[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Sullentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Thank you very much for listening. We're getting close to the Shocker Fall Series, so Marty Lees assistant coach and recruiting coordinator is here to update us on the Fall. Marty was hired in May. He comes to Wichita State after two seasons as head coach at Stillwater Oklahoma High School where he coached Ethan Holliday. Ethan was the number four pick in July by the Colorado Rockies. He also has a long association, kind of informally, coaching Jackson Holliday. Jackson was the number one pick in the 2022 draft with the Baltimore Orioles. Before that, Marty was assistant coach at Oklahoma State. He also served as head coach at Washington State from 2016 to 2019 where he preceded current Shocker coach Brian Greene. Marty was also assistant coach at Oregon for 11 years and won two national titles there. The five game shocker fall series begins October 28th. Free admission with a can of food. A long running Fall Series tradition. So Marty, it's not often that two former head coaches at a school get together on the same staff at another school. Tell us how you got back into college coaching here at Wichita State.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Well, I'd known Coach Green for a very long time. I actually followed him at Oregon State in 2001. He went to San Diego.
I know him a little bit then. And so we've known each other for a very long time. And when I'd left Washington State, there were players that I felt he really needed to stay on, try and keep there.
When I left there, I didn't even, you know, when I heard Brian got the job, I was actually really excited for the kids and who they were getting. And so we've stayed in touch ever since then. And you know, then as the season went on this year at the end of the year, Brian had reached out just see how things were going. If I thought about getting back into college baseball and said, yeah, I'd had some opportunities in pro ball but didn't think that that would be the right move for me right now. And especially being with my all my kids have graduated now. Going back to high school was one of the main reasons I wanted to coach my last son. And being in Stillwater and being known the holidays so well, getting a chance to coach my own son, it was a dream come true. And then this opportunity came up.
I've always liked the Wichita State baseball brand.
I've liked it since I was in high school.
And so when this opportunity came up and after talking to Brian and talking to Kevin Saul it was a no brainer for me.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: So you are from Oregon. You played at Lane Community College in Western Oregon before you started coaching in high school. What got you into coaching as a career?
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Well, I felt like I was built to coach.
My mentors were coaches.
Some of my favorite things, you know, when I look back in high school were because of my coaches and so felt like I wanted to do that. I actually went to Lane to play basketball. So I played basketball and baseball there for a couple years.
I thought I was going to be a basketball coach and that's what I wanted to do. But all the opportunities moved towards baseball as far as moving up. And I can remember In December of 2001, I finished camp at Oregon State and Coach Casey said, hey, I've got a volunteer position open. Would you be interested? And at that time I was an athletic director at a local high school and coaching. So I wasn't, I wasn't teaching much, but I was doing that and said, yeah, let's go. And that's where it all started.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Pat Casey, you're referring to just tremendous amount of success at Oregon State.
Describe your coaching philosophy.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Well, Coach, I really want kids to be inspired by the things that we do.
I think that work ethic, paying attention to detail, having a group of coaches to work with really helps my vision.
And, you know, coaching with Coach Green and, you know, having a philosophy. Obviously I work with the infielders, but I feel like it's more than that here with Coach.
I've been in a lot of places, listen to a lot of philosophies and theories about coaching, but I want kids to have a skill set that's different than anybody else. I want them to be prepared. I think I've learned over the years that starting at the ground level and building from there can give them the best chance to have success.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: So going back to high school, coaching high school for a couple years, how did that change how you approach coaching in college?
[00:05:14] Speaker B: I don't know. They did. You know, I remember the athletic director at Stillwater asking me, you know, how are you going to coach high school kids now that you've been in College for 20 years? And I said, nothing changes. You know, trying to inspire them to be a little bit better than what they think they are. And we ran high school practices just like we did in college.
We taught the same theories and ideas, whether it be infield play, approach at the plate, all those things. The only thing that was different is I got to mow more fields and clean more bleachers.
And there was something to be said for that. I think that really going back to high school helped me remind myself why I got into this. That is truly about the athlete, it's truly about the kid.
I think communication had to be even more at the high school level because we had, you know, up to 50 kids a year, three different teams.
So given an all out philosophy of how those teams would work and would be in a daily workout, we weren't always practicing at the same place.
The communication had to be even better. And so I think that helped me as well.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: Whose voices are in the back of your heads when you're getting ready to run a drill or address the team? Who are your coaching mentors?
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Well, it all started in high school with Jerry Parkinson, who is my basketball coach. But when I think about the conversations I have before games, after games, I talk to kids. It's Pat Casey, he's a tremendous leader.
He inspired. You know, I would always look at the meetings, we'd have pre game meetings or talks after a game and think, gosh, I'd like to bottle that up to save that exact same message. But you can't because it's authentic. So the way I would say it has to be different. And then being with Josh Holliday for the time I was there, him and Coach Casey are different coaches, the way they present messages. But Josh is not only my best friend, he is a mentor. And so I learned a lot from those two people.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: The Holliday family would be well known to longtime Shocker fans. Tom Holliday was pitching coach at Oklahoma State back when this rivalry was just red hot.
You coached Ethan, you have a long association with other people in the Holiday family. Jackson, what was it like coaching those kind of talents as high schoolers?
[00:07:47] Speaker B: Well, Ethan and I said this as I was coaching at Stillwater High School. I've coached a lot of kids who've made it to the big leagues. Ethan is the best player I will ever coach.
I know that he made tremendous gains in the infield, but the things that he did at the plate from year to year and just he had a skill set, but his work ethic and his attention to detail was still better than everybody else.
You can look at when he's got the genes and things like that, but it doesn't matter. I mean, you could have the genes but not work and never get out of yourself what is possible. But Ethan was tremendous baseball player, but even a better kid.
He led the team because people liked him and very outgoing, very, you know, I wouldn't say outspoken, but he was there when kids who are not as talented as him, he was there for them, to inspire them and get them better because ultimately he wanted to win.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: So you would have come up as a coach, as the field of video, analytics, computer, all this kind of stuff was kind of booming, booming throughout the sport of baseball. Take us through that evolution and do you have specific tools that you really feel are helpful and that you lean on a lot in that area?
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Well, when I look back from 2001 to about 20, I don't know, 12, there really wasn't that much. It was video yourself. There's some VHS in there.
You're watching games that people are playing off the games you recorded off ESPN or PAC12 network and things like that. But it's really changed since then, obviously, and being able to watch each kid's ab, see the statistics that they have versus breaking balls, fastballs, zones, that's been different, but it's been great.
You have to be even more prepared now. And your approach at the plate, your approach on the mound has to be rock solid because everybody has. They know what you can't do. And so I think Coach Green's done a tremendous job of that. As good as anybody I've ever been around, just trying to make kids able to handle all pitches, all speeds, all breaking balls.
A different philosophy than what I've heard over the years, but it's one that's. That's correct. It's actually cleared up a lot of things that, that I had was ambiguous on in approach and things like that.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: So how do you go about figuring out maybe all players are going to learn a little bit differently when too much information is too much for. For this hitter and you just need to back off and say, c ball, hit ball, I guess how do you go about, you know, that part of the puzzle.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: That's one of the things I think has changed this year over all the years I've been in college. Coach Greens, we went really slow.
We didn't start making changes on kids until maybe a month into it.
There were some ideas that he had, like, we're going to work on the pitch at the top of the zone, we're going to work on the ball away, and then we can see what your swing can do and can't do. So he probably waited about a month. And I'd never been into it. Usually it's, hey, we're going to talk about the hating philosophy the first day, and we're going to go from there and build from There, but I did not do that. And I like that. I like the slow approach to see what kids. And I think that's eliminated some confusion of we might do one thing with one kid, another thing with another kid. It's the same thing in infield play.
I've got a philosophy and idea of what drills we need to do. Some there's no negotiating. This is what it has to be. But the others, whether it be you need to work with your left foot. And we've got a couple kids that know we're going to drop that right foot back based on their arm stroke, how their feet move and so on. So I think that, you know, I look back at how we've implemented stuff, we're not where we want to be right yet, but I think going slow and making small adjustments versus doing surgery on every swing to make it look, you know, robotic, I think is going to pay in the long run.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: So we're all working through all the changes in college athletics for the last few years.
Describe the recruiting philosophy of Wichita State. What have you learned in your short time here that you think is going to work at this school?
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Well, I would tell you that it almost changed daily and weekly with all the changes that are happening in college baseball to see where Wichita State fits in. Who we're recruiting, we went with. Right now we only have one freshman and we needed to do that. We needed some ABs, some kids who played some higher level baseball to come in this year.
We've got a handful of kids committed that are high school kids right now. But I think you're going to see a lot of more junior college portal, but now working to see if we can find that young kid that can play right away. But then when you look at 34 man rosters, you have 18 position players and then you've got 16 to 18 pitchers. I mean, there needs to be some flexibility in there. So we're looking for athletes, maybe kids who can play more than one position.
Good infielders that are athletic enough to play the outfield would be an option. Maybe a person who's an infielder and can catch. I remember our days at Oregon State.
We recruited about nine shortstops in 2003, 2004, and when we got to campus, coach Casey sent him all out and goes, hey, go to the position you want to play. Well, we got Darren Barney, Shane McFeely, the list goes on. And they go, oh well, Darwin, Barney's going to be shortstop. I think I'm going to move over to third base and then they get over to third base and, oh, McFeely's going to be the third baseman. I think I'm going to go out to left field. So Cole Gillespie was a shortstop in high school, played left field, and Shane McFeely was starting shortstop, played third base.
And, you know, we had Chris Kunda, who was a shortstop, went over to second base. So we had athleticism and some kids had to gain weight, add strength. But I could see that type of theory having success at Wichita State.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Ethan Rogers, a freshman pitcher. He is the one freshman on the roster that you, that you mentioned. So a lot of newcomers, as we know, you've had some injuries that have sidelined some. Some guys for part or all of the fall.
So what's the focus of the fall? How would you describe what you really wanted to get done?
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Well, I think it's been a little slower than what we wanted. When I look at the games that we've played, you know, you know, scrimmages, Nebraska and dbu, Nebraska, we'd had a few days to practice, and we knew the things that we were going to struggle with going into it, and they were the same things that we struggled with when we finished it. But we saw a lot of good things come out of that, especially offensively.
They threw a lot of big arms at us with Velo, with breaking balls.
We did good. We felt like we could build off. And everybody was healthy at that time but one Wolfert and then Kiella. Those were the two kids that weren't healthy at that time.
And then we went another week or two and then Jones is out and Jaden's been out for all fall.
Kai's still out. And then Jack Quick, who, if anybody would have watched him that day against Nebraska, I think he was like 8 for 10 with the homer and doubles. And I can remember Nebraska clapping when they finally got him out because he was so good. Well, we were without, I would say, kids. We project doing a lot for us when we went down to DBU and it showed. But it was also good for us as coaches to see what we're really deficient on, because even if we don't have a starter like Jason Jones or Jack Quick, who fills that spot and what does it look like and what do they need to work on so they can fill that spot? Because it's going to happen this spring with somebody. And so for coaches, I think we're able to look at that and, and really see what we have and what we need to improve on before February 14th.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: So let me run back through some of those names to catch fans up. You mentioned Josh Wolford, junior college outfielder.
You mentioned Jason Jones. He's a transfer playing third base, I think has been at Arkansas and Oklahoma State.
Who else did you mention?
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Jack Quick is in there.
Jack can play first, can play outfield. He can do just about anything.
Nolan Ganter's really, really improved.
He's everything that Coach Hockame at Pima said he would be in his progression, where he'd be. He continues to just get good. M.J. sweeney's been out, but he's starting to hit again.
We scrimmaged a couple days ago. He showed really, really well. You can see that. Okay, this is another part that we're missing and that we can add. So our enthusiasm, you know, started getting a little bit more excited now that he's healthy, seeing what he can do. And yeah, we've got.
We do have some not serious injuries, but injuries have been kind of nagging. Something that, you know, you can't avoid the slide hitting, the hand, a hamate, injuries off the summer with Jaden and mj.
But, you know, I looked at Gus, he took BP on the field yesterday and he. I don't know exactly. I mean, I've seen video of what he looked like last year, and I saw some summer, summer at bats, but he looks really, really good. I think he's primed for a big year.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Jayden Gustafson, outfielder, one of the Shocker returners. And then the other name that you mentioned, Finn Kiella. Am I pronouncing that right? One of the. One of the Shocker catchers. And then Gantner and Sweeney would be two of the candidates at first base, shortstop, A guy that you have a long association with, Alex. Let me make sure I'm pronouncing his last name.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: Uloa.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Uloa. Alex Uloa, Transferred from Florida International. Tell us your history with Alex.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Well, I recruited Alex when I was at Oklahoma State.
When I'd left, he was drafted in the fourth round.
He turned that down and decided to go to a junior college.
And we've actually stayed in touch ever since. And so when he became available, I didn't realize he had another year at Florida International. And then it popped up that he had another year and called him within like five minutes that I saw it pop up.
And he went on some visits, but ultimately he chose us.
Very glad he's here. He's a tremendous shortstop. When the ball touches his hands, it's an out. He can throw from all angles on the run. He's got a big arm. So with him and Jones on your left side of the infield, you feel really, really good. And then you look at the things he did while he was at FIU. He was an all leaguer. Hit.300, I think both years he was there.
Hit some home runs.
We're working, you know, Coach Green's working tirelessly on him right now to get his swing where he needs to have it to compete at even a higher level than he did the last couple years, and it's in there.
He's a great addition to our team this year.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: You mentioned Nolan Gantner at first base. Why has he been able to make so much progress here at WSU?
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Well, he's very athletic. He's six' six, about 230 pounds.
And him and Coach Green have been working independently, and then he works on his own as well. But he's found himself a little bit better rhythm and tempo on his swing.
He's got enough strength that he doesn't need a big leg kick. And so they've toned that down. And then now he's been able to. You know, a month ago, if he saw a slider, he would miss it by three feet. Now he's hitting sliders out of the ballpark. And then when we were down at dbu, I would. When I look back at it, he's probably him and Zeb Henry, two guys that really kind of shined if anybody did with their abs. And he hit homer, hit a ball up the middle, had a strikeout, but they were aggressive strikeouts and what we were looking for. And so I, as a first baseman, he's a plus first baseman. And then like I tell guys that are throwing ball to him, if you miss that target, you never had a chance. You know, we've got him and MJ over there at six' six and six' seven.
If it's anywhere within the area, it's an out. So they're gonna help us team defensively from the get go.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: You do have some tall first basemen over there. Definitely. You mentioned Zeb Henry, another one of the shocker returners, plays on the infield. Earlier this fall, Brian Green spoke highly of a couple of the NCAA Division 2 transfers, Drew Bugner and Jacob Gutierrez. You've gotten a little bit of a look at them during the fall. Tell us about their progress.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Both have done very, very well.
Gute is probably one of the toughest kids I've ever been around.
He plays left field. He's a good baserunner. He's tough to strike out.
There was a stat that we had last week that just in fall, all the abs he's had this fall were touching 50 to 60.
He's actually hitting about.480 with two strikes. And so we were looking at maybe trying to add a little something to his swing and give him some more power, some home runs. But then at the end of the day, we're like, you know what? It's good. If it happens, it happens because he gets on base. And Drew Bugner has been another good surprise. He's athletic enough to play in the infield and the outfield.
Very good arm strength. He's really come on in the last week and a half with some of the things that him and Coach Green have been working on at the plate.
But athletic, big arm. He's going to play some infield and some outfield, and I love that athleticism about him.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: And Jacob Gutierrez is a transfer from Lubbock Christian. Drew Bugner, Andale High school product and played at Pittsburgh State.
Okay. Growing up, who was your favorite professional baseball team?
[00:23:06] Speaker B: It was the Baltimore Orioles.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: And how did you get connected with them?
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Cal Ripken Jr.
He's been my favorite player my entire life.
One of our national championships, I think it was our 07 national championship. I got a chance to go back and receive the team of the year, and coach Casey was going to do it, but then he heard that Cal Ripken Jr. Was going to be handing the award over, so he let me do it. And so I think it was in Nashville. Went back to Nashville. Cal Ripken Jr. Handed me the award for the national team of the year, so that was fun for me. That was the only time I've ever met him.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: What was it about Cal Ripken Jr. That you liked?
[00:23:50] Speaker B: I liked him at shortstop. I liked how tough he was. I grew, you know, I started watching as many games as I could because he played so many games in a row without coming out of the game.
Thought it was really, really impressive. And I liked his dad, too, just the way that he managed. And I've always liked the whole Ripken family.
I'd love to sit down with the whole family at some point.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: Who is the professional player? Maybe it's not a professional player, but professional player you most often cite as an example to your players, send them a video clip or say, hey, you ought to take a look at how this guy goes about his business.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Well, gosh, there's so many.
I really like the way Bo Bichette plays, you know, because I'm doing with more infield stuff.
I send out so much, I don't know if I have a favorite one, but that would be one that comes to mind.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: The shocker World Series, five games that begins October 28th. It continues on the 29th and the 30th, and they take a day off.
Fort wraps up on November 1st and November 2nd. Marty Leese, thank you very much for your time.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Oh, thank you.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: Thank you 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 find more roundhouse
[email protected] Hawkins gonna go to work on Washington and it was shoved out of there by Dijon Cortez. Lob to Beverly seven point lead at.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: The under eight Timeout here at Charles Cook Arena.
