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During this episode of Ahead of the Curve, I interviewed Mike Glavine, Head Baseball Coach at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Mike shares advice on how he transitioned into his head coach position at Northeastern University, the power that can be found with indoor practices, typical practice plans, and his players getting to play the Boston Red Sox. 

Episode Highlights: 

How did Mike Glavine get involved in baseball?  

Does he teach his brother’s change-up? 

How does it feel to coach at North Eastern as an alumni?

What were some of the first things that Mike did as a coach?

What does Mike’s fall training season look like?  

What are some things that Coach Glavine does to establish the culture of the team?

How does he get to know his players better? 

How does he keep competition strong on the team? 

In what ways does Mike handle the weather changes?  

Are they leveraging technology during indoor practices? 

How is he preparing his team to play the Red Sox? 

What does a typical practice plan look like? 

What do post-season player meetings look like? 

What are some different things that Mike Glavine does during interviews of potential hires?  

What would Mike do differently as a head coach? 

What is the latest thing that Mike Glavine has learned that he is excited about?  

What is something that Mike does in practice that his players love? 

How does he develop his assistant coaches? 

What is something that Mike believes that other coaches may disagree with?

What are some of Mike’s favorite books and resources that he has learned the most from? 

What are three things that would stand out during Mike Glavine’s baseball practices?  

3 Key Points:

Mike Glavine’s two key components for coaching are preparing the team and developing the team. 

Mike’s typical practices run around 2 and a half hours and finish with a competition where something is at stake for the losing side. 

Give your players goals and honest feedback on what they can work on. 

Tweetable Quotes:

“I think really what I want to do is build on what Coach McPhee has established during his 29-year career here at Northeastern. But then give it a fresh look, a reboot, a restart, reengage with everybody.” – Mike Glavine (09:38)

“We’ll start fall baseball, and with that, it’s aggressive like most programs. We’ll go six days a week. We’ll have our day off. We’ll hit the 20 hours during the week. We’ll spend time in the weight room.” – Mike Glavine (13:49)

“Competition right? It's such a key word, and a great word in sports. It’s something that we focus on all the time.” – Mike Glavine (28:21)

“I have learned to love the indoor practices. Because it forces you as coaching staff to get more creative and maybe work on things more on the inside part of your season that you would never work on as much.” – Mike Glavine (33:16)

“To me, this game, so much of it is about feel and instincts and what might feel right to Player X might not feel right to Player Y.” – Mike Glavine (39:59)

“The guys really appreciate honesty. They want to know where they stand.” – Mike Glavine (52:40)

“The summer allows them (players) a fresh start, a re-group. So that when they come into the fall, you know, they are ready to go.” – Mike Glavine (52:51)

“How is this coach going to be with me as the head coach? Is he going to be able to handle me? Is he someone that will talk baseball with me all the time? I love to talk baseball?” – Mike Glavine (59:59)

Resources Mentioned: 

Ahead of the Curve Podcast

Twitter: @AOTC_podcast

Mike Glavine: Linkedin  Twitter

Mike Glavine’s Email: @[email protected]