The Quarterback DadCast
I’m Casey Jacox, the host of the Quarterback Dadcast. As fathers, we want to help prepare our kids—not only to enter the professional world but to thrive in each stage of their lives. Guests of this show include teachers, coaches, professional athletes, consultants, business owners, authors—and stay-at-home dads. Just like you! They share openly about failure, success, laughter, and even sadness so that we can all learn from each other—as we strive to become the best leaders of our homes! You will learn each week, and I am confident you will leave each episode with actionable tasks that you can apply to your life to become that ultimate Quarterback and leader of your household. Together, we will learn from the successes and failures of dads who are doing their best every day. So, sit back, relax and subscribe now to receive each episode weekly on The Quarterback Dadcast.
The Quarterback DadCast
From Major League Manager to Youth Sports Mentor: Mike Matheny's Parenting Journey
Today, we welcome former MLB manager and four-time Gold Glove winner Mike Matheny, who takes us on a profound journey through fatherhood, coaching philosophy, and his remarkable life experiences that shaped both. Drawing from his 13-year playing career and years managing the Cardinals and Royals, Matheny shares wisdom that transcends the baseball diamond.
Not only did he publish the amazing "Matheny Manifesto," but he has a new book out called "The Dad Coach," published by Crown Publishing Group, A Division of Penguin Random House! I got a copy and read it before it was recently released, and it is a book I wish I had had earlier when coaching my son in baseball. Please pick up a copy if you're a youth coach!
The conversation reveals Matheny's counterintuitive approach to youth sports: "The goal is not trying to get college scholarships. The goal is instilling character through sports to help kids become successful in anything they do." Remarkably, all five of his children earned college athletic opportunities despite this philosophy—or perhaps because of it. Matheny credits his own upbringing with parents who demonstrated consistent love and discipline while never pressuring him in sports, describing himself as having "won the lottery at birth."
Particularly moving is Matheny's account of surviving a subarachnoid hemorrhage in 2022—a condition with only a 1-in-6 survival rate. "I had a renewed sense of urgency," he explains. "What are we doing to make the most out of it and how are we going to make an impact with the days that we have?" This perspective infuses his new book "The Dad Coach," which provides practical guidance for parents coaching youth sports, complete with 75 QR codes linking to resources from former players and practical drills.
Beyond baseball strategy, Matheny offers transformative insights for parents navigating youth sports culture. His advice to let children drive their own athletic journeys while parents provide support without pressure resonates deeply in today's high-pressure youth sports environment. As we chase our own definition of success, Matheny reminds us that the most valuable trophy isn't made of metal—it's the character and resilience built through the journey.
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Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder and this is my dad show. Hey everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the quarterback dad cast. Welcome to season six, and I could not be more excited to have you join me for another year of fantastic episodes and conversations really unscripted and raw and authentic conversations with dads. If you're new to this podcast, really it's simple. It's a podcast where we interview dads, we learn about how they were raised, we learn about the life lessons that were important to them, we learn about the values that are important to them and really we learn about how we can work hard to become a better quarterback or leader of our home. So let's sit back, relax and listen to today's episode on the Quarterback Dadcast. Well, hey, everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the Quarterback Dadcast. We're in season six and I am, after a quick little snafu on our pregame recording. We're going to take two, even though people at home don't know that I do, but I joked with our next guest you got to be audible, ready as a quarterback to roll with it and our next guest.
Speaker 2:His name is Mike Matheny and if you're a baseball fan or sports fan, that name should ring a bell. He spent 13 years in the Major League Baseball world. He spent with four gold gloves. He spent seven years managing the Major League teams for the Cardinals and also the Royals Probably embarrassed my Seattle Mariners more than I probably want to talk about. He's an Ohio native. Somehow they let him out of the state and he made it to Michigan, which I don't know how that happened.
Speaker 2:He wrote a fantastic piece called the Matheny Manifesto that actually impacted me greatly when I was 30, I think 37 to 38 years old, and I was coaching my son's baseball team that my good friend Kelly Hansen shared with me when I was also coaching my good buddy Steve Steve Nadell. He wrote the book called the dad coach, which is out, which is out now, and I have a copy of it. It's fantastic. It's a book that I wish I had when I was coaching new sports, because it's it's so much simple things that most probably parents don't think about but have, but the things he teaches you have a dramatic impact.
Speaker 2:More importantly, though, we're going to learn about Mike the dad and how he's working hard to become, or how he's continually working hard to become, that ultimate quarterback or leader of his household. So, without further ado, take two, mr Matheny. Welcome to the Quarterback Podcast, casey. Thank you very much. All right, so I want to talk about the Matheny Manifesto, but first one thing I always ask my guests is tell me what are you most grateful for as a dad today?
Speaker 1:Oh wow, healthy kids. I mean that's one of the things. As soon as you hear that there's one on the way, you're just overwhelmed with the whole process, but very grateful for the health of our family, kids and grandkids, proud of the young men and one girl, one young woman that she is, and despite their father and the challenges of being a professional athlete, how well their mother did in my absence and being able to handle both of those roles. So that's a lot of complexity into the answer. I'm just proud of my kids for who they are.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, and then, and some research, they, they all were fair, fairly talented kids. It looks like a lot of them played division one sports you had, I think I had an ice hockey player. You had one got, I think, drafted by the Red Sox, if my memory's correct. That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very. You know, a lot of that's genetic, so I'm very grateful for the genetics that have been passed down, but more so from my wife's side. She was a two-sport athlete at Michigan. Her dad had a little bit of time in the NFL and so the athletic thing kind of happened for us. And it's funny because you mentioned the Matheny Manifesto.
Speaker 1:The bulk of that book really talks about hey, the goal is not trying to get these kids to go get the college scholarship. That shouldn't be the goal of youth sports. And then all five of mine end up being recruited to play college. Sports is the whole theory. Let's go out and really try to instill some great character qualities that happen through sport to help them become the kind of people that are going to be successful in anything they do. And, by the way, I think it's going to help them become as good athletes as they can be. So very proud. All four boys played baseball in college and my daughter, katie, played four years at the Ohio State University and very proud of how they all took advantage of the gifts that they were given. So cool.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm grateful I'm going to copy you, sir. I'm grateful my kids health too. I got a son who's playing golf in college right now and I have a daughter who's a junior in high school, who's a scrappy little five four point guard shooting guard. I always say she's the toughest one in our family. Sorry, ryder, my son he's probably not gonna like me saying that one, but she is bro, she is scrappy and I'm inspired by.
Speaker 2:I'm inspired by both of them and it's actually what I'm also grateful for is just that when you see your kids, all the hard work you do and you think about, like what you wrote about in the Matheny manifesto and even the things you wrote about in the dad coach just character building skills and mindset and you know powerful emotional intelligence based skills that I think are too often not talked about enough, that I think it's a cool that you, uh, you did a really good job of bringing them out and, um, it's just fun to see when your kids, um, just start growing and maturing like wait, whose parents are yours? Like did I really produce that? So it's been kind of it's humbling to see them kind of just grow up and see the people they're becoming for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's just such a great ride, life in general, but how sports it really integrates with developing humans and we talk a lot about anytime we get a chance. The importance yes, be all that you can, whatever it is that you're going to do. Whatever you put your hand to do, do it with all you got, take it as far as you can. I spoke to a high school team a few days ago and I said you know, play the game until they pry the spikes off of your feet, because life will be there on the backside and keep enjoying it and have fun and play as long as you can. That's not the aim when we start talking about some of the statistics. The statistics are really driven to help the parents and help coaches stay focused on what success looks like For me.
Speaker 1:I've had the privilege of now being asked to perform the wedding ceremonies of four of the kids that I coached in the youth space before I started managing in the major leagues.
Speaker 1:That is huge to be able to be not just part and be a coach, but to be a part of what they think is some of the most memorable time of their life. To then invite you into the other time afterwards that's all optional and to have those kinds of connections, not just with some of the kids that you're coaching but also with my own kids and then, as you said, casey, to see them and just thrive and figure things out that I believe it doesn't always come it doesn't happen for every kid where they figure out some of these life lessons that help them overcome. But I think sports give you an advantage. I think they give you a head start If you go in with the right mindset and go in with understanding that we're going to learn life here as well as sport and as they combine together, I think it fast forward some of the lessons that they will end up needing as grown adults.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I joke, I couldn't tell you when the War of 1812 was, but I can tell you that all the things I learned from playing sports, you know the adversity, the goal setting, the visualization, the, you know showing up for early morning workouts, um, the, the teamwork, like all those things I apply I mean no, no offense, all the academics, people that taught me things. I mean I definitely a little tongue in cheek to everybody, but so much of the adversity I learned in sports helped me in the corporate world, sports wise, and I reflect on that often. And, um, you know, for me the school taught me like discipline, time management, management, but like the grittiness of like sports. There's just so many, so many life lessons that I think people who are listening at home can probably relate to. And that's why I think you think in corporate America so many people look to hire people who have either played high school or college sports because they know what it takes to go through those journeys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would say it's an and proposition in baseball right now. They're looking for the people with the intellect to be able to handle the information with an ever-evolving game and for us, shame on us as former players if we're not going out and educating ourselves to understand what it is that's next on the horizon, to where we can use some of the experiences that we've had and show the intellectual capacity and capabilities of being able to take that information and be able to turn it around into useful instruction to the next generation. So I see and I appreciate how analytical our world is and how analytical the baseball sport is right now. It's needed, there's a competitive edge, but I do believe some of that experience plays in as well and you can mesh the two. They don't have to be exclusive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I agree, it's amazing how much the games change, and even I mean, and it just wait to see what happens in 20 years, we'll be thinking I mean, it's scary to see what's going to, what's going to happen with the impact of AI in the world. But, um, well, I would love to, um, if you can take me inside the, the, the Matheny huddle, um, I'd love to know where you and your wife met and then maybe just kind of briefly just talk a little bit about each child I know you're so proud of.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I'll give you a longer version maybe than what you wanted, but it's a cool story. When I met my wife Kristen, I was drafted out of high school by the Toronto Blue Jays, and that was back on the day with corded phones. I sat by the phone for three days waiting for it to ring during the draft of 1988. And the phone never rang after different scouts telling me I was going to be drafted in a certain area, and so I was very discouraged. I finally get a call after my dad had given up sitting around the house waiting to celebrate. He went and took my little brother to a baseball game house waiting to celebrate. He went and took my little brother to a baseball game.
Speaker 1:And I get a call from the Walkie Brewers that tell me that oh yeah, by the way, we drafted you. I'm like, oh yeah, this is a monumental deal to me and thank you very much. I was drafted so late in the draft they just didn't even tell me what round, so I still don't even know what round it was. I'm certain that round doesn't exist today. So anyway, I'm going through the process and trying to decide. I'd already signed my letter of recommendation to the University of Michigan and I look forward to coming back to that conversation.
Speaker 3:It was a great decision.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to play pro ball and I valued my education. I was a good student all through high school. I knew Michigan was going to be a great challenge. It would be a fantastic degree to have, but the end game was I wanted to play pro ball and so we went through that summer and I was 17.
Speaker 1:I started school early and so I grew four inches and over from the end of the school year to the following fall and the Toronto Blue Jays kept following me and they kept kind of upping the offer of the school year to the following fall, and the Toronto Blue Jays kept following me and they kept kind of upping the offer to the point where it actually got to be around second round draft money, which was significant money to somebody who'd never really had a penny in their entire life.
Speaker 1:And so I'm leaving for school and they told me they said well, we'll make this one final offer, but we want you to know we have rights to you until you walk into that first class. So I logged all this away, I go up, I get my books, I'm all set to go, and they told me to call while I'm walking out the door to my first class. So I've got my brand new jean jacket on. I feel like I'm looking really good. I got my backpack. I call up the Toronto Blue Jays and I thank them for having the faith in me and seeing something in me. But I really believed I needed to go get my college education. In the meanwhile, I've been literally on my own praying.
Speaker 1:I need some wisdom here, because my parents aren't making this decision for me. This is mine. I walk out of my dorm room, I take one step and there must have been a pigeon the size of a turkey on the roof of that dorm and it hit me right on top of the head and it was Nickelodeon style. I had pigeon poop all over me to the point where I had to go back and start all over Shower. New clothes, no new dean jacket. And I was thinking you know God, I've asked to be given some signs before, but I never thought that that was going to be one I would get. I honestly sat there and looked in the mirror and said is this? Am I supposed to go to pro ball?
Speaker 1:Ended up, walked to class. Nobody else was even on the streets because everybody was on time except me, but in the very front row was a blonde. As I arrived late to my first class, in the front row was a blonde from St Louis who ended up being my wife of now 32 years. So it was a very good decision.
Speaker 2:Wow, Now does she remember that story as well as you do.
Speaker 1:She didn't know any of the backstory. She just remembered there was a creepy guy that bothered her for a few years until I finally wore her down. That's all she remembers of that.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. And then talk about the kids, and I think you have some grandkids too.
Speaker 1:I heard you say, yes, we have number seven and eight on the way right now. So, yeah, we started early and the kids have all started early too. Our fifth one will be married at the end of this summer, so they'll all be married off Very, very proud of our kids, for what each of them have been able to do, and also the spouses that they've chosen and watching them do their thing. We just had three of the grandbabies down here in South Florida, where we are now, and so we had them for a week, kind of get them out of the snowbabies down here in South Florida where we are now, and so we had them for a week, kind of get them out of the snow up north and the cold. But just watching them now be able to choose to spend time with us is a great reward as a parent. And we have one still in college. The youngest, blaze, is finishing up chiropractic school in Dallas. He's doing a great job, but the rest are jumping into real life and figuring things out.
Speaker 2:Wow, Now maybe touch on each sport that they played.
Speaker 1:So Tate was the oldest Tate played. He was actually a very competitive hockey player and I wrote in the first book how we actually let him quit baseball and we constantly told the kids that this is your thing and it's not fun. If it's not something that you want to do, don't feel like you had to do it, because I did and he wanted to take a break because he wanted to focus on ice hockey. And he was a very good AAA amateur player, played in Canada, played in Sweden, got to bounce around and probably would have been able to go on and play collegiately. Just a very good athlete. A year that was actually about six months later he decided he wanted to get back into baseball and jump back in, ended up being drafted. He went to the Missouri State University and played and being drafted by the Boston Red Sox, he made it up to AAA. He played professionally for six years, which is a great career and very, very talented player.
Speaker 1:Our second is our daughter, katie, who played at Ohio State the Ohio State, as I'm forced to say, but she played all four years there and was captain her senior year. And just an incredible another incredible athlete Just given. Just God-given ability and that fire and tenacity and fight, and that toughness, hockey, suited her real well. She hasn't hardly been on the ice ever since. She's got two babies at home and is an incredible mother and married a young man who was my oldest son's college roommate, also a baseball player, tyler Harris, who ended up playing at Miami of Ohio.
Speaker 1:So we got little jocks all over the place. The third, Luke, started out playing at Oklahoma State. He pitched there for two years, didn't get a lot of innings and he was just kind of seeing the writing on the wall and spent a year at JUCO in Houston and then ended up transferring and finishing getting his business degree from St Louis University and pitching there. The fourth, Jake, started at Indiana and he's our only catcher in the bunch, so he got a little bit of time at Indiana but joined his brother at JUCO and then finished at Mizzou at the University of Missouri. The fifth, Blaze, was recruited and played just in the fall at Missouri State and realized that that just wasn't his calling. And, man, were we proud of him to make that decision.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of pressure when your four older siblings are all playing sports and he's talented, but it just wasn't for him and so he left Missouri State and now he's at Parker University down in Dallas and he's not too far away from becoming a chiropractor. And he's the one that's getting married to a beautiful young girl named Alexa at the end of this summer. So Tate has number four on the way. He has his fourth child on the way. Katie has two Luke, I think they're trying to make that happen. They've just been recently married, he and Annabella, and then Jake has his second on the way and due almost any day now, and Blaze is engaged. So they're all kind of figuring out their own thing right now.
Speaker 2:So cool. It's actually impressive, dad, that you know the family very, very well. That was actually I mean you should, but it was actually usually if there's that big a family, it's like can I wait, how many kids do I have? That was actually I mean you should, but it was actually usually if I. If there's that big a family, it was like can I wait, how many kids do I have? And it's like that was pretty impressive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've lost a couple of times.
Speaker 2:So real quick, before I get into some serious, tell me how does a guy from Ohio because there's I met a lot of people that you're from Ohio but they're diehard Michigan or they're from Michigan or they're Ohio state I'm like I don't get it. So maybe walk me through your story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there is no love loss. Um, for, for those who don't understand the Michigan, ohio state thing, um, so grow. I grew up probably 15 minutes from campus and the the short story of it is there was another catcher in town who was head and shoulders better than I was. He was a grown man and he was so developed. Once again, I was a year younger, I started school early, but it didn't matter, he was just better. This guy was big, strong, could hit the ball a mile, could throw the ball really well, and so I was really sitting in his shadow waiting to see where he would go. But in all honesty, I probably wouldn't have gone to Ohio State. Anyhow, I was ready to go out of town. I was recruited to Michigan, but Michigan was waiting to see where. This young man's name was, mike Durant, and Mike had a great career, ended up making it to the major leagues with the Twins, but it was either going to be Nebraska or Tennessee or Michigan were going to be the three I was waiting to see.
Speaker 1:And they were all waiting to see where Mike Durant was going to go also. So once he made his decision, michigan was my choice. Once again, I took a lot of pride in my academics and I knew it was a very challenging school. I had no idea how challenging until I got there, but, very proud I can tell you that there's not because of the model of baseball, professional baseball. Your leverage in the draft is going to be your junior year and that leaves you with at least two semesters and usually three to four after you leave. And it's hard to come back in an off season because your professional season if you do sign as a junior in September, school's starting and you're still playing minor league baseball. So there's a lot of logistics that make it difficult. But the university worked well with me and sort of the Milwaukee Brewers of allowing me to skip winter ball and to be able to go back and finish my degree and that's one of the things I'm probably most proud of.
Speaker 2:Wow, very cool, ma'am. Well, I'm sure you got a good Bob Uecker story too.
Speaker 1:You know, uecker was without question the funniest man I've ever met. Without question, and it just came so naturally to him.
Speaker 1:You weren't going to say anything and you're probably going to have a stomachache from laughing. When you spent any time with Uke, he and I hit it off. He was a catcher and I encourage anybody out there who doesn't know much about Bob Uker just go look up some of the old Carson clips. You can just see how quick and witty this guy is self-deprecating. He was a good player, he was a good catcher and I'm going to tell you he was a voice for me and that organization. I couldn't hit my way out of a wet paper bag. Euchre wasn't much of an offensive player either, but he could catch and he could throw and he recognized that about me and wanted to make sure that Bud Selig, our owner at the time, and Phil Garner, our manager at the time, and Sal Bando, our general manager at the time. He wanted to make sure that they all understood that there's a place for a player like this and I always felt that Uke had my back.
Speaker 1:But we spent a lot of time together in the outdoors. Uke was a big fisherman. Probably my biggest memory was 9-11. It was just two of us on his boat in Lake Michigan when everything went down on 9-11. But what an ambassador for the game. Bob Uecker was for the city of Milwaukee but for the game of baseball, and yeah, I'll miss him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rest in peace. Him and the movie Major League might be some of the funniest one-liners of all time. I mean, what a, what a beauty and um, I did not know that you had that close relationship with which I'm actually glad I mentioned that. It's really really cool to hear that. That side of him and and um, well, before we get into some of the book and and and and some of the actual takeaways, I'm always intrigued how, what was life like growing up for my guests? And so maybe talk, talk to me about what was life like growing up for you and the impact your mom and dad had on you.
Speaker 1:Now that you're a dad and a grandfather yeah, I'm, uh, I I tell people often that, uh, I won the lottery at birth and um, not that we had so much, we didn't have a lot, we had plenty, though I had, um, two parents, that parents that loved each other, continue to still married, both still living back in Columbus Ohio, Cared for myself and my three brothers and weren't afraid to show us that they loved us and tell us that they loved us, but also they weren't afraid to keep us in line and we needed it really bad. And so they were very consistent in how they went about their business. I know this isn't necessarily a faith-based podcast, but I'll tell you they were very consistent in what they were teaching us and exposing us to and how they lived it out and what a great representation of true faith. And so that was always monumental as really the heart and soul of who I am as a person and the most important thing in my life.
Speaker 1:So, watching that happen and that, mixed with this cool drive that I had to be sporty, I wanted to be like you, I wanted to be a quarterback.
Speaker 1:I just had this terrible habit of throwing to the wrong jersey and I couldn't run out of sight in a week. So neither of those played very well into a very long career in the game of football. But I just wanted to play sports and so my parents my dad grew up on the farm in Mason County, West Virginia right where my mom grew up too, just a little farming, community coal mining on the river, and they both decided that they wanted something else for their kids, and so dad actually chased baseball up into Columbus Ohio for a tryout and had a tryout with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a pitcher. Things didn't go well, but he decided that as the oldest of eight he had been working his whole life on a farm and he decided he was going to chase a different lifestyle. So he became a heavy equipment operator in Columbus Ohio and worked for the same company for over 40 years and just the way he went about work and discipline and but the consistency.
Speaker 1:We lived in a small home but just watching them on a daily basis how they handled conflict, how they handled the consistency of disciplining four boys that were always on the cusp of doing something stupid, and just to how they did that with humility, wisdom. And just to how they did that with humility, wisdom. I used them as examples, as the perfect youth sport parent, because they always would show up when they could. You know, dad, in the summer when work was good, he had to work, but the minute he got off he was trying to make it to one of our games and he'd silently be sitting back there and always a source of support. And I can't remember one time of him ever turning me down when I asked him to play catch. He had a passion for the game of baseball. He always made himself available, didn't go beyond our means to go and that really wasn't a thing back then. All the coaching and all the different specialization with the training.
Speaker 1:But they did what they could and fortunately they got me plugged in with an incredible coach who had just finished playing in the minor leagues, who had a son my age. His name is Ron Golden. Ron was with the San Francisco Giants. I think he got up to AA, but he was light years ahead as far as how he coached the game and he was probably one of the most impressive things as a catcher. He was a catcher, his son was a catcher, but he saw something in me that he allowed me to catch and moved his son to the middle infield. How many dads do that anymore?
Speaker 3:And his son.
Speaker 1:Eric was a fantastic player, went on to play at Central Florida but probably would have been a really good catcher as well. But I didn't think of it at the time. But over time and as a dad realizing the humility it took for Mr Ron Golden to allow me to play that position, while that was his son's and his position as a professional player, so they put me on a track and we started playing a lot of games, mostly because we didn't take family vacations. It just wasn't a thing that we could do. So the summer I'd play as many baseball games as he'd put in front of me and I loved every single one of them until it ended, and then it was straight to two days through it ended, and then it was straight to two-a-days through football season and then it was straight to basketball until spring baseball rolled back around. And I'm so grateful that I grew up in a home that nurtured, fostered and encouraged get out there and go play, go play and figure stuff out.
Speaker 2:Now does mom? Did she work or she stay at home, keeping you guys out of trouble?
Speaker 1:Yeah, mom worked at our church, so she was a secretary at the church, which branched into a missionary branch that she still works for. She shows up every day and supports and kind of directs funds to missionaries all over the world for Christian ministries. And the sweetest lady on planet Earth and probably the biggest, truest, purest fan or she just loved to watch us compete. She loved to watch us have fun and, once again, if I'm to draw up what it looks like to be a really good youth sports parent, it's the parent that does what they can not more than they can and not to put crazy expectations except go out and play and to hear, then to hear my mom say I love watching you play today.
Speaker 1:And that's exactly what a kid needs to hear.
Speaker 2:Spot on, have you? Are you familiar with the name bruce brown? I'm not, so bruce brown, um is he is? He lives up in my neck of the woods, up he's, um, I'll say, north of seattle area. And bruce brown wrote an article called the car ride home and he ended up speaking about it and his mentors in life were guys like dick vermeil, um, um, john wooden people might have heard of him, you know, and he spoke on stages. So he actually, so he wrote this article, that car at home. He actually you. You reference it in in the dad coach and, uh, when I, right about the time I read the methani manifesto, I also got about this car ride home article. And so, fast forward, maybe two years ago, I realized when my high school, my college buddy played for coach Brown in junior high and I say, mcfadden, can you any chance you can get me to Bruce Brown? I loved it, cause I think, like dads need to hear, any parent needs to hear, like the car ride home is what it's about, you know, and I make the joke like when I have a bad day at work, my son or daughter's not telling me how many words I didn't type per minute or my, I didn't really talk to my boss as well as I could have, or God, you know what happened when you filled up your water, the water bottles you make it a little slower than usual. You know, I'm not getting torched, 're gonna just let them have it and judge them. It's like that crushes their confidence. And so what bruce wrote about is he wrote about that and he and many, many kids and I've talked about this often this podcast is kids love when their grandparents come, because that's what they say. Man, I love watching johnny player, I love watching suzy play, and so I I connect with bruce. He came on the show. So you guys, guys, have that in common. You're both former guests now and I, uh, I talked to him and I said you know what, what a gift this has been I love. Can I, can I drive up and buy a lunch? He goes. No, you can't. I was like no, I get it. You probably get this request all the time. He goes, but if you want to drive up, I'll make you lunch. I'm like I'm in, and so I tell my wife and she's like wait, who wait? What's this guy? He's like 70. I'm like honey, I'm going to meet like Yoda. Um, this is like the wisdom of coaching and youth sports, and I don't know how I'm going to apply it in my business life, but I just want to be able to go spend some time with him. So I went up there. I spent five hours with the mic, wow, it was awesome. So, um, if, if you want, when I get done, I can connect you guys, he'd probably want to check this thing out and it might be at least a door. If you're open to it, I'm more than happy to connect you guys. But mainly because you referenced kind of the theme of it in the book the Dad Coach. You know, one thing I'm intrigued about is so you know, I don't know how you found out I played football in college. So thanks for at least making me feel a little bit about my washed up self here. But I find that people who played sports in college or the pro level not not perfectly, but tend to be a little bit less intense about expectations, because you know how hard it goes into it. I don't know if that's just a theme, but I'm. What I'm intrigued about your story is, I mean managing at the major league level, the egos, the hard work, the money, I mean all these things, and yet you then know were you successful that level? But I actually think in life, the work you're doing now, teaching parents how to coach kids, is going to be a bigger impact maybe not fiduciary but like a bigger impact than anything.
Speaker 2:So I'm just curious, like maybe talk us through that, that mindset of how did you kind of shift expectations down from you know seeing the cardinals down to you know billy at age eight, who can't catch a ball at third base?
Speaker 1:yeah, and and I appreciate you saying that and I've told people because I get questioned all the time you know, are you retired? And I'm like, I'm 54 years old man, I've been fired. I'm not retired like in our business. I'll never forget it. The day I got the job managing the cardinals whitey herzog, the legendary manager, um, met me for lunch and he goes hey, you just gotta get it around your head that you're either going to die on the job or you're going to get fired. So just go do it the way you're going to do it and understand that this thing doesn't last forever and don't take it personal. And I thought that was such great wisdom. But how about just a smack in the face on day one of the job? Um, but, but I didn't go in, uh, to playing the game.
Speaker 1:I I gotta to tell you, whenever I talk to young players, I beg them to enjoy it more than I did. I had to grind and I'm grateful because it gave me such an appreciation and talk about being able to have empathy for how hard the game is. I felt like every and this is not an exaggeration that I felt like this one, this game that I'm playing, even year 13 into my career. This might be my last one and it gave me an edge of how I had to go about it, but I could. There are so many kids that played against me, I'm sure at almost every level it was like that guy really wasn't that good good, but there were little things that I did right and I found out what the game needed and how I needed to go about my position in a way that I could be a contributor to stick around. And so next thing, I know I turn around and had a long career and then I had no intention of actually managing. I just really wanted to go and be where I am. I wanted to be where my feet are and try to impact people along the way. It's kind of been my goal from day one. Wherever I am, I wanted to be where my feet are and try to impact people along the way. It's kind of been my goal from day one. Wherever I am, you know, god, is this where I'm supposed to be, and help me not to miss what I'm supposed to see today and how I'm supposed to treat people and to go about this thing, whether it's behind the plate. Then, once that ended, one of the gifts that I had was I was able to walk away from the game and say that was a great ride. Now, what, what's next? And not that I wanted to get out of it. I'm going to hang on as long as I can, just like I tell kids, but when that time came, ok, where am I supposed to be and how am I supposed to impact people?
Speaker 1:And it just happened to be a youth team that I didn't expect to coach, that I didn't even really want to coach. I just told them I don't think you guys are going, you parents are going to like what I think youth sports should look like, and it was a little bit radical. It was certainly different. I asked them you know your son doesn't need you to cheer and believe it or not. What he needs at the end, you guys go get ice cream you love. Tell him you love him and tell him that you'd love to watch him play.
Speaker 1:But in the meanwhile we don't need to start packing on pressure. Just let him play the game and then let me let them their teammates and they're going to put enough pressure on themselves already. They want, they want to do really well. So let's create an environment where it's all about them, nothing about us, all about them. And then just jump in and teach and next thing you know, I get an opportunity to walk in and interview for the managerial job for the St Louis Cardinals, who, when I got that call, it was two weeks prior. They just won the World Series. So I'm coaching 12-year-olds and the team that just won the World Series calls a 12-year-old coach and asks him to come and interview for the managerial job. It's like throwing the keys to a Ferrari to a 14-year-old right, I didn't get that call Mike.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and most people don't. It's interesting. People love that story because there's little league coaches all over the country like why are the mariners not calling me, you know? And so um, and rightfully so, and there are some. There's some great coaches now. I've been coaching through the system. I was the roving catching instructor, I was the assistant to the general manager. I had my foot in the door but there was no lead in, there was no um, kind of nudge that a someday tony lara had said that a number of times while I was playing for him and I always thought like, hey, skip, I'm pretty young, I think I should still be playing. Let's not talk about that next career quite yet.
Speaker 1:But he'd always alluded to the fact that he thought that there were characteristics that I had that would lead to managing, and I thought that was a great compliment. Interestingly enough, when I was at the University of Michigan, our head coach was Bill Freehand. He was a former catcher for the Detroit Tigers, had a great career, and Coach Freehand called me in when he got the job the first day of my sophomore year and he said I've watched you catch and I got a couple things for you One, I think you're going to coach or manage someday, which was unbelievable I'm 18 at the time. And he said I know you're going to play pro ball, so from now on all your electives are going to be Spanish. And so he had my academic advisor in and switched everything along the road. So I had these little nudges along the way about there's something there potentially, but I wasn't jumping on the fast track to go do that.
Speaker 1:It was all really just laid in my hands, as well as some of the things that are going now in the youth space.
Speaker 1:What I really wanted to be is I wanted to be a light to some of the people who just don't know, people that are out working hard in all kinds of industries that may not have the insight at the professional or even the collegiate level, and to just let them know, like you're not going to be measured by how good of a parent you are to a youth player, by how crazy you are. That's not necessarily it. There's a different way to go about this, and so, just from interviewing some players that I played with, some guys that I coached and managed, here's a different model, and let's try and get back to building character. Let's try to get back to yes, let them play as long as they can, but resetting what we're aiming for here. And so it's all just kind of naturally laid itself in front of me, more so than me having an agenda to go try and put this together, which makes me humbly grateful for the way that things have kind of unfolded in my life.
Speaker 3:Hello everybody. My name is Craig Coe and I'm the Senior Vice President of Relationship Management for Beeline. For more than 20 years, we've been helping Fortune 1000 companies drive a competitive advantage with their external workforce. In fact, Beeline's history of first-to-market innovations has become today's industry standards. I get asked all the time what did Casey do for your organization? And I say this it's simple. The guy flat out gets it. Relationships matter. His down to earth presentation, his real world experience applied to every area of our business. In fact, his book Win the Relationship and Not the Deal has become required reading for all new members of the global relationship management team. If you'd like to know more about me or about Beeline, please reach out to me on LinkedIn. And if you don't know Casey Jaycox, go to CaseyJaycoxcom and learn more about how he can help your organization. Now let's get back to today's episode.
Speaker 2:Where do you think the mindset of how you coached? Was that taught? Was that learned? Was that innate? Tell me, where does that come from?
Speaker 1:you think yeah, I think I've had great leadership in my life and I believe leadership is more caught than taught. I think the pictures say a whole lot more than the words do. And, going from my dad, I just had some incredible male role models. I got to know both of my grandfathers, both who fought in World War II and came back as heroes and just put their nose down and just started to work again when they got back. And then Coach Golden, who I told you about. All the way through my high school coach, dave Starling, and getting into the hands of Bill Freehand. I just had men who just poured into me as much as a man as they did a player, and that stuck with me. I even had football coaches.
Speaker 1:I had some whacked out ones too. I mean that just did the crazy stuff that happens Enough to see that's not it. And then, when I got around the ones, and then as I got older and started researching and studying, I'm glad you brought up coach John Wooden. I say he's the most impactful coach of my life and I never met him, but I think I've read anything he has ever written and mostly because of that combination that you and I talked about earlier, that and he he knew that he wanted his boys to go win every time they walked out there.
Speaker 1:But they're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the process and we're going to talk about all the, all the little things that go into you being the best version of you, us being the very best version, us chasing perfection, knowing that obtaining perfection is not a possibility but the pursuit of it is. That, to me, was like it rang, and I guess that's right. That's how we go about this thing. You pursue it all the time, but we're going to forgive ourselves when we don't quite get there, and then we jump right back in and get better the next day.
Speaker 1:So there were different coaches, different leaders along the way, all of them having an impact, some of them, like I said, I learned so much from learning how I didn't necessarily want to be coached or how I would want to coach, and some who just really, really did it the right way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's funny as you're saying that I mean I got, I was getting goosebumps and you think about all the um, like all the coaches I've had in my life. And it's funny as I got a gold. I'm almost 50 and I still can't call those coaches by their first name. Yeah, I just can't do it like coach. Coach osborne hey, it's martin. No, it's not marty, it's coach osborne, it's bobalt no, it's not Marty, it's coach Osborne, it's Bobo no, it's not coach, it's coach Baldwin.
Speaker 2:And I just like my one of my offensive linemen coach, he's going to our hall of fame, um, and some guys call him John, like, no, it's coach Pika. I just can't. To me it's out of respect thing, but I think, even like when I'm wired, maybe that's a testament to my parents or those, those folks as leaders. But I hope those are things that like my kids see or other kids see or, as I hear you talk about, like coaches that you know, if there's moms or dad listening, maybe that's something that they can get out of this episode too in teaching. But so youth, youth sports, it's crazy right now. I mean you got people seven-year-old that Johnny's going to go pro and we got to get them a $1,500 bat and we got to get them a private jet and an NIL deal before he hits fourth grade and if they don't, we're screwed. And obviously I'm joking everybody. But there's I don't know this gentleman, but I've seen, I loved it Interview him, dan, I think it's Dan Orlovsky. He's an ESPN guy quarterback and he's done some work about recently very vocal on Twitter saying his kids are just going to play rec and I'm actually you know what. Good for you.
Speaker 2:And I think there's so many people that I think that are monetizing youth sports. My daughter plays AAU basketball. I mean it's her last year, but we're going to be in Phoenix, california, chicago, vegas, and it's like that's what we have to do to be able to play. I don't have the other choices If you want to play, eventually get to the collegiate level. It's just, it's crazy how much the game's changed. So I love your, your thoughts on maybe, the kind of status of this, what, what are some things that moms and dads could take from you and your experience, because you've seen probably the highs, the highs, the lows, the lows, and I think we'll get into your book here in a second. That I think gives a lot of coaches some tools to help remind why we're here in the first place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got to be careful with this one, casey, because our daughter playing competitive hockey we were flying her to practice in Pittsburgh. There wasn't a lot of female ice hockey options. Once she started developing to a certain level and she loved it and we could afford to do that. So I have to be careful of going too far down that road. Because we went down that road. The one thing that was consistent with all five of our kids is we made sure that they were the engine pushing that train.
Speaker 1:It wasn't yes, we do know better. Yes, we can see the landscape of talent and realize that maybe our kid is in a spot to be tracking in a positive way. But once we become that engine, then typically there's a bad wreck waiting to happen. I think that's probably the first point, um, but I, I also. I know there's some really good programs out there with some of the the elite uh teams and I think it's it's got to be a family decision. I, I, I would be, hesitant to tell anybody.
Speaker 1:You know, just stay away from. And I'm a big fan of Dan Orlovsky. He does some work with Tony Dungy and All Pro Dad and I follow some of his writings and I think it's really good stuff. And I get it Once again when you're looking at the 30,000-foot view. Developing these kids as people is so much more important than that scholarship. It just is.
Speaker 1:And I think that's where people get out, maybe been out of shape a little bit, and it's only human, because the more we invest whether it's our dollars, whether it's our time, whether it's all of our energy, whether it's a combination of all of the above, in most of these sports that's what it becomes. It becomes a huge investment for the family and as a reasonable person, you're looking for a return on your investment at some degree and you are asking some very immature brains and minds and bodies to go make some mature commitments, long-term, to ride this thing out, when they're usually not capable of making those kinds of commitments. And so you're making this huge investment as an adult, expecting them to match your investment with their effort and their drive, when it's just not there yet. And there are so many stories of that and that's kind of been. Maybe the impetus to the books to begin with is just relieving parents of having to be that engine and letting the kids push and trying to find some economical ways within your family's means to be able to give them what they need, what's real, what might be a little bit of snake oil, and how can we allow them to go chase their dream? Because I'm glad nobody ever talked my parents out of me becoming a college athlete or out of me dreaming of playing a major leaguer. Somebody's going to get there.
Speaker 1:Casey, I'll never forget I was 13 or 14 playing with that gentleman, mr Ron Golden, that I told you about, and we were at a camp and there was a local college coach that showed up and I'll never forget it was summer, it was hot. He's wearing this full on red sweatsuit with the team logo on it and he's sweating bullets, because we're all sweating bullets out on the turf and he gets up and he starts throwing out all these huge numbers of the likelihood of going to play at a major university or playing professional and he walks around that that half circle of young men all about my age, and telling us that we're we're wasting our time to to make that as our dream. And I'm thinking with all due respect, sir, who are you to tell me that I can't go try and chase my dream and I never want to get in the way because somebody's going to do it and I was one of the fortunate few. There's a lot of things that have to go in line and I know I'm getting on a tangent man, but you put me straight on the soapbox of my life, I believe.
Speaker 1:Put me straight on the soapbox of my life, I believe, is how can I help players and do that in multiples, by helping coaches, which are helping parents to get straight, how we're going to go about this. Can we do this really complex thing of raising these kids the right way, teaching them the things that are going to allow them to be successful in whatever they do? All pull in the same direction without sinking our family one way or another? And how can we do that while allowing this young man, young woman, to chase a dream that I believe it's a good dream. It's a great dream to go chase a college scholarship. It's a great dream to go chase playing at the professional level. I don't want to get in their way.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to be the coach in the red sweatsuit telling them they're not going to do it and that they're foolish for chasing it. I believe you're foolish for not chasing it, and then let life teach you along the way, but I think you're going to learn some incredible things along that trail If you keep your eyes open and you have some good people around you to lead you in the right direction.
Speaker 2:No, I love it, man, as you're saying that I think there's a sign behind me. People can see this on YouTube. It's believe and it's about believing in yourself, believing in something bigger than you believe. What you do matters.
Speaker 2:And I mentioned my buddy, steve, in the beginning, who I coach with. I have so many great memories coached with him and his son, riley, just is finishing up. He's playing hockey on the East Coast through like the junior program and he's hoping to kind of keep that journey long. But when he was my son and him were like best, but they're really really still best friends and I would coach his son, or Steve would coach my son, and they would respond better to each of us versus mom, you know, dad, but he, riley, his son, he is convinced he was going to play pro baseball and pro hockey. He might do pro golf too if there's time. And you know, not sure. And never once did they say, did they laugh, did they say it was just like well, yeah, why wouldn't you? And I was always so inspired by that. I'm like too often I think people, um, like they don't enforce or inspire the word belief enough, and I think you inspired me to say to share that story because I think it's there's so many moms are doubt, just because if you didn't do something or you did like I my son's way better golf than me was at his age and my daughter's a way better basketball player than me I'm like I don't know where you get it. But, um and I remind them often that I have no eligibility left Um, I am. You told me what your goals are. You gave me permission to ask you questions about if your goals have changed. Um, but I don't want to. I can't do the work for you. I can still try to not get hurt and just stay in shape at my age. But you got to go do the work. And if you want to do it, I can help you get there, because I know what it takes to be a college athlete. It was a lot of hard work. But if you don't want to do it, then that's okay too, but don't ever make it my journey before I.
Speaker 2:Well, let's dive into this. And I, I loved the book. Everybody. I know if you're listening to it you can't, but it's called the Dad Coach. It's Mike wrote it with Jerry B Jenkins he talked about earlier. It's how to lead kids to succeed on and off the baseball field as much as a lot about baseball. I think there's a lot that you actually can get if you either coach any sport in here. There's a lot of key takeaways I think specifically in the beginning of the book that you can get. But I'd love to know cause I I wrote a book too, mike Um, and I kind of had that voice in my head. So maybe call that a God moment, call it universe, call that something. But it was like you got to do this, you got to do this. I'd love to know for you what was the voice or what was the tipping point that said I know I've already wrote the Methany manifesto, but there's something else I got to get out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and if you'll let me, casey, it's such a cool story on the first book. I got to bring that up. I wrote that letter, I'm managing the major leagues and I kept having that same voice you're talking about, about. Hey, that letter struck a chord with people. There are people that there's a message there that can help people and all I remember saying is who are you to write a book Like?
Speaker 1:you're barely hanging on to you, barely hung on as a player, now, you barely know what you're doing as a manager, and so I keep kind of kicking it down the road. And then I got to the point of, like you know, it's just fear of failure and there's something about that that can drive people and I believe it drove me at times. But I got to the point of saying you know what, I'm here for a reason and I think I'm supposed to do this project. So I went and I researched and Jerry B Jenkins was somebody who I'd followed in another couple other books. One of them, joe Gibbs, thought he did a great job with that. He did a couple other, as told to biographies, and I reached out to him, called him and he actually returned my call and he kind of listed out this is kind of the way my business plan works, not to be arrogant, but you know he's sold 50 million copies of one particular series, so it's a lot he's wanted and I saw the number and I'm like oh, um, yeah, I don't think we can make that work right now, but it was great talking with you. Um, hope we meet down the road somewhere.
Speaker 1:So that was in in November following year was 2013 and our team went on a great run. Uh, we won 100 games that year and I was managing. And we went to the World Series and ended up losing to Boston in the World Series. And I remember afterwards we're in Boston and I look at my wife, kristen, and I said I know it's a stress financially to jump in, but I think we're supposed to do this book. I really do.
Speaker 1:Two days later, I get an unsolicited email from Jerry Jenkins that said I think we're supposed to do this book. So you don't have to have very much insight to realize that we needed to probably do that, or you and I wouldn't be in this conversation right now. And then really, the follow up for the dad coach was we had a number of people that said we buy what you're selling. We agree that there's some things that are off track with youth sports, but I don't know what I'm doing. You kind of left us hanging on how we agree that the what is a little messed up, but how can we go about it? And so really, the dad coach was following up on people who had bought the Matheny Manifesto book which, by the way, I hate that name of the book it wasn't mine.
Speaker 1:I had nothing to do with that. I actually tried to talk Random House out of calling the book the Matheny Manifesto, but it already stuck. But this new one, this new one was really all about how can we, how can we equip some, some some dads dads that might be, maybe they just drew the short straw and they had no desire to coach their electricians, plumbers, engineers, firemen, all across the board but they want to be there for their kid how can we give them some tools to allow them to go take advantage? And so I appreciate you bringing this book up because I'm really excited about it for one thing. You bringing this book up because I'm really excited about it, for one thing, it's a gift. I feel like it's our give back, really, to all the proceeds from this book. We're building a field in the Dominican Republic and we've got this cool tie with some ministries down there that are teaching sports and especially baseball, and bringing kids from the United States down there for an experience of community service plus baseball, which is kind of my life. But we're also just throwing in this. We have 75 QR codes through the book and we're still populating those with guys that I played with, guys I played against people I respected, even my own kids and grandkids, just kind of just spitballing us.
Speaker 1:Here's a bunch of stuff. Here are the studies. We did character studies with our kids when we were going through. Here are a bunch of the studies. Take them, do with them what you please. And here's some former major league players saying what they do with their kids. And here's some drills that I did with my kids. I did one the other day. I taught my seven-year-old grandson how to slide and we did it in my kitchen on the tile.
Speaker 1:And, just like you know, it's not this high level stuff. It's for, really aimed at dads of coaches from kids six to 12. And then, we believe, at 12, like you and I've just been talking about Casey, there comes a point where there's certain boys they need to go. They need to go find a better place to where they can really be pushed so they can maximize their abilities. But for all of them in those early ages, teach them to love the game. And for you dad coaches who don't know much, there's one QR that it takes a ball, hit in every spot on the field with any situation out and runner on base. Here's a responsibility for every player to be. Every player has a responsibility. If you just teach them this, they start to have a sense of meaning on the team, even if the ball never gets to a mall game. But teaching them things to teach kids to love the game and then see how far they take it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's I love you. It's so easy that you did that. There's everybody. There's cure, like he said, there's cure codes throughout it.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I that I love that you talked about that was a passion for mine and I coached is don't let kids stand around, and you and you and you talked about like stations and keeping kids busy and and and having a practice plan. Literally. I remember when I coached I stopped coaching basketball in sixth grade because I knew the game was outgrowing me and I didn't want to be that guy that like was doing it for me and I like thought it was more of a leadership opportunity to kind of lead by example, saying that, hey, there's better people out than me. Now you've played the major league, you can keep going, but I I love that you did that, because too often I've seen parents that do coaching sports and just show up and wing it, they come off their job and I, well, what do you guys do? All of a sudden? Kids don't. They don't respond to those environments, and I love that you called it out because I think it's really, really important. So thank you for doing that you know.
Speaker 1:You know where the biggest challenge with that was with the major league guys. And because major league guys, and because major league guys would get bored at, you know, right now spring training time, and you'd go and you'd be standing in the outfield shagging ground ball, shagging fly balls for batting practice for an hour and it's a waste of their time. Like, how do we keep them engaged?
Speaker 1:so I I really learn that more from the major league level than anything else. Just keep them thinking, keep them active and then keep them competing too, because that's what so many of them just they want to do. Naturally, you play, take a game of catch, getting your arm loose and you turn it into a competition. Watch how much better they get. So just throwing them little things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lastly, before I, before I let you go here and I take it in what I call our lightning round, which is fun for me as the host, you had a near-death experience that I did not know about and I was doing some research. I don't know if you whatever you feel comfortable sharing. Is it something that we as dads can learn about, maybe to prevent or symptoms that happen? I mean, that was that was kind of took me aback when I read that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll try to keep it short. A year ago we were snowbirds, with everybody out of the house. We come down into South Florida usually right after Christmas, so we drove down on the 15th from the St Louis area and we got to South Florida on the 17th. I went for a workout normal workout, no big deal and all of a sudden something in the back of my head wasn't right almost the top of my neck and so I called my wife and asked her if she'd come pick me up because I couldn't even get on my bike and make it back. I found out later a couple of things. I told her. I said just come get me so I can go lay down. I did something in the gym. I found out later two things.
Speaker 1:One is she wasn't happy because I was making her late for a hair appointment. She wasn't happy because I was making her late for a hair appointment. The second thing I found out was if I had gone and laid down, I would have never woken up.
Speaker 2:Wow so.
Speaker 1:I found myself in the ICU and a doctor came and told us that I'd had a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is a bleeding on the brain, that there's really no trauma had caused it and there wasn't necessarily a clot that had caused it either. What they do know is it happens in one out of every I'm sorry, six out of every 100,000 people in the population. Three out of the six did what I was about to do, and they go and they lay down and they never wake up. They never make it to the hospital. One of the remaining three, he told us, will die in this hospital because of complications. One of the remaining two will have lifelong brain damage and we are trying to help your husband to be that one.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, thanks for the but uh. So I spent 20 days and I was as healthy as I'd ever been, maybe in any time of my life. Um, but it was just one of those things. And for the next 20 days I was in bed, um, and uh, finally got clearance, went up to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, florida, and had second opinion there and all the tests did all the brain scans again and to confirm that's what it was. So really nothing that caused nothing to avoid either, but it was one of those that when I walked away, casey, I had a renewed sense of urgency. I had a renewed sense of impact.
Speaker 1:What are you doing? And I was already neck deep in this book, so the book was already in play and actually most of the pages were already written, so we didn't get to add really anything in from that experience. But what it's done is it's given me greater insight and appreciation One the fragility of life that puts us all in common. Whoever's following us right now they look at you as a college athlete, they look at me as a professional athlete maybe think we have nothing in common, but this thing we have. This thing is very unpredictable. What are we doing to make the most out of it and how are we going to make an impact with the days that we have? So I appreciate you bringing that up. Yeah, it was a wild ride, but man did. I learn a lot and I can honestly say I wouldn't want anybody to go through it, but I'm grateful for some of the lessons that I was able to learn through it.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is insane. You got goosebumps, man. Well, I'm grateful you're here, I'm grateful you're spending time with me and, um, as you were saying that, one of my favorite four numbers is 1,440, which is the number of minutes we all get each day. No one gets more known, gets less.
Speaker 2:And so when people tell me they don't have time to do anything, I said that's the story you're telling yourself. We all can have time. It's about what you choose to do with your time and that I'd rather be a naive optimist with focusing on what I can control. And, um, I I mean, if that's an inspiration for everybody at home, if there's something you've been thinking about doing, stop using phrases like I need to, I should do, I want to, and just say go and will. You will go coach your son's team or your daughter's team. You will go, um, take them for a hike. You will get off your phone. You will email, answer emails later, maybe when your kids go to bed. But, like the, the time is such a valuable asset and, uh, winning time is something that's a very thing I'm very addicted to, because it means I'm being present. And um, uh well, this has been awesome. I feel like I want to be sensitive of your time. I know you're three hours ahead of me.
Speaker 2:Where can people learn more about you as an author? Um, how can we get their this book out to them? Um, both books. But I want to make sure, cause I'm uh and I call this a call the serendipitous God moment or something, because the fact that I read the Menthany manifesto and if you'd have told me, hey, guess what, when you're 49 years old, you're actually going to talk to this dude on a podcast, I'm like what I'd be saying. What's a podcast? What is that? So it's serendipitous that we're talking about. How can I make sure we get the word out about this great book?
Speaker 1:yeah, it'll be. It'll be available I believe someone told me the 25th on amazon. We are launching the book on the 28th, so we're're only about a week away. We'll do a launch in St Louis and most bookstores, so we're very fortunate that the Random House Penguin people have put a good amount of effort into making this thing a success and for us it's just an opportunity to go man.
Speaker 1:Every coach that we help has an opportunity to help at least a dozen kids right, and that's why I appreciate what you're doing, casey, when we're out here and I believe very much in what Mr Billy Graham said, and his quote was a coach is going to impact more people in one year than most people do in a lifetime, and that inroads of what these kids are passionate about. I don't care coaching piano, I don't care if it's coaching baseball or football or basketball.
Speaker 3:Whatever?
Speaker 1:it is that you're coaching, take advantage of using that platform to help mold people, and what a great gift. So thank you for what you're doing, Thank you for including me, thank you for promoting this book and once again, I'm excited just to see and hear some of the cool stories on the backside, because I know it was done with the right heart, with trying to just help people and help kids, and when you're doing that man, it's just a fun space to be in.
Speaker 2:It's a gift man. Well, okay, we're going to go to what I call the lightning round now, where I show you the negative hits. Have taken too many hits in college not bong hits, mike, but football hits and my job is to ask you these questions quickly.
Speaker 1:Your job is to answer them quickly, but I'm hopeful to get a giggle out of.
Speaker 2:You Got it. Are you ready, ready? Okay, true or false? Your, your idol in baseball from a catcher's perspective was Roger Dorn.
Speaker 1:False, false, okay, um, that's favorite major league player of all time is um, johnny bench going right down that alley, which, uh, roger Dorn, was pretty fun to watch, though, For that was a heavy sarcasm.
Speaker 2:Pray people home. Roger Dorn is a fictitious character from the movie Major League.
Speaker 1:Favorite Major League stadium you ever played in. I loved what was at that time called Pac Bell Park in San.
Speaker 2:Francisco when it was brand new. It was beautiful, cool. Did you ever play in the Kingdome?
Speaker 1:I did. I faced Randyson quite a few times there.
Speaker 2:Unbelievable, unbelievable experience I grew up diehard mariner fan. I'm really proud to say they were the only major league team, mike, to never win a world series. It feels really good, but I'm not jumping off the bandwagon. I'm not some really really good teams back in the day.
Speaker 1:Man, they were good. They're fun to watch so close.
Speaker 2:If you were to go on vacation right now, you and your wife, no kids, no grandkids where are you going? We're going to the Exumas in the Bahamas. Okay, if I was to come over to your house for dinner tonight, you're cooking tell me what we'd have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll definitely be meat and potatoes. It's a mistake. Red meat carnivore Uh, my wife would probably make me mix in a little bit of salad and we'd probably have a nice glass of red wine.
Speaker 2:There we go. Um, if I went into your phone and um, what would be one genre of music that might surprise your kids? You listen to ah jazz. Okay, um, favorite comedy movie of all time is Dumb and Dumber. So you're telling me there's a chance. Okay, if there was to be a book written about your life, tell me the title.
Speaker 1:Oh man Blessed.
Speaker 2:Okay Now. So the dad coach is killing it, the Matheny Manifest is killing it Now. Blessed is the new book that's out and it's selling more than any other copy ever you've ever written. But now netflix found out about they're going to make a movie about you and this book called blessed. But you're the casting director, you. It can't be you, and I need to know what hollywood actor is going to star mike methanium, this critically acclaimed, hit new movie oh man, um man, I'm supposed to have a quick answer.
Speaker 1:I've had as many things ahead as you, by the way. Um, I had jim carrey on my mind but I'm nowhere near as funny to to permit that to ever happen. Yeah, you got me den. Denzel Washington's my favorite actor of all times, but that doesn't fit. Let's put Denzel behind the dish, I like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like it, that'd be actually. That'd be a fun one to watch. Okay, and last and most important question, tell me two words that would describe your wife, wise and um way too many words internally externally beautiful. We're going to call that hyphenated. You pulled it off Very impressed.
Speaker 1:Thank you the lighting round's over.
Speaker 2:We both giggled a little bit. This has been a gift. I'm so honored that you decided to share some time with us. I will do everything in my power to get the word out. There's so many coaches that need tools, like you took the time to do it, and I think so many people play pro sports or play at the college level and then they, they go on and do what they do. But the fact that you, you're listening to your calling and you're you're sharing your, your experience and you're helping others, um, it's inspiring and I really, really appreciate everything you're doing. Um, if this episode everybody at home has touched you, please share it with a coach. Please share the book with a coach who wants to make sure they learn about it.
Speaker 2:If you've not taken time to leave us a review wherever you consume these podcasts, that will be a big gift to me. Just know people out there are listening, but our goal is just to keep serving one dad at a time and try to create better humans that enter the workforce, the enter society, and the three pillars that really drive me to people know are trying to create more humble humble humans, curious humans and vulnerable humans. I think when those, those three skills are present, we're going to have great culture, no matter where we go. So, mike, thank you again so much for your time. I'm grateful for you. Thank you, casey.