February 22, 2018

Clay Van Hook- Assistant Baseball Coach, University of Oklahoma

57 minutes

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Quotes

What typically happens is players get into a game and the game speeds up. So what are we doing as coaches to help them slow the game down. A lot of times we preach that but we don’t teach it. We speed up practice so much that the game slows down.

One thing that Coach Garrido and Coach Graham had in common that really resonated with me was that we got into this business to be teachers. To teach these young men to be better people, ballplayers, brothers, and husbands.

We typically have 3 objectives

First and foremost we’re going to work individually with each player and look at them as individuals

Next we’re going to work collectively (as a team)

Then we’re going to work competitively

We have to be well rounded. There’s so many different ways to win ballgames. We owe it to our players to give them different skills. At the end of the day if we have the chance to go to Omaha and we have to get a bunt down but the player can’t do it, if we haven’t given them the necessary skills to do that, thats on us. Same thing with a runner at third and less than 2 outs.

We’re all in this together. At times, coaches want to build walls to separate themselves. Our goal should be to build relationships for 30 years.

I didn’t get into coaching to win baseball games. In reality are we defined by that? Yes. But I think its important to understand that when we take the result out of the equation, we start to grow as a coach and as a person.

Resources

Telephone (calling other coaches)

Fiction books

Contact

@clayvanhook

[email protected]

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www.aotcpodcast.com

Twitter

@aotc_podcast

Facebook

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