Understanding the art of coaching

Who has been your best coach? For me, a great coach transports people from where they are to where they need to go. Great coaching must happen with competency and the capacity to care.

Competency is having the necessary ability, knowledge or skill to do something successfully.

I am considered a maven because of my ability to get to 30,000 feet when it comes to teaching baseball because of my proven philosophy, methodology and phase of development.

I have a long list of things that I am not competent at that, which includes teaching someone how to:

  • Ride a bike
  • Drive a car
  • Throw a changeup
  • Change a flat tire
  • Read
  • Algebra
  • Cook
  • Fish
  • Lay tile
  • Garden

My specific coaching expertise is hitting and outfield for baseball. I believe that transformed people transform people, and I love coaching because I enjoy watching people be transformed.

So much of effective coaching is about caring about people.

To care about someone is more than a feeling. To care is the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something. Caring requires sacrifice.

I have a long list of people and things that I care about. Subsequently, there also is a long list of people and things that I cannot care about because nobody has the capacity to care about everybody nor everything.

I have a strong and sturdy Rawlings ball bag that holds 72 baseballs. I can squeeze in an extra five without causing the zipper to break.

The capacity of the bag is 72 balls so I only carry 72. If I have 100 baseballs I need to use, I have to get two bags.

As you enter the months of August and September for your baseball development, be sure to have a great coach on your side that has the capacity to care.

Here are questions that I want my players to ask me before they trust me to coach them.

  • Coach C.J., what’s your definition of a great coach in less than 20 words?
  • What do you believe is my full potential as a baseball player?
  • What’s your coaching philosophy in less than 20 words?
  • Why do you care about me?
  • How will I know when you stop caring about me?
  • What are the top ten things that you do not care about?

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

Embracing the power of aptitude

Aptitude is that ability to learn and apply. A lot of colleges and universities still use the Scholastics Aptitude Test (S.A.T.) to determine which students will be successful. The goal is for students to graduate, be gainfully employed and donate money back to their alma mater.

Do you think college coaches look at S.A.T. scores when they are recruiting players? Of course they do because they want to make sure players can learn and quickly put what they learn into action.

Kevin O’Sullivan, a good friend of mine, is the head baseball coach at the University of Florida. The Florida Gators were my pick for the 2023 College World Series. Rest assured Sully is making sure he recruits players with high aptitude. Congrats to the LSU Tigers for being the 2023 CWS Champions.

Talent is what you do well, while habits are things you do well repeatedly without thought. Skills are things you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress.

How do you convert talent to habits and habits to skills? One of the ways that you do it is with aptitude. I believe aptitude can be amplified with reflection. A great way to reflect is by journaling daily.

I’ve been keeping a daily journal in my phone for the last eight years. I simply journal at least one new thing I learn daily.

For you, what you learn can be typed into your phone. You can even record a video of yourself.

The goal is to increase your ability to learn and apply.

Here are questions you can ask yourself and answer daily. Do it for 30 days.

  • How do I feel today?
  • Mentally?
  • Emotionally?
  • Physically?
  • What’s one thing that I need to do today to become a better:
  • Person?
  • Baseball player?
  • With the day coming to an end, how do I feel?
  • Mentally?
  • Emotionally?
  • Physically?
  • Did I get better today?
  • Personally?
  • Why? Why not?
  • Baseball?
  • Why? Why not?

We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

Why Practice + Training = Success

What if we have to get artificial intelligence (AI) robots to play baseball because boys won’t work? Hope, luck and chance are the best strategies for boys who won’t work.

When I was playing baseball in Little League all the way up to Travel Ball as a teenager, I was among the most talented.

Talent is what you do well and habits are things you do well repeatedly without thought. Skills are things that you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress.

Talented players compete in Travel Ball. Players with good habits showcase it at the collegiate level and skills pay the bills for professional players.

The main reason I didn’t have the long MLB career I dreamed of was because I didn’t humble myself enough to understand that talent is the floor and not the ceiling. Too many boys today are failing to develop to become the best versions of themselves on the baseball field because they are repeatedly told that they have so much talent.

My mentor Skip Nelloms recently told me that there are two types of stress:

  • Eustress is moderate or normal psychological stress interpreted as being beneficial.
  • Distress is extreme anxiety and bad for the body.

I’ve been a part of the development of more than 40 MLB players for 20-plus years because eustress is a part of my training. Those clients include Jason Heyward, Dexter Fowler and Peter Alonso.

When it is time for us to practice we practice, but when it is time to train we train.

There is a difference between practicing and training. Practice is when you build habits and training is when you convert habits to skills. I will go deeper for you in future blogs because there is a season for everything and a method to my business.

The new MLB rule changes are in response to fans demanding more action. In the year 2040, if men cannot play baseball with a high level of skill, fans will want MLB to replace them with AI.

Your thoughts?

Meet the MBP website

I am really excited about the launch of the new MBP website.

Prospects will be rated off of Swaggy Chains:

5  Pro Prospect Grade

4  Mid Major – Power 5 Grade

3  D2 – Mid Major Grade

2  D3 – NAIA Grade

Developing as a prospect

This new rating system by MBP is going to let players know where they stand and it is going to be elite hitting practitioners like me that will bear the responsibility to partner with boys to help them to become skilled hitters so that they don’t have to be replaced with AI.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

Your game plan for J. U. N. E.

Photo by Aretta Baldon

It’s June, or as I will call it here, J.U.N.E., i.e., Just Unplug Negative Energy. To unplug is to pull out and disconnect. There are a lot of teams—everything from youth baseball teams to Fortune 500 companies—that look great from an outsider’s perspective because they win games.

But while they may be winning the game, their people are losing the war. The war at stake is for peace of mind. Too often, negative energy wins out.

At a young age, I understood that happiness was connected to making lots of money and being famous. That’s why I wanted to be a Major League Baseball player.

I’ve been retired as a professional baseball player for more than 25 years and now have peace of mind because I am living my life on purpose.

There are four questions I had to answer in order to live on purpose:

  1. What do you worry about?
  2. What do you dream about?
  3. What do you cry about?
  4. What brings you unconditional joy?

What are your answers to those questions?

My answer led me to my life mission to be significant by serving millions and bringing them into a relationship with Christ, starting with my wife, Kelli, and our daughters, Mackenzi and Mackenna.

Baseball brings me joy. Does it bring you joy?

June is a month of baseball when the skill set of players is constantly being tested because teams from all over the world are able to travel for tournament play. A lot of the negative energy that players feel comes from the unrealistic expectations they put on themselves, which is not matched by the work ethic, talent and experience required to be successful.

When they lack these things, their default often becomes:

  • Maybe if I complain, I can get more playing time.
  • Maybe if I blame my coach for me not getting enough swings at practice, I can justify why I’m not getting enough playing time.
  • Maybe if I shame the kid that is playing ahead of me, I can feel better about not getting enough playing time.

Unplugging from negative energy makes it easy for your teammates, coaches and parents to support you. It also becomes easier for you to learn, perform and experience joy.

As Malcolm X once said,“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

Finding the people—and means—to do great things

People before places. Advocacy and coaching. Sponsorship after mentorship.

Players lose out on opportunities because they are not aware or they don’t take action on these three things. These three areas are crucial parts of achieving success on and off the field, and it also leads to significance.

People before places

Young baseball players and their parents oftentimes put too much emphasis on the team that they can play for and the places that they will play rather than realizing the importance of the right person advocating for you.

Here’s a recent conversation that I had with a young man:

Player: Hey Coach Stewart, it is XXX. I hope you have been well. High school ball is over and we made the Elite 8 in the playoffs. I also received first team All-Region honors as a DH. Because of my high school season, I was invited to the “GA Dugout Club Underclassmen Top 100.”

Do you have any advice?

Me: Hey XXX. Congrats, that’s huge. What are the top three colleges on your list of schools you want to attend as a student-athlete?

Player: My schools in no order are: Cal Berkeley, Georgia Tech and Stanford.

Me: You should ask the coaches on the GA Dugout Club if they believe you are good enough to compete at any or all of these schools, and if yes, will they contact these schools for you. 

Advocacy and coaching

What’s the next best thing to have after you get a good coach? Advocacy. This is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within systems and institutions.

Coaching is very important because this is where players are taught and developed by their coaches to perform.

Well, middle school players need advocacy so a high school baseball coach knows more about them than what is being showcased at the tryout. This same thing applies to high school players who want to make the jump to college baseball to the pros.

Advocacy after coaching is like swallowing after chewing.

Sponsorship after mentorship

Mentoring has become such an overused terminology that it can be hard for young people to value it. Mentoring is very much like coaching, and sponsorship is very much like advocacy.

Oftentimes, coaching is done for the physical baseball stuff, while mentoring is done for the mental side. If you are going to mentor someone, but feel like opening up for them, that’s as big a waste of time as buying an umbrella and using it as a cane while walking in the rain.

You can achieve a lot of success if you put people before places, advocacy and coaching, and sponsorship after mentorship.

Significance is using your success to serve others.

Keep good coaches and mentors on your roster.

Just remember that advocates and sponsors are significant people and great people lead you to great places.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.