Episode #56: Pete Egbert

What does it take to build a championship-caliber program? In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, I sit down with Pete Egbert, the reigning NCAA Division III National Baseball Coach of the Year and leader of the 2024 National Champion Misericordia University Cougars. Coach Egbert shares his insights on leadership, team culture, and the recruiting process that helped turn Misericordia into a powerhouse.

We dive into:
✅ The mindset and habits that create sustained success
✅ Key recruiting advice for athletes looking to play at the next level
✅ The importance of player development and building strong team culture
✅ Lessons from winning a national championship

Whether you're an athlete, parent, or coach, this conversation is packed with valuable takeaways to help you navigate the world of college athletics.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show! Plus, visit CoachMattRogers.com for expert recruiting resources and a personalized strategy session to help you find the best path forward.

🎧 Tune in now and take your recruiting game to the next level!

Transcript

0:03

Welcome back to the Significant Coaching Podcast. I'm Matt Rogers. In this week's episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the reigning NCAA Division III National Championship Coach and National Baseball Coach of the Year, Pete Eggbert, the head baseball coach at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania. Coach Pete is special. He's humble. He's real. He's the type of coach I strive to be and the exact type of coach I would want my son to have as a mentoring guide. So here's just a taste of what his significance as a coach has accomplished. He's been at Mr. Accordia for 17 years, but he's been a head college baseball coach for 22 years. He just went to the World Series back to back 2023 and 2024. So he's had back to back appearances in the World Series for NCAA Division III. Seven times Conference Coach of the Year. 2023 he was Regional Coach of the Year. And as I've mentioned before, this past season he was National Coach of the Year. He's won 10 consecutive Mac freedom titles, and he's got 10 straight 31 seasons under his belt Amazing. And as you'll hear, he's just a logical, practical, says what he means, means what he says. Good guy. I could have talked to him all day. We had a lot of fun talking baseball and the joy we both get from the game and the kids we get to coach. So let's get to it. Welcome to Significant Coaching with Coach Pete Egbert. Coach Egbert. It's so great to see you and it's just a pleasure to have you on. You've had a great career and I'm really excited to hear about what's coming up for you guys when you get out of the negative 15 weather and get to be outside again. Thanks for having me. This is great. I'm so impressed with what you've done at Misericordia. I love sharing great coaches across the country, because I'm sure the people in Pennsylvania know you really well, but I want to make sure people understand what you're doing there and the great work you're doing. But I want to start with this BA in journalism from Mizzou. Can we start there? Who did you want to be when you were 18? Bob Costas. That's what I figured. I wanted to be Bob Costas. I actually grew up in New York and, knew that I wanted to get out of the area. And I thought I wanted to be at a big school. And, Sorry, he's got a great journalism program. So there I went. That's awesome. I'm so glad you said Bob Costas. I met Bob, gosh, it's been 25 years ago. my first assistant coaching position, the head coach at the school I was at was really good friends with Bob. And we did a cancer fundraiser for the basketball program every year. And we donated it to Bob's foundation. So Bob would come over and meet the kids and he was just always a gentleman and always a great guy and always had great stories. And so whenever I see somebody that went to J school at Mizzou, I just figured, you're the voice of the Dodgers or something by now, that's the goal, right? Yeah, Bob was a big baseball guy. He's a big baseball guy, so he had a lung for the game and, just thought that would be a really cool job junior year, as much as I enjoyed doing what I was doing, I missed being on the field. I didn't want to interview people about what they were doing. I wanted to be involved with people while they were doing it. Finished the journalism school anyway. And then, just went a different direction. That's fantastic. what was your motivation to get into coaching? it's a funny story. the summer after my freshman year of college, I went home and I was still eligible to play legion baseball. And a few days before the legion season started, the coach resigned. And the guy who ran the organization came to me and said, Hey, look, we're either going to have to fold or you're going to have to be the player coach. And I said, okay I'll give it a shot. And I think I spent maybe one or two games trying to be a player coach and then realized that I couldn't do that. But first coaching was, I was 19 years old coaching guys that I had played with and played against and caught the coaching bug. Previously in high school, I had worked some summer camps and done some coaching that way. But that was really my first on field with a team and, never looked back after that. I have pretty similar experiences. How my coaching bug came about too. So I love hearing that you, so you were the old man on the team at 19. How did the guys react to you? Oh yeah, I don't really remember. I just remember it being a blast. I remember having fun. We didn't have to fold the team. We got through the season. I think players and the parents were appreciative of that, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When did you realize that was what you were going to pursue? Because I see you got your master's in athletic administration. Was that your mindset after that summer to I'm going to get my journalism and maybe do admin? Or did that take a little bit to get there? Yeah, it really wasn't. I planned to go to journalism school and finish out my journalism career and maybe start there. And then, I graduated college. And I came home and that lasted for less than a week. And then I moved out and I was waiting tables and I got my own studio apartment and I was making really good money, but I missed being on the field. So I went to the, the winter meetings and I got myself an internship. working for the Asheville Tourists, which is a minor league affiliate of the Colorado Rockies down in Asheville, North Carolina. Ron and Carolyn McKee took me on as an intern and had an absolutely unbelievable experience doing that. and that point, it was just a decision to stay in the business end of baseball or to get involved with coaching. And again, I just really missed that one on one individual with, I took a part time job. My first, coaching job was a part time job at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, which is a division three school. Andy Barlow took me on there. And, and then that's when I really caught the bug and they said, Hey, if you want to do this full time, you need to get your master's. I spent six years as an assistant at a variety of different levels and schools, getting my master's and getting my experience. And that's how it really started. That's great. I don't think young guys and gals understand how important it is to go through that process. of being an assistant and learning how to grind and learning about all the details that go into leading a program. How much did you learn at Vassar that you still use today that you feel like really jumpstarted your career when you're ready to be a head coach? Very thankful to Andy. he's now at MIT, but it was really just the two of us. And so he threw me into every aspect and we all get into coaching because we want to work with players. But for the vast majority of us, particularly those at the smaller levels, whether it's high school or small college level, you understand really quickly that 90 percent of your job is not actually coaching players. And you have to do all of the other things, whether it's academic supervision or fundraising and dealing with parents and all the administrative stuff. So I was very lucky that Andy got me involved with all of those aspects. And there's some that you like more than others, but yeah, you're absolutely right. It's a grind and, young people get involved because they want to coach. And then you realize, Hey, I've got to recruit. I've got to, Do this. I've gotta do that. and it's not just about coaching and we're all thankful, when we get to leave the office at three o'clock so that we can go coach again, because up until three o'clock, it's not a lot of coaching it's one of my favorite quotes from a movie with Denzel Washington where he tells his son, you do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do. No question. And that's what we figure out as assistant coaches. All right, we're doing 90 percent of the stuff we don't want to do. So I can do that 10 percent of coaching. You really realize, are you willing to make that sacrifice for the rest of your career? You want to keep doing that? Did that ever sink in with you? Another thing, very influential in my young age, my dad taught you're gonna work for the You want to make sure tha you're doing. And I think High school and college career that I didn't really enjoy. And that was purposeful. It was, Hey, you could end up doing this for the rest of your life if you so choose, or you can choose something that you really enjoy doing. So that was really impactful for me. And, I just, again, just. like working with young people and just watching their development and then mature both on and off the field. That's really gratifying for me to see that and to watch that process. I caught the bug early and that's just been a motivation for me ever since. I'm going to throw a, I'm going to throw a kind of a crazy transition at you because this is something I've been thinking about. I was in the trenches for so long coaching every day, every year and building every season and thinking long term. Now that I'm out of it and I still help coach with some head coaches here in town, but I don't have my own program anymore. I think about the relationships and the guys I've coached over the last 25 to 30 years and the gals that I've coached. And I think about the great wins and the things that were really cool and the really bad losses where you're like, gosh, I can't believe we let that one go. And then there's, I always have these flashbacks of those kids that, gosh, I just, for some reason I didn't connect with them or I didn't take the right approach with them. Do you get that? Because you've been in, you've never stopped. You've been doing this, we've been doing this for about the same distance, but You've never stopped. Do you have those thoughts about those kids that, man, I wish I could have connected a little bit more. I wish I would've got a little bit more out of them. Do you have that sense when you're doing it every day and you got a brand new group of kids every year? Yeah, that's what keeps me up at night. Okay, good. Not that's good, but I wanted to make sure that wasn't just me. Yeah no. Yeah. That's what keeps me up at night. the things that you remember and the relationships is first and foremost, but you don't get all of those, right? And you don't have the opportunity to connect as well with everybody that, you'd like to. And it's funny now that I take a step back and I think about a lot of the alums over the years who I do keep in touch with. Most of them were not star players or most of them. Maybe weren't guys that I was really close to while they were here. Those are relationships that have developed and evolved since they've left. And we, I think in both cases, both parties have a unique, perspective on what actually happened during their careers. And then the other thing that I tell recruits all the time, you had mentioned it's not so much for me. The wins and the losses, I'll be really honest with you. I don't remember those a lot. I remember the stories a lot more. I remember what happened on spring break in Florida or what happened on the bus ride. I have a former assistant coach, David Gargone, who argued with me that I should write all this stuff down and it'd make a good book one day, and I'm just too, I don't know, too stubborn or whatever to do it. but those are the things that you remember. And a lot of that is. Based on those relationships that you have and some of the ones that, fell through the cracks for whatever reason. Yeah. Do you find those relationships, whether they happened a year ago or 20 years ago, do you find them guiding your growth as a coach? Yeah, again, I'd like to think that I'm always trying to learn and I'm always trying to evolve and develop. I don't know that I ask a lot of our alum point blank, what did you get out of this or what was good or what was not, but I listened to what they're saying and some of the stories and some of the tones that they use when they recall certain things. And then I think back and I'm like, yeah, I should probably have done it differently or I should make an adjustment going forward. certain things obviously, we're all stuck with and we're all a little stubborn in our ways and some things aren't going to change, but there are a lot of things that I have tried to change. based on some of those co that feedback. I brought this up with yo had such a great career a well every single year, y you do it at a school that doesn't have a national reputation. You're not recruiting to Alabama. You're not recruiting to Purdue. That was my career. I was recruiting to a school that maybe a hundred mile radius of people knew. And then outside of that, I had to really, I had to convince kids. I had to talk to kids about what was great about it. Do you find that with what you've done over the last, 20 plus years. Is it easier for you to go into a home now? Is it easier for you to pick up the phone and call a kid out of the blue and talk about your school? is it easier now? I don't know. It's different. When I first got here 18 years ago, the school itself didn't have a lot of recognition outside of 50 miles and even inside of 50 miles. Some people still hadn't even heard of us or even been on campus. We joke all the time. There's people that live on the same street as the university that we're on that just drive past it every day, but never come in. And when they do come in, they're really pleasantly surprised with all the things that we have to offer, but the university has grown, in popularity. When I first got here, we transitioned from college to university, which helped many of our athletic programs have been successful. So that's helped us, more regionally. athletics is a way, to draw attention to yourself and, you're in the newspaper every day, just scores and all those things that go along with it. So it is different, but. you advise, perspective student athletes, the recruiting world is super competitive now. 2025 years ago used to, bust your tail and you get out on the road and you identify players and you'd be able to get them. Now, everybody knows everybody, so there's more people working harder at it. It is that much more competitive. And then, of course, on the East Coast, there are so many of us that are very similar. Small private schools, so it's tough to convince a kid if he's two hours from your campus, he might drive by eight or ten schools that are just like you on his way. So you've got to give them a reason, to bypass those eight or 10 schools. Yeah, I used to, when I coached at the University of Laverne out in California, there were only 27 D3 schools west of the Rocky Mountains. So just trying to get a game in your division was almost impossible. And I tell kids all the time, you go to a school like Misericordia and you can almost throw a rock. in every direction and you're going to hit a college. You guys probably don't ever have to travel more than what, four or five hours if you wanted to. Yeah. I think there's 59 division three schools within a two hour radius of us. So yeah it's pretty easy to find games. And, that part of it is certainly easier than California, but the other part of it is the recruiting aspect of it is there's also 59 schools plus all the D twos and the low D ones that are, we're all for the same people. Yeah, that's how it was for me in ST Louis. Cause you know, I think there were four, five D threes within 20 minutes of downtown ST Louis. We were, if there was a good player in ST Louis, I was sitting there at the game with the other four head coaches and we all, we were all going after it and we were all fighting for him. So I learned really quickly. I needed to recruit out of state if I wanted to. Changed some minds. I want to talk about, I'll go backwards here with what we were talking about earlier. Talk about coaching the great players, your best players. That was always my biggest challenge. And it took me a lot of years just to learn, sometimes I got to get out of their way and let them be who they are. Have you found that? Yeah, I think a lot of times it depends on the personality. I have this conversation with a lot of the people. People that are friendly with me that are teachers, what do you do? Do you teach to the top? Do you teach to the middle, the bottom and, philosophically we've always tried to teach to the top. So we take our most talented players and set that expectation for everybody else that's below full well knowing that sometimes they just might not have the athleticism or the physical capabilities to keep up with those guys that are our head. But I think you've got to pick and choose your spots. with the people that are the most talented ones. And I think a lot of times it just depends on their personalities. Sometimes the guys that are really talented at our level are just real blue collar flat out rinders. And that's what makes them successful. They're not that talented, but they just want it more than you do. and then other times we have guys who are really talented and maybe should be playing at a division one or a division two level. And for whatever reason ended up coming to us. So it really just depends on so many different factors and I don't think you can take a cookie cutter approach to it. I love that. What does that look like to a 17 year old that wants to play at your level? How would you define it to him wanting it more and being that grinder that it doesn't matter what the athleticism they were born with, they're going to get it done. What does that look like to you? During the recruiting process, this often comes up. And what I tell prospective recruits is this, if I wake you up at three o'clock in the morning. And challenge you to a ping pong match. Are you going to roll over and tell me to go away and we'll take care of it tomorrow? Or are you going to get up at three o'clock in the morning and try and kick my tail? and those guys that want to get up at three o'clock, those are the guys I want on my side. Anything that's competitive, whether it's grades or whatever we're keeping score with. those are the guys who I think want it more and I think that, it's difficult to teach. I think you can teach that, but that's one of those things that you either have or you don't, and you can certainly bring some things out, but, that's definitely a tough one to develop. So those guys that just, They're just not willing. There's so many cliches out there. I hate losing more than I like winning. You know those types of guys? Yep. Those are the guys that everybody wants on their side. Yep. Yep. That's that phrase has come out of my mouth many a time, especially as a coach. When you think about those kids, baseball is a different animal. tell me if I'm wrong, but the culture of a baseball player is often, they're not the loudest guys. They're not beating their chest. There's not a lot of pop. it's often they're Very focused, not real loud. How do you see that when you go to a game? How do you recognize that fire in the belly of that kid you're looking for? Are there certain characteristics that jump out at you and actions? Yeah, that's the most difficult thing to evaluate. And if I'm being very honest, Until they actually get to campus and spend a significant amount of time on campus, it's really difficult to completely evaluate that.'cause you are right. And it is changing in baseball. You're seeing more of the pop and the flash and the chains and the look at me type of thing. But for the most part, it is a dirty sport. You're trying to get your uniform dirty. if you think about it, the attention's really on you for. 15 or 20 seconds, three times over the course of a three hour period. And if you're an outfielder and you play a position where the ball might not go very often, the limelight is not on you. So I think inherently there are a lot of guys that are involved with baseball that are okay with that and buy into the team aspect of sport. But it is difficult to evaluate. So when the spotlight is on them, it's easy to identify those things. So what I pay attention to is what's going on when the spotlight's not on them. And, what kind of teammate are you and, are you the guy on the bench that's rooting for the guy in front of you and even as a freshman, let's say you're not playing, what is your relationship with the guy that's in front of you? Are you rooting for him to do well? Or are you rooting for him to get hurt so that you can go in the game? It's a difficult situation for a 17 or an 18 year old to be in. It takes some maturity for sure. Craig Bezio keeps jumping into my head, Craig was such a big part of my growing up because I wasn't the biggest guy. I wasn't the strongest guy. And I just remember Craig just, he just looked like pig pen. It was just, he always was dirty. He always had dirt on his jersey. You always look like I'm ready to go. there was all, it always looked like he was pissed off. He played the game, and then you look at his career. How many guys can say they were all star second baseman, all star catchers, all star center baseball player. You couldn't define him. Are you finding those kids still today? Are you finding those kids where you can put them anywhere in the field and they're going to figure it out? Those are the ones that we look for. Yeah. And I laugh during the recruiting process all the time. It's really changed and I'll get a dozen emails every day. Where a kid sends me his video and he sends me his pop time and his throwing velocity and his batted ball exit velocity. and I disregard all of those things because I tell people all the time. there are the most successful players in our program's history. There are things that they do that I would not teach an eight year old. They look ugly. Their swing is ugly, but they just flat out compete and they figure out ways to get it done. Our leadoff hitter this past year, Garrett McElhaney, was a grad student for us, just tough as they come. And he's five foot three. 160 pounds and nobody recruited him and nobody gave him a chance. to me, one of the best players in the country. And I heard from almost every opposing coach that we played. Wow. That kid is tough. I want him on my side. So give me nine of those guys. any day of the week over the nine guys who have really pretty swings or throwing the ball 92 miles an hour, I want the guys who are just down and dirty and just figuring out ways to get it done. I gotta get some film with Garrett. I, now I got Dustin Padro in my head, I love that. Those are the guys I love.'cause that's who I wanted to be. I would've been okay if every at bat I could slap it over the second baseman's head and just drop it on the right field line and have a chance to try and go for two. I wanted to get dirty. I wanted to grab that bag. I wanted to dive head first. I love watching baseball when there's a group of kids out there that have that feeling, do you find yourself being rejuvenated when you go to a high school game or you go to a juco game and you see that type of intensity? Yeah, I love it. And again, those are the types of guys that we're looking for, but it's a tough sell to kids now. Because that's not what the game is selling. The game is selling, your launch angles and your home runs and how hard you're throwing it and how pretty you look and all those things. So to find those kids that don't care about those things and just care about the actual results is unique. we really do and we really seek those things out and value those things. Anybody we've built relationships with coaches who play the game similar to the way that we play the game and coaches who have similar philosophies to us. And I rely very heavily on those guys to weed out that process for us and say, Hey, This kid's a dirt bag. This is a kid that you want on your side. And those are the kids, again that just do really well in our program. All right. You brought up analytics. Where do you stand on analytics? I talked to so many baseball coaches at every level and it seems like they all come back to, it's almost impossible to ignore them, but we don't live and die by them. Where are you at with that? I do think that there's a place for analytics. I think, from a division three standpoint, It's very difficult when you talk about player development and using analytics as a way to develop players, because the rules are the way they are. To me, those types of things are more of an off season thing. And because we don't have the opportunity to work with them in the off season. so it's not that it's not important. It's just that we've prioritized other things. And then just because of the success that we've had the last few years, people always talk about culture and leadership. I am now. Bought in more than I ever have been on that piece to your success. And there's no way to quantify those things and wins and losses and how much they do for your program. But, I want good leaders. I want guys who buy into what we're doing. I want culture guys more than I want. all those guys who are analytical type guys. for us, there are more and more numbers out there. There's more and more video out there. So whether it's positioning or how you're pitching, whether or not you're bunting or not bunting or what you're doing in certain situations. for me, it almost all goes out the window. Radar guns have been around. I'll tell you a pretty cool story. a radar gun is one of the only metrics that we have in our program. But I walked into a practice, about a third of the way through the season this past year, and we were not playing very well. And I heard one of our pitchers talking to another group of pitchers about his velocity. And I got so upset that I took the radar gun away. And we didn't use a radar gun for the rest of the season. And I'm convinced that's one of the reasons that our pitchers started to perform better is because they weren't worried about that darn radar gun. So I think there is a place for analytics. certainly at the major league level, it's a lot more prominent than it is because the information is there. but I'm more of a gut guy and I tend more to be on the side of just playing my gut and my instinct more than playing numbers. A lot of it comes down to money. A division one program can invest 50, 000 into software and equipment and not blink an eye, at D three, that's, that might be your next three years of travel money, Yeah, money and manpower. I'd love to videotape every single practice and be able to go back and show our guys, Hey, look, this is what we did. This is what we didn't do well, but I don't have the manpower to come back to the office for six hours and break that video down or to go through that video and say, yeah, we want to look at this specific play and analyze. We just don't have that capability. there are certain things that we pick and choose to take with us. And the other part, and I talked to our guys about this is we don't give a lot of that stuff to them at practice, because I know that they're leaving practice and they're going to find it on their own. They go to the computer and they look for that stuff. So I don't want them to overthink it when they're at practice, when they're on the field, I really just want them to compete and I don't want them having to worry about, any of the analytics. When we were growing up, could you ever foresee a day where Kyle Schwarber, Shohei Itani and an Aaron judge would be leading off. To me I still struggle and I've had great coaches like you walk me through it. Why, I understand the extra bats, but grew up in the Whitey Herzog era in the Chicago Cubs with Bobby Dene and Ryan Sandberg. You wanted speed. You wanted somebody that could slap the ball and, slap the ball behind a runner. Where are you at with this? Where are you at with that change in the game where we're putting our power hitters up, up front. Again, teachers own and the ones that are doing it, they obviously have a rationale for it, but for me, I want my power guys in those three, four holes just because I want them hitting with runners on base. Yeah. And we're not a team, we're not a team that's gonna hit the ball over the fence very often, we don't have, I call them donkeys. We don't have very many donkeys in the middle of our order. they're hard to find. Yeah, they really are. And the guys that are doing it at a high level are usually getting scholarship money and they're not coming down three levels. so there's that aspect of it as well, but I want my best RBI guys, my guys that are best at hitting with runners on base and three in that four hole where they have an opportunity to hit with some runners on base. you can show me all the analytics, but at the end of the day, that's the part I can't buy into. Why would you want some, if you got a guy that's gonna hit 40 home runs, even if at your level, if you got a guy that can hit eight to 10 home runs and maybe give you 40 doubles in a season, why wouldn't you want that guy batting with somebody? I couldn't agree with you more. I couldn't agree with you more. E even if those guys are hitting home runs, that's just, you're playing for one run. That's right. A lot of times you don't have somebody on base in front of you. so for me, I'm gonna gamble and I'm gonna try and get them to hit a double or a home run with some guys on base play for that big in. I love it. I just can't imagine playing the game any other way and coaching the game any other way. I'm hoping it evolves. I'm, every sports evolution, right? Football's evolved, basketball's evolved. They're all different than when we grew up, but I think eventually we'll see it go back to more of a style like the eighties and the Coleman's and the McGee's. And I think there is room for that, and I don't know if it'll take 10 or 15 years or whatever, but I think it'll get back to some of that. I don't know that it'll ever be quite like that again, but people do value athleticism. People do value speed. that part of the game hasn't been lost, and now at the major league level with all the rule changes they have, they're trying to get the speed game, more prominent. So let's hope it happens. I love the idea of Moneyball. it was a great book, a great movie. And I love the idea of you gotta score runs at the end of the day, you gotta put runs on the board. And I'd love to see a season with Kyle Schwarber back and forth in that lineup. And see if those 100 RBI is turned into 160 because, we've got the stats to prove it. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Fox. They were always batting third and fourth, and they had 160 RBI is in a season. So that I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but when you're making 70 million a year, and you can hit a ball like Shohei Ohtani, I guess the more at bats you give that guy, the better chance you have. Yeah. All right. Can we talk pitching a little bit? Where do you stand with your pitchers? Because I would imagine you're recruiting kids and they're coming into your program and they've had eight different coaches tell them eight different things. How do you get a freshman, sophomore pitcher to get all the junk out of their head and just throw strikes? what does that process look like? Very difficult. Again, based on the kid and what he's bringing to you. I would tell you in general, we deemphasize mechanics on both sides of the ball, pitching, hitting defense. I think a lot of the game, particularly in our part of the country. where you're spending four or five months inside in just the batting cage and that's all you can focus on is your mechanics. it becomes really difficult to deprogram guys from all of that stuff. So we de emphasize the mechanics. Joe Valenti was our number one this past year. He led the nation in wins with 12 and he was an 81 to 83 mile an hour left hander. the reason he was successful is because he could pitch inside, he could double up, he had nerves of steel, he didn't mind pitching with runners on base. He had a good move. He could feel this position. He did all of the intangibles and, we try and sell that to our guys. We say, Hey, look, you can be like Joe. You don't need to throw the ball 90 miles an hour. You don't need to throw the ball past people or do all of these other things. You can be really successful at a really high level. pitching like Greg Maddox, pitching like Joe Valenti, you can still do that. And we have to sell that because again, at our level, those kids that are throwing 90 or better usually are getting scholarships and going elsewhere. But I will tell people until I'm blue in the face, I've got seen over my career, a ton of people that can throw really hard and stink at pitching. And I've seen a ton of people the other way around who do not throw very hard, who are really good at pitching. It's called pitching, not throwing. Yeah. So we really try and hammer that home and it's difficult to do with some more than others. But I think the guys who are willing to buy in, have a quicker transition. That brings me to recruiting again. And I, this was at the Division three level. it's a constant carousel that you're, you never get a chance to get off because you're not given a scholarship. There's no national letter of intent. You have to over recruit because you don't know how many guys are going to show up, go, no, I don't want to do this anymore. I know I told you I did, but I don't want to do this anymore. Or they don't like the fact that you told them that they're going to be fighting for second, third position at short or catcher. And then it's real when they get there and they don't want to do it. What is your approach to recruiting to make sure you're getting your 30 guys on that roster that want to be there and really love the game For all of the reasons that you just spoke about. two years ago we had two kids come in, really good players that came in at the end of their sophomore fall and they said, we don't want to play anymore. We want to go to a big school or you here. we don't love the game anymore or we don't want to play anymore. they always tell me, I don't love the game anymore. But a lot of times you read between the lines. If you're the third string catcher, And you know that you're only catching bullpens and you don't have a chance to start in front of the guy. Do you really want to put in all the work to do it? so it's really hard. And the other thing that's made it, next to impossible is just the recruiting calendar has been so accelerated by the student athletes themselves. If you think about it. we finish our season in May, we start to get out on the road in June, we'll identify maybe a 26 in June and invite him to campus and by August or September, he's already wanting to commit. So you have two or three months to learn about this perspective student athlete. And of course, every coach or teacher or mentor that. Student has you call and they tell you the great things. Yeah, first to come last to leave team leader, all in all the stuff that you want to hear. But again, until they're on campus for maybe six months, you really don't know. And that's what I tell our freshmen. Our freshmen are getting ready to come back here in a few days. I can't be with you every day in November and December by rule. So are you going to lift weights? Are you going to get your extra hitting in? Are you going to do the things that are going to help elevate you and us to another level until they actually go through that? You can't answer those questions. How many days do you get now in the fall with your guys? We can take up to 24. So you can basically do four to six. Pretty much full weeks of, you get two hours are you capped at how many hours you get with'em during those days? Yeah, We're bound 20 hours a week as well, so 20 hours. So basically, do you try and do four days a week during the off season for six weeks? So during the fall, right now we do four days a week for four weeks and then we do two additional scrimmages on a weekend. So we take 18 of the opportunities. And then if we don't use all 24, those six we can use as part of our preseason. Okay. So that's what we can get those things in after the snow is falled if you want to. Correct. Okay. All right. That's cool. And how many kids will you try and get in those scrimmages? How many kids? If you, how many you carry? 40, 35? Yeah. We're usually somewhere in the high thirties, low forties. so how many guys do you want to get into those scrimmages in the fall and really be able to give them, on a bat or two, get'em in the field for three, four innings? What does that look like for you? Yeah, I actually love the fall because again, the rules are written so that we were only allowed to play one. 18 inning game on one day against another team. Okay. So typically the way we set up our fall is every Saturday and Sunday are inner squad scrimmages, but you're getting 18 of your own guys scrimmaging against one another. And the players don't like it because they're playing against their buddies and they don't see a different color Jersey. But I love it because I have the opportunity to evaluate 18 guys on the same field at the same time, in the same conditions. And at the end of the fall, I can bring them in and say, okay. You're our shortstop because you outperform this guy in front of you. And if you're the second shortstop, here's why you're the second shortstop. And the proof is in the pudding. We just went through our fall season and he beat you out. So if you don't like that, figure out a way to get better. So during the course of a weekend, we're playing three or four inter squad scrimmages and all of our hitters are getting eight to 10 at bats. And our pitchers are each throwing three or four innings. We don't abuse them in the fall. We're just getting, so everybody has that opportunity in the fall. And then at the end of the fall, we're comparing apples to apples. That's awesome. That's gotta help. And we're dealing with this cult this generation, it's gotta help for you to establish a reality with that. Or are you still finding that even with the proof in the pudding, all these inter squad scrimmages we've done, the 18 inning scrimmage against another team, we've got your stats, we've got, we've seen how you performed. You didn't get the starting job. Are they still struggling with that reality? Are you still fighting that? Are you finding that's making a difference doing all that inter squad? I think for the vast majority of them, they are mature enough at our level to understand what's going on around them. But there are exceptions to that. There are still some guys that think they deserve more of a shot or whatever. And that's one of the things, guys will come in and say, Hey, I, you didn't give me a shot or I think I deserve more. And my rebuttal is you have a shot in practice every day, and then particularly in the fall. You have a shot during fall ball every day. And then once in a while, being, very Frank sometimes you've got that guy who's a three year starter who does not perform that well in the fall, but he's your guy. He's a three year starter and he's been there for a hundred, 120 games against the best competition. And he's performed then for whatever reason, he just had an off fall. It's difficult to explain to the kid behind him. Hey, look so those conversations you have to have a little bit more, just be, just phrase them a little bit differently, but also at the end of the fall, I want to give my guys some hope and I will say to them, Hey, look, if the season were to start today, this is what we're thinking, but there's a long time between now and our first game. You still have four or five months to make an impact. So if you don't like what I'm telling you. Let's come up with a plan to figure out how you jump the guy in front of you. what's your communication like with 40 guys? I was a college basketball coach. So the most kids I ever had on a roster was maybe 18. And that's a lot to build a relationship with and make sure you're the constant communication there in the check ins. What's your communication like in terms of what you want in a relationship with those 38 to 42 guys? Let's go. What are you doing? Cause you gotta be going mad sometimes. I've also learned not to it to be natural and for the guys and certain to rely on me and our ass in different ways during the course of their career. I touch base with them at the start of every practice. our dynamic warm up. I'm not in the dugout with our coaches. I want to make sure that I'm touching base and at least saying, Hey, what's up? How was your day? Just as an initial, opener every single day. But because again of the rules, I don't We have a huge off season, so I don't have the opportunity to see them every day in the off season. I also joke with this with the parents about this during the recruiting process. It's funny, the freshmen and sophomores, they have to live on campus. They're not in my office very much. Most of our juniors and seniors live off campus. Those are the guys who are in my office all the time. I can't get rid of them. The course of their careers. They end up coming in more and, we're just talking stories more. A lot of times it's not even about baseball. it's about, who's playing tonight or, What happened in the basketball game last night the juniors and seniors, there's just more to talk about, but I try and not force those relationships because I feel like a lot of times if you are forcing it, sometimes it actually pushes the kids away. So it's tough. The other thing I would say to you is I'm not a technology guy. I hate email. I hate text. I think certainly, there, there's purposes for it, but I would say over the years I've gotten better. 17, 18, 19 year olds, that's how they want to communicate. And I'm okay with that. But I do want them to have difficult conversations face to face and I want them to get used to all those things that the people in our generation talk about, is missing a little bit now. do you initiate in the preseason when you have your initial meeting with everybody? You say, Hey, listen, it's if you want a relationship with me, I'm here. Do you stress that in the beginning saying there's 42 of you, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna know all your pets names. I'm not gonna know all your siblings in week one. If you want a relationship with me come build it. Or do your leaders and your older guys build that trust for you throughout the year? It's a combination of both. During the recruiting process, I think we're very hands on. We try and build those relationships so that when the freshmen do get to campus, they feel comfortable with us. we have our opening team meeting and all of the things that you just mentioned, I certainly talk about, and I also say to them, Hey, look, our assistant coaches are in a lot of cases younger than me and closer to you than I am. So if you want to go to them with certain things, I'm perfectly okay with that. Do it. But then I also isolate our freshmen. I ask our freshmen to stay back. We have an initial 20 to 30 minute conversation with them about, Hey guys, There are a lot of things I can do for you, but you gotta let me in, right? If you want, if your girlfriend's coming to campus and you need a good romantic place to take her out to dinner, I can recommend that for you. If you get a flat tire on the side of the road, I can help you and tell you which auto shop, body shop you want to go to, So we have three or four meetings in the fall with our freshmen, and we go over all of these things. And then just naturally, you can tell out at practice, when a guy's having a bad day and so you can say, Hey, why don't you come touch base with me after practice? Or why don't you come by tomorrow morning? And look, let's chat a little bit. so it's just a feel thing for me. That's great. And if I really put your feet to the fire, the guys in your office, your juniors and seniors all the time, this is probably the favorite part of your job. No question. No question. No question. I, yeah, those are the things that we live for, and That's right. A lot of times we're not talking baseball at all. Yep. we're talking about so many other things, but yeah, that is the favorite part of my job. They're learning what it's like to be an adult and they love that. They get to have. An adult conversation with you and talk about the world and talk about life. I see it more like me in the dorm room. I'm in their dorm room, having 20, keeping me young. I'm not, I don't know how much I'm teaching them. I want to do a little rapid fire for you. You've been great coach. I could talk to you all day. I don't want you to feel like you have to go into real depth here, but if I put your recruiting hat on and I'm going to go through catcher infield, and you can split up middle infield, corner infield, outfield pitcher, give me one or two things you're looking for. And it can be statistical. It can be form. It can be something more subjective. Give me something that you're looking for at those positions that are recruited that really catch your eye. And I'll start with catcher because. That's where I always started when I'm recruiting for baseball. I feel like if I've got a great catcher, I'm moving in the right direction. So where are you at with catchers? I would say just first and foremost, at every position. We're for two things. We're loo athletic and we're lookin tough as nails. What was nails, tough as nails. Yes are the two things. And t that's the guy that's got to be tougher than nails than everybody else on the field. But that's the guy that you want. I have a just a quick funny story. There was a real hot day. This is years and years ago, real hot day in the middle of July. I was in New York recruiting and it was, 120 kids at the event and not a single one caught my eye. And I sat there all day long. I was baking and I said, Holy cow. I said, I can't make this recruiting trip and not star a single kid. There's gotta be somebody here that catches my eye. That's right. there was a kid who was a catcher. Who did not have the prototype body or the skill set or anything, but he's a kid that would communicate. He was the only kid all day long who was vocal. And I love that out of our catchers. We actually recruited this kid just based on the fact that he could communicate and he ended up coming to our program. He ended up being, a two or three year starter for us. absolutely great defensive catcher. so out of the catcher position, that's our on field leader. communication is important. and just a guy who's tough as nails. I prioritize defense. I tell my catchers every year you could hit zero. If you can catch and handle our pitching staff, you're going to play. Manage our pitchers. Yeah. Keep them moving. Love it. All right. Let's talk about your pitches. Yeah. Same thing. just guys that are like Joe, how I described before, we're not going to get the guy who's throwing 90 at a high school. And I know that, I want the guys who are athletic. I want the guys who can. Field their spot who don't mind pitching with runners on base, and with everybody during the recruiting process, the biggest thing that I'll evaluate is what do you do is what is your response to immediately after something negative happens? Baseball is a sport where something negative is going to happen to you. You're going to strike out, you're going to make an error, you're going to make a bad pitch. How do you respond on the very next play? And the way that you respond on the next play is paramount for me, particularly with pitchers, right? They're going to make a hundred pitches. they're going to let up a home run. They're going to let up a ball in the gap. That's a double. They're going to make a mistake. What do you do on the next pitch? Are you going to make that into two doubles or two home runs, or are you going to make and execute your pitch and get back on track? those are the types of things that we're looking for. And that tell you a novel about that kid. Yeah, though, again, you get back to the toughness and the guys that you want on your side and, very rarely have we all coach kids that are going to have a zero ERA, a thousand batting average. It's just not going to happen. So how you respond to something negative that happens to you on the field immediately, we talk about that in practice, you're going to make errors. Just don't make a second one. Don't make a third one. Don't make a mental error that turns into another mental error. That's easy. trust me, if I could write a book, anybody could write a book. With my ADHD, the fact that I finished one is amazing. let's talk about your pickers. Let's talk about your middle infield. pretty much all of our middle guys, again just real good athletes. I think most guys that get to the high school level that are infielders have pretty good hands. I think that the guys that are separated are the guys that have good feet. so we talked to our infielders about having good feet. I think it's relatively easy to have good hands, but being able to have good feet is a priority for us. Give us a snapshot of what that looks like for that parent or that kid that doesn't quite understand what good feet are when you're at short and second. To me, it's just really managing, what hop you're fielding defensively. we talked to our guys about making sure that you're fielding the right hop. And I feel like if you have good feet, you're going to put yourself in a position to field the right hop. I'll tell our guys, as old as I am, if you put me on a gym floor and give me a long hop, I'm gonna be able to field that ball. But if you in between hop me or short hop me or get me on my feet and put me in a position, then. It, it's not gonna go well for me. So put your feet in a position or make your feet be in position so that you're fielding the right hop and making the throw easier for yourself and putting your weight behind where you want to advance that ball. Yeah. If you look at it, most of the errors at our level are not made fielding, most of'em are throwing. So fielding the baseball is the easier part I think. putting your feet in a position and make a good throw. that internal clock that you need to have on certain plays. Again, that's really difficult to teach. I think people are over teaching it now, maybe a little bit. I think there's something to be said for just instinct and letting guys figure it out and make mistakes. And, again, we talk about that a lot. You're going to make mistakes in practice. I want you to make mistakes. Just don't make the same mistake again. Make some sort of adjustment. I still do it at 50 when I'm playing catch with my son. I still, still snapping, get that back foot back. And, he goes, what are you doing, dad? We're just playing catch. I go, it's just habit. I've been doing it since I was three years old, so yeah, it's, I'm still a kid at heart when it comes to baseball. You put me on a baseball field, the glove in my hand, man, I'm ready to go. He's my computer kid. He's not my athlete. So it, everything's baseball's coming a little slower to him, but he loves that there's that, I grew up playing pickle, we, there was only three guys. We couldn't play a game. So we played pickle, so as quick throws, getting the ball out of your hand. And so he is getting into baseball because of that. Yeah. Catch, catching the ball outside of your glove with your hand, and things like that. He's just, it's like a magic trick. let's talk about your corner in fielders. usually our third baseman's, also a middle infielder, we transition him over to third, right? I personally think that third base is the most difficult infield position to play at the college level. There's so many plays that a third baseman needs to make. in 2011, our third baseman went down and we moved our shortstop who had no experience at third base to third base. And he did really well. And since then we haven't looked back. So we've always stuck a really good athlete at third base. And you also need somebody again, toughness, you're going to make mistakes at third base. but can you rebound from that and make sure that you don't make another mistake? and then, there's so many teams out there that use first base as an offensive position. I'm just the opposite. Our best defender is going to play first. if there is one place I'm looking at analytics, if you look at it, the first baseman touches the ball more than any other infielder. That you have. So I wanna make sure that our first baseman is athletic. he can move to his right. He can feel comfortable doing a lot of different things. I think that's undervalued. So for me, first baseman is not an offensive position. It's more of a defensive role. When you got a great first base, you can protect up the middle so much better and you can be a step or two up the gap. Just change. Yeah. How you protect the infield. but that play and then, just a good first baseman makes all your other infielders look great. If he can protect and against throws and just from a confidence standpoint, if you're another infielder and you know that your first baseman is going to be able to pick yet. It gives you that much more confidence on the left side to make any type of throw. amazing what that does. The confidence of your infielder. How about quickly outfielder? Is there a couple of things you just, your heart starts beating faster when you see it. Just guys that can go get the baseball again. I think that's undervalued. now in the showcase world that we live in, everybody's stuck in right field and everybody wants to see the arm strength outfielders. I completely disregard arm strength in the outfield drives me nuts. On a good year, our best outfielder will have three outfield assists. He's either going to track or not track 20 or 25 balls and catch him or not. And that to me is going to go a lot further than how much he can throw. so again, just in the last few years, usually most of all of our outfielders are probably high school center fielder. We'll stick our best defensive outfielder in center. We've next stuck our best defensive outfielder in we feel like more balls are hit to than they are to left. And Garrett was one of those guys. He was a high school center fielder arm was not very good, but he could track it. So we stuck him in right. And that worked well for us. but yeah, I'm really glad he hits his relays. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that one's a no brainer, but unfortunately we see that, where guys want to show off their arms and they, They airmail the, the cutoff man. But yeah, track a ball hit your relay, man. Those are the things that we're looking for. Awesome coach. I finished with two questions and these are going to be easy for you. You've already given us so many golden nuggets. What one piece of advice would you give to families with that 14 to 18 year old? That kid wants to play college baseball. what's one piece of advice you would give that family as they start that journey? I personally think that the process is backwards now. so many kids are sitting there waiting for their phone to ring and going to all these events and just waiting for somebody to call them and waiting to be loved. I equate this to just the, if you think about the normal college selection process for a non athlete, those people have to set parameters. What kind of school do you want to be at? What do you want to major in? Big school, small school, close to home, far from home, all of those things, and come up with some parameters, and I realize that it's difficult for a 16 or 17 year old boy to figure that out. go start looking at places. go to some big campuses, some small campuses, some city schools, some country schools. Put some parameters on it and then start your process. it makes no sense to me why these people are waiting for their phone to ring and they just want to be loved. once a coach calls you and loves you, a 17 year old is enamored by that. And then disregards all the things that are a priority to them or should be a priority to them. to me, the process is backwards. You decide what's important to you, what's the right fit, and then start to narrow down your search and figure out a way to get in front of those coaches. Whether it's their camps or their events or whatever, it would save them money. It would save them time. It would hopefully ensure that they don't want to transfer when they get to wherever they end up getting to. But we have this process backwards now. And unfortunately, too many people are doing it the wrong way. The only other thing to follow up that I'd say is, if somebody tells you that you have to do this, or you have to do that, I would say run the other direction. There is no one story. Everybody's got a little bit of a different story. Everybody's got a little bit of a different way to do it. And what's worked for Johnny might not work for you as a family. You have to decide what's comfortable for you and your situation and your heart will tell you where to go. Significant recruiting coach. You could have wrote it for me. I didn't read it. I didn't read it. You don't need to read. You already know it. You just, you basically just wrote the first chapter of what I wrote because I was so tired of it. I was so tired of kids waiting there. And I tell mom and dad, when I speak at schools, I go, when in your life, have you sat at home waiting for an employer to call you? What if they do call you, which is one out of a million? What if you don't want to do that work? What if you don't want to work for that company? Why aren't you going out and finding and applying for jobs that you want to do? Recruiting is the same way. If you're not going out and finding those people you want to be around and those schools that can give you everything you need, where you can be happy and healthy, you're wasting your time. Love it. Awesome. What one piece of significant advice, this doesn't have to be about baseball. It doesn't have to be athletics. Is there something that you were given over the years that is a piece of advice that you think everybody should hear? just because we came off of talking about this, the other thing that I would say is, play multiple sports for as long as you can play multiple sports. And, everybody's worried about getting a college offer. I think what's lost sight of is. Once you get there, you want to put yourself in the best position to be successful. And whether it's baseball, football, basketball, volleyball, swimming, whatever, I'm going to gamble and bet that the people that are most successful are the ones that played two and three sports in high school and throughout their entire lives. And, those who are fine focusing, I think it's nonsense. I think we're doing a kid's a disservice. I think they're getting burnt out. I think once they do get to college, they're not progressing nearly as much as they could or they should. if I had a nickel for every time a kid or a family said to me, during the interview process, I asked them, do you play other sports in school? Oh, I used to play basketball, but I wanted to focus on baseball or I want to, if I had a nickel, I'd be retired by that point. You can still focus on baseball. If you want you, you can lift weights in the morning before you go to school or before or after basketball practice, if you prioritize that, That's lost sight in, in all of this. So I would just encourage as many people to play as many sports as long as they can. And, eventually it'll sort itself out. I had Ryan Kerrigan on the podcast a few months ago, Washington commanders, all pro now he's coach at the Washington commanders, NFL stud. And I asked him that question. he goes, man I don't believe I would have made it to the NFL if I wouldn't have played Football in the fall, basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring. He goes, I gave my body a rest. I gave different body parts a rest every three months, I got coached by so many different people. That all made me better. I had to transition from one team culture to another every year, three times a year. He goes, I don't think I would've been ready to be a professional athlete without it. And I just, it was so rewarding just to hear somebody that's done. what he's done, talk about that, and you're preaching it too. So I love it. it drives me crazy, especially with baseball, when I'm seeing kids play 170 games in 12 months and they wonder why they get burnt out at 17 or why their arm is shot or why, they can't swing the bat consistently the way they want because they don't have the energy. I don't, so I love it. it's the money. There's too much money that people are making playing all these games and going all these tournaments. And, if they would just listen to the college coaches who are not demanding it, don't need to see you play 170 games. They want to see you healthy. I have yet to talk to a college baseball coach that didn't tell me how important it is to have multisport athletes. If you don't think Playing four months of basketball is making you a better baseball player. You don't get it. You're absolutely right. Absolutely right. Coach, you are a treasure. Mr. Accordia, if they don't know how lucky they are to have you, I'll keep preaching it. I'm so thankful to have you on. I learned so much from you. Enjoyed the conversation. You got a huge fan in me. If there's anything I can ever do for you in the program, don't be afraid to ask. But thanks for doing this today. Coach, thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed it. What a great conversation. Huge thanks to Coach Pete Egbert, National Baseball Coach of the Year at Misericordia University, for sharing his insights on coaching, leadership, and building a championship program. His impact on his players and the university is truly inspiring. And to our listeners, thanks for tuning into the Significant Coaching Podcast. If you've enjoyed today's episode, subscribe, leave a rating or share your thoughts. It helps us grow and bring you more valuable content. For any families navigating college athletics recruitment, you can visit CoachMattRogers. com for expert resources and to schedule a personalized strategy session with me. Also, check out my book, Significant Coaching, the playbook for prospective college athletes packed with tools and strategies for the recruiting journey. You can also explore past episodes and my blog for more insights on parenting, coaching, and recruiting. Hey, thanks again for listening. See you next time on the Significant Coaching Podcast.