How A Five-Minute Survey Can Transform Your Team’s Culture And Communication

A roster full of talent won’t save a season if communication fractures. We sat down with Travis Davidson from Team Sports Consulting Group to unpack how a simple five‑minute survey can transform culture, reveal real leaders, and help coaches read stress before it derails a game. From high school diamonds to College World Series runs, Travis shows how relational science turns “culture” from a buzzword into a repeatable system you can coach.

We dig into the four core traits that shape how players think, lead, and learn—and how those patterns show up under pressure. You’ll hear how to stop forcing your best hitter into a role he hates, use side‑by‑side profiles to resolve coach–player conflicts, and set your team’s environment on purpose: locker pods, bus assignments, even hotel routines that preserve energy for the moments that decide seasons. Catchers get a special spotlight as we explore pitcher–catcher scans that equip them to spot backup styles, slow the game down, and anchor tempo when the count and crowd tilt against you.

Travis also challenges a myth: there’s no single personality that makes a great coach. The real separator is self‑awareness. Whether you lean gut or analytics, the edge comes from knowing your style, speaking in each player’s language, and building a shared map of how your team works. With clear pricing designed for high schools and a no‑risk offer for head coaches, the path from guesswork to clarity is closer than you think.

Ready to turn communication into a competitive advantage? Listen now, claim the free head coach scan, and share this with a staff member who picks captains. If this conversation helped you think differently, follow, rate, and leave a review so more coaches can find it.

Join the Baseball Coaches Unplugged podcast where an experienced baseball coach delves into the world of high school and travel baseball, offering insights on high school baseball coaching, leadership skills, hitting skills, pitching strategy, defensive skills, and overall baseball strategy, while also covering high school and college baseball, recruiting tips, youth and travel baseball coaching tips, and fostering a winning mentality and attitude in baseball players through strong baseball leadership and mentality.

X - @TravisSkol

Chapters

• 0:01 Opening & Episode Setup
• 1:55 Meet Travis Davidson
• 4:20 Why Culture Wins In The Portal Era
• 7:35 Communication As The Program’s Secret Sauce
• 8:55 What The Five-Minute Survey Reveals
• 12:20 Mapping Teams And Identifying Leaders
• 15:57 Handling Slumps And “Cancer” Behaviors
• 18:10 Side‑By‑Side Profiles To Fix Conflicts
• 21:05 Locker Rooms, Buses, And Energy Management
• 24:20 Reading Stress And Backup Styles
• 27:05 Catcher–Pitcher Scans And In‑Game Adjustments
• 31:10 No Single Personality Makes A Great Coach
• 34:40 Data vs Gut: Be Self‑Aware, Be Yourself
• 38:20 Pricing, Access, And High School Value
• 41:05 Free Offer For Head Coaches
• 42:55 Hot Seat: Winning, Aces, And Clutch Hitters
• 46:35 Closing Thanks & Sponsor Reminder

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:01

Today on Baseball Coaches Unplugged, you'll gain a deeper understanding of how each player and coach thinks, learns, and responds in team settings. Today we decode how players think, learn, and show stress through relational science advantage with Travis Davidson. Next on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

SPEAKER_00: 0:22

This is the Ultimate High School Baseball Coaching Podcast, Baseball Coaches Unplugged, your go-to podcast for baseball coaching tips, drills, and player development strategies. From travel to high school and college. Unlock expert coaching advice grounded in real success stories, data-back training methods, and mental performance tools to elevate your team. Tune in for bite-sized coaching wisdom, situational drills, team culture building, great stories, and proven strategies that turn good players into great athletes. The only podcast that showcases the best coaches from across the country. With your host, Coach Ken Carpenter.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05

Today's episode of Baseball Coaches Unplugged is powered by the Netting Professionals, improving programs one facility at a time. The Netting Pro specialize in the design, fabrication, and installation of custom netting for baseball and softball. This includes backstops, padding cages, BP turtles, screens, ball carts, and more. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches, and cubbies. The Netting Pros also work with football, soccer, lacrosse, and golf courses. Contact them today at 844-6202707 or visit them online at www.nettingpros.com. Check out Netting Pros on X, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects. Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged. I'm your host, Coach Ken Carpenter. Coaches out there. Baseball will be here before you know it. It's middle of December, and everything will be ra ramping up and you'll be getting ready to start the 2026 season. But an area that often gets left behind when coaching baseball is trying to fully understand what your players are thinking and why they do the things they do. Today's guest discusses a program that he has that all it takes is a five-minute survey to get a better understanding of every player and coach in your program. And that might be just what you need to get your team over the hump to win that league title or even a state championship. And stick around to the end for a free offer. Up next, Travis Davidson here on Baseball Coaches Unplugged. Hello and welcome to Baseball Coaches Unplugged. I'm your host, Ken Carpenter, and joining me today is Travis Davidson, Team Sports Consulting Group Vice President. Travis, thanks for taking time to be on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

SPEAKER_02: 3:14

Yeah, absolutely, man. Thank you for having me. Um I always uh my my now fiance can tell you it's it's it's not hard to get me to talk about sports. Uh it's it's all I do uh every day for the most part, obviously, uh through our work with Team Sports Consulting Group, working with coaches and players across the country, um, getting ready for the ABCA that's coming up. Actually, this week I'm going to the American Volleyball Coaches Association. Don't know a ton about volleyball, so boy, I've been watching a lot of volleyball this week, trying to get the crash course going. Um, but obviously uh I I uh I'm on the radio covering the University of Oklahoma as well. So we've got a big playoff game uh coming up uh this week. So talking sports, I'll tell you what, uh there's there's nothing better as far as I'm concerned, coach. So thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 4:00

Yes. I I have found that you know I started this podcast up four or five years ago, and just about every coach that I bring on the show, they talk about culture building, and is one of the primary objectives that they try to establish really quick. And the most successful coaches are the best at it, it seems like. And why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_02: 4:25

Well, it's a lot of it is just over time. You know, a lot of the coaches, you look at your Jay Johnson's Biancos, and a lot of these guys, your Skip Johnsons and guys that have been doing it, Ryan Fulmer, that have been doing it a really long time, right? They kind of learn how to do it without knowing being able to explain how they did it. But also it's they've built such a good structure and trust within them that, you know, pre-portal, you get these kids for three or four years. Eventually you're looking at the coach saying, well, you know, it's kind of his way or the highway at this point. I don't have the option to transfer out, I don't have this, that, and the other. And these coaches over time have just learned how to deal with kids. Now, transfer portal, you see a lot of them pulling their hair out more, uh, more than they ever have. Uh, some don't have much hair to begin with. So um, they better be careful with that. But um, yeah, it's it's been interesting. I talked to a college coach the other day that was saying, man, he he actually called me. We had talked about working together, and he was like, Man, you know, I don't think it's in the budget this year. And then he called me back like two weeks later. He said, Hey man, uh, you think we could uh get something going on the books? And I was like, Didn't you didn't you say we weren't in the budget? He said, We have 39 new players this year. I was like, oh, okay. And like that kind of stuff never happened. It never happened in college sports. Like, it was never a thing. I mean, you've you've coached uh obviously a long time. You had you got to build relationships with kids year over year over year. And you could do a lot of things based on trial and error. It's like, you know, you you you you tear into one guy and all of a sudden he doesn't react that great and it doesn't motivate him, it doesn't change his ways, then you know the next time you go, okay, maybe I'll maybe I'll come with a different approach, a little softer approach, whatever. Well, the problem is now in the portal era, it's if you get it wrong the first time, they might transfer. Or if you get it wrong the first time, you may not have enough time to to to work through your guesswork. So yeah, uh the best ones, they understand that. I it's funny. I was putting together a video um for the ABCA that's coming up, and you had all like 10 different coaches that were all going, uh, either they had just won the World Series or they had just won the college world series or something like that. And every one of them was like, this group really came together. This group's really special. This group, you know, it's a brotherhood, all that kind of stuff. And that's what the what we talk to coaches about so much is we can, through our process, through our relational science, we can give you that. We can give every team that and kind of hit the easy button on relationships. Because Coach Carpenter, it's every organization, forget baseball. Every organization breaks down when communication breaks down, right? Relationships, communication. It could be a Fortune 500 company, it could be a baseball team, it could be a podcast. If you and I can't conversate with each other, if you and I can't communicate, then this podcast episode will break down. Marriages break down through lack of communication. Political, you know, foreign relations break down uh with no communication. So really that's what we try and focus on is hey, uh, the the the secret sauce to every program is that culture building, those relationships, and really that communication.

SPEAKER_01: 7:34

So your companies develop this program, and um it could be a huge asset to a team, whether they're in high school or college right now, because you're going to be um in one of the breakout rooms at the ABCA, which is going to be held here in Columbus, Ohio, uh, you know, within a month or so.

SPEAKER_02: 7:56

Yeah, we're excited about it. We haven't been to the ABCA before. We just finished up the OBCA here. And I'll tell you what, I've learned more acronyms uh in in the last few years than I ever thought I would. Uh so, anyways, yeah, I'll be up in Columbus. And yeah, we work with high schools and colleges. And and what's great on the college side, obviously, is we help so much with recruiting. So uh for those of you that the uninitiated, uh, as we continue to talk about what we do and how we work with coaches, what we do is we do relational science consulting. So we give coaches and players um basically a small five-minute survey that Coach Carpenter, you took as well. Very easy, five minutes, just blow right through it. And then what we do is we deliver that information that that unlocks what their leadership style is, what their communication style is, what motivates them, what demotivates them, how they show their stress, everything like that. So we do a one-on-one with the head coach and teach them all their results. And then we do, we teach the staff the head coach's results, and then we teach all the players the head coach's results. We deliver a team scan which plots the entire team on one map. So it's like, you know, coach, you've been through, uh, you know, as your coaching years, you've said, man, maybe this team needs a lot of structure this year. Maybe this group of guys really doesn't. Maybe this group of guys needs to be able to brainstorm and be creative. Maybe this group's a real fun-loving, talkative group. Maybe this other group's a bit more locked in and quiet. And you've got those. Sometimes you've got a lot of vocal leaders that are really good at it. Sometimes you really don't have a lot of those guys, and you're looking throughout the season for guys to step up. Every group of kids, especially in the high school ranks, they're young. It's in their formative years. Their girlfriend could have just dumped them and their whole world just, you know, fell apart. Maybe they failed a test and their world fell apart. Maybe their parents just got divorced. Maybe, maybe they just lost their job at the at the Burger King or something. Who knows what's going on? But what you can do is you can get into the psychology of those kids and put them in a position to succeed. And all these coaches that talk about culture, relationships, all that, there are certain ones that I've found that talk the talk, they like the way culture looks on a tweet or on a t-shirt or a hat, but they're not really doing the things to really invest in that. And that's where we come in. With that, we we're very, we're very affordable, we're a good value because we want to work with high schools. Uh, our our first client we had was uh Oral Roberts here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the first year they worked with us, they went to the College World Series. So I can't promise you you work with us, you'll go to the College World Series. But uh uh, but it was, you know, it would have been very easy for us just to say, hey, we're just gonna work for colleges. But a lot of these hats you see behind me have HS on them, right? Uh we work with high schools, man. I love working with high schools because I really feel you can make a lot of difference in kids' lives through high school sports. We spoke on the phone about how high school sports are a, I think, a structure in the community. I think high school sports teach you respect for authority, they teach you how to deal with adversity, they keep you physically fit, they teach you about teamwork, they teach you about accountability, they teach you about these things. And there's a reason that enterprise has all these commercials about how proud they are to hire college athletes. Like it's you shared a story with me about um uh about the the value in hiring college athletes. So uh we we want to make sure that these high schoolers are prepared for the next level because everybody now in high school, they communicate like this. Hey, what's the Snapchat? What's the this, that, or the other? You know, the the face-to-face communication is a lost art these days, Ken.

SPEAKER_01: 11:26

Yes, without a doubt. Now, I've had coaches come on and we've talked about a lot of different things, and everybody has their own style, their own philosophy. And some teams they have a couple captains, some teams they say, I don't believe in captains. I guess my question would be a um a lot of coaches think that their leaders have to be their best players. And um is that what you find through your data that that's that's the case, or is it something totally different?

SPEAKER_02: 11:57

No, it's it it's it's a it's a huge mistake that coaches make. Um it's you know, what we find is of the traits we measure, dominance and extroversion are two of them. And somebody that's high dominance and high extroversion is quite literally like psychologically built to be a vocal leader, right? So we don't look, we don't ask the coaches. We we go through and we we basically help them identify who their vocal leaders are gonna be that year. And there's multiple different ways to lead, right? Coach, it's this guy leads by example, right? But he doesn't say a word. This guy is the rah-rah guy in the in the dugout, and he's, you know, firing up the pitchers, he's greeting the guys after the home run. You know, there's a lot of that. He's leading the workouts. So there's different types of leadership. We worked with a coach here in Oklahoma, actually, a high school coach, who was dealing with a kid. It was his best player. He currently plays college baseball. He was his best player, and he couldn't get through to him. He's like, I need you to be a leader. I need you to step up. I need you to be more vocal. Like you're you're you're the best player on the team. Kids will follow you. You need to step up. The problem was this kid was low extroversion, low dominance. He was a lead by example guy. He wanted to show up, play baseball, leave. And he was really good at baseball. The problem is when you start asking kids like that to be more vocal, they're worse baseball players because it's draining their energy to try and be somebody they're not. And kids are smart, they'll see right through it. They're like, that guy, no, this guy is faking it. He's a phony. He's he's not a rah-rah guy. He he used Chat GPT to get a motivational speech before the game. Like it's it's it people can see right through that. So I think one of the biggest mistakes coaches make are saying, my best players have to be my leaders vocally. They can be your leaders by example, but that kid, we talked to his coach, we said, hey, look, don't ask this guy to give a speech, be a rah-rah guy in a locker room, anything like that. And he had a great year on and off the field and ended up getting a D1 scholarship to play baseball. And and and and he's better off for it now because now he went into college and said, Hey coach, I've got, you know, I got this scan right here. Don't ask me to be a vocal leader, but I'm gonna be your best baseball player.

SPEAKER_01: 14:04

I love that. You know, and let's go the the opposite route now. What happens when you have that that talented player and um but you know, he might be struggling at the plate, you know, halfway through the season, not having the the season he wants, and he's hoping he's gonna get off college offers. And I don't know, for lack of a better word, it becomes a little bit of a cancer to the team. How do you how do you handle that?

SPEAKER_02: 14:31

Yeah, one thing that one thing that we've we've found in this kind of new generation of kids, like they want to be heard, they want to be seen, they want to know why. Like it's not again, we I I use the my way or the highway situation. You can't really do that anymore. You know, kids ask questions, um, they're they're a bit more introspective than they've ever been. So uh when you look at a kid that might be a cancer, like you got to look at uh how to how are you communicating with them? What kind of positions are you putting them in? Is it just solely that he's playing poorly? Because there are a lot of kids that that that go into slumps and whatnot, but don't handle it in a way that's affecting the locker room. So how are you getting across to that kid? Does he we we came across a coach where there was a kid kind of like you described, um, and and we found that we the head coach was reminding him of his father that forced him to play sports, was militaristic, was you know, was was basically trying to like live the baseball dream through his kid because he washed out a JUCO. Like it's like it was a bad, it was a bad thing between him and his dad when it came to baseball. So we realized that the head coach matched up with the dad actually rather well, and we switched an assistant onto that kid and said, Hey, you're gonna handle this kid, your personality. We have a we have a product called a side by side, and it's incredible. It literally maps two people on the same psychological map. So you're able to see the differences, the similarities. And then there's a page uh in the report that's that's perceptions. And it's like, hey, based on our, you know, based on our psychology, this is how we're gonna perceive each other. So a lot of coaches ask me, they're like, hey, can you tell me which ones my kids are uh, you know, are are are losers or bums or you know, are jerks or anything like this. I'm like, well, coach, have you ever considered that they think that about you? There's never been a coach that I've ever come across that thought that the coach was the problem in the communication side. It was always the kid, right? It's never the coach's fault. Well, ideally, nobody's really at fault as long as both understand how to work with each other. And I think that's what we work with a lot of coaches on. You're just gonna have to, you know, meet the kid halfway or meet them sometimes even where they are, right? Because you are the adult in the room. You are the one that's supposed to be a bit more mature and self-aware and things like that. And you can't just use a one size fits all with a bunch of 16, 17-year-olds, even college kids, right? So the side by sides have helped our our coaches tremendously because you can do them player to player, you can do them coach to player, however you want to do it. As long as we have their scan, we can put two on the same, on the same spreadsheet. So uh it's really cool. We actually had a uh we had a uh coach we worked with that almost kicked the kid off the team. And he's a D1 kid. He's got offers from two SEC schools, two Big Ten schools, uh, an ACC school. Like he's got he's he's gonna play high-level college ball. Um, and he almost kicked him off the team. He said, Look, I can't tank my season because this kid is a cancer. He's gonna tear it down. Well, we sat down with that coach. We we didn't even involve the player in it. We sat down with the coach, got all the players' data, met with him for about an hour, and he sent us a text the other day that was like, dude, he's he's totally flipped a switch. I've had other players on the team, other coaches say, What did you say to that kid? Because he he's completely changed how he's approached the game, how he's approached practice, everything like that. And I and I wonder, I wonder quietly, coach, how many kids in the history of baseball were just, ah, that kid's a cancer, cut him off the team. You know, how many kids that happened to that that could have saved a season, that could have saved a team, that could have played college ball one day, that could have played Pro Bowl one day, who knows? But just the inability to communicate to them uh, you know, took the legs out from under the team and the player.

SPEAKER_01: 18:39

Well, talk about how you you you change you can change the team layout from even the the locker room to maybe how the team might travel on a bus, whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_02: 18:50

Yeah, it's really been crazy. So, what we teach is any time that you live outside your natural self. So uh, Ken, based on your scan, obviously I did yours, you're a bit more, you're a bit more introverted than most podcast hosts, naturally. Like you're probably not, you probably don't want to, if you got a call from the ABCA and said, hey, we've got 7,000 coaches here, would you like to stand on a stage six nights in a row and and and speak to them all? Probably not something that would really excite you. Or if you did it, you would be exhausted afterwards. With me, I'm super highly extroverted. So like I'll go talk to, I'll go talk to thousands of strangers whenever time. I want to be at large events around a lot of people. I'm gonna go to the new restaurants that are that are packed. I want to go to the, you know, where I'm gonna meet new people, have new well, extroverts, they're like, no, I'm good. I'm gonna when I my hobbies are maybe maybe deer hunting where I'm alone, or maybe fishing where I'm alone, maybe golfing, you know, with a quiet with a with a small group, something like that. So what we we basically take that and apply it to the entire brain. So anytime you're outside of your natural self, it could be, hey, like you, you're a very patient guy. So like you're Highly patient based on your data. So if I made you like, quick, go, we got to go, we got to go. Hey, get in the car. We're driving here. And you're like, man, there's a cool restaurant on our way. I'm like, doesn't matter. We got to go. We're only eating at the gas station. You know, we're only stopping if you got to pee. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like that would rub you a little bit the wrong way, but that would wear you out if I constantly made you high pressure, go, all that kind of stuff. So again, we apply that to the entire psyche. We actually have one of our colleges we work with. We work with six of their sports. We don't just work baseball. We work with their six team sports they have on campus. Coach, every single player that that goes to that college has to go through us before the housing determines who they room with for that semester. Because they match their entire campus based on our data. So they can make sure that their kids always have the highest amount of energy in the classroom, you know, socially even, you know, on the field, off the field, everything like that. We've got coaches that arrange their locker room based on their extroversion and introversion chart. Because if if we had a team full of Ken Carpenters and you dropped in a Travis Davidson, I would be highly distracting in workouts. I would be highly distracting on the bus because everybody'd be like, ah, this guy doesn't shut up. Like we may go long on the podcast today because I won't shut up. Right. So, so that's part of the problem. You drop me into a group of Travis Davidson's, it's like, oh, we're getting stuff done still because extroverts don't distract other extroverts. We just we're we can talk and do at the same time. Whereas you're like, guy, would you just leave me alone? I'm gonna put my, you know, put my headphones on and I'm gonna work out. Um, so we we had a coach, actually, a college coach. It was funny. Like a lot of kids and adults, but a lot of kids assume ill intent. Like if you walk by me in the hallway and I'm a kid and you don't say hi, we don't think that maybe you didn't see me or maybe you didn't recognize. We assume you don't like, like, we take it personally. So humans naturally kind of do that. So what we ran into was we had a coaching staff and we were teaching the head coaches scan to the coaching staff, and the head coach is introverted. So uh, you know, like you, if they get to the hotel room, they're probably getting off the bus, getting their hotel key, and going up to the room on a road game. Well, all the assistants were all extroverted, like me. So we're sitting down, playing cards, hanging out in the lobby, and we're thinking, uh, coach doesn't like us. Coach thinks he's not supposed to hang out with us. You know, coach, so they're thinking in their heads that all this negative stuff about this coach, and then they see the scan and it's like, oh no, he just needed to go recharge his batteries. Like, that's just it's not he doesn't like us. So it's cool when you can when you can extrapolate that out to a whole coaching staff, a whole team, a whole athletic department in some senses. Uh, and it's it's it's really helpful. And that's what's cool about working with coaches across the country uh because they're all coming up with new ways to work with our system with new information, everything like that. And they'll say, Oh, Travis, man, I did this one thing, man, it's worked like a charm, man, because I was thinking this, that, and the other. Man, I paired kids based on this. Man, it's been fantastic. I'm like, you know, I'm sitting over here going, oh, let's say that again. Okay, cool. I'm gonna I'm gonna add that to our pitch. You know what I mean? So it's been really cool to work with coaches. They're loving the data. There's just so much to do with it. Um, and and yeah, it's it's been really cool. Uh again, the buses, like we've we've called teams that take two buses, right, to uh to games. And we'll have an extrovert bus and an introvert bus. And you can call a coach on each bus and hold the phones up. You can hear the extrovert bus, like the background noise, right? And the introvert bus, it's like he's the only one on the bus. Everybody's got their headphones in, they're down, they're just chilling. So um, that kind of stuff. Like, I talked to a coach yesterday, we interviewed for the ABCA, and he was like, he was like, Well, I was we were off to a playoff time and we were on the bus, and I know that my team, I'll get up. We know that my team is very highly extroverted, but my my team bus was really quiet. So a normal coach might think, oh man, my team's really locked in, they're really focused, we're gonna go play well. But he knew that's not what his team was. His team's highly extroverted. So he said, I played the music loud and started acting like a fool to try and entertain them on this bus ride, and we won a close game on the road. And and I think they needed that to kind of be at their best, right? Man, they were a little nervous, they needed to be worked out of it. So um, you've got an extroverted dog I hear. So that's uh that's good.

SPEAKER_01: 24:41

It's a many Aussie that uh Hey, there you go.

SPEAKER_02: 24:45

I uh I uh I love Aussies.

SPEAKER_01: 24:47

We've got a it's uh it's one of those things. I mean, they get to the basement.

SPEAKER_02: 24:53

So hey, I do uh like I said, I do radio. I do my my my dog has made many appearances on podcasts and radio. So um often jumping up into my lap while uh while the while the while the radio's on. I think Ken in the year 2025, about to be 2026, there are so many people recording stuff. If a dog jumps in or a dog barks and somebody goes, Well, that's it. I'm never listening to this again. They had a dog. Like, if you don't like dogs, I don't want you watching anyway. Like, I don't trust you if you don't like dogs. You know what I mean? Get out of here.

SPEAKER_01: 25:27

Yep, no doubt. Well, you know, yeah, you were with what you were saying, um, you know, I I always like to to look at players and even even coaches when you talk about uh body language. And um to me it's a it's a big it says a lot about a player or a coach. And I I even served on a a jury this past summer and one of the uh they they they got to me and they asked me a question and I and my answer was I'd really like to read the body language. And it ended up being a trial where police officers had shot a uh a person and um and before I got done answering all my questions before I was picked to be on the jury, they the judge was asking me, and we we were talking baseball, and I'm going, you know, this guy over here's uh looking at probably 50 years in jail. I mean, I'm like pick me, don't pick me, whatever. But uh yeah, but you know, I guess when you know, when when you're talking about body language, explain how kids will react when they're struggling at the plate or they're running out of patience and they show that bad body language, because that can affect a whole entire team.

SPEAKER_02: 26:51

Yeah, for sure. I mean, and it and it's and people, I mean, you've been around a lot of kids coaching a long time. You would you would err on the side of probably like a body language expert if we were, if we were gonna put, you know, put it on a spectrum, right? You would be on the expert side of it because you've seen so much. You've been in charge of coaching, uh, young people and even other coaches you've worked with, right? You you've been able to work with us. And that's why you wanted to see what the body language was. So everybody, everybody, whether they know it or not, is affected by what body language they see in their teammates, in their coaches, in their opponents, in their parents, in their siblings, and their friends, and their girlfriends, whatever. Like we're all body language uh fluent to a certain degree, right? Well, uh, you know, we we kind of approach it in two different ways. One, we want to make sure that if they're running out of patience, we know what to expect, right? So there's four different ways that kids can show what we call their backup style. So when you run out of patience, like a highly dominant person, you run out of patience, they're what's called a dictatoral steamroller. They will try and get control of a situation and they will get worked up and try and control. We've probably been around people, you probably think of people that wanted to either make big bold statements or yell or or make a, you know, do whatever to try and regain control to show the room that they're still in charge, right? So that the big, big motion motions, everything like that. Whereas your high extroverts like me, I'm what they call verbal attack. And not necessarily that I'm yelling, but I tend to over talk. Like if I don't think that the person is seeing it my way, Ken, it's not that I'm wrong. It's just that I haven't explained it correctly. Or I haven't explained it in a way that you might understand, right? So as I run out of patience, I tend to just try and reframe things and try and almost nervously overtalk and things like that. And you can tell as I'm running out of patience, it's about to blow, right? So you need to continue to get ahead of that. You know, your high patient people, like you, you're more of an avoid conflict type of individual. So you don't like highly chaotic environments. You don't like highly chaotic surroundings. So if a dictatorial steamroller is blowing up on Ken Carpenter, you might be like, all right, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna come back, we can calm down, or whatever. So where you're in avoid conflict, but the thing is, avoid conflict people, they think to themselves, I'll get you later. Uh, I'm gonna go win a car argument, or you're I'm gonna in the shower later. I'm gonna say, well, if he would have said this, I'd say this, you know, this kind of thing. Um, so that probably tracks with you, right? You've probably said that uh at some point, right?

SPEAKER_01: 29:25

Yes, I could see that.

SPEAKER_02: 29:27

Yep, yep. So you're yeah, you're scanning. For those of you that don't know, I put Ken through our process. Uh, so I've seen all his results. So, um, but yeah, so he's a he's an avoid conflict. Um, and then like you've got your your your high conformity people, like your high structure people, and they're must be right. Like, they're like the attorneys. You bring up uh jury duty, they're like the attorneys, they'll gather all the facts and and then gather all the evidence and then bury you with the facts. So if you're like getting into them, getting into them, they'll they'll kind of take it for a while, but you can almost kind of see them joting down in their head, like, hey, okay, well, you told me to do this, I did, I didn't like that. You said this, you were wrong there. And then they'll come over the top and hit you with, hey, first of all, this, second of all this, third of all this. And you can start to see that manifest once you have the data on the kids, and you can get ahead of it because, like our process, we give you like learned responses that if you see this person start to lose their patience, do A, B, and C, and you'll be able to get them back there. And we work honestly with a ton of pitchers and catchers, Ken. We have a we have a team scan that we do that I brought up earlier where you map the entire team to find, you know, data. Well, we do it, we do a separate one just for pitchers and catchers because it's so important for catchers to be able to, you know, look at their pitcher and know whether or not he's stressed out. Like, and and nobody else may be able to see it. But if that catcher knows it, he can call time, go up and talk to the guy. Say, hey man, we got to get you back to, you know, back to here. Maybe, maybe his arm slot's dropping, or maybe he's rushing the pitch count a little bit. You know, maybe he's he's not going through his process, or maybe he's taking too long in his process. Maybe he's really slowed down a lot, right? Maybe he's maybe he's interacting a lot more and and and and being more extroverted in that sense, you know. So getting basically training the catchers, the coaches, everybody to look for those backup styles before they they the fuse hits the end and hits the bomb. Like training them to do that and also training them to see the signs of stress before anybody else at the ballpark can see them, highly, highly valuable. Because again, it goes back almost to your to your cancer argument, right? It's it can bring down the whole team if you don't do something like that, especially if it's somebody that people look up to, that's a leader that's you know known as a well-liked or or or a key person to their success. If if they think that they're cancerous, then yeah, your whole team might be cooked, your whole season might be cooked at that point. And a lot of these coaches, if your season's cooked, you might be out of a job.

SPEAKER_01: 31:58

Yes, without a doubt, especially with the way uh it's for high school coaches, you're on a one-year contract anyway. So it makes it tough. So it's called baseball coaches unplugged for a reason because I like to bring on all the baseball coaches that I can find from across the country. Have you found that uh certain personality traits that give a person a chance at being more successful as a baseball coach?

SPEAKER_02: 32:29

So uh we measure like four main traits. We measure three kind of secondary traits that we call. We have not found any correlation from certain traits to success. I'll give you two examples. Skip Johnson, University of Oklahoma, College World Series, one of the best pitching, you know, mechanics guys in in the world. Clayton Kershaw trained with him even after, you know, when he was in the pros. You know, he's got all of his guys coming back. He just put, I think he's put like four or five guys in the first round in the last five years. Um and and he's highly dominant, and he's low introversion, he's low conformity. So he's high dominant, no low conformity. Well, Ryan Fulmer, College World Series coach, national coach of the year at Oral Roberts, been at Oral Roberts a very long time, one of the most successful coaches, at least long term uh in America, especially given Oral Roberts doesn't have the resources of you know an SEC school or an ACC school or anything like that. And yet they're punching so far above their levels because they do the little things right, right? They develop culture, they develop all these things. And he's completely opposite. He's lower dominance, high conformity. And it's it's interesting. You see all these different things. And, you know, outside of baseball coaches, I think it would be clear to say that Pete Carroll and Nick Saban are two different mentalities, right? Nick Saban's, you know, you know, throwing stuff, he's chewing, he's yelling everything. Pete Carroll, he's not chewing bud, he's chewing that gum, just you know, straight out, just you chill, relax, this, that, and the other. That's why he was such a good fit in Los Angeles. Yeah. So, you know, we haven't found any correlation between the traits. What is most important though, Ken, is that they're self-aware. You you have to know what you are because, you know, if Skip knows he's dominant. We work, we work with Skip, right? So he knows he's dominant and he's okay with that. He's good with it. And that's what we teach to these kids and these coaches. Be yourself. Don't try and be something you're not because you're gonna come across as fake and you're gonna wear yourself out. So we talk to, you would think that baseball people are all heavily analytical, right? It's, you know, you guys got acronyms for everything. So it's all data, it's all DIP and WAR and and and you know, has good stuff but doesn't know how to pitch, whatever that acronym is. Like, it's like you got all this stuff and all this data. What's crazy is we see a ton of baseball coaches, successful baseball coaches, that are anti-data, anti-analytics psychologically. So they walk into their office and they're like, well, I gotta have data. No, like there's a place for it, but that's not how you make your decisions. Like uh Rob Walton, the uh the longtime pitching coach that down there at Oklahoma State, uh, we worked with, we worked with them, and he'd been pitching for years and I mean, been coaching pitching for years and years, right? Um 30 something years uh he'd been uh coaching pitching. And uh we we went over his process, and there's two sides of it. There's the above the line in fact, which are the analytics people, and then below the line are INT, which is intuition, real gut-based decision makers. So he'd been coaching pitching forever, and he was super low in intuition. He was a gut-based decision maker. He didn't, he didn't care about analytics, nothing. You couldn't tell him spin rate or, you know, RMA, whatever it was. He knows, he knows what he's doing. So we we made a comment to him when we were sitting there consulting with him, Coach Holiday, and those guys. And he he said, Travis, he said, you know, 140 times a game, I got to make a decision in under 20 seconds. And I've been doing that for 40 years. For something he goes, there's not a single shred of data you can show me that's gonna teach me a damn thing. And I was like, All right, well, there you go. That's uh that's about as true as it gets right there. And he was dug in on it. And that's the thing is, you know, all these coaches, they think they've got to be the analytical money ball, you know, what you know, what can I get out of this guy? You know, does this guy get on face? This kind of all this. It's like, dude, just be yourself. If everybody, just be self-aware, be yourself. And that's why, you know, all these people that I put through this process, I'm like, nobody has ever been worse off by becoming more self-aware. So if you just if you just agree with that in general, then you know, give us a shot, right?

SPEAKER_01: 36:45

Well, you know, it it not only will help you, I think, with as a as a baseball coach or a coach of any sport, but uh you know, become a better teacher, you know, better uh spouse, you know, there's all kinds of things you could probably benefit from by doing this. And you know, I think that uh you know, I I I took the five-minute survey and it was uh super easy. Boom, you know, you get it done. If a coach or uh you know program out there or an athletic director wanted to get involved in this, what what steps do they need to take? And and can you kind of go over me? I'm sure people are saying, all right, how much does something like this cost for my team?

SPEAKER_02: 37:29

Yeah, so uh what I again, high extrovert here, so I'm gonna tell another story as you uh ask that question. But you said you made a great point about it doesn't just help you as a baseball coach, helps you as a teacher, helps you as you know, a husband, a father, an employee, an employer, anything like this. What's so funny is I got contacted by an SEC recruiting director. He's a he's an associate head coach, but handles recruiting for an SEC program. And he said, Hey, Travis, he texted me like two days before Thanksgiving. He said, Hey, Travis, I got a weird question. I was like, man, I've I've heard them all. Fire away. He said, Can I put my family through this? And I said, uh, sure. So he sent me his 79-year-old mother took it. His nieces, nephews, his sisters, his wife, they all took it. And so now I have a family team scan. I've gone over with him, and he's like, I love your data so much. I think we could benefit as a family to go over this and and talk about what frustrates us and and you know, kind of this, that, the other. And I'm like, it was it was fantastic. I couldn't be happier to do it for him. But yeah, the the best way to get in touch with me, obviously, uh is Travis at Team Sports Consulting Group.com. Uh, you know, we can, you know, I we can post it. I'll post it in the comments and and things like that. But uh Team Sports Consulting Group.com, really easy to get in touch with. And uh, you know, as people reach out to you with any questions, you've got my contact information. Very easy to find. Uh, so we're if you're gonna be at the ABCA, we're gonna be at booth 901. And we're also going to be speaking, I believe, on Thursday. I think we're Thursday at like five o'clock, something like that. So um, but we'll be we'll be doing about a 40-minute presentation on that. But very easy to get in touch with. Uh, I'm chronically online. So at Team Sports CG on Twitter is actually obviously how we connected, Ken. So um, that's the best way to do it. And it's actually it's extremely affordable because again, we want to work with high schools. Like we find, we we work with the NFL combine, we work with the shrine game, we work with people that if we wanted to focus on just the NFL and and college baseball and all that, we would. But again, all these hats behind me like you got high school, high school, high school, high school, high school, high school, high school, high school. It's like that's what that's what we want to do. So um it ranges, you know, anywhere based on the different things we do, um, from like$100 a kid to$200 a kid. Coaches, things. Like that. So, like, you know, a roster of 20, you know, you're you're looking at what anywhere from two grand to 3,500. Um, but it's a good value. It's we it's we we've got a coach that was telling me yesterday, he's like, man, I had the option to either renew with you guys or get new um alternate uniforms. He's like, and I didn't even I didn't even think about it. We're going with you guys. It's just he goes, I'd rather I'd rather wear the uniforms I got and hold up a trophy than look good in the loser's bracket. You know what I mean? He's like, it's just it is what it is, the personal development. And and that's the thing you I mean, obviously I'm biased, but what what's your goal as a coach? It should be to develop these young people as players and people, right? That's what every coach at least says in press conferences that they want to do. So if they're being honest about that, which I have no reason to believe they're not, uh, get in touch with me and I'll put it anybody, anybody that's listening to this right now, I will put them through the process for free as a head coach. Um, and and again, no cost to you whatsoever. I'll put you through the process for free. I'll meet with you over Zoom, or if you're gonna be at ABCA, I'll meet you, meet with you in person. Uh, or if you're in the general area, uh, I'll meet with you in person. And uh I'll I'll have you go through the process. I'll tell you it is what we do. I'll show you all the data, and you can make a decision from there. It's non-committal. I love meeting with coaches and doing this kind of stuff. So it it honestly is a favor to me to get to meet a new person and and be more extroverted and go through their data. So get in touch with me, Travis Davidson, Travis at teamsports consultinggroup.com, and I will put you through the process for free, and you can determine whether or not we're a good fit for your program.

SPEAKER_01: 41:40

Sounds good, but I can't let you get away without doing something I do with every guest that I have on the podcast. Perfect. Perfect. Is it uh better to hate losing or love winning?

SPEAKER_02: 41:53

Oh man. Um I've always so I'm often called a sunshine pumper. Um often. Uh probably probably more than I enjoy, to be honest. But uh, but I mean, if the shoe fits, right? So I probably am always gonna lean on the on the positive side of things, right? Um, I so I would say I I would prefer to love winning. Um I would prefer to love winning. I understand the you know, the quandary of of hating to lose and this, that, and the other. And people use it in context, whatever fits the narrative at the time, right? Because you can you can speak about either, and they're both they're both positive attributes, if you will. But I I want to focus on the joy. You know, failure is a great motivator, but the joy of winning, the the feeling of lifting that trophy, the feeling of the confetti coming down, like envisioning that and becoming that and doing what teams do that accomplish those things. I talk to coaches all the time. I'm like, hey, the team that won the championship, what are they do they just have better players than you? Is that all it comes down to? Or are they doing the things that winning teams do? Are they practicing the right way? Are they preparing the right way? Are they, you know, I talk football coach, I was talking to the other. I'm like, are are are they turning the ball over? Are they committing penalties? You know, are they this, that, and the other? Like, what are the winning teams doing? Do what they're doing. So I'm always been more of like an envisioning success, right? And and what does that success look like? Instead of let's envision the failure and then try and feel how bad the failure would feel, right? I so um the that's the longest way I possibly could have answered the question. Um, but I think uh I think I would focus on um the love to win, the love to succeed, the love to feel joy and success and celebrate with the players and coaches and family around you that helped you along the way and and and and celebrate with them and and lift them up and things like that. That's probably where I'm gonna live most of the time.

SPEAKER_01: 43:57

All right, I'm gonna put you in the Major League Manager hot seat here.

unknown: 44:01

All right.

SPEAKER_01: 44:05

You can only pick one. Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Nolan Ryan or Satchel Page.

SPEAKER_02: 44:18

I'm probably I'm probably going Nolan Ryan. Um, you know, I you know, especially being here in Oklahoma, I I remember some of his other antics that uh maybe involved uh Mr. Ventura uh for over in Oklahoma State. Um I Nolan always, and it might just be an age thing for me. I'm ther, I'm 36. Um, so uh kind of growing up, uh, you know, being more exposed to Nolan Ryan, you know, I I might uh I might introduce some of the uh from some of that Atlanta Braves rotation into the conversation eventually. Uh that uh that Glavin uh Smoltz uh Maddox uh lineup uh was pretty nasty. But uh yeah, I would uh I would probably go Nolan Ryan out of that bunch.

SPEAKER_01: 45:04

All right, and we're gonna ask we're gonna flip it now. You got a runner on second base, game seven of the World Series. All right. You got one hitter. Shohei Otani, Joe DiMaggio, Pete Rose, or Ted Williams.

SPEAKER_02: 45:22

Oh man. Uh the I'm I'm my heart wants to go with Ted Williams. My my mind wants to go Shohei Otani, just because I I don't think like the Time magazine like Athlete of the Year came out the the other day, and I I forget who it was, but it wasn't Shohei Otani. And I started thinking to myself, when you look at what he's done on the mound, obviously not part of this question, but on the mound and in the batter's box, I mean, he's he's he's above the primes of some of the best pitchers to ever take the mound and some of the best batters to ever step in the box. He's above each of their primes. Uh, I think it's I think I think as insane as his contract is and as sane as as a lot of the the national draw and appeal and things like that, I still think somehow Shohei Otani is overrated. So with the brain, I'm going with Shohei, but Ted what Ted Williams. I mean, I that that's where my heart is.

SPEAKER_01: 46:28

There you go. I love it. Oh, it's Travis Davidson, Team Sports Consulting Group, Vice President. Travis, a lot of great information here, and uh I really think that uh a coach that's listening should take the survey. Uh see what see what you think. And and you know, why not? Maybe it'll turn your team uh into a much better team and a chance to uh you know win a league title, win a state title, who knows? But uh I you know really want to thank you for taking the time to join me here on baseball coaches unplugged.

SPEAKER_02: 47:02

Yeah, hey, I appreciate you having me. Yeah, uh coaches, get at me. Uh I'll put you through the process for free. You've got nothing to lose. The worst, the worst possible thing that'll happen is you'll become more self-aware. Uh and you might realize that your wife was right about something.

SPEAKER_01: 47:17

There you go. All right. Well, thanks again, Travis Davidson's Team Sports Consulting Group. Take care. Special thanks to Travis Davidson from the Team Sports Consulting Group. Today's podcast is powered by the Netting Professionals Improving Programs, one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707, or you can visit them online at www.nettingpros.com. Tune in every week for a new episode on Wednesdays here on Baseball Coaches Unplug, where I sit down with some of the best coaches from across the country. As always, I'm your host, Coach Ken Carpenter. Take care.