[00:00:15] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse podcast with Paul Solentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communication. Thanks for your time. We appreciate you listening. Our guest today as we start baseball fall baseball series is head coach Brian Green. He joins the podcast to get us ready for fall baseball. Wichita State. Hired Brian in June. He spent the previous four seasons as head coach at Washington State. Before that, five seasons as a head coach at New Mexico State. So Brian, let's start with an update on the fall. Where are you at in your practice calendar and what's next for the Shockers?
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Well go shocks happy to be here and it's an exciting time for us. We are just about ready to start our team phase. And what that means is we get an increased time with our players. So we'll move from skill instruction, which is 4 hours a week on the field, to beginning on Saturday the 23rd team practice where we get 4 hours a day at six days a week. So we'll really ramp it up. We'll start scrimmaging, we'll start posting that on social media. First scrimmage will be Saturday. First pitch will be at 03:00. Fans, please come out and join. Gates will be open, free admission. We'd love to see everybody out and support in the group, but it's time to get into team baseball. You're going to see the Shockers playing four and five times a week with an addition of a couple of false scrimmages. Cali will come in on October 14 and we'll scrimmage them. And then we'll actually go down to Dallas Baptist on October 20 eigth to give our early non conference schedule a run in terms of getting out and practicing, going on the road, a bus trip, staying in a hotel, the road, jitters, all those things. So the month of October, beginning on Saturday, late September is team practice. Very excited to get going.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Do you have a first speech prepared, a first talk, or have you already gotten through that with this group?
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Yeah, we've certainly given plenty of those. So really it's just a matter of us being able to and getting the opportunity to spend more time on the field with the guys. Everything is so compressed right now. In skill instruction, you only get 4 hours a week. So essentially it's about 40 minutes a day. You've got to be really prepared, really concise with our messaging. But when we get to team phase, we'll get to spend a lot more time in the classroom, which we're looking forward to.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: So you mentioned social media practice clips on social media, and that's probably something that's changed significantly in your time as a baseball coach.
Why is that important? What does that matter? To get out highlights all those kind of things.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: It's constant promotion of the program and our players need to understand that, which they do, and we educate them on that. But social media is such a valuable tool to promote and send things out essentially one way. But for us, getting community outreach, getting it out to the fans, getting it out to the Alums, that's one piece from the recruiting standpoint, letting our future shockers know what's going on really important. And then for us, also messaging to our players, we like to use social media, and we like to use media outreach to communicate with our players when we're not communicating with them. So I think you really get two or three things that are very viable in using that, and then just growing our brand and making sure that we're promoting our brand. And social media is a big opportunity for us to use that, and we like to use it. I'm pretty active on it, or I try to be anyways.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Let's rewind a little bit. Tell us how you got into coaching. Why did you choose this profession?
[00:03:33] Speaker B: That's a great question, and there actually is a story or a moment. But as a junior college player at Riverside Community College, I remember being down the Rye Field line in the corner of a bullpen area, and that was my tea station as a player. And I don't know if I was making five or $10 for my work that day, but I was down coaching on the tees, and I was given my two and three piece lesson. And I remember how much I enjoyed doing that, teaching Little Leaguers about how to hit off of the tee, and I remember how it made me feel. It gave me energy.
I loved it. And I really remember that day as going, you know what, I think I might want to coach. And I started even viewing playing a little bit different because I thought I might get into coaching. And that was the part that I knew I wanted to do it, or I thought I might want to do it. And at New Mexico State University in 1994, when I was done playing as a generic average college player, the head coach at the time, La Vent, now at North Carolina State, he called me in, and I was a senior shortstop for the Aggies. And he said, You've got another year left of school. Do you have any interest in coaching? I said, Coach, it's actually what I want to do with my life. He said good. We're going to make you the undergraduate assistant. You're going to work with the infielders. So I got the break of a lifetime. I got to get on the field and coach first base as a 23 year old, and that's how I broke into coaching.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Were you the type of player who was always observing, asking questions, kind of building this library of coaching knowledge during your playing days?
[00:05:02] Speaker B: I wish I would have done a better job of that. I think when I was 20, 22, 23 years old, I think I was like a lot of young athletes, maybe I had too many or all of the answers. And I wish I would have asked more questions back then. I wish I would have gone out and sought out more information from coaches. But I certainly have always loved the game, and I always love learning about the game, and even as a player, I was a guy who asked a lot of questions, though.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Coaching mentors, who would you list as people who are really influential?
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Man, it's a long list. Rich Hill, John Savage, both saw them this last weekend at a camp, but had the opportunity to work for both of those coaches. Dennis Rogers, who's an ABCA Hall of Fame member, was my junior college coach at Riverside Community College.
I would say Rich, and I would say Coach Savage and I would say Dennis Rogers are probably my top three mentors.
And then getting the opportunity to work under or for La davent, gary Henderson, just I've been very fortunate. Pat Casey at Oregon State, but I was with Coach Hill and Coach Savage for a long amount of time, and they're probably my two greatest mentors. Aside with Dennis, did you have a.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Favorite big league team, a favorite big league player growing up that influenced you?
[00:06:21] Speaker B: I think I have two absolute, complete opposite type of players who I would list as my top two players growing up, but there were three. Tony Gwynn with just how good he was, how great he was. I grew up in Temecula, California, and Tony was a Padres, so that was an easy one. Will Clark with the Giants. And I grew up a Giants fan. My dad was a Dodger fan, and I, of course, as being a teenager, decided to go with the Giants and create havoc in our house. And Ricky Henderson, I loved all of his thing. Those are my top three players growing up. But I grew up a Giant fan, still am a Giant fan. And it's been awesome. I've coached three or four San Francisco Giants, and Brandon Crawford, who's still their shortstop, was a player that I recruited and coached and got the opportunity to coach at UCLA with Coach Savage and still a Giant fan to this day.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Does Chris Lamb know you're a Giants fan?
[00:07:15] Speaker B: He does now.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: No, we actually did talk about we'll. I've got some introductions to do for.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Him, and he's huge Tony Gwynn guy, too. I think I've gone up there four or five times in the past month, and he's got some crazy Tony Gwynn. Stat about never striking out something like that. All right. Yeah. He loves his baseball. Definitely.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Do you have a major league player, current, former, that you send clips to your guys or that you say, hey, you need to get on YouTube and look how this guy does things. Is there somebody you hold up as really good?
[00:07:51] Speaker B: You know, we talk about Nick Gonzalez. I do. Just because he was a player that we coached at New Mexico State and who was a walk on at New Mexico State who has reached the big leagues this year and was a first round pick. So we use him. But for the infielders in particular, I love to show our guys, two guys. One is Brandon Crawford, because I coached him and saw how passionate he was about his defensive work in college and seeing what that's turned into him from a career standpoint. And then Omar Viskell, one of the great shortstops of all time with an average arm, love to show our infielders his hand work and how gifted he was with his hands. And that's something that we strive for and catch play. And so those are two guys that we tend to show a lot of. With regards to big league hitters right now, I think Mookie Betts is probably the one that we would look at the most just because he's a guy who really can maximize his power, because his movements are so efficient and his flexibility is so in tune with his body. And so he's a guy that we're showing a lot of clips to right now, as he's one of the best guys in the big leagues as well.
Hi.
[00:09:09] Speaker C: This is Rick Muma, president of Wichita State University. Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode, I sit down with different guests from Shocker Nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: You have three assistant coaches on the staff. Anthony Claggett handles the pitchers. Clay Overcash and Anthony Miller. Tell us a little bit about each one of those and why they're on the staff at Wichita State.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Well, really fortunate. I think the Shocker fans are going to like this coaching staff a lot. I'm just so pumped that they're here. But Coach Claggett and I have been together since 2018 at New Mexico State. We won two championships together. And his claim to fame, he's got a couple of them, but two different strikeout record program records both at New Mexico State and at Washington State that he can hang his hat on. Kyle Bradish is one of the best pitchers in the major leagues right now and pitched for us at New Mexico State.
Tremendous pitching coach. And for the fans, they might not know. Coach Claggett pitched in the big leagues both for the Yankees and the Pirates, and he's got a World Series ring, and he'll bust that out and show some of our players from his 2009 time with the Yankees. Coach Overcash, tremendous hire and pickup for us. Longtime scout with the White Sox, ran the area co team most recently was at the University of Oklahoma, where they went to the College World Series. He's our recruiting coordinator, and he's from this part of the country and he'll work with our catchers. He's a tremendous coach and has a passion for the game and his knowledge is outstanding as the elder statesman of the staff. He's got me by a couple of years. And Coach Miller, a really cool story for the fans. But Anthony Miller from Johnson County was a player that I signed as the head coach at New Mexico State way back in 2015. He ended up signing professionally with the Indians. I believe he was 17th round pick. But we had kept in touch. So he got back into coaching both in McLennan and Johnson County. And now here we are together. He has always wanted to be a shocker. So just excited to have those guys along with Tad Radar, our director of operations, who is a shocker, who played here at 94. So great staff, a good staff that has a lot of connections to Wichita State. Coach Claggett and I would be the new guys on the outside. And with Cash and Anthony and Tad, they're all from this part of the country or they have ties to soccer. Baseball, yeah.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: I'm glad you mentioned Tad. People will remember him.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: What's your connection with, you know and everything's? Connections. And Tad's brother Matt was our shortstop at the University of Kentucky back when I coached there. So when Tad was coaching at West Virginia and Air Force, matt was our shortstop back Kentucky. So know the Raida family very well and know that Tad was a shocker and that he had administrative work with running the academy that he was running in Colorado. So when the opportunity came up, that was our connection and we got him going. And he is doing an outstanding job as our Ops director.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: So you've been here since June. You've been really busy out and about, meeting a lot of people, fans, alums, all that kind of stuff.
Impressions of baseball at Wichita State and the program. What have you learned maybe how has that changed over your few know?
[00:12:37] Speaker B: I grew up watching Wichita State on ESPN and I grew up on the West Coast in Temecula in Southern California. And really it was Cal State Fullerton. But then Wichita State was my impression was that was the Cal State Fullerton of the Midwest.
That has certainly held true. This is a baseball community that's extremely obvious. The pride and the history of Wichita State baseball is exactly what I thought it would be when I put on the hat for the first time for fall practice. I have to tell the fans that that was a really special moment for me. When I put that hat on. It was a big deal. I know the Wichita State brand and have always known it. Being in the same dugout where Coach Stevenson was is an unbelievable honor. But this job has been everything that I had hoped and thought that it might be the history and the tradition of this program. One thing I didn't know, which I share with recruits is with the one national championship and the seven Omaha appearances. I knew that, but I didn't know there were four runners up. So Wichita State actually could have five national championship trophies. Just an amazing run and 14 consecutive regionals 27 conference championships and one of the Mount Rushmore programs of college baseball. So honestly, it's been everything that I had hoped that it would be.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: You've met a lot of former Shockers, Mike Pelfrey, many others. Have you picked up an interesting story, an interesting tidbit that maybe has informed your time here?
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Well, I knew that Brent and Coach Gene were very passionate. I didn't realize that they yelled at each other so much in the dugout back in the day. Those have been very funny stories. I'm not sure if I can share those out public, but there have been some awesome dugout stories going back in the history of the program. And with Coach Gene, I've gotten to spend a lot of time with him, with Brent Kemnenz, who's obviously here in development. He has done an amazing job for us, getting us around a lot of Shockers in the community and very appreciative of that.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Gene and Brent, the well known story is they always stood at opposite ends of the that was that was the routine, definitely.
Fall practices. How do you approach getting them organized? Do you have particular emphasis? What's the plan?
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And we're very excited to get into team just so we can begin to put our stamp on the program of how we want to operate, starting with how we want to act in the dugout, starting with how we want to perform in terms of hustle and playing hard, running on and off the field, fundamentally how we want to operate. But we'll attack the fall really from a system standpoint, just in terms of a lot of why, but more how we would like to do it this way. We'd like to take a lead this way. We'd like to do our bunning technique this way. This is how in between innings, we want to take ground balls. This is how we want to throw the ball around the field. These are the expectations of hustle, both mental hustle and physical hustle. This is the offensive approach that we want to get after. So really a lot of systems. And as our time expands now with 4 hours a day when we're on the field, we're going to use every minute of that to get into preparing for February of how we want to go about it. So the coaching staff's work is going to just absolutely take off here starting on Saturday with the time they were allowed.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: So you have a third assistant coach now. Both baseball and softball can do that. How's that change what you're able to do?
[00:15:57] Speaker B: It's really changed recruiting and it's changed the student athlete experience when we were only allowed to have with the volunteer coach. What you saw in college baseball was the paid coaches who were allowed to recruit would be gone, particularly the recruiting coordinator and the other assistant. So a lot of times in practice, you saw the head coach and the volunteer coach, which is now this newly paid coach. Well, it's enabled us to have another recruiter out on the road, but it's more importantly, it's enabled us because we have the other recruiter, we can rotate around so the pitching coach can stay here when we're throwing bullpens and another coach can hit the road. And then when we're doing position player stuff, we can rotate. So it's certainly better from a time management perspective for the coaches, but really the players are the ones that benefit.
Their coach isn't on the road in those compressed recruiting periods that we all have to be out on the road for. So Coach Miller was the additional coach that we've had here, and that's enabled Coach Claggett to be here a lot more than normal. So, huge part for college baseball, and I'm sure that there's probably more coming down the road.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: So you have new coaching staff, you have a lot of new players, you have returners. How do you go about building a bond team chemistry in this kind of situation?
[00:17:14] Speaker B: 34 new players, we still haven't slept, and we started with a thing called culture training, and I'll be sharing this with the public soon, but in terms of building with 34 new players, we've got to get these kids together. And so I believe that it starts in the locker room with them just respecting each other, liking each other, wanting to compete for each other. Before we can talk about winning and team first integrity, I think you have to attack it on a personal level. So the first week of the season was what we call culture training. We had the kids meet their professors and we sent that out on social media just to get them to understand how important it is to be a shocker athlete and to kind of put a little awareness on them that there's maybe a bullseye on them in a good way.
Two days of what we call pride training, and all that means is that we were here with a facility, cleaning every bit of this facility so they can respect this facility and all the great people who have come through here and in building this thing.
Team Elite came in, which is a peak performance mental training group that we have. It's a team bonding, team building weekend that we have. We had the kids over to my house. That ended culture training. We had a barbecue and swimming and fishing. Coach Gene was there and Brent was there, and all those types of things. On top of player introductions, we actually had our players. They had, like, a list of eight things that they needed to do, and they needed to specifically introduce themselves in a specific order. So it was a test in a way. But all those things culminated a week, and it really brought the team a lot closer than if we would have just gone out and started playing catch on first day. So that's how we build it. And then we attack culture on a daily basis. I mean, it's a set of standards and of how we want to operate, but I think you have to attack the locker room first and then from there you can go into our team thing, which is where we're moving into now.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Returners who are helping out with this process, they've been here who's helping lead and get things organized.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah, the returning guys have done a great job of bringing in 17 high school freshmen or 14 junior college players or three Portal players. But if you look at Rogers and Stro and Mauricio and Alex, I mean, literally, all of our ten guys that came back out of the Portal favors, Wilkinson, Mulholland, they've all been awesome. And I think they've welcomed the new players. I think they're hungry to win. I think they understand how important it is to have good culture, and I think they've been very optimistic in how they've gone about it. Starkey as well, jaden as well. It's just been a very positive thing. And I think what the returning players have also done is they've given a lot to the coaches in terms of giving us information that we maybe need to know. And they've really welcomed us with open arms. We've felt that and it's given us a very positive vibe on the field right now.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: So for fans who are going to come out and watch some of the scrimmages, watch a little practice, hit us with a newcomer or two who's made some good impressions on you so far, that fans should keep an eye on.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: It's a fun group and it's a mixed group. You're going to see Tommy LaPour, who can get it up to 97 miles an hour as a freshman, or Ryan Garrity, whose ball moves half of a plate from Illinois, another freshman, Hamilton from Oklahoma has just been a strike machine. I've said this a lot, but kudos to the previous coaching staff's, recruiting efforts of the high school players that are here. We've got some talented kids, but we were able to bring in Tommy LaPour. He's going to be fun to watch again. Garrity and Hamilton are going to be fun to watch. You're going to like watching Darnell Parker and Cam Dernon and Cam Johnson. Those are three infielders maybe to keep an eye on some junior college talent out in the outfield. I think Derek Williams has hit three home runs in some of our pitcher hitter matchups.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: I heard he hit one off the batter's eye the other day. He got some pop.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: He's got some pop, and I guess it was two homers yesterday. And you take him and we've got two three kids from Johnson County. We've got some crowder in there. We've got a lot of the Kansas Junior College flavor.
David Johnson is a tremendous athlete. You're going to see him out in center field or left field, and if you look at Brayden Lucart or if you look at Ryan Callahan, those are guys from Johnson.
There's a lot of talent out there. And our job right now, starting on Saturday, is going to be figuring out who's going to be out there and who's going to compete the hardest. But there's going to be some fun players to watch. I'll tell you to the fans, when they come out for the scrimmages, we'll have the rosters out. You'll be able to follow your guys. The gates will be open and we encourage all the fans to come out and watch us play.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Excellent rosters are very helpful. Yeah. Best moment as a college player, what's your favorite memory?
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Best moment as a player was probably when I was at Chapman University in 1993. We were a Division One independent and we really didn't have much, and we went in and beat Long Beach State at Blair Field. And they had just come back from Omaha and they were a top five program. And we went in and this little tiny Chapman College went in and beat them on a Friday night. And I think every player on the field this is no joke, made a diving play. And I still remember I can feel I probably only dove about a half an inch, but in my memory it was six inches off the ground, parallel with the ground, but catching a line drive. And I remember that ball sticking to my glove and going down to the ground almost in slow motion. And I remember all of our teammates did that and those type of games as players, when you feel like you played a perfect game, that's a game that I've always remembered. And I remember the championships at Riverside Community College. But I remember that specific game. I felt like I was a part of a game that everybody played their best game, and that was a great memory.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Winning at Long Beach State, that would be a big deal. What's the last concert you attended?
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Last concert I attended was Paul McCartney with my wife in Spokane. At the Spokane Arena. And prior to that we saw Train in Lake Tahoe in the summer. My wife and I are huge concert goers, and we are excited to hear that. There's a lot of activity in Wichita.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. How far Spokane is, how close to Pullman?
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Hour and a half.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: Hour and a half? Yeah.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: 90 minutes. So we went up and saw Paul McCartney play for 3 hours and we're absolutely blown away.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: Excellent. That's a good one to get. What's your favorite TV show?
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Well, this is funny because I remember I'd been asked this before, but my wife and I are crazy about Dateline, and when we hear Keith Morrison's voice, we watch Dateline. So that's probably my favorite show other than either watching something on the Golf Channel or Major League Baseball, but I think Dateline is my wife and I's favorite.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: And last question, do you have a book recommendation for us, a favorite book?
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been with me forever, but Pat Riley's The Winner Within, it literally goes through the start of the season to the end, and it's awesome about building a program, and it's when he was with the Knicks and he was trying to build their culture. I think it's the best coaching book that I've ever read, and I've probably read it ten times. But again, the winner within Pat Riley. My favorite book that I've read.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Okay. Brian Green, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Go Shockers. Thanks, guys.
[00:24:59] Speaker C: Great insight as always. Thanks for listening to the Roundhouse podcast. Courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, you can always find more Roundhouse
[email protected]. Down to a three two pitch with two men on two outs in the 9th.
The stretch by Tyler Green. Here it comes. Suck him out. A no hitter for Tyler Green.
A spike three call on the outside corner. And Tyler Green has pitched the fourth no hitter in Wichita State history, the second in his many years, as he joined fellow classmate Charlie Gindrome as the author of a Wichita State no hitter and in the process struck out a career high 13, including all three outs in the 9th inning. Tyler Green completes a no hitter. And Wichita State defeats New Mexico twelve to nothing.
