple weeks we probably sounded like an echo, but when we got the hang of it, there was nothing more intimidating that hearing the entire team respond as one.

He was a military man, and his rules were militaryesque! All our bat bags had to be in numerical order. He hated the word “yea” it was only “yes” around him, and if he was ticked off it was “yes sir.” After every game you shook the coach’s hands, and thanked them. He demanded respect, and gave it to those who showed it.

His number one rule, however, was the Larry Bird rule. Coach Ike’s basement is a library. He’s probably got a thousand books, and he’s probably read them all twice! The Larry Bird rule was something he read in Bird’s book, it was the law of 80%, and Coach Ike preached it on the field. The law of 80% was simple; you do things on the field at 80% effort to gain 100% accuracy. A throw coming from the outfield trying to get a runner advancing has to be placed perfect to gain the best chance of getting the out. Coach Ike said the outfielders need to throw the ball at 80% effort so that the ball is in the right spot for the fielder making the tag. 100% effort meant a decrease in accuracy, and in a game of inches, 100% accuracy is key. But the law of 80% applied to everyone on the field, and it taught me to keep myself calm in key situations in the game.

He coached baseball the way it was supposed to be played. He’d yell at you if you were trotting too slowly after a home run, and rarely ever gave signs. We just went out and played, but if the pitcher caught a pop up on the infield, oh boy. True story, we had a pitcher who made a catch on a pop up that was right next to the mound, and Coach Ike took the pitcher, and entire infield out of the game and played others at those positions. The pitcher should never catch a pop up!

It was truly his way or the highway. And not every player could play for Coach Ike. But 5 years down the road you come to realize that as much as we thought it was about baseball then, he was really teaching us about life. He was teaching us to be men. Accountability, responsibility, and honesty were keys that he preached. I never had more fun that the summer after graduating high school and coming together with that team to win 26 consecutive games, four tournaments in four different states, but that’s also the summer I grew up. I won’t ever forget my teammates from that summer, or the fact that winning 26 straight games actually had Coach Ike speechless at our post game talks. And even though we didn’t hear it that often that summer I’ll never forget Coach Ike’s wisest words, “If you can take a loss, and turn it into a lesson, we all walk away winners.”