My good friend and former college teammate Cliff Smith recently was named head baseball coach at Elizabethtown College (Pennsylvania). After graduating from Brandeis, Cliff spent five years playing professionally in the Anaheim and Pittsburgh organizations. He was a mentor to me during my early days on campus and if you read his words, you’ll understand why he will be an exceptional role model for Elizabethtown’s baseball student-athletes.

Becoming the head coach of a Division III institution has been my professional goal since my collegiate years at Brandeis University. Even during my five-year minor league baseball career, I always knew that eventually I would want the opportunity to be a positive role model at the collegiate level. As an assistant at Bowdoin College, I dreamed of the days when I would be the head of a college baseball program. So when I was fortunate enough to be offered the head coaching position at Elizabethtown (Pennsylvania) College, I jumped at the opportunity.

It was hard to leave Bowdoin, but you have to be willing to make leaps in life, especially in such a competitive profession. I really feel that Etown is a great situation and institution to attach myself to. The motto here is to “prepare for service,” and I really feel that the college cares about the education of its students, as well as taking pride in athletics competition. The academic pursuits of student-athletes at Etown are of the utmost importance and I’m proud to be part of an institution that fully subscribes to the Division III philosophy that was ingrained in me as a player at Brandeis and coach at Bowdoin.

From a baseball standpoint, the Blue Jay baseball team had been very successful under former coach Matt Jones (now at Shippensburg), and returns the core of a nucleus that won the 2006 Commonwealth Championship.

As exciting as this new opportunity is, it was a little overwhelming at first. The transition from an assistant coach to a head coach was a big change. At Bowdoin, I was a volunteer assistant, so I worked in the Special Services Department of a local high school as a teacher’s aide to pay the bills. From a baseball standpoint, I just had to worry about showing up for practice and handling my recruiting duties. I never realized the little things that head coaches were responsible for, not to mention my second responsibility at Etown as an equipment manager.

Organizing a Florida trip, ordering equipment, managing a fund-raising budget, and finding qualified assistant coaches were just a few things that had to be accomplished in just a short three-week span. Add those things to the fun stuff of organizing practices, getting to know 27 players, and preparing to play a competitive schedule and the task can feel a little daunting. Personally you also have to adjust to being outside of you support system, with a family and girlfriend that are now eight hours away.

Thankfully, the people here at Elizabethtown have been great in allowing me to settle in. The athletics department staff has gone out of its way to offer help in any way. Coach Jones has also been very helpful during the transition, showing an obvious care for the players here at Elizabethtown. Even the players have been excited about the transition, understanding that they have the opportunity to go through a different system and to learn from that.

Looking back I have learned a lot in my first month and a half here at Etown. Sometimes being a baseball coach is more than just knowing drills, bunt defenses, or first and third plays. It’s how you present those things to your student-athletes, and how you communicate with them off the field. It is also about space maximization, especially since we do not have a giant field house here at Elizabethtown. How do you fit certain drills in a small area, and if you can’t what are your main goals for that practice? I have found that sometimes the emphasis has to be on the quality of one aspect of the game. Trying to do too much has gotten me in trouble, and as with most things in life it is sometimes about keeping it simple.

What is my coaching style? I learned a lot from Pete Varney (Brandeis) and Mike Connolly (Bowdoin) but how do I teach that knowledge to my current players? It has been interesting trying to instill the things that I want to be a part of my baseball program. Small details like a specific stretch routine, pitcher drills, or hitting stations take a little longer when you are trying to get your players to do them exactly right. Thankfully, my players have been very open-minded and willing to learn some different ideas than what they were previously accustomed to.

The long and the short of it is that it has been a whirlwind first few weeks. In that time I have learned a lot about how to be a head baseball coach, and about myself. I hope that head coaches that read this can look back on their first year and remember some of the difficulties that they encountered. I know when I talked to Coach Connolly he had kind of forgotten how much of a mad dash his first year was at Bowdoin. I hope that assistant coaches can read this and get an idea of some of the things they have to look forward to when they get their first head job.

So far it has been and will continue to be a great experience. Now we just have to get that first win out of the way!

Comment on this article