Episode #166: Larry Yoder

🎙️Building a Program That Lasts | Larry Yoder | Significant Coaching Ep. 166

In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, Matt Rogers sits down with Larry Yoder, Head Softball Coach at Mount Mercy University, to break down what it takes to build—and sustain—a successful college program over time.

This is a real, honest conversation about how programs are actually built, what coaches go through in the early years, and how discipline, accountability, and consistency shape long-term success.

From starting with limited resources and learning on the fly, to creating a program that players and parents trust, Coach Yoder shares what it really looks like behind the scenes—and why staying committed to the process matters.

Yoder is in his 17th season at Mount Mercy, where he has compiled over 400 wins while leading the Mustangs to multiple conference championships, NAIA National Tournament appearances, and a fifth-place finish at the NAIA World Series. His program has rewritten the record books offensively, while continuing to excel in pitching and defense, and he played a key role in the development of Busse Field—one of the premier softball facilities in the NAIA.

🔗 Learn more about Coach Yoder: https://mountmercy.edu/athletics/soft...

CHAPTERS
00:40 “What Are You Doing?” – First-Year Reflection
02:00 Taking Over a Struggling Program
03:30 Rebuilding a Roster from Scratch
05:30 Early Wins & Finding Momentum
08:15

Transcript

0:09

On the latest edition of The Significant Coaching Podcast, a presentation of the coach Matt Rogers YouTube channel available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcast. I'm your host Matt Rogers. This week's guest surprised me. He's a big teddy bear and his players would agree, but don't let that fool you. You don't have the kind of success Larry Yoder has had over the past 17 years as the head softball coach at Mount Mercy University in Iowa without knowing how to coach with discipline and accountability. But what stood out to me is he simply loves coaching. He loves developing great student athletes, and he completely embraces the joy and the significance of what we get to do every day as coaches. You spend five minutes with him and you understand why parents trust him with their daughters and why players want to be a part of his program. This is a conversation about building something, staying with it, and doing it the right way. Over time, and as always, you can find more resources for your coaching and recruiting journey@coachmattrogers.com books, journals, blogs for parents, athletes and coaches, and the significant recruiting launchpad classes. So if you're that family that wants a little bit of help and doesn't wanna spend a ton of money, you can have me throughout your entire journey by going to coach matt rogers.com. Alright, let's get into part one with Coach Larry Yoder. Coach Yo Yoder, so great to see you. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for having me, Matt. All right, coach. What a history you have, 17 seasons, 400 plus wins. If I walked into your office and found a note from your first year self, okay, the guy that started coaching the long, long time ago, what would that note say to you now? What are you doing? Scared to death 17 years basically as the head coach. But I came here 20 years ago. Me and a couple of other guys Glenn Johnson and John lvi came in with me and we, this is something we wanted to try and do, and Mount Mercy had not had a lot of success. The two teams prior to us were, I think they won five games. Two years prior and one four games the year prior, and three seasons prior to that, they canceled the season. So the program was not in good shape at all. And when we got here, there was, I think there was nine people on the roster in the fall, and we had to go recruit the volleyball team and the basketball team just to kinda get, I think we've got a roster up to 12 or 13 and. So we were just flying by the seat of our pants there, and it was quite an adventure and but we won nine games that year, so we almost doubled the previous years, so That's awesome. And then the next year, after a year under the belt, we got 20 and then built from there. And then Glen had decided to he had other things going on, so that's when I. Became the we became co-head coaches for a year or two, and then I got the full-time position here. But yeah, a lot of things have changed since then. Yeah, there has, your facilities are great. I love your facilities. It's a great place to watch games and it was fun getting to meet your girls. They're so much fun and they were excited to do whatever to to have some fun to celebrate their program. I'm excited to, to get to know them better too as we go. Building a program from really from scratch is so hard, and I don't know if anybody understands it it's not just recruiting. It's not just coaching. It's figuring out zero budget, figuring out how to travel the right way, figuring out how to get the right staff, getting them taught, and train the way you need'em to. When you do look back, are there some foundational things that you're really proud that you did right in the beginning? Yeah I surrounded myself with good people. Yeah. And when we're recruiting or bringing in kids, it was finding the right girls that wanted to be here and have the right attitude and knew that it wasn't gonna happen right away. And willing to work and get things. I'm just proud of the process that we stuck to. We didn't get too bent outta shape about things, and we just kept knowing that we had to move forward and things would get better, and it did. You've got a long history of being a part of the NAI even in your time at Iowa Wesley. That was NAI back then. Yeah, it was, yeah. That was the really the heyday of NAI back in the eighties and early nineties. I, I coached at St. Ambrose Yep. In the nineties. And that was still a big big, a big rival back then. Yep. You were a power hitter. You had records and home runs, were you, did you come into coaching with that mindset that more of that offensive mindset? Or was it different when you started coaching? No, I think it was a lot different. There was a big break in there for me and then I had kids of my own and started coaching them. And no, for me it was more about fundamentals and just learning to do the game the right way and. Softball always intrigued me. I love the base running and the speed of the game, and so we've we've had a lot of good power hitting teams here, but we've also had teams that. Don't hit for a lot of power, and so you have to adjust to what you have and make it work for you. But no, I've never been about the long ball and that's what it's gonna be or anything like that. Just trying to teach him little bit of everything and develop'em the right way and just get'em to love the game, I think. That's kinda what I'm seeing. As I look through your program and your stats and your history you've been a guy that's evolved with what the roster you had and evolved with the times. And it's so hard for me I'm such a baseball fan and such a softball fan and the major league baseball level, the college level for baseball, the home run has become kind of everything. Everybody's puts all their money and time into the long ball. When you're looking at your season and you're thinking about what kind of team you have, how do you start thinking about strategy and getting the, getting your young women prepared to do what you want them to do? Yeah. I, for me, it always, it's always in the circle. You gotta find out what kind of pitching are you gonna have, and then you gotta have, even with great pitchers, you just have to have solid defense. And that's you gotta really make sure that you've got everything covered. No weak areas and they're just well coached. Know what to do with the ball. And then if you can get the pitching and defense going, then we'll worry about the offense. How many runs are we gonna have to score? Are we gonna have to score three or four runs? Are we gonna have to score six or seven? And decide how what we're gonna do there? But for me it's all about defense and pitching and. Keeping the game low scoring, and then we'll figure out a way. You and I have talked about you. There's some studs you're gonna face this weekend, some. Some women that can really whip it when you are thinking about the pitching that's coming up this weekend we'll be specific for a second. Are you. Are you thinking about how you're gonna talk to the girls going into that game in terms of, are you gonna bump more, are you gonna look for walks more? Are you looking to make contact more hit behind runners more? Are you thinking about that now as you go into these games this weekend? Yeah, for sure. We're gonna, like I, we talked about, we are facing each team that we're facing this weekend as an All-American pitcher. And we're not gonna, we're not gonna be putting eight, 10 runs up on the board, so everything's important. And we just go with the flow of the game. You want to get some big hits and if you get a couple run lead, maybe you're gonna. Play for a big inning, but if it's gonna be tight right? Every run's gonna count and you're gonna willing to give up some outs to move some runners and try and hope we get that one big hit or a couple big hits and try and win that game that way. I'm always intrigued by softball and baseball. I was a baseball coach a long time ago. I coached baseball for the first seven or eight years of my career before I got into basketball. But it seems like basketball coaches, our egos are so big. There's a pre-game speech. There's a speech in the huddle, there's a speech in halftime, there's a post-game speech. And then I watch these baseball and softball coaches and I feel they say, all right, let's just go do our thing today. We know what we're doing, go out and play and I feel like. Baseball and softball coaches do such a better job of just staying out of the head space to their players. Am I misreading that? For me it's like we have to do what we do best and that I can't change that. And so you gotta be yourself and we prepare our hitters, we go through all the adjustments of every type of pitcher they know if it's a rise ball, what are the adjustments we can make if it's outside, inside, whatever it is they know. We try to get'em as much information because even if a pitcher a good pitcher will change what they're doing, right? If you're starting to get on her, she's gonna start pitching a different way. And so when you start guessing, sometimes you're in trouble. You just have to see the ball, hit the ball. But they have to know how to make adjustments. They have to know how to adjust to the speed of a faster pitcher. And they also have to know the situation, we need to get the ball put in play somehow find a way to put it in play. We don't need a home run here or whatever. At the end of the day scouting's important. You gotta know what's going on, but it's about us and we have to do what we do best. And you try and teach the kids adjustments so they can do that. Because that has to be done in the batter's box. They can't strike out and then go back to the bench and then we'll talk about it. Yeah. You've just swung and missed what happened to you? You're getting back in the box. Deep breath. Yeah. What are you gonna do? And lot of things or taught in practice and worked on in practice, and hopefully it carries over into the game for'em. What makes you happy when you're watching freshmen come in. You got an idea of what you're gonna get out of a freshman, typically it's gonna take some time and get their confidence there. When you are evaluating that year to year growth of your girls, what are the things that make you happy about what after year one and into year two? Yeah hopefully their confidence level and just the way they carry themselves and how they feel about themselves. But you just want'em to be obviously stronger, faster, more explosive as they stay with you longer, that they're in the weight room and they're doing all of those things but they're just doing all the little things defensively and swinging the bats. They're become more consistent. Start to develop maybe a little more power, but. I love when they start to, when they come in and maybe they're all pull and now they're starting to use the field and they're hitting the ball everywhere and just all the things that we work on, and you start to see it help'em, that, that makes me feel pretty good and I think it makes'em a better player. What do you see a difference in tho that first 12 to 18 months in terms of routine and things that they're doing to prepare? For that.'cause it's, you can't just all of a sudden get into play and say, you know what? I'm gonna start hitting all fields. There's a lot of prep that goes into that and learning how to see those outside pitches and those breaking pitches and learn to keep your hands back. What are some of those things you see where you know that growth is happening? When they come in as a freshman, they're just like, they're just trying to survive. There's, it's their first time away from home, right? There's so many things going on in the fall when we first get'em in, and they're, we don't. It's more about getting them comfortable as it is starting to teach and stuff. So their first freshman year is just getting them used to being on the team, used to being in college, used to living on their own. All of those things that are going on in their life. And then after that first semester in the fall season, we really start working a little more individually and working on things inside and getting ready for the season. So you want'em to, in that first year, adjust just to be in, in college? Just to be an athlete and knowing what's going on and then you wanna see them start to implement all the things that you're working on. And obviously when you make a change, the first thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna fail. And and. Most kids will, once they fail, they'll quit. They'll go back to where they were, and that's basically where they're gonna stay. But if the girls are willing to fail and to keep trying and build it back up, then that's when they can grow more than where they were at. And I wanna see'em have enough confidence and know that we trust them enough that it's okay to fail and then to keep sticking with the process. We talk a lot about process. It's not gonna happen overnight. And for some kids it may not happen in a year or two years. I've had girls come in and not do a lot, and then all of a sudden that junior, senior year, they, it starts to click for'em and it happens. But they just have to stick with the progress or process and not get too overwhelmed with everything and hopefully believe in what we're doing right? And keep getting better that way. I don't think kids understand that you need the repetition. You just need to Oh, yeah. Play a lot. You need to hit a lot, you need to throw a lot, you need to see so many balls ground balls and fly balls. And after, after there's a certain point we talk about those 10,000 hours all the time where everything just kinda starts slowing down. You're like, oh yeah. I could see it out of her hand. I knew what spin was coming. I could see the way that pitcher, the pitcher dropped her shoulders. I knew what was coming and I didn't, maybe I didn't see that a day ago. I didn't see that a month ago. Is that fun for you to teach those things? Oh yeah. Those light bulb moments, right? Yeah. When it comes on, especially like from a defensive end, I think it's real satisfying. Kids come, they take a lot of hitting lessons and yeah. Pitching lessons and things, but not a lot of people come in with defensive things. And so when we start doing those everyday drills and they're just monotonous over and over again and then you start to see it pay off in their game, it really makes a difference. But the big thing is. Like you say, when you get to rep 5,000, they start to go through the motions a little bit. So now we're talking about how do you practice with intent and that every time you do those little things, you have to do it like you're doing it in a game. And they, you can't just go through the motions or it's not gonna translate for you. We talk a lot about practicing with intent and just trying to do all these little things so it'll carry over and then you do start to see it in the games. You start to see it in their practices and their things. They're not flipping the ball out of their glove and making a stupid mistake on a exchange, like we always talk about exchanges and things like that, and just those little things that become a habit then. Absolutely. I hate to keep using baseball as a reference and all the women in your program, and they'll have to I'll apologize to them in advance, but I found it really cool that the San Francisco Giants have hired Tony Vitello a college baseball coach, never coached Major League baseball, and you're starting to get, you're starting to hear some feedback from these major league players at the Giants on how he's bringing some of his college drills. Things that they had never seen before that they're doing differently in practices are, is there a driller too, especially on the defensive side that you're doing where your freshmen come in and the, their eyes are a little opened and they're a little bit wowed by it, or the are those little drills that you do that the freshmen are gonna, it's gonna make an impact. Oh yeah, I think one, one of our staples is what we call Aussies or Ozzy Smith. The great shortstop for the Yeah. The cardinals and but teaching'em back, is it backflips coach? Is that what we're teaching? No. Can't do that one yet. But they get on their knees and after they play catch they get down on their knees and they're just short hopping each other and how to handle short hops and how to handle the glove. We're handling the glove and we also make'em do, a lot of times in basketball where they pass the ball between their legs and stuff. Yeah. We have exchanges and so they have to take the ball in around the world and love that and their waist and things like, just so they're getting used to handling the ball and taking it out of their glove and putting it in their hand and things like that. And so all of those things combined and just learning to handle short tops and things like that constantly. It's a lot of fun. But the other day there was a viral video went out on a NCA game and the third baseman came across and she was off balance and she took the ball and she took it behind her back and brought it back to her glove before she threw it to get it. Organized. And that's one of the drills we do. And they all were like, oh my God, I saw that. Oh, that's awesome. You must do these drills too. That's always a feel good moment. Yeah. Have'em see it pay off where it was specifically something like that. You see so many, you see so many young kids that, that ground ball, it's almost like I'm protecting myself, yeah. The shoulders go back and they straighten up and back on their heels. There's, they're so afraid to hit their face, and I just remember teaching young women and young women to just bury that glove on that short hop and all of a sudden. Oh, wow. I've never thought about it that way. And all of a sudden that fear starts to go away of taking that ground ball and everything's more aggressive. So are you finding that and I don't wanna denounce high school and club coaches, are you finding there's things that you're pretty consistently teaching freshmen that they're not getting? Before they get to you? Yeah. And again they do get a lot of hitting and pitching lessons, so I think and they're not all exactly the same, but they've got most of the basics. But the thing I see lacking is some defense some game iq and then base running is. Not good. Yeah. And in the state of Iowa I don't know other states, but like you have courtesy runners and reentries and more courtesy runners, pitchers and catchers never run the bases. And and then they get here and sometimes your pitchers are really good athletes or if they're hitting or your catchers. Yeah, they've gotta run the bases now. And yeah, they haven't been doing it. They don't know how to do it. And so we're very aggressive on the bases. We wanna push, we wanna put pressure on people, make'em react. And that's it's, there's not a lot of instinct out there that, as much as I would like to see. Yeah. We we work on base running and, but it's hard. They're scared to make a mistake sometimes, and we always, you can't you don't wanna be stupid, obviously, but if we're not getting thrown out once or twice, we're not being aggressive enough, in my opinion. And don't be afraid to make an aggressive mistake. So keep pushing. That one or two outs that you might run into. Might lead to one or two errors later in the game.'cause they're trying to get the glove they think you're gonna be aggressive. They know you're gonna be aggressive. So they over rush a ground ball, overrun a fly ball, and all of a sudden you've got that momentum back that maybe you lost it because you were aggressive. So I, I love that. Let's talk about club. Let's talk about travel. Travel, softball. These kids are playing so many games and you talked about it. The IQ isn't coming with it'cause they're working so much one-on-one. They're not. They're not practicing with that shortstop, second baseman. They're not practicing with running the bases and where the cutoff needs to be and things like that. Is there something that needs to happen at the travel level? That could fix some of this. Are we playing too many games? Do we need to get back to three days of practice and maybe two, two games on the weekend? Is, are we hurting kids? And I don't there's a lot of travel teams that do a good job and things like that, but I think they're playing too much not practicing enough. And a lot of'em are from they've got kids coming 60 miles, so you can't practice. If you do, you get together and hit and whatever. And, but I think that what I'm seeing is by the time the girls get to college, they're almost burned out from playing and. We practice a lot. And they're not used to practicing a lot. And so everything, the whole what is softball starts to change a little bit and they it's, we're developing and learning and we're not playing as much. And if you go travel ball and you go one in four for the weekend, and hey, we'll see you next weekend. And it's one and four is ladies, we got yeah. We got some things to work on here and. It's also the competition. Like they're not very competitive sometimes. And I think that gets lost in some of that because the games don't mean very much. And with our games, right? I say it's gonna be a seven inning game. Every pitch of every inning is gonna count. And you have to be locked in both physically and mentally, and you're gonna be exhausted when the game's over. We couldn't begin to play two games more than two games in a day. I wouldn't even want to do that. And some of those travel kids are playing three and four I know. And the heat and a hundred degree weather. Yeah. And then they're also hanging a clock on the their amount of time out there maybe isn't like ours would be, but. I went to a game once and it was the the team was down by two runs and the bases were loaded and there were two outs, and the clock went out on the buzzer and the calls time game over and the it ends like, here comes the biggest pitch of right entire game, and they just walk it off. That's, I don't know any other sport that does that. Yeah. Do you? No. You can't imagine that in a basketball game or a Yeah. You run out of time in a basketball or football game. Yeah. It's coming and in softball and baseball, you have to get the outs right. The game doesn't end until you get the out. So it's never, you're gonna not gonna run out of time. You're gonna run out of opportunities. But I don't know it. I think the, some of those the basics get lost and some of the learning to be competitive and to make adjustments, right? A lot of times you don't get a pitchers don't face a hit or two and three times in a game, and how do you, they're adjusting to you and this and that game that goes on, and they, you don't see that a lot. It's such a loss of the principles of the game. I remember being nine, 10 years old and we would, if there were three of us, we'd play pickle, or four of us. We'd play pickle we'd hit fly balls to each other we'd do all the counting games. I can't even remember what they were called. 500 and stuff like that. Yeah. Do you see young women doing that? Do you see them? Button and practicing on the side and playing together and playing catch and throwing high balls to each other and learning how to catch behind their back. Do you, are you seeing any of that we used to? No, not really. Not really? No. If I'm like you, I, we went out first thing in the morning and we played all day and we came back home. And yeah, I had my glove on my bike, wherever we were, we played back when I was, the only time you stopped is when the ball went in the gutter. Exactly. Go find a new ball like sandlot, you gotta go on fence there and get it right. Yeah. But yeah I don't see a lot of just free play and things like that and everything's organized and Yeah. Everything's done for them. Yep. That's pretty much it. How do we get that back? How do we find the joy? Because I, I feel like that was some of the greatest memories of my childhood. Playing a pickup baseball game, playing pickup basketball, playing pickup football throwing the ball around and just i, I don't remember my arm ever hurting until I got I started coaching and I was throwing 200 batting practice throws every day.'cause I I was just always throwing the ball. Is there a way to get back to that? Is there is it is. It takes sometimes one kid to say, Hey, I'm gonna make some phone calls today. Let's go. Let's go hit let's go play. Yeah. Does that happen? Can we make that happen? I don't know. I don't know. We try to do we do a lot of team bonding things. We have an annual kickball game and stuff like that, and they get into that. Totally right. They, when you get'em to do it, they have a ton of fun with it. You had some little game that's different and. Practice and all of a sudden these kids that you don't think are that competitive or being super competitive, right? And then they get into that and then we get back to the game and they lose some of that edge. They don't play with that freedom or that joy. I guess they're, yeah. More worried about making a mistake or whatever it is. I don't know. It's a great question. How do you get into how do we do that? Because they're missing, I think they're just missing out. And it's, the phones have taken over and technology has taken over and it's too easy to sit in your room and not get outside. And that's, there's a lot for him to do. So there's always something else, I'm just the old guy on my porch yelling at people going too fast. But yeah. I'm with you there. You've reached the NAI World Series and finished in the top five. Let's talk about what separates teams that get there and don't get there. What does that look like? Coach? And I'm not gonna let you just say recruiting. Oh, no. Yeah. I'm not gonna let you just say talent. Because then you're too good of a coach. Again, with softball, all of those teams, they've got good pitching, right? Yeah. And so you do need to find. Somebody in the circle. But those teams are all playing at the right time of the season. They've gotten better as the year went along. They're, and some of them didn't start out that well, and, but they kept stuck to the process and they keep getting better and they start to gel and their confidence just starts to build. And at the time that you get to the conference tournament or the end of the regular season. They're really together as a unit, they're very confident and they're doing all the little things right. And they believe in themselves. Yeah. And that's the that's the difference. And I can, it, its really, it's just attitude. It's, how they think about themselves. Yeah. Like my team right now is struggling a little bit as far as wins and losses go and things like that. But we're trying not to talk about the wins and losses so much, but sticking to the process and good things will happen if we just keep getting a little bit better every day. But it's, we're just trying to get a stronger mindset and believe in ourselves, and it's slowly coming and I think we're gonna get there, but it's, that's the difference, like the team I have that's maybe not achieving as much as we want right now. Could by the end of the team year be doing that. And it's gonna be a mindset thing. It's not gonna be a skillset change or a, anything like that. It's gonna be a mindset change and believing in each other. And then it just starts to roll and build from there. And I think all of those teams that make it to the World Series have strong mindsets. They believe in themselves and their skills, and they're playing well together as a team. The years that I, my teams won conference championships or we made it to the national tournament, it seemed like my leaders took over. They took ownership. Of the program kinda said we got this coach. Not that I stopped coaching, but it was like there were drills where we weren't working hard or drills that we weren't getting stuff done, and my seniors would step up and say, we gotta do better. Yep. I didn't have to be the one saying it. Do you feel, have you felt that over the last 17 years when you've had, you've been really consistent, but when you've had really great teams, do you see a difference in your leadership? Oh, I think so. I think that the leaders can only do so much and they can hold each other accountable, right? And things like that. And that's certainly super important. But everybody all the way through has to buy into that. And it only takes one or two that. Can throw that off a little bit, but Absolutely. The senior leadership and the way things are done and how you're able to practice is so important, right? And so when you have a lot of seniors, you're able to get so much more in and practice because they're helping all the right, everyone else, and everybody knows what's going on. And it just moves along a lot faster and more smooth and, the leadership is huge and we have we, we try to teach leadership and it doesn't have to come from a senior certainly it can come from anybody. And there's a lot of different kinds of leadership too, whether it's leading by example or being verbal or whatever. But super important to have people on the team that are holding others accountable. Leading them on. How do the younger players react to that? Maybe they haven't been in programs before where the seniors and juniors, seniors are almost like assistant coaches. They're barking their in line. How do the youngsters handle that? I think they love it. They wanna, especially early in their career, they wanna know what to do, right? Yeah. They want some help, they want some guidance and they look up to those players, right? Yeah. And and then they can become. One of those leaders and help each other. So I think it's a great thing. And it's not everybody is the same kind of leader. Yeah. But everybody's capable of being a leader in some way. So I've coached women and men. There's a definite difference. And accepting leadership, don't you think? I've never coached men, so I've played obviously you you played a long time, right? Yeah. Many years ago, right? Yeah, just yesterday. Yeah. I think that I think the ladies are a little more accepting of the, like my, the seniors and the older experienced players. They. They don't look at it as criticism. They look at it as they're trying to help me. Is where I think sometimes guys take it as a criticism or Right. Somebody trying to, that the C on their shirt means coach instead of captain. Like they're trying to boss around and Right. I don't see that in the women's game so much, or with my teams. Yeah. They want that they wanna share and they're open to the sharing. They know getting better means I've gotta, I've gotta see those that have come before me and see what they're doing and learning. That's great. Yep. Are you've used the word intent a lot in our conversation today. What are some of the things you're doing with intent when it comes to leadership? And yeah we always obviously have meetings and we talk to each player about are they a leader and how do they lead and how would they handle certain things and try to give them maybe. Tips on how they could handle it if they didn't feel comfortable and things like that. But we always especially in the field during the game, if things aren't going right, I expect my leaders to call the team in to, to reset them. It shouldn't always be me going out there. And so we talk about that in practice and you'll see my players in practice if things aren't going right. They'll call a timeout and they'll all go out there and they'll, before I, when they see me starting to get a little bit testy, they can prevent that. But that a lot and then that builds on on that. Yeah. And we also, every day before prac or. We start practice with a jog and we do our dynamics or whatever it is to get loose. Yeah. Then they always have a team meeting. I walk away, all coaches walk away. They're there for a minute or two or whatever it takes, and they're gonna talk about what are we doing today? And hopeful. I'm not sure who's talking in that because we're not involved. But that's their chance to, to. Encourage each other and let's be better today and let's do this good today. Or maybe somebody's not quite feeling it, they can share like, Hey something's going on with me if I don't do this. Yeah. This is why. Or they just have their time and so every day there's a leadership piece in there for them to do it. And then once practice starts, obviously you want them to continue to encourage each other. Talk, communicate, right? Yeah. Talk. Yep. All the time. It's it's so interesting when it comes to leadership it's not rocket science. It sounds like you guys do a really in intentional job of saying, we have to create that space for leaders. To be able to practice being leaders, right? It's simple as you walking away and giving them a chance to talk about what they wanna accomplish that day. Leadership has to step up. Somebody has to decide they're gonna talk. Yeah. Somebody has to. I'm not just silent out there. Yeah. So I love that. I think for all the young coaches and high school coaches that are listening to this, and we have a lot of'em that do, and a lot of parents listen to this. I think as a parent, I don't always do a good enough job of just shutting up, it's hard, right? It's and it, and sometimes I, I just have to remember, Hey, great game. And then I, and that's it. I want her to, I want my daughter to fill in the blanks. I want her to tell me what she's going through. You are such a, a. The impression I get from you, the time I got to see you on campus and talking to you now, you seems like a genuinely joyful person. Is there another side to you, coach? I love what I do, right? Yeah. I can tell I love the team. Like they're a great bunch of kids and their skillset has nothing to do with how I feel about'em or anything. And I want them to all have a good experience and and just have fun with it, but yeah they know, they've seen another side of me occasionally, but, when that side comes out too much, it loses its effect. Yes. In my opinion. So it's kinda like with, as parents, right? You holler at your kids all the time, and then after a while they're just not listening. So I'm pretty intentional about when I get upset and how often I get upset, but they know what my expectations are and we'll holler a lot during practice and Yeah. But we if we're not having fun, then what are we doing? Exactly that, that's my whole thing. And this, if you're gonna live and die on wins and losses alone, it's gonna be a, it's tough, right? And you're gonna have a lot of disappointing days. And at the end of the day, we're out here trying to have a good experience, trying to have fun and the other day I was setting up for the game and one of the girls they graduated a few years back and was walking her dog by and she saw me and came running over and talked to me about her career and all the things, how it, the game translated into her career. And that's, that really made me, that's great. That makes you step back and go, this is why. Wins and losses don't Yeah. Matter. Yeah. That, that, that's, it's the best part of coaching. The longer you do it, the more you just look forward those things. I got a call I've got a former player who's, what is Brandon now? He's gotta be 45. Yeah. Years old. He is married, he's a partner in his accounting firm and. It was just like yesterday he called me and, or sent me a text saying, Hey coach, I need some advice. He is, he's a 45-year-old man. But it just, it made me feel so good that he thought I'm gonna call Coach and get his opinion on this. So I'm with you. I love that stuff. When you look at your career, are there things that you're most proud of? And when forget the World Series appearance. Forget the national tournaments. Are there things that you look back and go, gosh, I'm just really proud of that. The program in general, I'm super proud of. Because it it wasn't a program when we started. And I'm super blessed to have the facility that we have, but it wasn't always that way. And prior to getting our field, I think I played home games on 10 or 11 different fields. I had the equipment in the back of my car. We went from. 12 players on the roster up to where we're supporting a junior varsity team and a a varsity team. And we've now have a beautiful field that was voted the NFCA National NAI Field of the Year two years ago. And no doubt that's great. Super with this. And yeah, we're hosting the conference tournament most years and people love to come here and we do a good job hosting it. And it's just the. We've been in three national tournaments, three or four national tournaments, and just from where the program started to where it's at now yeah I'm proud of that. Yeah. Coach, I'll tell you this, I, I've seen so many teams and now that I'm at 30,000 feet and I'm not coaching my own team I visit a lot of programs and I go watch a lot of practices and it always makes me feel so good when I walk into a practice like I did the other day in yours and. There was no fear there was there, the girls were already having fun. They had a relationship with you. They had a relationship with each other. I said, let's take a picture. And they jumped in and so I want you to know from an outsider. How exciting that is for me. I know it's a great program and for those that are listening that are thinking about their daughter going to play college softball, go visit Mount Mercy. Go visit coach and the team.'cause the more you visit a lot of schools, the more you start understanding what you want to be a part of. And I was upset that I couldn't stay longer.'cause I want, I wanted to see more. So I want you to know, I, I appreciate you for that. I appreciate you saying that. Says a lot about you and it was fun. It was fun to see. Coach, I could talk to you all day. Let's do a little rapid fire. Let's get to know you a little bit. Let's let you share a little bit. Do you have a favorite band or artist of all time? Oh my gosh. This is a I'm, I really like all kinds of music. That's good. Lot of genres, but I like Carrie Underwood a lot. I think I'm a country guy, so Are you? Yeah. She's great. Yeah. You, any others that you like besides Carrie? Nobody specific. I'm just all over the board all the time. So yeah I like to listen to what the girl like they have a lot different tastes than I do, but I enjoy their music. Yeah. And when they're singing and stuff, I think that's awesome. Yeah, I just, I love it all, nice. That's great. I know every time my wife has been in the car'cause. Before me, I'd turn on the car and the country channel's on. So I, we list a lot of country too. Are you a concert guy? What's the best concert you've ever been to? It's been years and years, so I'm really aging myself. But I think that's, pat Benatar was probably the last one that I, or maybe ac. CDC. Yeah. Those are great concerts. Yeah. All right. Got some fun music for your posts, for your social media posts I'm gonna put out too. I love those. Those are good choices. Do you have a go-to pre-game meal? Not pre-game, no. We're, I'm usually too busy getting everything ready and. But don't like to eat too much before the before. What's your typical post game look like after the field's done, game's over, the girls have left. What's your post game look like? Yeah I'm usually pretty exhausted and so it's something, I'm gonna grab something, whether it's a Subway or a Wendy's, or. Yeah, maybe launch something like that. So something easy. Something easy. Something you don't have to think about. Yep. Just go home. Yep. Yeah. Are you a stat guy after the game? Do you review the stats? Do you watch any film or do you, can you let it go till the next day? No, I'll usually be in the box score for sure, yeah. That day. But I won't watch any film or anything like that until later. But always wanna recap and what I was thinking was that what was happening and while it's still fresh in your mind, otherwise I don't think I could fall asleep. So I'm with you everything. You need a little break from the game too. At some point. You need to be able to let your brain forget about it a little bit. And that was always hard for me. Is there a favorite softball movie or sports movie that you love? League of Their Own is pretty good. Yeah. Tom Hanks and that, so yeah. Great movie. That's an older movie, but I used to, Robert Redford was in the Natural. That yeah. Is one of my favorite movies. I too, so if that's on tv, man, I can't turn it off. I'm watching till the both of those movies. Yep. Great choices. What's one word your players would use to describe you? They call me a teddy bear a lot, but I don't like that too much. But I think they would say that I'm probably fun most of the time. Yeah. Yeah. You definitely got some teddy bear in you, but I bet when the heat's on you, you can get'em moving a little bit too. Oh yeah. They know that. Where's your favorite place to recruit when you tra, if you guys travel and you're on the road where do you like to go for recruiting? Yeah. For me it's, and I was a little bit different with our high school being in the summertime where I think we're the only state that does that, and we're doing a lot and the majority of my team's gonna come from Eastern Iowa. And so just being around and being able to, once our season ends, still watch a lot of high school games and travel ball games and things like that. So we don't venture too far from home. I do the quad cities. I have a lot of girls from from that area. As well. But when it gets to further away, that's more of a we're on the phone doing those things we're it's not so much a in-person visit or getting to watch'em play and things like that, so I don't think I've really put enough thought into what an advantage it is. To have high school softball in the summer and what that can do for you, because during your season it's you're practicing the same time the girls are. Yeah. You're playing games same time the girls are, so what an advantage it is. Why wouldn't you recruit heavily in eastern Iowa when you can see so much softball from the of July. And it's they're close. They're playing quite a bit. And so it's easier to develop a little bit more of a relationship, put yourself in front and see it and just see a lot of different girls. And we we like to host some games at our place too. That's always nice if they'll come play there a little bit. And so sometimes when it rains I'll get that phone call'cause of our turf and they can't play and they need a place. So always happy to that you do, to host them and things like that. But it's, it's Iowa softball, high school softball, still pretty serious. They, the majority of'em play a 40 game schedule. The state tournament's still a big thing, and I know some states it's not as important and travel ball's definitely more of the king, but it's hard just for, hard for us to see those games. Like you said we're in season and it's really tough. Are you seeing value in going to practices or is there more value in you to go to games? It's probably games and then just getting them on campus. And we like to do a workout with them here if we can. Sometimes go to a game or whatever and they don't get a lot of action or they get blocked a couple times or maybe they have a bad game and it's hard to judge a lot of things. But if we can get'em on campus and actually work out with them ourselves, I, that's what I prefer. Yeah, especially over video videos are, especially the majority of'em that I see are the things hung on the fence. The, yeah. And it's just not very good. So again it's a misunderstanding of what you're looking for and really the IQ things that you need to see and the competitive things that you need to see. Often go miss. So we'll get into that in segment too, a little bit more. Yep. Coach, such a joy to get to know you. I'm always so thankful that there's coaches like you in the world'cause I think you're a great role model for coaches like me and just how you go about your business, how you care about the kids your program wins, but it's not your priority. It's making sure the experience is great. And so I appreciate you very much. Appreciate you having me on, and thank you for what you do. It's awesome. My pleasure for you listening, come back on Monday. Coach and I are gonna break down recruiting. We're gonna get into his brain and how he builds his roster. So thanks again for doing this, coach. Yep. Thank you. You just heard part one of our two-part conversation with Coach Larry Yoder. If you're a coach or a parent or someone trying to build something that lasts, there's a lot to take from this one. Coach Yoder is a great reminder that success doesn't happen overnight. It's built over time through consistency, discipline. And a genuine love for what you do and the players you get to coach. Make sure you come back for part two where we're gonna shift the conversation to recruiting what he looks for, how athletes can stand out, and what really matters when it comes to finding the right fit at the NAIA level. Don't forget to check out coach matt rogers.com as well where you can find more resources for your recruiting journey, including my book, significant Recruiting and the Companion Workbooks, the Sports Recruits Journals. You can subscribe to this week in significant coaching and recruiting newsletter, so you never miss our free weekly Tips of the week. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance. Okay.