How I Got Here with Corey Koskie

Kyle Gibson started his path to the big leagues from the Hoosier state. He loved basketball but he loved baseball more.  He has been around baseball his whole life, as his dad was a coach at the high school.  Elbow surgery at 15 didn't deter him and he continued to impress scouts throughout his youth career.  He was drafted out of high school by the Philadelphia Phillies. He decided not to sign and go to the University of Missouri.  He was drafted in the 1st round by the Minnesota Twins.  After only 2 years in the minor leagues, Kyle made his MLB debut June 29, 2013, against the Kansas City Royals.  Gibson has had success in the big leagues and he has had his struggles.  Kyle talks about his youth sports experience and how he has dealt with his struggles.  This is how he got here.

Picture credit- Andy Witchger

Are you willing to do what it takes to get what you want?  The no-brainer answer is YES, ABSOLUTELY! But then why don't you have what you want? Is it because the over time we choose the easy road vs the hard road?  There is no easy road to the top in professional sports for an athlete or for a front office position. Getting to the top is hard. Long hours, low pay,  and time away from your family are all part of the grind. Working in the front office can be a thankless job. Matt Majka knows all about the grind. He has worked for the Minnesota Wild for 22 years. Before working for the Wild Matt worked for RollerBlade, a company that was owned by Bob Naegele Jr.  When Bob Naegele Jr. got the Wild he convinced Matt to come over and lead the marketing team.  Matt is know the President of the Minnesota Wild.   This is how Matt got here.

Jake Odorizzi, starting pitcher for Minnesota Twins, came to Minnesota via a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays.  This wasn't the first time he was traded.  The first time was from the Milwaukee Brewers to the Kansas City Royals, and then he went from the Royals to the Rays and finally to the Twins.  Each time he was traded he was presented a different set a problems he had to work through, from making new friends when going from the Brewers to the Royals or packing up the family moving from the Royals to the Rays and the Rays to the Twins.  This is a road well travelled for a professional athlete.  Jake tells his story of being highly scouted as a senior, to dealing with the different nuances of the organizations he has played for.  This is HOW I GOT HERE

Credit for art

Maximilian Kepler-Różyck is a German born baseball player playing Major League Baseball for the Minnesota Twins.  How does the offspring of professional ballet dancers go from Germany to play in the Major Leagues.  Corey Koskie dives into that and much more.  Do you deal with self doubt? Nobody is immune for the voice of self-doubt.  We all question ourselves and freedom lies in fighting through our insecurities, and using them to get better. Max tells us about his path and what he does when he is doubting himself.

ARTWORK CREDIT

Corey Koskie played for the Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, and the Milwaukee Brewers.  He retired in 2009 while in spring training with the Chicago Cubs.  His story has been told many times but Corey tells the detail behind his attempted comeback to the MLB.  Corey faced more adversity in 6 weeks than he faced his whole major league career.

How does somebody go from play youth sport growing up in California, to playing college tennis, to founding a company that could change the face of medicine.  Ping Yeh fought a tough battle with blood cancer and survived.  Yeh is cancer-free, but he still deals with side effects from a high-potency regimen of chemotherapy that had almost no positive effect because his body was resistant to the drugs.  He survived the treatment, but the question remained: Why was this a trial-and-error situation? Why did Ping have to go and take this drug that could have killed me?  These questions burned in Ping, so he co-founded Stemonix, which invented a way to create and test chemical reactions between drugs and human cells outside of the body.

The company launched in 2014 and worked for a year perfecting its idea and forming its team.  The privately held company has attracted more than $11 million in investments so far, including a  $6 million series A funding round.  In 2016 Stemonix was the grand prize winner in the Minnesota Cup, an entrepreneurship competition organized by the Carlson School of Management.  July of 2017, Stemonix received a Red Herring Top 100 North America award from tech-news company Red Herring.

This is his how he got here.

Good Listen for aspiring entrepreneur, business men and women, and seeing how sports helped a person through chemotherapy

In June of 2011 the Atlanta Braves selected Ryne Harper in 37th-round. On February 2, 2018, Harper signed a minor-league contract with the Minnesota Twins. We have all heard the saying “a cup of coffee in the big leagues”. Ryne Harper, literally, had a cup of coffee in the big leagues with the Seattle Mariners. He was called up for three days and didn’t throw one pitch in a game before he was sent back down. 

In 2019, Harper was given a non-roster invitation to major-league spring training. On March 27th, 2019 Ryne Harper was told that he would be on the Twins' Opening Day roster.  To say Harper kept a fairly low profile going into camp is an understatement. If you googled his name in March, a 25-year-old Indy leaguer who posted a 7.88 ERA in 2017 with Garden City comes up first. 

Harper's odds of making the team as a non-roster invitee where slim to none.  He had to earn a spot and his competition was.....

He earned as spot! 

This is How He Got Here

The Foursome has been a part of the Wayzata Community for 80 years. It started as a little shop in Wayzata then grew to five different retail operations at the Wayzata Bay Center . . . men’s clothing, men’s big ‘n tall clothing, women’s clothing, children’s clothing, and men’s/women’s shoes.  The Foursome wanted to stay in Wayzata but God had other plans for the Engel family.  Through a lot of prayer the Engel family opened The Foursome in a new location in Plymouth on the corner of Vicksburg and Highway 55.   Gordy Engel learned perseverance through playing sports as a child.  He played football for Wayzata High School.  Though he didn't have much playing time in high school he decided go out for his college football team at Gustavus Adolphus College.  He ended up starting his senior year.  The lessons he learned playing sports carried over to his business and coaching career.  The Engel family is an uncommon family.  They are a third generation family owned business, they decide business direction as a family, and they have faced the unthinkable and have shown the world what forgiveness and grace look like in the midst of tragedy.

 Have you ever sat in the stand and wonder how does one become a first base coach in the major leagues and what the heck does a first base coach do on a major league team. Does he just stand next to first base to collect the batter’s armor?

According to Wikipedia "Stationed in designated coaches' boxes near first and third base, they are appropriately named base coaches—individually, first base coach and third base coach. They assist in the direction of baserunners, help prevent pickoffs, and relay signals sent from the manager in the dugout to runners and batters."

The first base coach is so much more than this.  For me the first base coach was one of the most encouraging coaches on the staff.  Every team I played for the base coaches were my biggest fans.  Whether it was the Twins and Jerry White or the Blue Jays and Brian Butterfield these guys were my biggest cheerleaders.  

Tommy Watkins is one of these guys for the Twins.  After playing 10 years in the minor he got he first chance to play major league baseball when he got called up August 8, 2007. His first MLB game was in Kansas CIty.   

Once again according to Wikipedia "Red Wings Manager Stan Cliburn stated that Watkins' promotion to the big leagues "was one of the most emotional call-ups [he had] ever been involved with." The announcement "set off a joyous celebration in the clubhouse, because of everyone's love, passion and respect for Tommy."

His Major League journey as a player ended 14 days later when he suffered an abdominal strain.  He went back down to the minors and never came back up.  He then become a minor league coach.  This is his story........