ABCA Podcast

This week on the ABCA Podcast is Richard Kent. Kent did his undergrad work at Rutgers and got his law degree from Boston College. He represents basketball and lacrosse coaches. He currently is a sports law professor at Manhattanville and is the author of 11 books. In this episode we dive into the current topic of name, image and likeness. NLI is a new frontier. Kent came on to give us a deep dive...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is Jeff Willis, NJCAA Div. II national champion LSU-Eunice head coach. Willis has done remarkable things with the LSU Eunice program. They are now tied for most national titles in one sport at the junior college level with seven. Eunice had a phenomenal year, going 51-17 and scoring almost 400 more runs than their opponents. In this episode we break down Eunice’s nation...

Up next on the ABCA Podcast is Doug Wren, head coach of NJCAA Div. III national champion Tyler Junior College. Wren is entering his 13th season as head coach at Tyler and has won five national championships and posted a 459-194 record. The Apaches have made eight World Series appearances in the last 11 years. He is very active with the NJCAA, serving on the Executive and International Committees....

This week on the ABCA Podcast, we hear from NCAA Div. II national champion coach Jeff Gregory of Wingate University. This continues our series of ABCA members who won national championships this year. Gregory just finished his 11th season as head coach at Wingate, going 39-13 this year, after time as an assistant coach and player. He has led Wingate to the NCAA Tournament four times. The Bulldogs...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is Georgia Gwinnett College head coach Jeremy Sheetinger. Sheetinger was an ABCA staffer before he took the GGC job, and he also spent time at Spalding, Kentucky, St Joe’s (KY), Brescia and Georgetown College. He has a 160-55 record in five seasons as a head coach. Georgia Gwinnett capped off a phenomenal season, going 51-10 and winning the NAIA national championship. S...

This week's ABCA Podcast features Troy Brohawn, head coach of 2021 NCAA Div. III champ Salisbury University. In his seven seasons as head coach, Salisbury has made the NCAA Regionals seven times and been to the College World Series twice, including this year's title. Salisbury has a great tradition, having been to the NCAA Regionals 22 years in a row. Brohawn is one of two coaches to win a Major L...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is former Central Michigan head coach, Athletic Director and ABCA Executive Director Dave Keilitz. Keilitz spent 14 seasons as the Chippewas' head coach from 1971-1984. He led Central Michigan to six NCAA Regionals before spending 10 years as CMU Athletic Director. He was also chair of the NCAA Baseball Committee. From 1994-2014 he was the ABCA Executive Director, overs...

Interviews in this week's ABCA Podcast were recorded on the scene with ABCA member coaches at the NJCAA Div. II Championship in Enid, Oklahoma, and the NCAA Div. III Championship in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We kick it off in Enid with Kellog’s Eric Laskovy, Madison’s Mike Davenport, Lackawanna’s Mike McCarry, Frederick’s Rodney Bennett, Kirkwood’s Todd Rima, Phoenix’s Kevin Kimball, Lincoln Land’s Ron...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast are Falmouth Commodores manager and Gunnery head Coach Jeff Trundy, San Francisco Giants national crosschecker Brian Bridges and Lake County manager Greg DiCenzo. Trundy is heading into his 25th season coaching in the Cape Cod League and his 21st as the manager of Falmouth. He has coached a laundry list of Big Leaguers including David Aardsma, Luke Scott, Rhys Hoskins,...

This week we hear from Tony Schifano, head coach at San Francisco State University on the ABCA Podcast. Schifano was named head coach in 2015 and led the Gators to a No. 17 final ranking in the Collegiate Baseball Poll in 2019. His team went to the CCAA Tournament for the second year in a row, which was something the program hadn’t done since 2004. Prior to San Francisco State, Schifano was the re...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is former CIA Agent Marc Polymeropoulos. He spent 26 years in the CIA before retiring from the Senior Intelligence Service in June 2019. His positions included field and headquarters operational assignments covering the Middle East, Europe, Eurasia and Counter Terrorism. Marc is the recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the Intelligence Commendation Medal a...

This week's ABCA Podcast features University of Utah associate head coach Gary Henderson. Henderson has a long and successful track record in coaching, starting at the high school level and from there moving on to San Diego State, Cal State Fullerton, Riverside Community College, Chapman, Pepperdine, Florida, Oregon State, Kentucky, Mississippi State and now Utah. If you were going to map out coac...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is Dr. Matt White, an orthopedic surgeon in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, specializing in elbows and shoulders. He earned his undergraduate degree at Notre Dame, went to medical school at Indiana University and finished his residency at Wisconsin. After his residency, Dr. White went to Birmingham for his fellowship at the American Sports Medicine Institute working with some of wo...

This week on the ABCA Podcast we catch up with Eric Crozier, head coach at the Potomac School in Maryland and founder of the Mizuno Outlaws. Crozier grew up in Columbus, Ohio, played collegiately at Norfolk State and was drafted by the Cleveland Indians in 2000. He played pro baseball for 11 years and made his Major League Debut with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2004. He is one of our unique members w...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is Bonnie Hoffman, coach of DC Girls Baseball and member of the ABCA Diversity in Baseball Committee. Hoffman has spent a lifetime in the game of baseball. She had an opportunity to play in an all girls baseball league growing up in New York and later moved to the Washington D.C. area. After law school, Hoffman founded the Eastern Women’s Baseball Conference and pitched...

This week on the ABCA Podcast we have Dr. Joe LaPlaca, founder of Ares Elite Sports Vision. He did his undergraduate work at Marquette and has a Doctorate of Optometry degree from the Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago. Dr. LaPlaca is an adjunct professor at Butler University and works with the Butler baseball team. He is also the Optometrist for the Final Four. Although all of us in the bas...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is Joel Pelland, head coach at Glenbard East High School and founder of Pelland Performance Consulting. Pelland has the been the head baseball coach at Glenbard East in Illinois for the last 10 years and is the all-time winningest coach at the school. He played baseball at Central Michigan and is a certified John Maxwell Leadership trainer, PECI certified performance co...

This week's ABCA Podcast features Andrew Riddell, National Player Development Director for Baseball Australia. Riddell grew up in Sydney, Australia and picked up the game of baseball at 14 years old and fulfilled his dream of playing in the United States by cold emailing 200 schools. He ended up at Dodge City Community College and finished his undergraduate and master's degrees at Nebraska-Kearney...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast are Kimya Massey, Senior Associate Athletics Director at Oregon State, and Richard Kanter, Founder of Kanter Legal. Both are members of the ABCA Diversity in Baseball Committee. Massey has been an administrator at Oregon State since August 2015 and previously worked at Central Florida, Memphis, Indiana and Michigan State. He pitched collegiately at Michigan State in the...

This week's ABCA Podcast features Tim, Nolan and Doc Neiman. Tim is entering his 32nd season as the head coach at DeSales University. Tim's sons Noland and Doc both played at DeSales and served as assistant coaches. Nolan is a 2005 DeSales graduate, has coached at every level of baseball and also scouted professionally with the Texas Rangers. He is the general Manager at Square Up Academy and head...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is Dr. Justine Siegal, founder of Baseball For All and the first woman to coach for a Major League Baseball organization. After earning her Ph. D. in Sports Psychology from Springfield College, Siegal became the first woman to coach with the Oakland A’s and to throw batting practice to an MLB team during Spring Training with the Cleveland Indians. In 2016, she served as...

This ABCA Podcast features Philadelphia Phillies Mental Skills Coach Hannah Huesman. She is a great example of the bright voices we have in the Peak Performance World and her Mental Sweat Mondays have provided a bright spot during the pandemic. Huesman was a dual sport athlete playing basketball and softball at UT Chattanooga and has her master's degree from UT Knoxville in Sports Psychology and M...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is current Johns Hopkins and former Yale University infielder Dai Dai Otaka. This is the first time we've interviewed a current player who is also an ABCA member. Otaka played high school ball at University of Detroit Jesuit and started his college career at Yale University with current Minnesota Twins Assistant Field Coordinator Tucker Frawley as an infield coach. Otak...

We catch up with Missouri State head coach Keith Guttin and assistant coach Paul Evans on this week's ABCA Podcast. Guttin is in his 43rd season with the Missouri State program as a player, assistant and head coach. He ranks 19th in NCAA Division I with 1,288 career wins in 38 seasons as head coach. Evans is in his 33rd season as an assistant at Missouri State after coaching at Shawnee Community C...

Next up on the ABCA Podcast is San Francisco Giants Minor League Mental Skills Coach Dr. Kellen Lee. Dr. Lee has a diverse background having played baseball at the UC San Diego and independent baseball. Professionally, he has worked with teams and athletes from the NCAA Division I, II, III, high school, youth and professional levels. He also has experience in working with military personnel on how...