BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
What if you could discover the secrets of the most successful coaches and athletes and become the best in the game. What separates the best coaches and players from the rest? Become the player coaches dream of having on their team. Step inside the dugout with the Baseball Coaches Unplugged, where every episode is a journey of triumph, resilience, and inspiration. Hosted by Ken Carpenter, a 27 year veteran high school baseball coach with a passion for unlocking the secrets of athletic greatness.
Picture this: you're behind the scenes with top athletes and coaches, taking in their stories of victory and defeat, and uncovering the invaluable life lessons hidden within. From heart-pounding game moments to the quiet struggles of training, each episode offers invaluable of wisdom that resonates with baseball coaches, players, devoted parents and fans alike.
Join us weekly as we explore the highs and lows of the sports world, dissecting success strategies and sharing practical takeaways that you can implement on and off the field. Whether you're seeking to refine your coaching techniques, elevate your game, or simply bask in the camaraderie of fellow sports enthusiasts, the Baseball Coaches Unplugged podcast is your playbook for success.
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BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
Uncover The Secrets To A Successful 35 Year Baseball Coaching Career
What if losing was more valuable than winning? Join us as we explore this intriguing idea with the legendary retired West Virginia University Head Baseball Coach Randy Mazey and his wife, Amanda Mazey. Randy takes us through his incredible journey of transforming a struggling baseball program into a state-supported powerhouse while Amanda shares her perspective as a supportive spouse and former TV sports reporter. Discover how Randy's retirement has brought a stress-free lifestyle filled with new hobbies and the joys of home life. This episode delves into the evolution of college baseball recruiting, the impact of coaching on young athletes, and the heartfelt story of their son's on-field accident, turning a personal tragedy into a mission to support other families in need.
In this conversation, Randy reflects on his 35-year coaching career, the deep appreciation he holds for the relationships built over the years, and the pride in transforming the WVU baseball program. Amanda offers a touching recount of the rewarding experiences of witnessing young athletes grow into mature adults. We also discuss the importance of balancing family life with travel baseball, advocating for kids to enjoy diverse experiences beyond sports. The Mazey"s share their passion for outdoor activities, gardening, and their podcast, “Mazey Days,” highlighting the importance of family time and the peacefulness of hobbies discovered in retirement.
Finally, Randy opens up about the valuable life lessons learned through coaching, emphasizing that losing can be a powerful teacher. He shares memorable umpire stories and reflects on alternative career paths fueled by his love for connecting with people. The episode culminates with an emotional recounting of his son Weston's severe head injury, the remarkable recovery, and how this journey has inspired them to support others in similar situations. Tune in for an episode filled with heartfelt stories, life lessons, and inspiration, as we celebrate the resilience and hope that define the Mazey family.
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Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Athlete One, a podcast teaching experienced baseball coaches and players the key to performance success by exposing the secrets of those who have played and coached the game at the highest level. On today's show, you'll hear from Coach Randy Mazze, recently retired WVU head baseball coach, discussing what it took to turn around a baseball program that was on the verge of extinction. You'll also hear how important a supportive spouse is, as we are joined by his wife, amanda. And finally, you'll have to wait till the end to see how a tragic on-field baseball accident to their son is now benefiting families who need the help the most.
Speaker 2:You're locked in to Athlete One, a podcast for athletes and coaches coming to you from Dublin, Ohio, here to bring you expert advice, insightful conversations, conversations and powerful stories from guests who play or coach sports. Now veteran high school baseball coach and someone who has jumped out of perfectly good airplanes your host, Ken Carpenter.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to the Athlete One podcast. I'm your host, ken Carpenter, and joining me today. I'm excited to have the retired head coach of West Virginia University Baseball, randy Mazze, and a special guest to go with him, his wife, amanda Mazze. Guys, thanks for taking the time to be on the Athlete One.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, you actually gave me the option to have Amanda here with me or not, and I chose to have her with me. So good for both of us.
Speaker 4:He does love me. Thanks, Ken.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, when I first did this, I thought I've never had a coach with his wife on the podcast and you know, my wife was almost like an assistant coach when I came home at night. So I thought, with Amanda, with your sports background, I thought this is the perfect opportunity to get the two of you guys on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's. We've always had this unique relationship because he's always been the coach. I'm the TV sports reporter, so it's kind of a cliche that I'm the sports reporter that married the coach. But yeah, that's kind of like always been our unique little connection and I've always loved sports long before him, so it's been fun. It's a unique relationship and partnership, so I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3:You said, it's almost like having an assistant coach at home. She actually has been writing my lineups for the last 20 years. I don't know if people realize that. There you go Now you know, Now you know she gets all the credit for the wins and I take all the blame for the losses.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been, I think, a little bit over a month now, and you know I got to ask how's retirement treating the both of you.
Speaker 3:You know what, ken? I've never realized that you could live life stress-free for the most part. You know, it's been 35 years of coaching and every day you wake up you're just trying to compete and trying to find a way to be better than your opponent, and you don't realize what kind of lifestyle that is until you get out of it. And now the biggest stress in my life is, uh, you know, we're going to get enough rain for my tomatoes down in the garden, you know. And I wake up in the morning and there's a little bit of a sense of freedom. You know it's early, of course. It's only been a month and if you're going to miss part of the season as a coach, the recruiting in the summertime is probably the part you want to miss. So it's going really well so far. We'll see how it goes when the season starts and the games come along, and I'm not with the players every day and the staff every day in the office. All the stuff that I really enjoyed hasn't come around yet. So, but so far so good.
Speaker 1:How would you rate his retirement starting off?
Speaker 4:You know what? It's actually been pretty nice to have him home and doing things, cause I've typically the one that kind of runs the show at home. So I'm I'm the one doing the gardening and I'm doing all of this. So it has been nice. I will say he loves to cook. I hate to cook. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
Speaker 4:So he's in the kitchen cooking but he doesn't make it easy, like, if it's going to, if it's a recipe that calls for broth, he's going to make the broth homemade. So, like, everything is organic and from the beginning. So I've been telling our friends.
Speaker 2:It's like having a toddler in the kitchen. There's just stuff everywhere and it's a mess.
Speaker 4:And you're like, okay, this is great. But you're like, oh, this mess, but he's, he's enjoyed himself, it's nice to have them not stressed honestly. So it's again like he said, it's only been a month. Talk to me next month, I might be ready to kill him.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, now that you've had some time to reflect on your career, what has it meant to you for 40 years to have such a huge effect on young baseball players' lives?
Speaker 3:You know, the relationships to me were always the best part. You know, I was never that guy that when.
Speaker 2:I died.
Speaker 3:I didn't want it to say on my tombstone how many games I won. You know I literally could care less about that. I know a lot of people are that way, but I'm not. When I retired I just wanted to have a network of friends and coaches that I have relationships with and you know, just yesterday I was sitting out on the back porch with a drink in my hand called Dan Fitzgerald from Kansas and Pete Hughes from Kansas State Friends of mine that I've built in this profession that I can still be friends with and I will leave with that, with great relationships with a lot of people and in the big scheme of things.
Speaker 3:like I said, I could care less what my record was, but the relationships with the former players and the coaches. I got a text from a former player literally right before we started this podcast. His son was born this morning and he sent me a text, gave me his name and his birth weight and all that. It's just stuff like that that when I reflect back, that I'm proud of what I accomplished off the field way more than on the field.
Speaker 1:That's the secret to coaching, in my opinion, because everybody I get on this podcast, all the coaches seem to get it and they talk about the importance of the relationships they have with their players and their assistant coaches and everybody associated with the program. And you know, amanda, you've been along for this ride. What has it meant to you to be every step of the way?
Speaker 4:It's been a blessing to see these guys kind of grow up before our eyes. I mean, when he and I first got together we're about 10 years apart, so I wasn't much older than some of these players and to watch them go from college to the real world and become fathers and dads, that's been really rewarding too. So you kind of have like this vested interest in their life beyond baseball and it's just been really incredible to be a part of a lot of those kids journeys through baseball, through adulthood and to see where they are now and they come back and we always tell them our house is always open, you're welcome back anytime. If you need us for anything, we're there for you. So we just have like this network of kind of like children out there all across the country, which is pretty special well, wvu baseball has changed forever under your leadership, coach um, talk about so I.
Speaker 1:I grew up up in Eastern Ohio and right across the river from Wheeling, and I know how the fan base can be in West Virginia. They're really passionate. But talk about how the whole state fell in love with your program. And the other side of it is is why should a college baseball player out there consider West Virginia as a place to play?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know there's a real sense of pride too. When I retired that the difference in the program now compared to 12 years ago. I feel like the entire state right now has a program they can be proud of.
Speaker 3:I feel like the entire state right now has a program they can be proud of and most coaches don't get to retire when they feel that way A lot of times. I mean, the amount of retirements that are voluntary in our profession is way less than the forced ones as we know, than the forced ones as we know. But it's pretty cool to retire when you feel like you can be really, really proud of something. And you know West Virginia is a unique place. I know you know that and you know we played North Carolina in the Super Regional.
Speaker 3:In the state of North Carolina there are 19 or 20 Division I baseball schools. So in the state of North Carolina all the fans, their loyalties, are divided among those schools. Everybody I mean Duke and NC State and Wake Forest all have their own followings of fans. But in our state, as you know, there's only two Division I schools us and Marshall and they're pretty safe to say that we probably have 90% of the fan base in the state of West Virginia supporting the Mountaineers. So this really means a lot to a lot of people that this program is in a place right now that everybody can be proud of. So that gives me a sense of pride. In retirement I want to travel the state and stay connected with people and I feel like you know when I go speak at events regardless of what event I'm speaking at I always wear my uniform that says Mountaineers across the chest, and I do that because that uniform
Speaker 3:in itself, because of our state, makes people listen to what you have to say. You know, and we've done some great things here. I'm not naive enough to ever think that I did it by myself. This one beside me had a lot to do with it my staff, the players, the fans, the administration. It's a collaborative effort to get this program where it's at today, but really, really proud, when I did announce my retirement, that we left this bad boy in a pretty good place.
Speaker 1:Yep, without a doubt. Well, you know, the unique thing about this podcast is having, you know, the the wife of a coach on. I have had a ton of coaches on but I've never had a wife. And you know, I I talked to a coaching friend of mine. They made it to the state championship and played a great game, lost by one run. Parents were just very vocal and, knowing that the wife was right there in the middle of all of it and she was having to hear a lot of this, what would be the best advice that, if a coach is listening to this, he could share with his wife when she's having to attend games?
Speaker 4:You know it's pretty unique because I've had to sit in situations when we're at home obviously most people know that I'm his wife. And, like you said, mountaineer fans are passionate and there have been times where they've been yelling at him and I just know that's part of the territory.
Speaker 4:You know if. If fans want to criticize him because he sent a runner from third or called a bad pitch, like that's part of it, and I understand that. The thing that I never liked was if they got personal about him or me or us or our children, but even then I just sort of like, let it roll off my back. You kind of have to be like a duck with the water it just has to kind of like roll off because you can't engage as much as you want to.
Speaker 4:It just makes it worse. And I also stay off social media because people love you when they're winning and they hate you when they're losing. And even when you're winning, there are going to be people out there that if you win by 20 runs, why didn't you win by 21? I mean, there are always going to be detractors, no matter what you're doing. So I've just made it a real point to just not engage.
Speaker 4:And it's hard, I mean, sometimes it's hard because you want to turn around, especially at an away venue right, like that's where it's really bad because they're yelling and this and that, and yeah, it's just. You just have to have really thick skin and and not let them know who you are. Like I never wanted people to know who I was, because then they tend to like turn it up and not Well, that's the coach's wife, like let's really dig in and see if we can get a reaction. No, reaction is the best, but it's hard. I mean this is being a coach's wife at any level. It's not for the faint of heart. You have to have thick skin and you have to be tough and just, man, don't, don't wear your emotions, you know, and just wait to get back to the hotel and the car and then you can MF them all you want. Just don't do it to their face, don't let them know. Don't do it to their face, don't let them know.
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Speaker 1:Of all the recruits Coach that you've recruited throughout the years, there's got to be one, I think, that stands out among all of them. And your son, you know, is uh weston. His uh, he's now committed to go to west virginia university and um, talk about I. I know how my experience was with my son being in the dugout, both as a player and as a bad boy when he was younger.
Speaker 3:Talk about that experience of having your son in the dugout with you throughout these years the fact that he has been in the dugout keeps me from having to teach him baseball, you know, first and foremost because he's around it every day and he watches JJ Weatherholt take ground balls and he watches guys like Darius Hill hit and kids are pretty sharp, you know, they pick up things from the kids around them. So for the first 12, 13 years of his life I literally didn't teach him baseball. I just wanted to let him go have fun and play and he's emulating people's stances and how they feel ground balls and fortunately he's around a lot of good players and he's developed a pretty good feel for the game. And he's developed a pretty good feel for the game. So now when he's in the dugout with me at his age, he'll actually we'll actually talk about the game and situations and he'll give me his input. He actually we were in a regional last year and there was a play at home plate in the regional and we were on defense and the umpire called the guy safe and he told me he said dad, that guy never touched home plate, he slid into the catcher's foot. You need to replay that call for a replay. So we called for a replay and the call got overturned because he paid such close attention to the game and I think that's uh. That really helps him as a player too, because physically, like most kids who are juniors in high school, he's undersized and understrength but he's got a pretty good feel for the game. So the other stuff will come.
Speaker 3:But I never wanted to be without him in the dugout. I always wanted to coach him at West Virginia, but I didn't want him to be coached by me. I thought that would have been too much pressure on him and I didn't want him after the game to go back to the apartment with the players. You know, as a coach, when you write the lineup, there's only nine guys on the team that are happy with you. When you write the lineup, there's only nine guys on the team that are happy with you. When you write the lineup the rest of them they would rather push you off the side of a cliff because they're not in the lineup. So they get back to the apartment and they're going to tell all their buddies what a what a jerk you are, and I just didn't want him to be around that and have to hear that.
Speaker 3:So I trust the coaches that are here to coach him that they're going to develop him and teach him and unselfishly, you know, I did not want to put that pressure on him to be coached by me.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you this With your son being a college recruit, commit to a Division I school as parents. How much do you really emphasize being prepared so when he first walks onto campus, he doesn't get hit with the oh my God, you know the weight room or whatever it is that really opens up the eyes of a freshman baseball player, regardless of how good they are?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know he's in a unique situation, that he has practiced with us in the past and he lives with our team, so he's not going to get steamrolled with what happened your freshman year because he's been through it, but it's a real thing for a kid now. You know we've started a program called Summer Bridge where the incoming freshmen come to summer school and take one class and start lifting and practicing. So when that first semester starts and all 30,000 students come steamrolling into Morgantown at one time, our guys don't get overwhelmed. They've already been here for a month and have made the transition. But life as a freshman baseball player has changed here in the last two years too, because of the portal you know now. Uh, just like him, my son's a rising senior in high school he's an infielder.
Speaker 3:Uh, I think he's going to be a good player. I don't know that, but he could come here as a freshman and they could have signed two shortstops out of the portal the same year he gets here. So it's changed a lot. The high school kid that was committing to schools early on has changed. The landscape has changed. I have a lot of parents of kids my age that are kind of panicking right now that hey, we don't have a place. The last three years, you know, you've seen freshmen and sophomores in high school committing to schools and they changed the rules. You can't do that anymore. And now, with the portal, not as many high school kids are seeing the same opportunities as they have the past four or five years. And my message to them is just don't panic. If you're a good player, you'll find a good place. But the dynamic is definitely different than it used to be.
Speaker 1:Well, I heard an interview, I believe it was, with Nick Saban as he was coming toward his retirement. I heard an interview, I believe it was, with Nick Saban as he was coming toward his retirement and his wife played a role with the incoming freshmen. They would have them over to their house and things like that as the wife of the coach, but the parents that would come to of those incoming freshmen and she said that it's now all they were talking about was NIL money and he was. You know, coach Saban can be being a former Mountaineer himself as far as growing up in West Virginia. What would did you play any role like that with players throughout the years coming by, possibly to your place?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So my role in all of that was we would always have recruiting dinners at our house and meet the parents. We always wanted to make it a homey environment. When we got to West Virginia, we built a house, and when we built this house it wasn't just for our family, but it was for the baseball family as well. So we built our kitchen. It's like a nice big kitchen and so when we have meals catered and we have the team over or we have recruiting dinners, it flows. So we built this house, we wanted to make sure that we had the families over because you can get to know them better in your own home as opposed to going to a restaurant and you're sitting, you know tables and you don't really have a chance to interact with people.
Speaker 4:So we've always made it a family atmosphere here at West Virginia.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 4:I, you know, would get to know the parents, then you know, and they would ask me some questions, but they were more interested in the baseball side. But I always let it be known that if your kid needs anything, if you guys need anything, let us know. If you need, you know, the mom to come in and do some things. We've had some players who have had, you know, some life situations while they were here and I never wanted to, like, overstep my boundary because to me I'm like, well, I am just the wife, like I'm not a part of the staff or anything. But I always let it be known that if you need a mama, I'm here for you.
Speaker 1:And that seems like the consensus, because from my research a lot of the players talk about you coaches. You know you're not just a baseball coach, but you know in some ways a father figure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know I've always taken pride in the fact that you know we do a really good job of teaching guys the baseball skills that they need to be successful.
Speaker 3:You know how to steal second base or hit a curveball or field a backhand. But those skills, as you know, only last you for a couple of years. Very few people ever get to play this game beyond their 25th birthday. So spend all this time teaching them stuff they won't use that much the rest of their life. So I've taken a lot of pride in trying to teach them the skills that they will use the rest of their life. You know how to be a good husband and father and teammate and co-worker and all that stuff. So we really would make a conscious effort to go out of our way to teach those skills. And when they're done playing, that's the part that they appreciate the most the fact that we taught them how to be tough and overcome adversity, because everybody faces it, you know. So we would have meetings every week in our theater and wouldn't talk baseball at all. We would just talk life skills and trying to get guys in a good place mentally and prepare for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1:Is that possibly what separates the really good, successful coaches from those who are? You know that either don't make it as a college coach or struggle, and you know, if you remove the talented players from the equation, is that, like the key you think for high school and college coaches to be able to get them to buy into what you're saying?
Speaker 3:as far as the family atmosphere, yeah, it's kind of weird If you think about it. What I deem as a successful coach is way different than what most people not in this profession deem as a successful coach. You know the fans out there and people not in this profession. They judge you on how many games you win. It's just what they do, and to me, a successful coach is one who does establish relationships with kids and teaches them life skills and ends up attending their weddings and getting to know their families.
Speaker 3:If you're inside the profession, that's what you feel is success. It's not the wins and losses. There are some that judge themselves on how many games they win, because it's the nature of the business. I'm just not one of those guys. I never wanted to be. If you can find a way to combine what I deem as a successful coach and what the fans deem as a successful coach, then you've got the perfect storm, and that's that's kind of how we ended here the last couple of years. On West Virginia, we won a regional this year, played in the super, last year we won the big 12. So all the people around the state of west virginia deem me as a successful coach based on that.
Speaker 4:but I I feel like I've been successful based on the relationships that I've built I've always told him, ken, and I've always told everybody that baseball is what he does, it's not who he is, and there's a difference with that. There are a lot of coaches baseball is what they do and it's who they are.
Speaker 2:You go to their house. They're watching Major League Baseball.
Speaker 4:It's baseball all the time and they have no hobbies outside of it. So and I couldn't honestly I couldn't be married to somebody like that. So I've always said he has that nice balance.
Speaker 1:So what are the hobbies that you guys do outside of for for your family, outside of baseball?
Speaker 4:My biggest hobby is going to be vacuuming and loading the dishwasher and laundry, so there's a lot of new hobbies on the horizon.
Speaker 3:I try to do all that stuff once and screw it up on purpose, so she never has to do it again.
Speaker 4:That's true, that's true.
Speaker 3:No, we're. We're huge outdoors people. That's why we love west virginia. It's the world's largest outdoor playground. We like to hike and camp and fish and and do stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Believe it or not, I've been spending a lot of time in my garden. It's so peaceful down there. Nobody yells at me. When I'm down in there I can just pick my cabbage at my own pace. I do like to do some woodworking stuff and get away from it.
Speaker 3:It's kind of weird, though, that I had a lot of hobbies before I met her and before we had kids. But when you have kids in my profession, you miss so much of what they do that I would feel guilty going and doing one of my hobbies and even taking more time away from my family. So for the last 15 years or so, the woodworking has been put to the side, and the hunting and fishing has been put to the side. Once the kids get out of the house we'll see how I feel, but it's kind of weird in retirement. I didn't know I was going to feel this way, but I retired and as soon as I retired, all my buddies would call me and say, okay, let's go here, let's go there, let's go, let's go trap fishing, let's do this, let's do that, and I'm like what? I'm retired to spend more time with my family. I immediately started feeling guilty that, well, I'm not gonna spend less time with my family in retirement. So I haven't figured that part out of it yet. But, uh, I'm still working on it. But I'm going to pick the hobbies back up, I think, and keep myself busy.
Speaker 3:You know, we started we talked about it before we got on the air we started our own podcast, amanda and I did, called Maisy Days, and we've enjoyed the heck out of that. You, as a professional podcaster, know that there's a lot that goes into it. But I want to stay connected with the people of west virginia and the program. I feel like, uh, we've kind of ingrained ourself in this community, in this state, and I by no means want that to go away. Uh, it was really nice that in my last year of coaching we had had a good year. That helps. So, yeah, I want to get out there and be visible and still meet people and get to know the people of West Virginia. That's kind of what we're passionate about.
Speaker 1:Well, the two of you have experienced travel ball, and from a parent's perspective and also from your college coach experience. There's so many good things about travel baseball, but there's also a lot of the negativity about travel baseball. What would you recommend, since you've been on both sides of it, to make travel baseball a better experience? And I'll start with you first, amanda.
Speaker 4:You know from, maybe from like the non-baseball side of it, which I know sounds weird, since we're talking about travel baseball. I think the one thing with travel ball that I don't like is I feel like it just takes up no matter what sport it is, it just takes up all the kids time, like kids just being kids anymore. It doesn't exist, like kids going to summer camp, and I like I think that has gotten lost in all of this and and our kids, they do the travel ball. But also, if we have an opportunity to do an amazing experience as a family, like, oh, we have an opportunity to go do something this weekend, we're gonna going to do it.
Speaker 4:You know, like one one weekend of him missing baseball is not going to like take them off the rails, and no coach should punish a child or a family if they want to do something like that, because that's important. The travel ball is just turned into a business for kids.
Speaker 4:Let the kids be kids. I mean, yeah, you got to do it and I know that's like the culture now, but I don't know. I just I wish it wasn't so intense in any sport, but some of these sports are year round, I'm like, but they're kids like, let's just go out in the yard and play kickball or cornhole after dinner, Like we value, you know, our family time because, of you know the uniqueness of his business.
Speaker 4:But, yeah, I just wish it wasn't so intense and so schedule driven and so much pressure from some of these coaches. And we now have friends and they're like, oh yeah, we can't do anything we have this, this and this tournament, and I'm like we just missed one of those tournaments you know but, but they feel like they can't because the coach is going to like punish their child and not play.
Speaker 4:You're paying all this money, so I don't know. I don't kind of like how it has turned into a business for kids. I mean down to eight nine-year-olds. I'm like they're eight and nine. They should be going to the pool every day and they can't go because then they have a game that night I'm like, well, I don't know. So that's kind of how I feel about it as far as like the mom side of it and maybe like the non-baseball side.
Speaker 3:I like travel baseball. I think it gets a bad rap. I think it needs some adjustment. I don't think people understand what the real purpose of travel baseball should be. It's simple to me, the goal of travel baseball is to develop the kids. It's not to win tournaments. It's not to go beat people 12 to nothing and go 5-0 and tell everybody that oh yeah, we put 72 players in division 1 baseball. The goal should be to develop the players, and I go to these travel tournaments all the time. One thing that drives me crazy is and my son was on some of these teams.
Speaker 3:You go to these tournaments and have 400 teams and you have two hour curfews and you get down to the last five minutes and the coaches are yelling at the kids because my son got yelled at for swinging at the first pitch in the last inning.
Speaker 3:There was like three minutes to go before the curfew was up and they had a one-run lead and all they had to do was continue batting for three minutes and the curfew would have came and they would have won the game. So my son swung at the first pitch to lead off the inning, hit the ball pretty good it was a deep fly ball took a great swing and got yelled at for swinging at the first pitch and we might have to play another inning. Now we might lose this game because you swung at the first pitch and there are a lot of coaches out there that care way too much about winning those games than they do about developing the players. You know, if you look at the way to develop athletes, the research says that you should practice three times for every game you play.
Speaker 3:Good luck finding that in travel baseball. There are literally no practices you just go play and the last game, my son played, for example.
Speaker 3:We just watched him this past weekend. He only got two at-bats because it was a four or five inning game, because the pace of the game was terrible, Pitchers were going slow, Kids weren't hustling on the field, so they only got two at-bats, got walked twice. He only swung the bat one time. The entire game he played shortstop and got no balls. So during that game he got to swing the bat once and never got to field a ground ball. Had we practiced that day he could have swung about 100 times and taken 50 ground balls and became a better player.
Speaker 2:That day.
Speaker 3:So kids miss the point of the value of practice and development. So, as a parent, your goal for travel ball should be is my son or daughter a better player? At the end of the summer than they were at the beginning of the summer. That, literally, should be the only goal.
Speaker 3:Winning becomes the most important thing when people's livelihoods are at stake. When you don't win, like ours at West Virginia If we don't win we don't have a job. But if a travel ball coach doesn't win, he'll still be a travel ball coach. So it's all about the development of the kids, and that's the piece that everybody seems to miss. And I love travel ball if it's done in a way where the goal should be to match your team up with teams that are going to give you equal competition. To go beat somebody 14-0, nobody got anything out of that. The kids that lost didn't have good experience.
Speaker 3:The kids that won didn't learn anything. The kids that lost didn't have good experience.
Speaker 3:The kids that won didn't learn anything. In an ideal scenario, you would get on a team that wins half their games and loses half their games, so you've learned how to win and you've learned how to lose, because you have to do both in this sport. So part of me wants to start my own organization and do it what I feel is the right way. But every time I think that way, it occurs to me that I'm retired now and I don't think I want to do that because it's a whole new lifestyle, you know. But yeah, I would like to. In my retirement, if anybody cares about my opinion on stuff like that, I would like to make a positive impact on travel ball and how people view it, because I like the concept but the execution sucks.
Speaker 1:Totally agree with what you said there. Totally agree with what you said there. Since you mentioned losing and winning, a question I ask every guest on the podcast. I would like both of you to answer hate losing or love winning?
Speaker 3:you know it's the the best players out there. I think hate losing. I I think that drives the Tom Brady's of the world and the GOATs, as people like to call them. But I guess I'm a little different. I may answer this question a lot differently than most people. I don't mind losing because I see it as a learning opportunity. I think you learn a lot more when you lose than you do when you win. So we've had some bad losses in my career here at West Virginia. I see those as unbelievable opportunities to teach kids that, hey, man, this is part of life. Life isn't going to be easy. I feel like I've done most of my coaching, or my best coaching, in the 24 hours after a bad loss than you do during any of the games. So to me, losing is learning and I view it that way. Obviously you don't want to do it too much because nobody enjoys that, but an occasional loss.
Speaker 3:I think is really, really good for you. So I love winning, but, to be honest with you, I don't mind losing, because it's an unbelievable learning opportunity.
Speaker 4:I love to win. Yeah, that's all I'm going to say.
Speaker 3:That's what I deal with. When I get out, she yells at me after we lose a bad game and I'm like hey it's a learning opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't care I'm competitive. Well, if you were not a baseball coach, what would you have been? And I'd like to hear both of your answers see if they're the same I don't know.
Speaker 3:Part of me wishes I would have gone to law school. I would like to be a trial attorney where you could get up and plead your case in front of people. I'd like to, and I'm probably going to, do some of this in front of people. I'd like to and I'm probably going to do some of this do some motivational speaking, because a lot of people look at what transpired here at West Virginia the last 12 years. We literally took a program that was on the brink of extinction and they were thinking about dropping the program. Now, all of a sudden, we've been ranked in the top 25 in eight consecutive seasons and a lot of people want to know how we did that. I think that'd be cool to share that message and, as you know, we've had some personal tragedy in our lives, with our son being injured, and that's an unbelievable story of inspiration that we would love to share with people. So I would like to share with people. So I would like to hit the speaking tour if people would have me and listen to the message that that, uh, we can give to people.
Speaker 3:Uh, and I'm an outdoors guy. Uh, I've I've kind of gravitated to. I grew up loving to hunt and fish and be outdoors and but it's crazy since my kids were born Now I could care less really to kill my own animals or catch my own fish. To me it's all about helping other people do that. I get way more satisfaction out of my daughter catching a fish on a fly rod than I do myself. That pales in comparison to me catching my own fish. So I would love to teach kids how to fish, take kids hunting, give them wonderful experiences, Because in the big scheme of things, as a coach and a father and a parent, our job is to make memories for children and I really really enjoy doing that. So I wish I had my own piece of land hunting property with a trout stream going through it. I would just invite kids to come and teach them how to do that and watch the joy they get out of that.
Speaker 1:Well, Amanda, what do you think he would have been if he wasn't a baseball coach? I don't know.
Speaker 4:I mean you know what. He's really funny. People don't know that about him.
Speaker 2:He has a really dry sense of humor. I mean, I don't know if he could have like survived as a comedian, let's be honest.
Speaker 4:But I don't know. He always connects really well with people. So yeah, the whole like speaking engagements and tours. He's going to amp up that, but um.
Speaker 3:I actually could have been a. I would love to be a bartender for a week. I would love that guy that believes that everybody has a story and when. I meet new people. That's my go-to line. Hey, randy, this is Jim. Hey Jim, what's your story? I just love hearing people's stories.
Speaker 4:He talks to everybody.
Speaker 2:We don't go in an airport where he's not somehow talking to somebody, if somebody's walking through the airport with a fly rod.
Speaker 4:He's like hey, where are you going, what are you doing, which is a good thing, especially in this world. Everything's so impersonal. Nobody wants to talk to anybody. This one talks to everybody, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Even our bus drivers on road trips. The amazing lives that those guys have that nobody knows about. You just see them as bus drivers. We had a bus driver in Oklahoma this year that played college baseball at Wichita State, had a chance to play pro, got sent over, did a couple tours of duty in the armed forces, had been shot three or four times. And it just fascinates me to hear other people's stories. Other people look at that guy driving the bus, hear other people's stories. Other people look at that guy driving a bus. I look at that guy for the life he's led.
Speaker 3:So people just fascinate me and I just love getting to know people.
Speaker 1:Well, I have two questions, if you don't mind. Everybody that I talk to about the podcast, everybody that I talk to about the podcast, they seem to really love a great story. And in your 40 years of being around college baseball, what is your best umpire story, or maybe the funniest thing that?
Speaker 3:you've ever seen as a baseball coach. Jeez, that's tough.
Speaker 1:Dating back 35 years.
Speaker 2:That's a hard one.
Speaker 3:I've always had to tried to have a really good relationship, uh, with umpires. I mean, they make mistakes, but they're, they're people too. So I try, and I try and talk to all of them, but uh, I don't know, that's uh the guy that I played for when I was a coach.
Speaker 3:His name was Bill Wilhelm, and everybody in our profession has a mentor. I'm sure you have one as a coach we all do. He was my mentor and one day he was having an argument with an umpire and an umpire pulled out his umpiring card that he carried with him and said Coach, I've been an umpire for over 30 years. Look at this card. I know what the heck I'm doing. And Coach Wilhelm reached in his back pocket and pulled out his driver's license.
Speaker 1:He said I've been driving for 30 years but I can't drive worth a crap either.
Speaker 3:So it's just the day-to-day. You know relationships that you build and I try and have a personal relationship with all those guys.
Speaker 3:It's not easy but you know it's just like I said, when I retire I'll be friends with those guys. I saw a bunch of umpires this past weekend at a travel tournament. They were doing a clinic and they were coming up to me and we're talking and laughing. Weekend at a travel tournament. They were doing a clinic and they're coming up to me and we're talking and laughing and having a good time and I take pride in that that, hey, you were an umpire, I was a coach, and we don't hate each other. That's saying something.
Speaker 1:Yep, well, to finish up, coach, you got the team whammer shirt on and you know a lot of people know about this, but maybe some don't. If you could talk about the Team Whammer and the whole situation, amanda, you can jump in here too and you know what you guys experienced and how you are turning that into a positive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, for the people that don't know the story, when my son his name is Weston, we call him Whammer. Everybody says why do you call him Whammer? Why do you call him Whammer? His name is Weston Aiden Mazey. His initials are W-A-M, so we're not rocket scientists.
Speaker 3:Wham was that was his nickname from the day he was born but he's always been in the dugout with me, even for all the practices, and we were practicing during COVID in 2021 on March 9th, and half of our team was out with COVID, so we only had half a team practicing and we only had one active outfielder left on the team and we had games coming up that weekend. So we had a practice where we put all the infielders in the outfield, put some pitchers in the outfield and we're basically having tryouts in the outfield. It was a live drill. Pitchers were hitting batting practice. We were just playing defense and I put him out at shortstop to fill in a hole that we had on defense because everybody was in the outfield and one of the pitchers hit a short fly ball in the center field and he ran back from shortstop to catch it and he dove for the ball over his shoulder and the center fielder, who was an infielder, came running in full speed and didn't dive and he kicked Whammer in the head, hit him right in the face with his knee and I was standing in the on deck circle at the time. This happens every time, but he was.
Speaker 3:He was laying on the field and I ran out there and he was laying on the side. His eyes were open, he couldn't move and blood was just pouring out of his ear and out of his nose. So we called 911 and they came and cut his clothes off and resuscitated him and we rushed him to the hospital and in the ER it's just like you see on TV. In the trauma room there's 20 people trying to save his life and they sent a chaplain over and talked to us. That's how dire it was and I was like what are we talking about here? 30 minutes ago we were playing baseball. Now you're trying to save his life.
Speaker 3:So they rushed him up to give him a CAT scan. See what kind of damage there was. And you know, your first thought is spinal cord injury because he wasn't moving. So they came back and said his spinal cord was twisted but it wasn't damaged and we didn't know what that meant. But they said they thought that part was going to be okay.
Speaker 3:But he had multiple skull fractures. He got hit so hard in the front of his face. All the skull fractures were in the back of his head. That's how hard he got hit and they said there was some brain bleeding and brain swelling there's going to be. The next 48 to 72 hours are very critical. The brain will continue to swell. Critical the brain will continue to swell. If it swells too much, we're going to have to go in and intervene and do something. So it was for the next three days in the ICU. It was just a waiting game to see how much damage was going to be done to the brain and fortunately it didn't swell to the point where they had to intervene. And he literally from March 9th of 2021 until we sit here today.
Speaker 3:He hasn't had a setback. It's been progress we feel from every day. So he spent a week in ICU, transferred him to the Children's Hospital up here, wvu, and then we got a bed at a place called the Shepherd Center in Atlanta that is world-renowned for brain and spinal cord rehabilitation world-renowned for brain and spinal cord rehabilitation. So we airlifted him from Morgantown to Atlanta and he spent two months relearning a lot of things.
Speaker 3:The part of his brain that was damaged was balance, equilibrium, and he's a hockey player too, so he had to learn how to balance, uh, on a ice skate, so, but it was learning how to hit his believe it or not. He got hit so hard his eyes were crossed for a couple months and had to had to do exercises to get his eyesight back in line. So it was a tough, tough road to recovery and Amanda was videotaping every day. We're kind of private people so we didn't have any intention of sharing that. We just wanted to document his recovery. And after he recovered and we knew things were going to be okay, we showed one of those videos to a friend and they said you really need to share that with people. That is so inspirational that other people need to see that.
Speaker 4:We wanted. For us, it was important to give people hope, because when we were going through our situation, we didn't really have a lot of hope, because you just don't know. I mean, nobody thinks they're going to go through this. So when it was time to share this video like I said, we didn't do it for public purposes, just for us to be able to show him we thought, well, we want to pay it forward and raise money, so we started the Team Whammer Foundation to raise money for the Children's Hospital who saved?
Speaker 4:his life and the.
Speaker 4:Shepherd Center who gave him his life back, and we thought we can't ask people to donate and give their hard-earned money if we can't show them how his progress was and to give other people hope. So we raise money and we help pay for people's bills down at the Shepherd Center because a lot of those people have to quit their jobs and that shouldn't be that extra burden. And here we started a foundation with the Children's Hospital that if a child needs to be airlifted or however they need to get to rehabilitation, we will pay for that. A lot of insurance companies won't pay for that to get that child to rehab and they need to get to rehab. That's a very critical part, but it was the worst time of our lives and we turned it into a positive and it wasn't easy. We've shed many, many tears still do.
Speaker 3:But if you saw Wham today, you would have no idea that anything ever happened to him.
Speaker 2:And that video.
Speaker 4:You can go to teamwhammercom. We're always raising money, but you can see the video from day one to day 72 when he got out of the rehab. So it's been an inspiration. It's a part of our, our family story and we just wanted to, you know, pay it forward.
Speaker 1:Special thanks to WVU head baseball coach Randy Mazey and his wife, Amanda, for joining Athlete One. So now, what's a coach who's recently retired from college baseball? Do now Start a podcast. The podcast is called Maisie Days. Amanda is a sports reporter and anchor and is joined by her husband, Randy. They discuss motivation, life experience and great stories. That's Maisie Days. Check it out. Today's episode of the Athlete One podcast is powered by the netting professionals, improving programs one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707, or you can visit them online at wwwnettingproscom. And, as always, thanks for listening to the Athlete One podcast. I'm your host, Ken Carpenter.
Speaker 2:You've been listening to the Athlete One Podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, to get new, fresh, weekly episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, X and Facebook, or visit our website at wwwathlete1.net. That's athlete, the number one dot net.
