Straight Lines

Coach Tim Neiman welcomes Brian Werner, president of Prospect Wire, to Straight Lines, brought to you in part by Bluebook Sports, the game’s trusted directory since 1909, connecting businesses directly with players, parents, and coaches. Download the app today. Brian has been with Prospect Wire since 2008, after starting his career with the New York Yankees. He shares the story of his first big lesson there: a rough-draft project tossed in the trash by Mark Newman, with a message about doing things the right way if you want to work for a champion. Brian explains how Prospect Wire grew from a showcase company into a national tournament operator, including the 2017 California event where eighty teams showed up in a market where nobody knew them. He believes customer service is what sets them apart, from answering calls at midnight to having the whole staff out at the events. He also pulls back the curtain on what goes into a tournament: securing fields six months out, staffing every complex, and shipping equipment and awards across the country. Brian talks about the misconceptions parents have about recruiting, including the fact that most college coaches never look at the stats on a tournament website, and why video is what really counts. He cautions parents against pushing kids too early, urging them to let kids be kids, play multiple sports, and look at their dream school, realistic school, and best-fit school. To Brian, straight lines means a guide you can always come back to, because even when you veer off, you can put your feet back on the path.

A must-listen for baseball parents navigating tournaments and recruiting, event organizers and business owners building a brand on service, and young professionals who want to hear how a first job in baseball shaped a career.

On this episode of Straight Lines Eastern Pennsylvania, presented by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, host Tim Neiman sits down with Dale Wilson, a Navy veteran and senior care professional with Bright Star Care of Stroudsburg and Allentown, known throughout the Lehigh Valley as “the great connector.” Dale traces a 36-year career from the business refreshment industry to running a personal care home, and back to sales, where he found his fit in senior home care. He explains the difference between networking and building real relationships: networking is the introduction, and the goal is to get someone to “buy you as a friend,” not to hand out business cards like a poker deck. He also says speed networking is a mistake and that being vulnerable beats wearing a mask. The conversation then turns to aging in place and what families overlook until a crisis hits: planning for “what happens if,” the isolation that creeps in for seniors living alone, and why physical and occupational therapy matter so much in recovery. Dale’s three pillars of quality of life are health, safety and security, and happiness. He also discusses why collaboration, even among competitors, leads to better care, and how his work with the Chamber of Commerce and the Cancer Support Community, as a fellow cancer survivor, lets him pay his experience forward. To Dale, straight lines means recognizing that your lines won’t stay straight once life starts playing, and that tomorrow there’s another game.

A must-listen for adult children thinking about how to care for aging parents, professionals who want to network more authentically, and anyone who needs a reminder that healthcare is, at its heart, about being a friend to someone in a jam.

Coach Tim Neiman welcomes Chris Kirn of Digital Scoreboards to Straight Lines, brought to you in part by Bluebook Sports, the game’s trusted directory since 1909, connecting businesses directly with players, parents, and coaches. Download the app today. Chris traces his path from hand-painting billboards at nineteen, to Lamar Advertising, to Pepsi, to co-founding Digital Scoreboards twelve years ago. The company was meant to help just one school in Illinois. Chris and his wife bought out his business partner in 2024, and the company has since grown from twelve employees to fifty-five. He explains the five core values he built the company around, how they hire and retrain on them every month, and why he believes the most important thing in business is how you make people feel. He makes the case that a video scoreboard is more than a scoreboard. It’s a tool that can bring in new revenue, spotlight non-athletes and student artwork, and serve as the front door to a school community. Chris also talks about the game operations curriculum his team has built, now in more than seventy schools, with a goal of educating ten thousand students by the end of 2028. He shares what he’s learned watching his kids, Griffin and Emmy, compete in college baseball and soccer: the work is never done, there are no shortcuts, and life is full of pain, uncertainty, and constant hard work. To Chris, straight lines means doing the right thing while working for something bigger than yourself.

A must-listen for business owners building culture through growth, athletic directors and educators thinking about what a scoreboard can do for a community, and young professionals who want to know what hiring managers look for beyond the resume.

On this episode of Straight Lines Eastern Pennsylvania, presented by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, host Tim Neiman sits down with Lou Pektor, founder of Ashley Development, which he started in 1989 and grew from residential development into major commercial and mixed-use projects across the Lehigh Valley. Lou explains why he left investment banking for real estate, where you can persevere and see your way through instead of giving gains back to the market, and why he believes you can’t be a part-timer in any business: you’re either all in or out. He walks through some of his best-known work, including Riverport, a former Bethlehem Steel armament building turned into condominiums, a sports bar, and a fitness center, and the downtown Bethlehem buildings he rebuilt along Broad and Main. Much of the conversation focuses on data centers. Lou explains what they do and why they power everything from cell phones to medical and financial processing. He describes his own 1,100-acre campus on the site of a former coal-fired power plant, with more than a gigawatt of grid power secured. He addresses community concerns about the electric grid, water, noise, and jobs, and talks about the $50 million community benefit package his team has put forward. He closes with hard-earned advice: be optimistic, but be realistic about time and budget, because most mistakes come when you run out of one or both. To Lou, straight lines means playing the long game and sticking with the vision you started with.

A must-listen for entrepreneurs and developers weighing risk and commitment, residents trying to understand what a data center could mean for their township, and anyone who wants a straight-talking look at what it takes to build something that lasts.

Coach Tim Neiman welcomes Jeff Grose to Straight Lines, brought to you by Bluebook Sports, the game’s trusted directory since 1909, connecting businesses directly with players, parents, and coaches. Download the app today. Jeff was drafted by the New York Mets at seventeen and went on to become a retired teacher, therapist, and certified life coach. He is the subject and co-author, with Richard Strack, of the memoir Wild Pitch: Baseball, Booze, and the Beast Within. He recalls a childhood shaped by a World War II veteran father who struggled with alcoholism, and the anger that grew inside him as a teenager. He also tells how a pitching coach’s advice in his first season turned a near release into a one-hit shutout. Jeff explains how pitching through a torn labrum and an unwillingness to adapt cut his career short in 1978, and how the years that followed became a blur of drugs and alcohol. He shares the night his ten-year-old son was found on the couch with a neighbor, and how that moment, along with his younger brother’s sobriety, started his road to recovery at thirty-three. Now eighteen years clean, he describes returning to college in his forties, graduating at fifty, and teaching English at his old high school. He credits a conversation with a young man in a correctional facility for his career change. Jeff speaks candidly about what people misunderstand about addiction, why recovery is a daily journey, and why meeting students where they are matters more than delivering curriculum. He closes by describing straight lines as finding the path you were meant to be on and staying on it.

A must-listen for anyone touched by addiction, whether their own or a family member’s, coaches and teachers who want to reach struggling kids, and anyone who needs proof that it’s never too late to change course.

On this episode of Straight Lines Eastern Pennsylvania, presented by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, host Tim Neiman sits down with his former boss and friend, Fr. James Greenfield, Oblate priest and president of DeSales University. A graduate of Allentown College (now DeSales) and Father Judge High School in Philadelphia, Fr. Greenfield describes returning to lead the school as one of the deepest blessings of his life, and shares the quote that guides his sense of vocation: the place God calls you is where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need. He explains what people misunderstand about running a university, comparing it to juggling a chainsaw, a feather, and a tomato, and to being the mayor of a small city. His leadership habits are simple: pray every morning to be non-defensive, “loiter with intent” by spending at least an hour on campus each day, and “see everything, overlook a lot, correct a little.” He and Tim also dig into Salesian spirituality, which he calls a spirituality of relationship built on humility, gentleness, and the “little virtues.” They cover how DeSales is approaching the ethical use of AI, why students need human encounter more than ever, and what it means to form good people and not just successful ones. Asked what straight lines means to him, Fr. Greenfield points to his friends, who keep him grounded, and to grit, the perseverance to stay focused on the long-term good.

A must-listen for leaders looking to build trust through presence, educators and coaches thinking about how to reach today’s students, and anyone who wants a reminder that servant leadership starts with caring about the people in front of you.

Coach Tim Neiman welcomes Jay Jackson to Straight Lines, brought to you by Bluebook Sports, the game's trusted directory since 1909, connecting businesses directly with players, parents, and coaches. Download the app today. Jay pitched for six major league clubs (San Diego, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Atlanta, Toronto, and Minnesota) and spent time in Japan across a seventeen-year professional career. He looks back at what a seventeen-year-old doesn't understand about pro baseball, namely how much of it is a business, and why gratitude and showing up for each day kept him in the game. Jay shares the support system that carried him: his mom's "go take a nap" test for deciding whether a problem is real, and his parents' simple question, "Are you happy?" He also tells the story of a low point, trying to afford a wedding on a minor league salary, and the winter ball offer that arrived right after he asked for a sign, one he says marked a turning point in the second half of his career. Jay talks about his book, Nine Innings to Living Your Best Life, and the SMILE curriculum and app he's building to help young athletes stay in sports longer, build positive foundations, and handle the reality that most kids will never play professionally. He closes with a driving analogy for what straight lines means to him: you're the one behind the wheel, and every pothole is a choice between staying positive and getting it fixed or letting negativity run you off the road.

A must-listen for young athletes and parents navigating the ups and downs of player development, anyone feeling stuck who needs a reminder to build a "positivity snowball," and coaches who want to help kids carry the lessons of sport well beyond the field.

On this episode of Straight Lines Eastern Pennsylvania, presented by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, host Tim Neiman welcomes John Graham, Senior Network Administrator for Lifestyle Health and Wellness, Fitness and Sports Performance at St. Luke's University Health Network, and recipient of the 2026 Boyd Epley Award for NSCA Lifetime Contributions. John traces his path from a football player at the University of Pittsburgh who planned to become a physical therapist, to a career-changing conversation with strength coach Buddy Morris that pushed him into exercise science just as the profession was taking shape. He reflects on how much the field has changed, from the old three-days-a-week gym guidance to today's push for daily movement, and how St. Luke's lets his team focus on patient and athlete care rather than insurance protocols. John also shares his approach to youth sports and parenting: skip the car ride critique, wait twenty-four hours, and treat the last player on the roster with the same attention as the star, because you never know who will surprise you. He closes with the standard he lives by: it's not what you do when everybody's watching that matters, it's what you do when nobody is.

A must-listen for young people considering a career in exercise science and sports performance, parents and coaches looking to keep youth sports fun, and anyone who believes the little things done consistently, and without recognition, are what make a difference.

Coach Tim Neiman welcomes ESPN college baseball analyst Mike Rooney to Straight Lines — brought to you by Bluebook Sports, the game's trusted directory since 1909, connecting businesses directly with players, parents, and coaches. Download the app today.

Mike traces his roots to a sports-obsessed childhood in suburban Philadelphia, where his father coached track and cross country at Monsignor Bonner before becoming a stockbroker, and where Little League glory was the dream of every twelve-year-old in town. He shares the story of walking on to Notre Dame's baseball team as an overmatched freshman under a young, deathly serious head coach named Pat Murphy — now the Milwaukee Brewers' manager — and playing all four years alongside future big leaguer Craig Counsell despite checking his locker every day certain he'd been cut. Mike opens up about the unseen preparation behind broadcasting the Road to Omaha, why college baseball coaches remain refreshingly open compared to football and basketball, and the parallel he draws between a manager's toughest in-game decision — when to pull a pitcher — and the hardest calls leaders face in business and personnel. He closes with a candid, vulnerable take on what "straight lines" means to him as a self-described chronic overthinker: not a perfect path, but keeping his eyes fixed down the field even when life knocks him backward.

A must-listen for walk-ons and underdogs chasing a roster spot, leaders wrestling with tough personnel decisions, and any baseball fan curious what really goes on behind the ESPN broadcast desk.

On this episode of Straight Lines Eastern Pennsylvania, presented by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, host Tim Neiman welcomes Kate Corcoran, current Director of Athletics at Millersville University and a former standout student-athlete and champion at DeSales University. Kate traces her 26-year administrative career — from an early stint coaching at Neumann College and Cabrini College, to sports information and NCAA compliance work at Penn State Berks, to leadership roles at Rosemont College and Cabrini University (including a 2019 national championship run and Cabrini's eventual acquisition by Villanova), and finally to her current post navigating Division II scholarships and a unionized state system at Millersville. She breaks down her guiding leadership philosophy — "lead where you are" regardless of title, and become the expert of whatever room you're in — and reflects on how her formative years as a student-athlete at DeSales shaped the leader she is today, crediting mentors who saw potential in her before she saw it in herself. Kate closes with hard-won advice for young people stepping into leadership: find your voice and use it even when you doubt its value, stay a lifelong student of your profession, and always turn back to lift others up as you climb.

A must-listen for young professionals finding their voice in the workplace, athletic administrators navigating a career across NCAA divisions, and anyone who believes real leadership means reaching back to bring others up with you.