BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
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BASEBALL COACHES UNPLUGGED
Situational Training for High Pressure Success
Ever wondered how the magic of a winning baseball program is crafted? Join us as Bill O'Connell, the respected head baseball coach at Braintree High School (MA), unveils his playbook for success. Discover how Bill's experiences as a multi-sport athlete in football, hockey, and baseball fuel his competitive edge and coaching strategies. He passionately advocates for athletes participating in multiple sports while offering unique pathways for baseball specialists through fall programs and college showcases. By taking young players into collegiate environments, he not only enhances their skills but also boosts their recruitment prospects. Coaches looking to ignite a competitive spirit in their teams will find Bill's insights both practical and inspiring.
Bill O'Connell opens up about his journey to becoming an impactful coach, shaped by his upbringing and the influence of demanding yet supportive mentors. Explore how he balances discipline with trust, maintaining direct communication with players while managing parental expectations. His innovative approach to practice, influenced by his football coaching background, focuses on situational training to ready players for high-pressure moments. Learn how Bill promotes baseball's growth through structured systems and robust youth programs, ensuring the sport's continued engagement at all levels. Aspiring coaches and baseball enthusiasts alike will appreciate the wealth of knowledge Bill shares, which goes beyond the diamond to building character and winning team culture.
Join the Baseball Coaches Unplugged podcast where an experienced baseball coach delves into the world of high school and travel baseball, offering insights on baseball coaching, leadership skills, hitting skills, pitching strategy, defensive skills, and overall baseball strategy, while also covering high school and college baseball, recruiting tips, sports coaching, and fostering a winning mentality and attitude in baseball players through strong baseball leadership and mentality.
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Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches. Unplugged, presented by Athlete One. I'm your host, coach Ken Carpenter, and on today's podcast you're going to learn from Bill O'Connell, who was named High School Coach of the Decade by the Boston Herald. He's the head coach at Braintree High School and he's going to share what it takes to produce a consistent, winning program every season.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged with Coach Ken Carpenter, presented by AthleteOne. Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for baseball coaches With 27 years of high school baseball coaching under his belt, here to bring you the inside scoop on all things baseball, from game-winning strategies and pitching secrets to hitting drills and defensive drills. We're covering it all. Whether you're a high school coach, college coach or just a baseball enthusiast, we'll dive into the tactics and techniques that make the difference on and off the field. Discover how to build a winning mentality. Inspire your players and get them truly bought into your game philosophy Plus, get the latest insights on recruiting, coaching, leadership and crafting a team culture that champions productivity and success. Join Coach every week as he breaks down the game and shares incredible behind-the-scenes stories. Your competitive edge starts here, so check out the show weekly and hear from the best coaches in the game. On Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
Speaker 2:Baseball Coaches Unplugged helps equip you, the listener, with strategies to elevate your coaching. You'll gain practical insights from some of the best coaches across the country that you can implement with your team today. Also, we are proud to be partnered with the netting professionals, improving programs one facility at a time. The netting pros specialize in the design, fabrication and installation of custom netting for baseball and softball. This includes backstops, batting cages, bp turtles, screens, ball carts and more. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches and more. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches and cubbies.
Speaker 2:The netting pros aren't limited to just baseball and softball. They also work with football, soccer, lacrosse and golf courses. Contact Will Miner and his team today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707. Or you can visit them online at wwwnettingproscom, or check out Netting Pros on X, instagram, facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. Now let's get to my interview with Bill O'Connell, head baseball coach at Braintree High School in Massachusetts. We're into October and I'm sure you are just like I am watching the playoff baseball that's going on. Is this pretty much a slow time of the year for you as a high school baseball coach?
Speaker 3:Yeah, as a high school baseball coach it is. Yeah, but it's a great time time time of year, sports wise, with, with the nfl, cooking, and now we got we got to play off baseball. So every night there's something watch and learn, um, really appreciate what's going on. It's like real baseball. Now I feel like you know the guys are trying, they're playing uh, they're playing a little bit of high school baseball with stolen bases, moving guys along and and guys over, which is fun to watch. But yeah, as far as me as a coach, this is kind of a slow time. Guys are wrapping up their, their, their fall seasons and we're starting to move transition into some college visits and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:What is your primary focus right now for your for baseball players who do not participate in a fall or a winter sport, which I imagine up in your area you probably have a lot of hockey players.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so most of our, a lot of our athletes are multi-sport athletes. So that's kind of a big challenge with us as just a baseball perspective. But we are seeing more kids specialize, like everywhere else in the country. But you know we do have several multi-sport athletes, so we certainly foster that. We want them to play other sports, we want them to put the gloves and the bats down. That's just how it is up here in the Northeast. But for that group that isn't.
Speaker 3:We have a fall program. We have programs for everybody. So right now we have a fall program going on. Our kids, our players, participate in it. They're coached by people other than myself and they do around, they do weekend tournaments, they practice during the week. So our group just got back. We had a group of players just went to the University of Lowell and did like a little showcase. University of Lowell invited a couple other programs. So it was a great recruiting tool for them. But it was also great for our guys, our sophomores and juniors, to get on a college campus and see what it's all about.
Speaker 2:If I'm correct, you were a three-sport athlete when you were playing back in your playing days.
Speaker 3:How much did you think that helped you as a baseball player? I don't. I don't know if it helped me as a baseball. It just helped me be more competitive. You know you're constantly competing and competing, and competing. So I think those all trans translated really well from a football player to a hockey player to the baseball field. Just that competitive fire that you kind of always had. And, you know, no stage was too big. I thought no lights were too bright. I think that was the biggest benefit. I certainly think probably could have spent more time on baseball. I think I might have been even a more, you know, more accomplished player If I spent more time, like these kids do nowadays. I have the opportunities and facilities and all the things I have. But you know I had a great experience. I have no regrets.
Speaker 2:Well, for our listeners who may not be familiar with Braintree High School baseball, it's one of the top baseball programs in the whole state of Massachusetts and you've had such a great run as a coach that you were named the Boston Herald coach of the decade at one point. What are? Tell me, three things that you, you do with your team that makes them a consistent winner year after year.
Speaker 3:You know, I think we just have, we just have a really good system. I think number one we care about our kids, we care about our players, it's not just about, you know, winning which I think it was.
Speaker 3:I think, as a coach, as a young coach, I was just all about an outcome-driven. I was an outcome-driven coach, you know. I mean it was all about just winning and losing. And I think as you get older, you start to care more about the kids. It's not that I didn't care about the kids before, but I think when you were closer in age to them, it was all about trying to teach them to win, and I think those priorities and perspectives were wrong. Certainly, we had our fair share of winning. But I think as I've got older and you know, when you start to realize it's more about the kids, it's not about you.
Speaker 3:And um, you know, we just have a nice process here. We have a like a process, a process building approach to our, our program, our system, where we kind of have things lined up for the kids, like I said. So we started in the fall. We have fall ball opportunities for the guys and now we're starting to transition and we're getting pitching coaches lined up and you know guys that want to hit with specific guys. We're starting to get that all situated for them. So they have these small group sessions that they're going to work on and we have some great coaches that they work with and give them opportunities.
Speaker 3:Obviously it's's all optional, but they'll have opportunities to improve, get better, whether they're playing a winter sport or they're not. Some kids kind of do both, which is great, and that'll transition through the winter and then we have a great, you know our captains will put together. We have a nice little program that the kids do a couple of days a week on their own and then we get right into the season and, you know, the process kind of starts over again in the summer. So it's kind of a year-round process, even though it's not a year-round sport. We have opportunities for the guys that want to improve. So I think that's the biggest takeaway is, you know, for a Northeast school not having a lot of resources, not having great facilities, we're just providing opportunities for our guys to get better if they want to get better.
Speaker 2:During my research I noticed that you run an extra bases youth clinic and you've been doing that for quite some time. And you've been doing that for quite some time. Do you think that has been beneficial for the young players to get to know you during these camps? And then they show up and when they see you at the high school level they kind of have a little bit of familiarity with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely that. You know that effect. You know I don't really know exactly how much of an effect it has, but I know it does. It's impactful. I've been doing these for close to 25 years now. I run Extra Basics Baseball. It's a youth baseball camp that happens in the summer. We run a couple of weeks in my town, braintree, that I teach at, and my hometown in Walpole, massachusetts, which is not too far away, and just establish social relationships with the kids at an early age eight, nine years old, just start meeting families and you know, like you said, you're just kind of connecting with the players and knowing who you are, and they start to get the feel about you know what you're all about. And maybe parents are thinking about, hey, I would. They're knowing who you are and they start to get the feel about what you're all about and maybe parents are thinking about, hey, I would love to maybe play for that person or that staff, those type of players, and yeah, so it's been a great experience.
Speaker 2:Started it again many years ago and still kicking to this day. Let me ask you this, since to for people that that you know wonder how things are run across the country in the Northeast Is is travel ball the primary option versus maybe like youth leagues when it comes to summer baseball?
Speaker 3:So I guess the answer is it's definitely changed towards a travel ball specific priority.
Speaker 3:And that's really just travel. Ball at AAU has always been prevalent around here, but I think right now it's elite. Kids in town teams are losing players. They need to work. The town teams now are working around the AUs, which it used to be the total opposite, where the AUs would kind of work around. But the town teams you know I'm very involved in both our little leagues and you know they've kind of like just put their hands up and said you know what, we're not going to fight the AUs anymore, we'll work around you to get all the players playing, because they want them to play pot town, they want them to play with their friends. But the families that play AU want to play more competitive baseball. So yeah, that's very prevalent. We have some great AU programs in our community and in our area. So you know the kids that want to play high, high level, there's an opportunity for you. If they want to just play more baseball and kind of, you know, like a lesser competitive, there's those options as well.
Speaker 2:Well, I'd like to get into understanding you know what makes you such a great coach, and how would your past and present players describe you and your coaching style?
Speaker 3:yeah, that's a good question. I I think, um, like I said, I think I think I've grown. I think, um, I think I've grown as a coach. I think, um, when you're a coach, you kind of coach the way you were coached or the way you were brought up and I think I came from, you know, a father was very, very supportive but very demanding.
Speaker 3:I had a lot of great high school coaches that I'm still friendly to this day, but they are hard knockers. They were, they were old school guys and discipline was the priority and it was. You know, it was an, like I said before, it was an outcome. It was win or lose and if you lost, nobody was happy, but discipline was number one. We certainly were well-behaved, well-disciplined programs in all of my sports. So I think I've got some of that flavor. I still carry that flavor and I think my guys like that.
Speaker 3:I think, especially in my last year's team, we had a pretty good team last year and a lot of new guys, a lot of young guys coming through and I told my captains at one point we were struggling a little bit mid-season and I'm like you know what it's hard for me to coach and be patient and calm and we got a lot of new players so I have to be careful. And they said no, coach, go back, go your old way, Do what you used to do and get us fired up and, you know, be tough on us. So I think players like they like that. I think players like to be disciplined as much as they say they may not. They like structure, they like discipline, they know when they're being coached properly, they know if things are organized and you know, I hope to say that my players would say that I put a good program out there for them to try to achieve.
Speaker 2:Well, you said that. You know I love to hear a coach say that his players want to be coached hard and you know, and coached the right way Is that when those players spoke up like that did that. How did that go over with the parents?
Speaker 3:You know what I don't? I try not to interact as much with the parents. I kind of again that's a little bit of my old school approach where I'm respectful of the parents, I'll email, but I kind of again that's a little bit of my old school approach where I'm respectful of the parents, I'll email, but I kind of want communication going through from me to the player to the parent and kind of vice versa and just go that direction. So I think they kind of stay out of the way. I think you know our previous prior success kind of speaks for itself. I think they, I think they trust me and my staff to do what we do and I think they realize how hard we work. I think they realize what we put into it. I know they know we care about the players and we care about their future and we've done a great job of helping kids get to college, whether they want to play college baseball or just give them advice on where they should go, and you know. So I think, like I said, we're very involved in these kids, not just baseball.
Speaker 3:I'm a teacher at the school, so I see them in class, I see them in the hallways and they work for us at camps they work at this. We have a facility in Braintree called the Braintree Baseball Club. Camps they work at this. We have a facility in Braintree called the Braintree Baseball Club. My former JV coach. He opened it up about geez. It's probably about 15 years now, so you know those. It's right down the street from our school. So our kids now not only do they work out there, now they work there.
Speaker 2:You've coached in a lot of big games and what are some things that you do to get your players to step up and handle the pressure in those tight situations?
Speaker 3:I think it's how we practice. I've got to be honest with you. I think it's how we practice practice. I'm a former football coach. I was an offensive coordinator for many years and coach, played college football and coach football for 25 years. So when I became a baseball coach 18 years ago I kind of had that like as a football coach, especially if an offensive coordinator, every minute, every player, your script, pretty much the practice, always the play is the situation and I kind of I kind of carry that over and that's how I run my baseball practices, where all our practices are scripted out.
Speaker 3:We're working on, you know, a certain fundamental, a game skill, a situation. You know we're not a program that hits some io, take some bp and get out of there. But we're not like that. I think that's boring to me, I think it would be boring for the players, but it's boring for me as a coach. So we don't even take BP in practice. We never take that in practice. We never take that in practice in practice and I'll explain in a bit.
Speaker 3:But we're really kind of a situational-based program where you know we're working on four or five skills, game skills, situations that are going to occur, and we kind of do that each week. I mean, I kind of broke it down. It's like doing you know, third and long offense, third and short offense. You're working on no huddle offense first down. So we kind of work on all those situations, whether the fun situations, or a squeeze drill or hit-and-run drill, or you know men on second base, move them over, type of drills, offensively and defensively. You know, pitcher pickoffs, and all these are situations that come up in a game. We really try to work on these because when they do come up, we of just talk about it through, we tell you, remember this, we did some practice, remember this situation.
Speaker 3:So I think when those situations come up, I think our guys are pretty poised and are comfortable for those situations. For the most part I think, um, you know, we're a program that's that's in the limelight're typically a top-ten team in the state of Massachusetts. We've won a couple state titles. We've got a great tradition at this school. It's the number one sport at the school. We've got a great youth program. So these kids are used to playing baseball and being in those situations. So I think it's really a system thing that kind of all comes together and when the situation arises, our guys step up.
Speaker 2:Well, you had the opportunity to coach Team Massachusetts this past summer in a tournament that was basically like a national championship, where states from all across the country sent out their best players to Omaha. Talk about that experience and how was that for you?
Speaker 3:That experience is unbelievable. Really, at the end of my career, this has been a real joy, a nice treat to try something different. I think we all like to do things different and this was just one of those situations that came up. I got invited to coach and we got invited again this year we're going back out for 2025. But what an unbelievable experience. It's been.
Speaker 3:Long story short, it's the Stinger High School National Championship and games are all on ESPN Live. This year the host site was Charles Schwab, omaha, nebraska, and last year we went to Dallas Baptist, which was an unbelievable experience in itself, but it was really hot. And the company Glenn the guy who runs this organization, the National Championship Series got an opportunity to take it to Omaha and they've really stepped it up. And this year, in 2025, there'll be 16 states involved. So it's the last week of June and basically we have to pick the best players in your state, whether they're public school kids, private school kids or private kids, and I think we've done that. We've done a really good job. And last year we invited 18 kids and all 18 kids said, absolutely, coach. They left their AU program for the weekend to head out to Omaha. What an amazing, amazing experience it was.
Speaker 2:Now it's time for a thing that I call extra innings, and I finally gave it a title. And I always start off with this same question for every coach Hate losing or love winning.
Speaker 3:Hate losing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Why is?
Speaker 3:that that's what I say. We expect to win and we win, we just move on. But when we lose, we just figure out what we're trying to do. It just brings screw until we get to the next game.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to assume that you're a Boston sports fan. Is that correct? Yep, absolutely. If you could only cheer for one team in the Boston area, who would it be? The Red one team in the Boston area, who would it be? The Red Sox, the.
Speaker 3:Patriots, the Celtics or the Bruins. You know what I mean. Being a three-sport athlete, I was always just a seasonal coach. I was a seasonal fan, so never really fell in love with one. But I mean, since we're talking baseball, of course we want the Sox to be good.
Speaker 2:Yes, there you go. I was kind of thinking you would lean that way, but I wasn't sure. If you could trade places with one athlete and experience their career, who would it be, and why?
Speaker 3:I mean certainly. I mean you could talk. I mean the obvious question is Tom Brady right? I mean being from this area watching a kid, but I mean watching a guy come from. He always had to work his way through.
Speaker 3:I mean, he's a classic example of what you try to teach young kids nowadays Perseverance, don't give up, stick with it. You know you're a fourth, you're a fourth team or so on, stay with it. Somebody might get hurt. So his early on career, I think it's really cool. I think what kind of turned into it got a little, got a little Hollywood. But you know those early years with the Patriots, those teams, and how they really just kind of of like just grew, how he grew as a player and just, you know, willed his way into being a great player.
Speaker 2:What is your funniest or most embarrassing experience on a baseball field, as either a coach or a player? These are tough questions.
Speaker 3:You know what Not really, I guess you know. Early in my career I got ejected at a game foolishly, you know, arguing a call, never going to change the umpire's mind. But of course I'm out there running around chasing the guy around thinking I'm going to change the umpire's mind. But of course I'm out there running around chasing the guy around thinking I'm going to change his mind. He says, hey, if you come towards me again, I'm going to have to throw you out. I want to say one more thing, and of course he hucks me out of there. So the guys I'm like that was early in my year, that was back in the early 2000s. I'll see the players now. They're in their 30s, 35, 36 years old and I'll see them out. That time, when you got thrown out in Norwood, you got to bring that up now.
Speaker 3:It's been 30-something years, 25 years ago. Let it go.
Speaker 2:Well, coach, I know that this is during the school day that we're doing the recording and I truly appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule and I know you've got to get ready for your next class. But it's Bill O'Connell, head baseball coach at Braintree High School in Massachusetts and also the head coach of Team Massachusetts for the Summer National Championship Coach. Thanks for taking the time to be on the Baseball Coaches Unplugged podcast.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks for reaching out. Like I said, I came across your podcast somewhere on Twitter. Someone retweeted something that was a good idea or someone's interview, and I tuned into it, doing a really good job promoting the game, and appreciate everything you're doing.
Speaker 2:Pretty simple formula Give multiple opportunities for your players throughout the season, have a system and develop a strong youth program. Today's episode of the Baseball Coaches Unplugged podcast is powered by the netting professionals improving programs one facility at a time. You need to reach out to Will Miner and his team. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. If you like today's show, be sure to text a friend, a fellow coach or even a parent. Let them know about our podcast. I'm your host, ken Carpenter, and, as always, thanks for listening to Baseball Coaches Unplugged.
