GameChanger Baseball & Softball Podcast

Today on the show we have the head baseball coach at Duke University, Chris Pollard. Coach Pollard was a pitcher at Davidson where he ranks 3rd all-time in wins. He started his coaching career at Davidson as an assistant coach. He then moved on to become the head coach at Pfeiffer. In his final season at there his team set a school record with 41 wins and 14 losses. Coach Pollard was also named the Carolinas-Virginia Athletic Conference coach of the year. After Pfeiffer he took the head coaching job at Appalachian state. His team won the schools first conference championship since 1987 in his final season before becoming the head coach at Duke University. In 2018, Duke was nationally ranked for the first time in school history and put up a 40 win season to back it up while also earning a program-record 18 ACC wins and advancing to the first NCAA Super Regional in school history. Coach Pollard and I got a chance to talk about a lot of things like competitiveness, developing a process, confidence, learning to adapt to players, establishing culture, committing to the moment and much more. You can follow us on twitter @GCSports and be sure to check out the GameChanger Baseball & Softball scorekeeping app - it provides simple, powerful, and free scorekeeping tools with advanced statistics, live updates and team management solutions that work at any level. The GameChanger scorekeeping app is available in the app store for both apple and android. You can learn more about GameChanger at GC.com.

Today on the show we have Pat Casey. Coach Casey just retired as Head Coach at Oregon State after his team won the 2018 College World Series. He spent 24 seasons as the at OSU. During his time at OSU his teams made 12 post-season appearances including 7 straight from 2009 - 2015. His teams won 3 national championships and he was named National Coach of the year 4 times, and he was the co-winner in 2005. He was named the coach of the decade and OSU was named the number 2 program of the decade in 2010. Coach and I got a chance to talk about a lot things like, developing patience and learning responsibility, discipline, valuing time, successful habits, establishing core values and much more. This is an interview you won’t want to miss. You can follow us on twitter @GCSports and be sure to check out the GameChanger Baseball & Softball scorekeeping app - it provides simple, powerful, and free scorekeeping tools with advanced statistics, live updates and team management solutions that work at any level. The GameChanger scorekeeping app is available in the app store for both apple and android. You can learn more about GameChanger at GC.com.

Today on the show we have a rebroadcast episode of the head coach of the University of Arizona Softball team, Mike Candea. Coach Candrea is about to enter his 34th season as the head coach of Arizona Softball. He’s the NCAA Division I leader in wins. Under Coach Candrea Arizona has won 8 national championships and appeared in 22 Women’s College World Series. He’s guided his program to 11 conference championships. He’s been the Pac-12 coach of the year 12 times. He’s also be named the national coach of the year four times, and has been regional coach of the year six times. In 2017 coach Candrea won his 1,500th career game, becoming the fastest coach in NCAA history, at any sport, on any level, to win 1,500 games. Only five coaches in any sport have more division I wins than coach Candrea. He’s also spent time in the Olympics with USA Softball. His teams have won gold in 2004, and silver in 2008. Coach and I got a chance to talk about a range of topics like earning respect, developing discipline, getting players to buy in, personal development, teaching players to exceed expectations, and much more. You can follow us on twitter @GCSports and be sure to check out the GameChanger Baseball & Softball scorekeeping app - it provides simple, powerful, and free scorekeeping tools with advanced statistics, live updates and team management solutions that work at any level. The GameChanger scorekeeping app is available in the app store for both apple and android. You can learn more about GameChanger at GC.com.

This past week GameChanger attended the NFCA convention. We set up a booth and asked some of the coaches in attendance 4 questions. * What’s the one piece of advice you would give to a coach entering their first season? * What’s the one piece of advice you'd give a parent of a younger athlete? * What’s the best advice you've ever received from a coach? * And what’s the one trait most common in the best players you’ve coached. We recorded their answers so you can listen to advice from some of the best coaches out there. You can follow us on twitter @GCSports and be sure to check out the GameChanger Baseball & Softball scorekeeping app - it provides simple, powerful, and free scorekeeping tools with advanced statistics, live updates and team management solutions that work at any level. The GameChanger scorekeeping app is available in the app store for both apple and android. You can learn more about GameChanger at GC.com.

Today on the show we have the head coach of Southern Mississippi. baseball, Scott Berry. Coach Berry started his coaching career as an assistant for Meridian College in 1991. In 1997 he took over as the Head Coach at Meridian Community College where his team won their first National Junior College World Series. His teams were ranked in the top 10 all four years he was head coach. He then joined Southern Miss. as an assistant coach where he took on the role of the hitting & pitching coach. During his time as the hitting coach the team went from batting .279 to over .300. He was appointed associate head coach before taking over as the head coach in 2010. Since then, Southern Miss has captured three Conference USA tournament titles, registered four league regular-season crowns, obtained five NCAA Tournament appearances and he’s won the league’s Coach of the Year Award three times, including in each of the last two years. Coach and I got to talk about a lot of different things like transitioning from player to coach, confidence, understanding failure, the mental side of the game, learning how to compete, and much more. You can follow us on twitter @GCSports and be sure to check out the GameChanger Baseball & Softball scorekeeping app - it provides simple, powerful, and free scorekeeping tools with advanced statistics, live updates and team management solutions that work at any level. The GameChanger scorekeeping app is available in the app store for both apple and android. You can learn more about GameChanger at GC.com.

Today on the show we have the head coach of the University of Florida Softball team, Tim Walton. Coach Walton is an alumni of Oklahoma. During his time with the Sooners he played in two college world series and won his senior year. After college he played two years with the Philadelphia Phillies Minor League team. He started his softball coaching career with the Sooners in 1999. In 2003 he got his first head coaching job at Wichita State. He then took over as the head coach at the University of Florida in 2006. Since then he’s been the SEC coach of the year 5 times. And the Florida Gators won back to back national titles in 2014 and 2015. Coach and I talked about a lot on todays show. Things like internal competition, competing against yourself, having a bounce back mentality, delivering on promise, building relationships, playing to your strengths, and much more. You can follow us on twitter @GCSports and be sure to check out the GameChanger Baseball & Softball scorekeeping app - it provides simple, powerful, and free scorekeeping tools with advanced statistics, live updates and team management solutions that work at any level. The GameChanger scorekeeping app is available in the app store for both apple and android. You can learn more about GameChanger at GC.com.

Today on the show we have the Ike Cousins Head Baseball Coach at the University of Georgia, Scott Stricklin. Coach Stricklin is a graduate of Kent State University. After playing minor league baseball from 1993 to 1997 he began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant at Georgia Tech. He then moved on to serve as an assistant at Vanderbilt before returning to Georgia Tech as an assistant from 2002 to 2004. He got his first head Coaching at his alma mater, Kent State in 2005. During his time at Kent State his teams won five Mid-American Conference Championships and reached the NCAA Regionals each of those years. They also advanced to the College World Series in 2012. Coach Stricklin won three Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year Awards and one ABCA Mideast Region Coach of the Year Award. Coach Stricklin became the head coach of Georgia in 2014. He's coached 5 seasons at Georgia. In 2018, Georgia earned a top 8 national seed and hosted an NCAA Regional for the first time in a decade. Georgia tied for second best in SEC in 2018 after being picked to finish 5th. Coach Stricklin and I talked about a lot of different topics like consistency in messaging, handling players who are homesick, what he learned selling advertising, team values, and much more.

Today on the show we have the head coach of University of Alabama at Birmingham softball, Jimmy Kolaitis. This is coach Kolaitis’ first season at UAB. Before joining the Blazers, he spent five seasons as an assistant coach at Oregon. During his time there the Ducks won 4 Pac-12 championships and had 3 trips to the Women’s College World Series. Before Oregon he worked for the Scrap Yard Dogs and the Chicago Bandits in the National Pro Fastpitch League. And, he started his softball coaching career as an assistant coach at South Alabama. Coach Kolatis and I talked about a lot of different things on this episode. We talked about learning patience, attention to detail, having an attack mentality, teaching core values, defining good hours and bad hours, video work, and much more.

Today on the show we have the head coach of Coastal Carolina baseball, Gary Gilmore. Coach Gilmore is a graduate of Coastal Carolina. He started his coaching career as an assistant as USC Aiken before moving up to take the head coaching job there. He then returned to Coastal Carolina to take the head coaching job in 1996. He’s been there ever since. He’s been the Big South Coach of the Year nine times. He’s been the ABCA Atlantic Region Coach of the Year twice. And he was the 2016 National Coach of the Year, the same year Coastal Carolina won the College World Series. Coach Gilmore and I got a chance to talk about a lot of different topics ranging from how to respond to failure, grit, how to approach a coach for playing time, and growing as a coach. We talked about book recommendations, consistency and passion, and really a ton more. I hope you enjoy it. You can follow us on twitter @GCSports and be sure to check out the GameChanger Baseball & Softball scorekeeping app - it provides simple, powerful, and free scorekeeping tools with advanced statistics, live updates and team management solutions that work at any level. The GameChanger scorekeeping app is available in the app store for both apple and android. You can learn more about GameChanger at GC.com.

Today on the show we have the head coach of the University of Arizona Softball team, Mike Candea. Coach Candrea is about to enter his 34th season as the head coach of Arizona Softball. He’s the NCAA Division I leader in wins. Under Coach Candrea Arizona has won 8 national championships and appeared in 22 Women’s College World Series. He’s guided his program to 11 conference championships. He’s been the Pac-12 coach of the year 12 times. He’s also be named the national coach of the year four times, and has been regional coach of the year six times. In 2017 coach Candrea won his 1,500th career game, becoming the fastest coach in NCAA history, at any sport, on any level, to win 1,500 games. Only five coaches in any sport have more division I wins than coach Candrea. He’s also spent time in the Olympics with USA Softball. His teams have won gold in 2004, and silver in 2008. Coach and I got a chance to talk about a range of topics like earning respect, developing discipline, getting players to buy in, personal development, teaching players to exceed expectations, and much more. You can follow us on twitter @GCSports and be sure to check out the GameChanger Baseball & Softball scorekeeping app - it provides simple, powerful, and free scorekeeping tools with advanced statistics, live updates and team management solutions that work at any level. The GameChanger scorekeeping app is available in the app store for both apple and android. You can learn more about GameChanger at GC.com.

Today on the show we have East Carolina University Head Baseball Coach, Cliff Godwin. Coach Godwin is a graduate of ECU. During his time as a player he was a 3-year co-captain. He batted .322 his senior season with 15 home runs and was first team All-CAA. During his time coaching at the DI level he’s been part of nine NCAA regional and two College World Series appearances. He just finished his fourth year at ECU with the pirates ranked 16th in the nation. He’s guided his team twice to the NCAA regional, a Super Regional appearance, and an AAC Tournament Title. This was really a fantastic conversation with Coach Godwin. We talked about things like controlling what you can, setting the standard and culture of your team, what ECU’s practices are like, and much more. You can follow us on twitter @GCSports and be sure to check out the GameChanger Baseball & Softball scorekeeping app - it provides simple, powerful, and free scorekeeping tools with advanced statistics, live updates and team management solutions that work at any level. The GameChanger scorekeeping app is available in the app store for both apple and android. You can learn more about GameChanger at GC.com.