What do college baseball coaches actually look for? In this conversation, I sit down with Bryan Torresani, Head Baseball Coach at DeSales University, to unpack what really matters in the recruiting process — and what often gets overlooked. Many players focus on velocity, statistics, and what level they’re “good enough” to play at. But Bryan explains that what separates players often goes beyond measurable tools. We discuss how coaches evaluate athletes when things aren’t going their way, why recruiting is a two-way street, and how players can stand out through their behavior, communication, and daily habits. Bryan also shares what freshmen struggle with most when they arrive on campus — from the speed of the game to the demands of managing their time, routines, and responsibilities. If you’re a high school player with college aspirations — or a parent trying to help your athlete navigate the recruiting process — this episode will give you a clearer understanding of what college coaches are really paying attention to.
⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Introduction
01:15 – Bryan’s background and coaching journey
03:30 – What it takes to climb the coaching ladder
06:00 – What coaches actually look for when recruiting
09:00 – Why behavior and body language matter
12:00 – Recruiting as a two-way street
15:30 – How athletes can show genuine interest
18:30 – Division I vs Division III: understanding fit
22:30 – Playing time, academics, and lifestyle differences
26:00 – What makes a great recruiter
29:30 – What coaches expect from athletes in the recruiting process
33:00 – The transition from high school to college baseball
36:30 – Why the game “speeds up” at the next level
39:30 – Physical and mental demands of college baseball
42:00 – Time management, routines, and habits
45:00 – Communication between coaches and players
48:00 – Building trust and team culture
51:00 – The evolving role of coaching
54:00 – Bryan’s experience with burnout and growth
57:30 – The role of parents in the recruiting process
1:00:00 – The #1 piece of advice for high school players
🧠 SHOW NOTES
In Episode 90, I sit down with Bryan Torresani, Head Baseball Coach at DeSales University, to discuss what college coaches are really looking for in recruits — and how players can better prepare for the next level.
For many athletes, the recruiting process feels like a constant evaluation. Players often focus on statistics, velocity, and exposure, trying to prove they belong at a certain level.
But Bryan explains that what separates players often comes down to something much simpler — and harder to measure.
How they respond to failure.
How they carry themselves on the field.
And how they handle the daily demands of development.
We discuss:
Bryan also shares practical advice for players preparing for college baseball, including the importance of strength training, building routines, and taking ownership of the recruiting process.
If you’ve ever wondered what truly stands out to college coaches — or how players can position themselves for success beyond high school — this episode provides a clear and honest perspective.
🤝 CONNECT WITH BRYAN TORRESANI
🌐 DeSales Baseball:
👉 https://athletics.desales.edu/sports/baseball
📷 Instagram:
@btorr12
📷 X:
@torr_b12
Michael Huber (00:01.046)
Hey, Brian, how are you today? Great. Thanks for joining me on the podcast. For those who are listening, can you just kind of maybe give a short intro about your background?
Bryan Torresani (00:03.032)
Good Mike, are you?
Sure.
Bryan Torresani (00:11.746)
Yeah, sure. So, I've been in college baseball for this, my 19th season, in my 12th overall as a head coach. And I guess the quick, the quick way to say it is I spent time at all three divisions of the NCAA, you know, and, had some time, as an assistant, at some of the lower divisions as well. So, you know, I bounced around here in the last couple of years, but I'm currently the head coach at the sales university in center Valley, Pennsylvania, right outside of Allentown and, very just excited to
and you're one as the head coach here, so.
Michael Huber (00:44.054)
Okay, great. like 19 years in baseball, that was one of my questions. I'm not a big script guy, right? I don't try to script out these interviews. One of the questions I wrote down before we started recording is, what's it like trying to climb the ladder as a college baseball coach? Because I know that could be really, really, really challenging.
Bryan Torresani (00:50.98)
Sure.
Bryan Torresani (01:02.548)
Yeah, I've enjoyed this journey, obviously, so I've never really like, I guess I've never.
It's never bothered me, but as I look back and think about other people's journeys and things like that, like it, it is challenging. You're not, you know, folks don't make a lot of money in this business. That's the number one, I think factor for a lot of guys that maybe don't sustain through, their career to kind of climb that ladder because you really got to grind to make it, you know, to make ends meet as a young assistant. there's just not a lot of full-time coaching jobs at the lower levels, you know, until you kind of get to that division one, you know, level to be able.
to get there. you know, and then the other thing too is you have to surround, like you got to find people to surround yourself with that are successful, that are well connected, that can help you move on. And that's something I enjoy doing, you know, here and throughout my career with my assistants is like, I have a little coaching tree, I guess, starting to develop here, which I appreciate that a lot, like just being able to have guys to help kind of make that journey and move up to where they want to get to. But it takes a lot of hard work. I would say the number one thing
is you got to become a good recruiter. That's what people want in this business. Somebody that's willing to spend the time in the summer watching a lot of baseball and finding diamonds in the rough and being able to bring good players and good people into their program. That's where I think most people kind of make their inroads to climb the ladder there.
Michael Huber (02:28.078)
Okay, and that is also one of the things I was curious about is recruiting, right? Because if you take the money out of it, like you just said, right, like, which obviously is not realistic, but if you did, recruiting sounds not like a bad gig, right? Like you're going to watch a lot of baseball, maybe you're out in the summertime, know, getting on the road isn't easy. I've traveled a lot in my career. But like when you're out recruiting, like maybe this is a better place to go. It's like, what are some of the things you're looking for in players? Now, obviously there are roles and responsibilities and things you need in a given
season going into a program. But what are some of the things you're focused on as a coach when you're out watching players on the road?
Bryan Torresani (03:04.504)
Yeah, sure. I mean, I certainly think there's like a floor of kind of what you're looking for athletically. I mean, we could certainly talk about pitching velocities and 60 times and all that kind of stuff. But I'll take it like a little bit of a different direction to like if all that stuff's kind of met in terms of like, guess the I guess the point is like the easy thing to do is to show up and see who the best player on the field is. That's not a difficult task. But
you know, the, the, more important thing for me is like how do guys carry themselves? really when things aren't going their way, I think is what I kind of look for a lot. we kind of, usually when we go out recruiting, we have some targets of kids we want to go see that day. like, we sort of know the talent level, but when we're, when we're out there sort of looking at these target type of kids, it's like, okay, if they do strike out or if they do a roughening on the mound, like how, how are they acting with their teammates in the dugout and what's sort of the response on the field? I think that that's a big piece of the puzzle. And then at our level.
level a little bit different than the higher levels is like there's the projection piece as well. So we're looking at a kid at 16, 17 years old. It's like, okay, can we look in the crystal ball and what is he going to be at 18, 19, 20 years old? And the way I like to say it with us is, you know, we recruit a lot of guys that we think are like fringe division one players coming out of high school that our goal is that they would be no doubt division one player as a sophomore or junior in our program, you know, and so that's kind of what we're looking for.
from like a projection standpoint. The last thing I'll say too is I do tell our assistants a lot like if you can't picture a kid in our uniform when we're recruiting him, meaning physically, we're gonna have a hard time like offering that kid a spot because there's no guarantee that guys are gonna come in and get stronger and faster but so we need we need physical players especially as college baseball has turned into a little bit of an older man's game right now with the transfer things like that so.
Michael Huber (04:51.787)
in the
Okay, so like, have there been instances where you've gone targeting a kid? I mean, you've been doing it in 19 years, so I'm guessing the answer to question is that's where you've been targeting a kid and then you see something in their behavior and their attitude in a game or in some sort of setting where you just go, hey, you know what, I thought I wanted this guy, but I'm not gonna take him.
Bryan Torresani (05:16.139)
yeah, definitely. mean, it happens quite a bit.
you know, probably a few times, I would say every recruiting cycle. And listen, it's not like one of those things where like you're writing a kid off, like you see one thing and all of a sudden it's like you're, you're crossing them off and moving on to the next guy. one of the things I value a lot is my, my dad was a high school coach for 30 years, football, basketball, baseball. So I really value the opinion of the high school coach. so we, know, if we're really after a guy and it's getting close to sort of offering him and, we do it, you know, we're going to call the high school coach and find out a little bit more about a kid. so.
if there's an instance where we see something on the field, we want to find out like is that out of character or is that something that is you know sort of a constant. To me those are two different scenarios.
Michael Huber (06:01.208)
Right, almost like you're fact checking it, right? Because listen, and this is something I would talk about in my work, which is sometimes you're going to be emotional because you're human and it's okay. It's how you bounce back from it, right? If that's a consistent behavior versus, it was a one-off because there was something going on. And this is something we talked about before and we'll get into more as we go forward in the conversation. It's like sometimes there's things going on in your life in the background that affect those kinds of behaviors. And that's totally reasonable. There's a reason why it happens. It's just...
Bryan Torresani (06:09.252)
Sure.
Bryan Torresani (06:25.22)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (06:31.19)
Is this something that's a consistent behavior? Is it something that's a one-off, right? And being able to identify that as a recruiter is important. So like, what do you think makes a good recruiter, right? In terms of from a coach's side, like what do you think are some of the elements of being able to be successful in getting the kinds of players you wanna bring into a program?
Bryan Torresani (06:51.322)
Yeah, sure. mean, certainly you have to have a good eye for talent, right? You have to be able to show up at a field and sort of find who are the players that you feel like can help your program. Again, I kind of mentioned this a few minutes ago. I think that's the easy part in recruiting. And I think this is where to kind of tie it in too, like sort of like, you know, climbing the ladder and all those sort of things. The backend part of recruiting is what a lot of people don't realize is where the real work is. Meaning like we could be in an event for three days for eight, 10 hours a day.
watching a ton of baseball, that's easy. And circling names and jotting down some notes and all that stuff. But like now we got to spend, you know, multiple hours coming back in the office and putting our notes into our database and and then subsequently making a plan for, you know, contacting and communicating with with the player, his family and sort of game planning how we want to go about each kid's process. And I think that's the part that really makes a good recruiter, like somebody that
Michael Huber (07:25.484)
Right.
Bryan Torresani (07:51.178)
can be organized, number one, and then also, you know, well spoken on the phone and, and, just to really make a kid feel wanted at the end of the day and a family, honestly, because these are, these are really family decisions when it, when push comes to shove, you know, and then somebody that's not going to forget about kids, right? Like the, not that we want to call them every week per se, but you know, once a month, if we're recruiting a guy is kind of our goal for contact, at least over the phone. And we do some other things intermittent.
in there as well with text messages and emails. But if you want to be a good recruiter, have to have a system in place to follow to make kids feel like they're really wanted.
Michael Huber (08:33.294)
Yeah, so okay, so that kind of leads me to my next question. The preamble to that is I have a sophomore high school soccer player who's female and she's extremely organized. She has lists. She's very, very mature and adult about her follow-up and we've been very intentional about targeting and she's out there killing it. So can you talk about it from the athlete side in terms of what you expect from the kids you're recruiting versus like,
Bryan Torresani (08:41.934)
Okay.
Michael Huber (09:02.07)
it's all on you versus, are you looking at like their kind of engagement in the process and their willingness to reach out and express a desire to be at your program?
Bryan Torresani (09:12.544)
Absolutely. think that's a huge piece to the puzzle. know, recruiting is really a two way street. And, you know, listen, like I've been around, I've been at every level, and I know sort of like kids don't, I say it all the time, like a junior high school doesn't wake up being like, man, I'm dying to play division three baseball. You know, they all want to play at division one. And I get that. usually, usually there's a point in time where like, for most kids where they figure out, you know, sort of where they fit in the process, you know, and once that happens,
Michael Huber (09:18.914)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Torresani (09:42.38)
You know, kids that show that mutual interest definitely shoot up our list higher than a guy that's kind of more standoffish or sort of you get the sense that you're like always searching for something better. You know, like I think that's a turnoff, you know, for us and quite frankly, we'll just move on in a lot of those cases for sure. I do think the female male sort of comparison there is interesting too because the...
I would say there's a smaller percentage of males that would be like your daughter. I have a 12 year old daughter in seventh grade and if she wants to be an athlete in college, she'll be the same exact way you just described. And I have a six year old son and I can already tell you years down the road, it'll be the complete opposite I can already tell. So like I do think trying to get a game plan together and a strategy for your recruiting is helpful.
Michael Huber (10:08.749)
Yes.
Michael Huber (10:17.667)
Yes.
Michael Huber (10:30.414)
I think you're right on the mark there. mean, not to sort of generalize, but I think it's, you know, there's, it's a much more common thing for female. Like one of the first podcasts I did way back when in 2021 was with a soccer player who actually happens to be my second or third cousin, like my cousin's daughter. And she played soccer initially at, for four years, she played soccer in the ACC. And she told a story about how she was like just maniacal about the follow-up.
Bryan Torresani (10:49.401)
Yeah, yeah.
Michael Huber (11:00.194)
the follow-up and she wanted to play and she eventually she sent an email one day and the coach picked up the email and said we're gonna offer you like that like follow-up because it's like they may be interested in you but like they got so many people who are interested and they have so many recruits and there's targets and if you're not persistent and not take that personally that's something maybe we'll talk more about in different contexts it's not personal right like if you want something go get it if
Bryan Torresani (11:22.564)
Sure.
Yeah.
Michael Huber (11:26.07)
If a coach doesn't want you, it's not because you're not good enough to be there. It's because they've got limited resources. Like they only can offer so many spots. And so if you take that personally, it's going to sap your motivation really fast versus I know what I want. So I want to talk about a couple of things that you've kind of referenced, right? So one is, you know, like that idea of a kid wanting to be a D1, like that's sort of the thing, right? But like when you pick a D1 school, like if you're going for that,
The odds that you're going to get on the field on day one are probably pretty low, if not, in some cases, zero. So do you kind of sell that to kids? Because I talk about this in my work as well. What are your priorities? Do you want to play on day one or at least have a chance? Well, then that means you might need to go to a D3. Are you academically inclined? You might want to focus more on your studies.
Bryan Torresani (12:03.706)
sure.
Michael Huber (12:21.762)
then, you or at least be able to balance it a little bit better than I'm on a bus on Wednesday, I'm coming home Monday morning and baseball is the only thing I'm focused on and school takes a back seat. That's fine if that's what you want. But like, are you set like selling that in the recruiting process? Not to be pejorative, but like, hey, you're going to have a chance to get on the field and play. You're going to be able to focus on being a physical therapy or an engineer or whatever those things are. Whereas in D1, you might be, you know, general studies because it's baseball first.
Bryan Torresani (12:51.022)
Yeah, think, I mean, a lot of folks...
don't even understand that. Like in my one year at Delaware, which I loved, it was fun and recruiting there was great. But like, you're right. Like I wanted to be a physical therapist or an engineer. Like they couldn't do that in division one baseball, at least at Delaware. And it was, it's the commitment is, is just a little bit of a different animal. mean, in our recruiting, like we're certainly not, like I'm certainly not bashing anybody's dreams or any other programs or levels or things like that. we're like the way that I look at that is like, we're trying to promote like the value ads that the sales
can offer a student athlete. And some of those things certainly have to do with playing time. I also do think sometimes it is a misnomer that even at our level, a freshman is going to be able to just come in and step on the field right away. We do have a couple this year. lucky. We are playing some freshmen right now, and they happen to be guys that are ready. sometimes it does take a year for even, especially in the good Division III programs, for guys to get on the field. It's competitive. And I think the other thing, especially in baseball,
Michael Huber (13:34.36)
Right?
Bryan Torresani (13:54.132)
ball that people need to keep in mind too is, know, there's, so many different, models of roster management at division three, you know, and, so I've been involved in kind of two of them, one sort of the 50, 60 man roster with it, with a developmental program. and now here at the sales where we have 34 guys on our roster right now, and we're going to try to keep it in that ballpark, going forward, which means a couple of things like, yeah, number one, we can't offer every kid that wants to be
to sales because I don't have enough roster spots to be able to do that. Right. But also number two, if it is a kid, like you're saying that we could say, Hey, we really do believe you could come here and get on the field early in your career. Like there's a real, there's a real shot at that because it's just a numbers game at that point. You know, we have 16 offensive players right now. Like we're playing a lot of different guys. So it's, it's, I think there's some credence to some of that stuff too, that needs to be kind of taken into account. Not saying the 50, 60 thing is bad. Some guys go there for
played a lot of JV games, develop, get on the field, but you're you're competing in a bigger ocean.
Michael Huber (14:59.726)
Yeah, and I think that's an important point for people to hear, And it's not just even roster management, right? Division three is different, division one's another animal, but it's also just philosophically, from a baseball perspective, how do we want to play the game, right? And so your style of play might not fit into the philosophy of this is how we want to play baseball, right? And so that's where finding a fit, right? Like that's where I, on the athlete side, might be, hey, these are the questions you need to be thinking about of like,
What is your coaching philosophy? How do you see me developing? And if those things aren't matched, it's not bad. It's not personal. It's just not a fit. And I think that's life. And I think sometimes it's taken very personally, like, they don't want me. I'm not good enough. Where maybe sometimes that's true. The ability level is just not high enough. But sometimes it's just not a good fit. And I think that's the thing, the emotion that comes into play for the kid, where it's like, they don't want me. OK?
Bryan Torresani (15:42.148)
Definitely.
Bryan Torresani (15:52.665)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (15:58.308)
now.
Michael Huber (15:58.852)
You know, don't worry about it. Keep moving. There's a lot of schools out there, but you got to do the work. Otherwise you're going to, you're going to get left behind. So you mentioned being, you're having that year at Delaware. So maybe you could talk a little bit about some of the differences just between coaching at the division one and division three levels.
Bryan Torresani (16:16.181)
Yeah, definitely. You know, I think from a, I guess from a recruiting standpoint, like I'll start there.
You know, the, the funnel, so to speak, is much smaller at division one, meaning like, you know, I showed, I show up to a field now and the amount of guys that I show up that I think can help us at the sales is much larger than when I would show up to a field and, know, as wearing my, blue hands gear as the recruiting coordinator there. like that's good and bad. mean, you have to, you're working just as hard. The thing I liked about recruiting at that level was the fact that we spent a lot of time on each guy.
like getting to know them and the process we didn't move super quickly. So like here at the sales or at division three, like you might get one or two looks at like a hitter and have to make a decision where like I would drive on a Tuesday or Monday off day, I would drive three hours to watch a kid take four at bats and drive home. And I was only there to see that one kid in a high school game. And then the next week I'm doing the same thing. Cause I need to see 10, 12, 15 at bats at least.
we're going to make like a final decision, you know, on guys. So you're drilling down a little bit further on each guy. And a lot of that has to do with like, you're offering them money, you know? And so, and at the time I was there, it was, you know, the 11.7 rule was still in effect. The NIL stuff was kind of just starting, but...
you can't get it wrong. Like if you offer a 50 % and you miss, like you're eating that money for four years and now that's a big chunk of your scholarship budget. So that part is certainly different.
Bryan Torresani (17:55.108)
You know, the travel at Division one certainly is a lot different too. You know, in baseball, especially like if you're on the road for a weekend series, like you're in Thursday, you're missing class all day, Thursday, all day, Friday, you're playing Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you're getting back to campus sometimes Monday morning, 1, 2 a.m. and going and have to go to 8 a.m. class that day, you know, and all that stuff. And so like that part is a lot different. That does not typically happen at our level. You know, with the travels much more manageable for guys.
Michael Huber (18:16.673)
and
Bryan Torresani (18:25.052)
wrong. The support at Delaware is tremendous. I told my parents, I feel like I was working in Disney World. Like, we had somebody for everything. We had academic advisors and IT people just for athletics. And like, the resources are certainly like there to support the kids. I'm not trying to make it sound like they're just out on their own, but it definitely is a little bit of a bigger commitment from a travel academic standpoint, that sort of thing, for sure.
Michael Huber (18:49.056)
Yeah, and I think that's also important for not only the athletes to hear, but the families to hear that there's an investment being made and there's a risk and reward sort of profile, right? Like we're giving not only our money, but we're also giving our time and we only have so many spots. Like we got to make sure we make a good, we got to raise the probability that we're going to be right here versus maybe at division three, we don't have as many resources and you know, we're going to offer. like that maybe also kind of checks.
Bryan Torresani (19:07.866)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (19:16.143)
that what we were talking about before, which is if you're a family and you're looking at division three schools, more of the onus might be on you to let the coach know like, hey, here's my video, here's what I'm looking for, here's my interest in you because that gives them more to go on versus I'm only gonna get to see them once or twice in the summer. Now I gotta decide like, hey, what am I gonna do with them versus this kid showed a lot of interest. I've seen a lot of video, I've gotten a lot of information.
the risk goes down because I'm getting more communication and I'm seeing more data about this person, that's gonna allow me to feel more comfortable that, you know what, it's not guaranteed, but maybe this is a good fit for us because there's a two-way street and it's not just you going, I saw one tournament at Diamond Nation, you know, in July and now all of a sudden I gotta make a choice. Okay, so what were some of the challenges you faced? Because I know we talked about this before, you we recorded like,
Bryan Torresani (19:47.492)
sure.
Bryan Torresani (20:04.354)
Yep, no absolutely.
Michael Huber (20:11.919)
as division, you know, and I don't know if it was endemic to division one, but like at the division one level, what was more difficult or what was more challenging about maybe being at the division three level?
Bryan Torresani (20:22.074)
My situation was a little different, I think, than most.
You know, I had come off of a really successful seven year run at Arcadia University. We won four championships in that span, hosted two regionals. We set the program record for wins on three separate occasions, which was cool. And, and I was really just like, we talked about climbing the ladder earlier. And for me, like personally, like I was really chasing that, that sort of that dream. And, you know, I was fortunate enough after, after my seventh year to
Michael Huber (20:31.907)
Bryan Torresani (20:56.316)
we offered an assistant spot at the University of Delaware. so, you know, I think sometimes people forget that we have families and, you know, have big decisions to make. you know, my wife teaches, has a really good teaching job in a school district in Pennsylvania. We have two little kids I just mentioned. you know, and we live about 60 miles from the University of Delaware, not a great route to get, you know, traffic, the whole nine, but, you know, we decided to take the chance and I'm glad I did, cause it really, it really has shaped me moving forward. But anyway,
Michael Huber (21:09.272)
and
Bryan Torresani (21:26.236)
I just bit off a little more than I could chew, quite frankly, between the commute, the time away, and just feeling a little guilty on the family front, I think was a big challenge for me personally, to the point where I actually thought I was going get out of coaching and kind of maybe pursue some other areas.
Now that I'm back in it and doing what I love and being a head coach and sort of have a different perspective on some things, I'm much happier now and just in a much better, I guess, frame of mind.
Sometimes I'm still getting that itch to potentially climb the ladder, I don't know where that'll head. It's kind of one year at a time now, but I do think everything kind of happens for a reason. so all that stuff happened for the right reasons, even though I couldn't see it. Even as recent as about six months ago, I was still like not in a great spot, but I'm kind of seeing it more clear now that all this was a good thing for me.
Michael Huber (22:22.443)
And, know, whatever you're comfortable with, but like, how did that affect you? Like specifically, like what was going on?
Bryan Torresani (22:25.508)
Sure.
Bryan Torresani (22:30.392)
Yeah, no, mean, I'm happy to share. think this is important. You know, it was a combination of a couple different things. know, certainly Burnout was, I guess, the classic, like...
pat myself on the back her burnout, think scenario never feel like I'm doing though we were winning cha we had players going to play as grad transfers with covid getting good grade. We w right there basically and I completely happy and and into the ground and and hon a of a toxic envirom at times too, as I look
Michael Huber (22:54.447)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Torresani (23:13.312)
at times, you know, through all that despite the fact that we were winning. and so, you know, that was certainly a challenge. And, you know, once I kind of got off that, that Arcadia hamster wheel, quote unquote, and got to Delaware, it just felt different. I don't know. It's hard to describe. I just felt like,
I just wasn't in sort of the frame of mind to like do a good job, do a good enough job there. And I really respected the heck out of the head coach and still him and I are still good friends. And, and, you know, and so, I just felt like I, I, I owed it to him to not give my best effort. And so sort of stepped away and decided to look for some other things. I will tell you though, in that year, was so impactful for me. We might've talked about this on the phone, I think at one point, but coach Mamula at Delaware,
Michael Huber (23:42.233)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (24:03.292)
It's just a tremendous human being, number one, and he's also a tremendous baseball coach on top of that. And so for me to be able to witness him operate for a year, I think is, as I say, like I was at the right place at the right time is what I mean. Like the environment he created around the program was just an environment where like guys wanted to be at the field every day. They never felt like, you know, they were going to get screamed and yelled at. And was sort of that toxic thing I was talking about before. Whenever something bad
Michael Huber (24:31.566)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Torresani (24:33.292)
happened in a game like with an umpire missed a call or a kid did something he wasn't supposed to do like he was just always down the middle steady never never riled up and and i'd never seen that before like i always sort of had mentors and played for guys that were not that way so me to witness that for an entire year like i'm much i still have it in me i still have the italian blood running through my veins but i'm much calmer now much more in the middle steady and i think that's going to extend my career for a long time here thankfully
Michael Huber (24:46.734)
You
Michael Huber (24:56.109)
Sure.
Michael Huber (25:02.894)
Yeah, I think it underscores a couple things, right? One is you're always learning, right? And sometimes you don't know what you don't know, right? Especially if you're not necessarily exposed to it, then you get exposed to a different way of thinking and go, oh, there's another way to do this. I think the maybe the bigger point, maybe I mean, maybe they're equally as important, but I think the important point here is like we're human, right? You're human. I've been through my own stuff. I've been through anxiety. I've been through other problems.
because I feel like I need to be doing more, I need to be better at my job, I need to make more money, whatever it is, I have my own business now. I show up some days where I feel guilty that I'm sort of like run ragged about I'm trying to help these kids and that's my job, but I got all this other stuff I gotta worry about in the background that they know nothing about, it's not for them. But then you're sort of managing that, right? And I think for families and parents,
Bryan Torresani (25:46.244)
Sure.
Bryan Torresani (25:54.842)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (25:56.974)
and kids to understand like, the coaches that you're dealing with, yes, they have a responsibility, they have a job, just like you do. They're gonna have rough days, they're gonna have rough periods in their life, and sometimes it's not reflective of who they are as people, it's reflective of the fact that life is really hard. And like, maybe sort of the segue to that is communication, right? It's something I talk to kids a lot about, which is, if you're not happy with your lot, right, as a player, as an athlete, let's just keep it there.
You can always go knock on your coach's door and have a conversation so you guys understand each other better versus assuming you think you know why a coach is making a choice or why they're acting the way they're acting versus, hey, you know what? I don't know what's going on here, but I'm going to go find out. Vice versa, same thing, right? So can you talk about just communication as a coach and how important that is? I know it's trite, but I think it is valuable to talk about.
Bryan Torresani (26:41.273)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (26:50.028)
No, definitely. you know, I'm actually going to flip that on you a little bit because we just had this
Michael Huber (26:56.313)
Cool.
Bryan Torresani (26:56.73)
within our program recently. And my stance is I actually don't want our players coming to knock on the door and asking me when they're going to play, what they need to do to get better. And that sounds crazy. And I'm going to get to my point in a second. So I'm not like completely off the rails. And, know, we tell them their job is to work while they wait, continue to get better and be ready when their number's called. And that being said,
Michael Huber (27:06.521)
Hmm.
Michael Huber (27:19.822)
Okay.
Bryan Torresani (27:26.104)
That allows me some control of those conversations, meaning this, just earlier this week, now we're eight games in, some roles are starting to form, some guys aren't playing as much as they've played in the past in their careers. Now I initiate those conversations with the player who I kind of know is probably thinking exactly what you just said. And then I'm calling him in the office. And I think that drops the guard down a little bit where I can say to him, number one, like, are you okay? How are you doing? me, you know, tell me how you're feeling.
and but at the same time also giving him my honest evaluation of what his role is right now, what we see him as. But also like if they're in the program kind of at least giving them telling them like listen this can change when you walk out the door. You know I get a phone call from the trainer that we had a kid slip on ice and break his wrist you may be in there tomorrow you know and so we need you to continue to work and we need you not to just put out and put your head down but
that's something where I've grown where in the past I would just say like, don't come knock on my door and ask me why you're not playing. And then I wouldn't go have those conversations with the guys that we needed to have them with. And I think that affects the team.
Michael Huber (28:31.438)
Mmm.
Michael Huber (28:36.367)
Well, absolutely. And so I think what you said there, I would certainly not dispute it because I think there's, you know, it's simplistic to say like, hey, I should just go talk to my coach. Like you got to, as an athlete, you got to think about what's the purpose of this conversation, which is kind of what happens in between. But what you described there by my opinion is good coaching, right? You've communicated, these are the roles. There's some level of they have to accept the role.
Bryan Torresani (28:53.05)
Sure.
Michael Huber (29:04.313)
but it's also being fed to them, hey, this is where I see you, right? That communication is ongoing so that they understand where they're at so they don't have to come ask. Now they don't have to like that, right, necessarily. But you said like, work while you wait. To me that implies that there's trust, right? Like I'm communicating to you like, hey, just keep doing the work. I will let you know. And they can trust that you're gonna communicate that to them. If that trust exists,
Bryan Torresani (29:13.178)
Sure. Right.
Michael Huber (29:32.174)
It's gonna be a lot easier for them to work while they wait because they know you're gonna come to them at some point and say, hey, this is where you're at. This is where I see you. This is why you're in your role. Now they don't have to guess, they're getting that and they don't have to be the one to knock on the door, which is also anxiety inducing for a lot of kids. But here's the thing, right? Like what I would say to an athlete is if your coach is not communicating at the beginning of the year, I see you as the 34th guy and you're probably not gonna get it bats.
Bryan Torresani (29:45.816)
Sure. Absolutely.
Bryan Torresani (29:53.996)
Yes.
Michael Huber (29:59.78)
This is what you need to be focused on for the rest of the season. If that conversation's not happening, what I see as a mental performance coach is a ton of anxiety about, I don't know where I stand and I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I've never been in this position before because in high school I batted third and I played shortstop and now I'm the 34th guy on the roster. I have no idea why. I don't know what they expect of me. I don't know where this is going. And now they're...
Bryan Torresani (30:02.564)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (30:08.504)
Yep.
Michael Huber (30:26.295)
in their head 24 seven thinking about like, I'm not a good baseball player anymore. So that's where I might say to a kid, hey, you got two choices. You can let this eat you alive or we can talk about how you have that conversation because it is your right as an athlete, I think to knock on that door, even if your coach doesn't like it. Now be mindful, there's consequences to that. If you say, don't come knock on my door and you go knock on my door, that can put you in the door house even more, but you got to decide like, is having that conversation better than
Bryan Torresani (30:43.642)
sure.
Michael Huber (30:55.203)
You know, having panic attacks, which is something I've actually had a kid tell me recently, literally had a panic attack on the field because he's not sure where he's at. That's not a coach's fault necessarily, but that's underscores the two-way street of, hey, I want to know where I'm at. I'm going to tell you where you're at. I got to accept that or I can move on. I can quit. I can transfer. I could do whatever. Right? Like that's life. It's like a job, right? I go to a job and they hire me and I don't like the way it's going. I can knock on my boss's door. can go.
Bryan Torresani (30:58.202)
sure.
Bryan Torresani (31:15.727)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (31:24.793)
put my resume on the street, they can fire me. You know, like that's life. You gotta learn how to deal with that. So I'm gonna segue into something we talked about before we started, but it kind of ties into this is what are some of the behaviors that you're looking for from a player in a first year? A guy comes into your program, you recruit him, you kind of know him, but you don't really know him. What are you looking for from like show up every day and do the work, work till they wait? What are some of the things you're looking for in those first year players?
Bryan Torresani (31:46.351)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (31:53.858)
Yeah, I really enjoy this part of the job because I think some guys come in and have a lot of this figured out and other guys don't and it's our job to teach them how to do it and you can kind of see eventually like that switch flip for them. So I guess I...
I try to run our program like an employment situation. And I don't mean like, I don't try to be like the big bad boss and like that sort of thing. But like when they get a job, what are some things they're going to have to do down the road? They're going to have to manage an email account. They're going to have to manage a calendar. They're going to have to be certain places at certain times and dress a certain way and do all these things that like, you know, as a good employee, you know, that you got to do. like,
We kind of start there, like our very first team meeting, we show them how to use, we have Microsoft Outlook here at the sales. don't love it. I wish we were Google, but anyway, that's a story from another day. Anyway, we show them how to use their Microsoft Outlook calendar, right? And I have all of our practices on there and lifts and meetings and everything else. And we have them plug in their day for like the first week of class. Like, okay, this is when I have class. is when my lifts are, you know,
when I'm going to eat. This is when I'm going to sleep. Like we have them plug in their entire 24 hours a day for the whole first week. and my, it's funny cause we, have an assistant that does a lot of this for us. name is Brian Weaver. He's our mental performance coach actually. So we we've run what's called dog. We call it DMT dog mentality training. And, he starts out this whole thing with like, take your phone out and jot down, you know, go to your screen time and jot down, you know, how many hours a day you're spending on your cell phone, right? And guys write it down and, then
Michael Huber (33:21.571)
Okay.
Bryan Torresani (33:37.76)
we have them go through this process of filling out their calendars and where are they gonna, when are they gonna eat lunch? When are they gonna nap? All this sort of stuff. And then at the end of the session, it's like, okay, take your phone back out. Where are you fitting in the six hours of screen time that you're doom scrolling every day, right? What is that cutting into? And I think some kids are like, whoa, like, yeah, yeah. So I think it starts there with the freshmen. Like, they manage a calendar? Can they manage, you know,
Michael Huber (33:57.241)
Yeah, it's an eye-opener.
Bryan Torresani (34:06.274)
eating, it's the simple stuff. Can they eat well? Can they get sleep? Like, are there habits and routines set up for them to be successful?
That's like the basis of it that we really, and we hammer this like every, not every day, but like at least once a week, we're constantly talking about routines and habits and guys doing those sort of things. And, you know, and I think the guys that can kind of pick up on that, the fastest are the ones, quite frankly, that end up having more success early in their career on the field, you know, as well. So that's a big piece of it.
And you're right, like you said this before the call, like there's no really preparing a guy or a girl before they get on campus for what it's really like. But again, like those more safety nets we can set up for them to catch them if they're gonna fall, I think is what we're trying to do, so.
Michael Huber (34:46.627)
Right.
Michael Huber (34:54.572)
Yeah, but I think what you described there and I kind of want to take it to the field, right? But what you described there is professional expectations, right? Like I'm setting the expectation and what you just described is something I might do with an athlete to say, hey, you've got 168 hours and you know what? Probably 140 of them, right? Between sleep, school, practice, lift, eating are blocked for you. So then you've only got this really small fraction of time that's discretionary.
Bryan Torresani (35:09.294)
Yep.
Bryan Torresani (35:19.225)
Yup.
Michael Huber (35:24.706)
What are you doing with it? Right? The behaviors in that discretionary time are probably going to correlate to your performance. Right? Am I using six hours to doom scroll or am I using six hours to take a nap or am I using six hours to get some extra hitting in or am I using six hours to watch video or whatever? Right? You can choose whatever you want. Some people need that downtime, but you also need to understand that there's probably a consequence to that. Right? So like being able to set them up for success.
Bryan Torresani (35:32.538)
Yep.
Bryan Torresani (35:51.127)
more.
Michael Huber (35:54.074)
How they decide to use that is also up to them. And I would imagine that you've probably seen over 19 years, the ones who take advantage of the discretionary time, the free time, are the ones that succeed. And the ones that don't are probably the ones that might struggle a little bit, especially in that first year. So like you talked about routines, you talk about time management. Like talk about on the field stuff, especially that first year, that first freshman year in full ball. Because I hear a lot of this as a mental performance coach. It's a big eye opener. We go on the field.
And like, I'm not, as an athlete, they're not getting as much kind of hands-on coaching in fall ball. You know, that they feel kind of lost because like, I'm not getting feedback. They're so used to being coached and told like, hey, this is what I should do. Like, can you talk about the expectations in the first year for athletes on the field?
Bryan Torresani (36:41.464)
Yeah, absolutely. think.
There's a high school we try to recruit a lot of guys out of this high school in the area because they're so good and their coach does such a good job. their former coach actually before him, he started a baseball website. He calls it baseball by the yard. his theory is that baseball speeds up by three feet every level you go up. And so like from high school JV to varsity JV, it's gonna speed up by three feet. And from high school to division three is gonna be three
feet and division two and so on. like, I guess my point is like the speed of the game is the is the number one sort of factor I think that
Michael Huber (37:15.343)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (37:21.324)
I, you know, you can sort get it. I get a sense pretty quickly in the fall on the guys that can kind of handle like that three foot jump, pretty quickly. And the guys that are probably going to take some time before they're able to sort of realize. And it's always funny where like, I'll give like an, like an infielder, like you bring in a freshman shortstop and your senior center fielders, you know, hitting in an inner squad game and he hits a routine ground ball to short. your guy, can kind of tell like, I'm like, he's not going to get them. You know, he like fields, it kind of takes his time and you could tell they look up like, man, he's almost there.
Michael Huber (37:49.935)
Too long, yeah.
Bryan Torresani (37:51.23)
You know and like rushes a throw throws it away. Whatever like those are the things I think that that guys struggle with a lot the other thing too is I think just the physical like
I just hate the word grind, but you know, like you're asked to do a lot more in a college, even a college fall, you know, you're lifting three days a week, you're practicing four or five days a week. That sort of like stamina both physically and mentally, right. Is, something that we see a lot of guys kind of struggle with. Like that first week of fall guys are, guys are fired up. They're great. They got a lot of energy by the end of the second week. You're like, yo, you're getting tired already. It's only, it's only two weeks in, like imagine when we spring and we're playing 40 games and like they, have to kind of.
Michael Huber (38:06.776)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (38:29.241)
Right.
Bryan Torresani (38:33.432)
And so that's where we go back to the habits. Are you sleeping enough? Are you eating well? Like that's kind of how we tie it all in, you together. So certainly like talent on the field is certainly a big piece of the puzzle too. Like can a guy, does a guy have enough?
Michael Huber (38:45.999)
Yeah, but like you said, and I think we've talked about is, listen, there's only so much you're be able to do through your high school career to get yourself ready for that. So then from a mental standpoint, the way I think about it is, hey, I come in there and I come to the realization, hey, this is gonna be really hard. How do then do I approach it? Do I accept it and go, hey, you know what? I am behind the curve a little bit. What do I need to do to continue to compete even if I'm not the best player on the field?
Bryan Torresani (38:56.004)
sure.
Michael Huber (39:15.855)
so that I can keep developing and get better versus shutting down of like, oh, this is gonna be really hard or I'm not gonna play this year. Like, and losing the joy for a game that you've worked so hard to get to the college level just because you have a hard fall, which is probably to be expected for most kids coming in and embracing it and being like, hey, this is hard, but I like the challenge. I wanna get better. Hey, I'm gonna need to ramp up my training. I need to go take more ground balls. I gotta go.
you know, hit more velocity, I gotta do whatever it takes to get better, embracing that competition of getting better versus shutting down and be like, I'm not perfect. I'm not as good as I thought I was. I'm not gonna play. Now you gotta sort of be like, get them out of the gutter. Like that tends to be my job. Get them out of the gutter. Hey, how do you refocus your perspective of, hey, this is gonna be hard. Do you love it enough to keep going or are you gonna shut down? Because you can't, right? And if you do, maybe it's not for you.
Bryan Torresani (39:48.45)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (40:10.298)
Definitely. Yeah, and again, we try to keep an eye on that stuff too, is like who is struggling and...
Michael Huber (40:14.286)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (40:16.076)
And as much as I said, like, don't want guys knocking on our door earlier. Like we have, we have point in time meetings with these guys, like pretty consistently. Like we'll do it in the middle. My first year guys, we bring them in a couple of weeks after school starts. And that's more of, that's not even really baseball related. That's just more of like, are you transitioning? Okay. And where can we help you? What do you need? I school going. All right. Where are the academics going to pile up that sort of thing? You know, we meet with all of our players at the end of fall, fall ball to kind of give them like that feedback on where we see them.
Michael Huber (40:23.587)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (40:32.601)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (40:40.858)
Bye.
Bryan Torresani (40:46.01)
you know, right now going into the offseason and what they need to do in order to kind of improve on that and all that sort of stuff. And then what we do it again right before our first game and we'll do it again at the end of the spring. Like those are kind of like our formal meeting. So for a freshman, like they are getting, they get quite a bit of feedback from us. I don't know if that happens in every program, but we try to make sure that the guys have, you know, what they need from that standpoint. But there's no, it's tough to prepare for that life transition for sure.
Michael Huber (41:11.983)
Yeah, and it's like anything else in our lives, right? Like, it's like when you get married, right? You're married, you have kids, right? You get ready to get married and you think I'm ready for this is going to be so wonderful. Then you get married and you realize, I got to live with this person every day. And then you have kids, you're like, I can't wait to have kids. And then you have kids and like, oh, this is really hard. Like there's no manual for that. Right. And I think, you know, I think kids have that same, we all do, we're human, right? We all have that same like look forward, like this is going to be wonderful.
Bryan Torresani (41:24.248)
Right.
Bryan Torresani (41:28.238)
Yep. No.
Michael Huber (41:38.286)
And then I get there and it doesn't look the way I imagined it was going to look. And so do I look at it and go, okay, you know what? This is different than what I imagined, but I'm willing to hunker down and do the work to get better at it. And it's going to be a grind and that's, that's okay. I'm going to embrace it, right? Not to the point that we burn out because that's where the communication and the resourcefulness comes in. And this is something that I'm big on, which is like, Hey, know where the help is, right? Know where you get the help.
Bryan Torresani (41:38.382)
Yep.
Michael Huber (42:07.159)
No to ask for it, don't be afraid, right? You can probably relate to this personally. I certainly do of like, I'm gonna try to do everything on my own. That's what I did when I was in my late 30s. I'm gonna do everything on my own. Then all of a sudden you have a panic attack in your life and you're like, holy shit, like what am I doing here? I gotta go see a therapist now I'm 37 years old. This is not something that anybody in my family would have told me is something I should do. But I got no choice because it's either keep going down this road of panic attacks and like being.
Bryan Torresani (42:14.823)
yeah.
Bryan Torresani (42:22.415)
Yep.
Bryan Torresani (42:30.617)
Yep.
Michael Huber (42:35.939)
feeling like you're going crazy or like, I gotta get help, right? So why not have them get on that track of we're here to help you, don't be afraid to ask for it, but you also gotta take the good with the bad, which is sometimes you're gonna hear things that are very direct that you may not like to hear, but you gotta use it to your advantage.
Bryan Torresani (42:38.583)
in there.
Bryan Torresani (42:48.516)
sure.
Bryan Torresani (42:52.227)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think like, you know, again, like connectivity is important to like one of the things we do in the fall is all of our guys through the course of the fall will stand up in front of the team and share their their hero, their hardship and their highlight of their life to that point. And certainly not something I invented, but I think I got it out of a John Gordon book somewhere. But we did it. I've done it in the past. We did it at Delaware. And and I think the things, first of all, that you find out that some of these kids have been through in their life is incredible that you don't that doesn't come up in the recruits.
Michael Huber (43:05.433)
I like it.
Michael Huber (43:10.799)
You
Michael Huber (43:20.995)
Yes.
Bryan Torresani (43:23.264)
process, you never know about it until you know guy stands up there and most guys are willing to share their toughest hardship and some of our guys have been through some stuff so like I think that piece of it's good and and breaks down some walls the coaches do the same thing we all share our hero hardship and highlight as well and and I think it just helps like it helps me when a kid needs to come at come get help from me or whatever like I think they're a little more comfortable knowing we're sort of sharing some of these things.
Michael Huber (43:50.202)
Yeah, so you beat me to my follow-up question, which is, you guys do it? But I'll share a story on that. So I told you this when we spoke on the phone last week. You coached a player in college that I was on the staff of when he was in high school. And when I was on that staff, I was interning as a mental performance coach. And we did True Truths and a Lie as like an icebreaker. And in that group, and the kid that you coached was in that session, one of the kids stood up and said,
Bryan Torresani (43:52.536)
Okay.
Bryan Torresani (44:04.227)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (44:11.106)
Yup. Yeah.
Michael Huber (44:18.553)
Two truths and a lie. And one of the truths was that he was adopted. And nobody knew. And it was like this like, really? I didn't know that. And that was like the coolest thing to be a witness to like, watch these guys sort of like gravitate, like sort of really like come to closer together. Cause this guy shared like most of the stuff the kids were sharing were, you know, goofy, right? It was like, I'm adopted. And everyone's like, really?
Bryan Torresani (44:24.665)
Wow.
Bryan Torresani (44:32.313)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (44:41.252)
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Michael Huber (44:45.603)
And it was like, could see it almost like physically bringing them together. And it's like, those kinds of things are really, really valuable, right? To know that there's a person behind the guy that swings the bat or throws the ball. Like that builds a lot of trust. And when you have that trust, you can get away with a lot of stuff, right? You can get away with the outburst. You can get away with throwing a helmet. You can get away with MF and a player for not running out of ground ball because they know you guys are in it together versus that trust doesn't exist. That connectivity doesn't exist.
Bryan Torresani (44:56.89)
definitely.
Bryan Torresani (45:11.45)
sure.
Michael Huber (45:15.277)
And now it's like, you just called me out in front of everybody, or you just showed me up, player. We don't like each other, and this is not going well. So I think that's really, really cool. I guess one of the questions that I wasn't planning on asking, as we're sort of like, don't want to take up too much of your time, but like, I am curious about this, because it's something I hear about, which is absolutely mind blowing to me, but I'm curious from your perspective. How much do you hear from parents?
Bryan Torresani (45:29.315)
Nah, it's all good.
Bryan Torresani (45:38.606)
man, knock on wood, not much. Yeah. And listen, like I'm not one of these coaches that like, I believe the parents should, the parent group is a partnership for our program, right? Like they're super supportive. They help us, you know, provide meals for kids, you know, in between games of double headers and.
Michael Huber (45:41.881)
Good.
Bryan Torresani (46:02.392)
That's just like scratching the surface of all the stuff that they do for our program. So like, I'm actually willing to like after a game win or lose, like I'm not going up to every parent and saying hello, but like if I walk through them, I'm going to say hi. I'm not just going to like eyes on the bus and just head to the, you know, be that, be that sort of coach. Like parents over here coaches over here. Now there's a line, right? Like we're certainly not going to talk baseball and playing time and those sorts of things. And, and
And I just tell our players, listen, I hate to be this blunt, but if I hear from your mom or dad, and it has to do with that, I'm just gonna tell you, and we're gonna have a conversation. And I think most of the time that kind of nips it in the bud. think college is a little bit different from high school from that standpoint. Again, if the parent's concerned about a player's mental health or safety or something like that, it's a totally different story. But the baseball piece of it needs to be left alone.
in my opinion.
Michael Huber (46:58.319)
Yeah. And listen, I mean, think safety is sort of the outlier there, but even like their mental health, right? Like in the sense that like we all have mental health struggles, right? Not necessarily a clinical disorder or something, but I think that that idea that the player or the athlete has to take ownership of that is really important, right? And like, listen, everybody's different and I'm a parent, but for me, it's always been as a parent, even when they were 12, 13, 14 years old, if you have an issue about playing time, you're going to go talk to your coach.
Bryan Torresani (47:07.983)
Yep.
Bryan Torresani (47:15.802)
definitely.
Bryan Torresani (47:27.993)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (47:28.301)
Right? Because like, if it's that important to you, you got to do it. Like, I'm not going to be, because I was a coach. I don't want to hear from a parent, even at like the rec level, like leave me alone. Like, you know what saying? We're here. Coaches got to make decisions. Like, yeah, if something's wrong or your kid's getting picked on or whatever, or they're struggling, I get it. Like, I'll talk to you about it. But like, let the kid do his talking because they're going to have to learn how to do it at some point. You certainly wouldn't want to hear that at the college level, even frankly, at the high school level.
Bryan Torresani (47:33.7)
Yep. No. Yeah.
Michael Huber (47:55.376)
You know, so I, but I think it's the change you've coached 19 years. Like that's, that's a good question for 19 years. Like what are the changes you've seen over that time? Like the evolution of the coaching profession and some of the things you've had to deal with what's changed.
Bryan Torresani (47:59.331)
Yeah.
Definitely.
Bryan Torresani (48:11.886)
man, that's a good question.
I think COVID actually changed a lot when that happened, you know, and, you know, that was in sort of like, I don't know, six years ago at this point, I guess, but like, I do feel like, at least from like the type of...
kid we were getting in the program, like they were a little bit behind, further behind developmentally, socially, and just able to do some of the things I was talking about before. know, these are kids that you forget, like we're going to high school or middle school, like from their bed, you know, and having a lot of social interaction. So that, that really changed a lot.
I do think like on the whole outside of COVID, know, sort of like that old school screamer yeller disciplinary and militaristic style coach is.
just about extinct at this point, you And so you either had to change like I have, or those guys have kind of aged out, retired out, and now you're seeing a little bit more of a coach that has to be a little more transformational than transactional, so to speak, and a little more relationship driven. Those are the ones that seem to be the most successful. So that has certainly changed. The recruiting has changed a ton. mean, when I first started coaching,
Michael Huber (49:13.583)
Yeah.
Bryan Torresani (49:34.018)
getting letters in the mail and DVDs and I was sending out, you know, I was sending out questionnaires by mail, know, hard copy and, and, know, the internet was a thing, but like social media wasn't quite the same. like that's changed. That's certainly the recruiting game has changed a ton in the last 19 years. So I guess that's some things quickly that I could kind of highly change.
Michael Huber (49:40.58)
Yeah.
Michael Huber (49:53.264)
That's a lot. Yeah. And it all all of it makes sense. think COVID, I mean, we don't have we're not going to talk about that. But like, I think you're absolutely right. I think it has changed a lot of things for a lot of people in terms of the way we do things and the way we look at the world. So absolutely. So as a final question, I'll wrap things up with you. So like if there's one thing you'd leave somebody listening with specifically a high school baseball player who says, I want to play in college, like what would be that one piece of advice as a coach you'd give to them?
Bryan Torresani (50:02.596)
Definitely.
Michael Huber (50:22.627)
to sort of put the focus on for the next one, two, three years of their high school career.
Bryan Torresani (50:28.59)
Yeah, I would tell them.
And I'll keep it to like the baseball side of things. once they're like, you know, if you're, if you're playing fall baseball, baseball is what you want to do. You want to be a college baseball player. Like once that fall baseball season ends around, usually around Halloween, you know, put the bat and ball down and find somebody that can, can train you in the weight room, you know, to, show you how to lift properly and to continue to get stronger. You don't need to be paying for hitting lessons, pitching lessons, all that stuff, you know, through the course of the
Michael Huber (50:33.689)
Okay.
Bryan Torresani (51:00.668)
in my opinion. Sorry if hurting people's businesses out there, but you know, I think the one the piece that people miss is they can get ahead by learning how to lift weights and get stronger. I think that's the biggest thing that a kid can do. And then, you know, once I tell you, I tell our guys the same thing. Once January 1st gets here, yeah, go ahead and pick the bat and ball, you know, the ball and bat back up and get yourself ready for your high school season. But learning to love the weight room was the number one separator, I think for physically for
players so yeah.
Michael Huber (51:31.471)
Okay, that's great. wasn't expecting that. think that's a wonderful piece of advice because they're going to learn the hard way. If they get to school, they haven't lifted a weight and they don't know how to deadlift and they don't know how to squat and snatch and do all those things. There's going to be some problems, right? So it's good advice. Brian, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it. was a pleasure getting a chance to talk to you. Thank you.
Bryan Torresani (51:38.158)
Definitely.
Yep.
Bryan Torresani (51:46.682)
Yeah, for sure. Of course, Michael. Thanks for having me. You got it.