Ground Etc.
ABI presents Ground Etc, where we talk all things turf care and ground prep. This podcast is for grounds keepers, landscape contractors, and anyone interested in working in the dirt. From the right equipment, to the right crew, to the strategies needed to run a successful business. We talk to experts of the industry about the ground, the work, et cetera!
Ground Etc.
Secrets of Infield Grooming – With Chuck White
Welcome to our premier episode of the Ground Etc. podcast. This season, we’re talking about all things infield grooming, and today we’re sitting down with a legend in the field: Chuck White.
In our conversation with Chuck White, he gives us his life history, leadership concepts, and tips for leading and developing people, all of which led him to his job at USA Hall of Fame.
Plus, Chuck tells a tale of when two ABI Forces turned a flooded field into a playable one within hours for the World Series.
We’d love to know what you want to see from Ground Etc. going forward. Leave a review on the show or dm us on social with your questions, topic ideas, and feedback. Then follow the show and share it with your friends to keep up with all the new episodes.
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- I'm Scott Holmes.
- I'm Matt Metzger, and you're listening to "Ground Et Cetera." This season, we're going to be talking all things infield grooming from routine maintenance to leading a groundskeeping team to serious renovation work. We talk to experts of the field, on the ground, the work, et cetera.
- Et cetera.
- Right on. Well, everyone, thanks for joining us here on "Ground Et Cetera." This is exciting for us. Season one, episode one. And we are coming out the gate swinging, Scott.
- Ooh. The man, the myth, the legend.
- You know, when we interviewed him yesterday, he actually, he's like, "Ah, man, "I don't know about all this myth and legend stuff." Like, well, Chuck, listen, you've earned the title.
- Around ABI-
- [Matt] No kidding.
- He is a myth.
- So just the other day we interviewed Mr. Chuck White.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- And Chuck, many of you may know Chuck from his time at USA softball, but there's a whole lot more to Chuck and a whole lot more to his history than just the time he spent at USA kind of revitalizing that facility.
- You know, one of the things I learned yesterday about Chuck, I mean, all I knew of him was USA softball. What I learned was that the 30 years prior is what set him up for that success.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- Right? I mean, he gave us his life history, his leadership concepts, and how he leads and develops people. And it all led to that ultimate job there with USA softball.
- Yeah, well, and even though it's been a couple years since he's left USA, it's fun to see that his reputation for someone who cares about the field, someone who is capable of leading a team of people to tackle some really huge projects. When you think about the size of tournaments that they have there, and you think about these 10 day stints of ESPN coming in, I mean, that's a major mantle to carry.
- I won't spoil it, but the fast turns that they had to make to satisfy ESPN blew my mind.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- Blew my mind.
- [Matt] You spent a lot of years on a rake, there's no way.
- There ain't no way. I won't spoil it. I won't say how fast they got it done. You'll have to watch but, or listen, but it was impressive.
- So, Scott, before we get in too much about Chuck's background and his history, why don't we back up a step because, you know, Chuck is joining us on this show to talk about infield grooming. But how did ABI first get into infield grooming? I mean, we've talked before, and if anybody checks out the history page of ABI, it's, you know, Kevin Kegley, the son of a sod farmer
- Right, right.
- And he knew dirt, he knew soil, he knew turf, he knew seed, and he knew germination, he knew ground. But how does that translate over into infield work?
- Right, yeah. So the way we got into infield maintenance really goes back to our core. As you said, Kevin, you know, founding owner of ABI, got us start with the ground. Ground, et cetera, right? And that's really ground preparation, seed preparations. Really his background. And so when I joined him as a partner in '99 and we established this ABI corporation and, you know, worked towards building something together, really our focus was ground prep. But where is there dirt? Everywhere, right?
- Yeah.
- You know, I remember my wife saying, "Well, where can you sell a TR3 rake?" And I said, "Anywhere you need to loosen, level, and rake."
- [Matt] Yeah.
- Which is everywhere, right? So Kevin had invented a couple of tools that he had US patents on for seedbed prep and still our cornerstone products at ABI, probably the most well-known for us is the TR3 rake. And that was the product that we started with. And, you know, through the years, I as the storyteller, as the salesman, as the business marketing kind of guy in partnership with Kevin, I would try to figure out where we could slot these tools, you know, in the ground prep industry. And we had run across a couple of municipalities, one of them being the city of Chicago. I mean, they ended up buying, I don't know, 30 TR3s and 40 Rascals for all their infields around the city. And this was long before we actually officially got into the business. But it let us know that there was a need, because honestly, in hindsight, those tools weren't that great for baseball. They were great for loosening, leveling, and raking.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- And they're great for seedbed prep and for equestrians, but for baseball, it's kind of a rough and tough, you know, rip it up, tear it up. Maybe for renovation, they work great. But for day-to-day maintenance, it really isn't what the industry needed, but there were such a hole in the market, right, that, I mean, they were willing to take almost anything.
- Right, 'cause who else was doing it, right? I mean, you think about the other products that-
- [Scott] There weren't many.
- At the time were on the market, I mean, it was all products that were originally invented for mostly golf, right?
- [Scott] Golf, yeah, for bunkers.
- And for bunkers.
- [Scott] Yeah, bunker rakes was the big thing.
- And so you've got these big companies who are saying, "Hey, we've got this bunker rake. "We'll just put it on your infield. "It's the same thing, right?" Whereas you and Kevin came along saying, "Well, it's not the same thing. "It's very, very different. "And the infield deserves a tool that is specially made, "specially designed for that."
- But I will say to you, 'cause I think it's really important for people, our guests, our viewers and listeners to understand that, and I said this to Chuck in the interview, we know that we don't know everything. Now, we're really intelligent when it comes to designing equipment, but the application of it, we can't know every application out in the world, right? So, you know, the sports turf market is something that we knew needed product, but Kevin and I really didn't have a great grasp. And I remember him sitting in my office, and we're saying, "All right, how are we gonna get into this market? "There's a need. "People are buying our equipment, "but we know it's not quite right." You know, and this was, by the way, in 2009 and '10, and they say, you know, the mother of invention is necessity.
- [Matt] Yep, yep.
- [Scott] Absolute. Nine and '10 were bad years for I think the world, right?
- You needed to invent something.
- [Scott] We needed more things to sell. We needed more markets, right?
- [Matt] Yeah.
- And like I said, we'd already sold some product to sports turf, but not deliberately. We didn't have marketing assets. We didn't have the right designs. We really didn't have equipment that changed the way sports turf and baseball and softball was maintained. We do today, right?
- Yeah.
- But that's because we partnered with some, what we call strategic partnerships. Men, women, companies, leaders in the industry, you know, in what used to be called the STMA. And just asked questions and just brought people in beside us and said, "All right, where are the holes in this market? "What is going on that we can create something "that makes your job better?"
- Something we've been doing for the past couple of decades and this has happened. And so, you know, the SFMA for this year, 2023, wasn't so long ago. And we had some phenomenal friends meet up with us there and, you know, full booth the entire time. And it seems like now ABI, after not a very long time, has become established there. So if the people who are making a huge impact in the industry know us, are working with us now, why this podcast, Scott? Like, why are we, why don't you fill us in? Who's this for? Why are we doing this?
- Okay, well, I will tell you that from '99, I mean, I know it's a long time ago, right? I was a young man back then.
- [Matt] I don't know.
- Maybe not that young. Makes me even older now. But even in '99, I had this desire to not just sell product but to offer knowledge, right? To help people learn and grow. 'Cause my theory is, if we are the source of knowledge, then they're going to trust that we know what we're doing when it comes to our equipment.
- [Matt] Sure.
- And not only that, it actually brings purpose.
- Yeah.
- You know, to what we do. I mean, we're selling steel, Matt. Right? I mean, it can be kind of boring if the steel doesn't make a difference, you know, if you don't affect people's lives, if you don't change the industry. And in all the industries that ABI has been involved in through the years, we've radically changed how ground prep happens.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- Because prior to ABI, honestly, you had your traditional tools, you had your box scrapers, your discs, your pulverizers, your rakes, you know, your drag mats. Those are things that have been here forever, right? But ABI has always come up with bigger and better and more effective and efficient ways to get work done.
- [Matt] Sure.
- [Scott] Matt, what's our mission statement at ABI?
- Empowering our customers with better ways to get their outdoor work done.
- Exactly. All right, so that can come through equipment, it can come through knowledge, it can come through other people giving us advice. So this podcast is really kind of a twofer. I mean, I'll be honest, I'm an owner. This is a twofer, I'm not gonna lie to you. We want more people to know about us 'cause we want more people to have our equipment, but we also want people to have more knowledge and to be better at what they do and to get their jobs done better and more efficiently. And the world is changing. You know, I mean, I'm not saying we're in artificial intelligence, but my gosh, you go to buy tractors now, they're self-driving for God's sake, right? So the world is changing, equipment's changing, the needs are changing, and we want to be at the forefront. So if we bring people into this podcast who are at the forefront, guess what? We get to learn.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- Along with our viewers and our listeners. So that's why. That's why we're doing "Ground Et Cetera," is we want the industry to have more knowledge.
- Well, and that's definitely been the way that I've come to learn in field prep and in field renovation here at ABI has been through those industry experts that we've worked with over the years, right? I mean, in what, eight years I've been at ABI now, and as coming up through customer service and meeting the people who would call in and asking questions and troubleshooting their products and troubleshooting their infields and troubleshooting the, you know, the major issues that we're coming up with because they just, they want the fields to be playable and they want the fields to be beautiful and they want their field to be known as a great place to play, so that tournaments will come, so that players will come, so that they can be reputable facilities, right?
- [Scott] Yeah.
- And so being able to learn those secrets over the years and then to be able to then share those secrets here on, you know, via this medium, this podcast, or any other way that we can kind of share what we've learned with others because we love the industry.
- And, you know, ABI has always been about innovation. I mean, I remember, I still remember the day that my partner and I sat down in '99, and we were going to develop a business strategy around his patents, right? Because we didn't really have one, we didn't have a business plan. We just had product that he invented. He's brilliant. I mean, just brilliant designer, engineer. And I said to him, "As far as I'm concerned, "I don't wanna be a Walmart. "I don't want to sell commodity products. "I don't want something "that somebody can go down to TSC and buy."
- [Matt] Yeah.
- "I want something that we have designed "that changes the world."
- [Matt] Sure.
- And that was really how we focused. Now, but I will say this, I have learned that innovation is incredible, but there are times where maybe the innovation is a little less, but quality build is a little more. And this is some of the things that we found in the sports turf is that yes, we have some innovative things. We have patents. You know, the ABI Force has eight US patents on it. I mean, you can't duplicate the Force. We protected it, right?
- [Matt] Sure.
- But the ground engaging components are pretty similar to the tried and true test and tried and true equipment.
- [Matt] It's just how they get into the ground, right?
- It's just how they get into the ground. How do you manage 'em, how do you control 'em? How do you take control of the ground instead of mother nature and the ground taking control of you?
- Yeah.
- [Scott] That's what we changed.
- And in talking with Chuck the other day, that's exactly what he was saying about, you know, working with us, that in every, even in on one field, depending on the weather, depending on the temperature, depending on how much rain you got, depending on how many teams have been on it recently, you need to have control over those ground engage components so that you can modify and run on the fly and you can flip fields as fast as you need to flip fields.
- You know, we used to joke when we were first developing these products 'cause, you know, we were doing our market research and looking at all the bunker rakes out there and all the attachments, and we just called it the drop and drag. I mean, really that's all you had. If it was wet, you dropped it and you got stuck or you dug holes, or it was dry, you couldn't get the tool into the ground, 'cause there was no control over the attachments.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- There was no way for you to have control of the ground. The ground and mother nature had control over you. And we've reversed that. We've flipped that narrative. We now have control with what we've developed and designed. So it's pretty cool.
- Love it. So this podcast then is really just our desire to share what we've learned, right? And we've had the privilege of working with industry leaders, with people across the country in major league fields down to church softball fields, and we're just trying the best that we can to learn, to listen and kind of summarize it down and provide it to anyone who's interested in groundskeeping work, in field work, right, in sports turf work. So if you're along for the ride, stick around and subscribe. This episode specifically with Chuck White is trying to pick his brain on some of the secrets that he's learned over the years. Again, an educator, a coach, a trainer, a field developer, and then into managing some pretty impressive complexes throughout the country.
- Very impressive interview.
- Oh my goodness, yeah. So if you're interested in kind of some secrets of the trade and in some things to look for when taking care of your field, then stick around for Chuck White.
- Absolutely.
- On today's episode, we have got Mr. Chuck White. So Chuck has been with United Turf and Track here for a couple of years, before that with six years at the USA Hall of Fame Complex, and before that 28 years as a coach and educator. Chuck, welcome. Thanks for joining us here.
- Thank you so much for the invitation.
- [Scott] I gotta say around ABI, myth, legend. Your name Seriously, right? His name was brought up all the time around ABI.
- Honestly, like walking into the coffee shop this morning, Chuck, I was a little bit intimidated.
- Little starstruck.
- You come across like a great nice guy, but like, wow, this is the guy when it comes to working in, working on sports turf and fields. We're really excited to have you. Why don't you, I mean, I could go on and on about your resume and your experience working with sports fields, but why don't you do that for us? I mean, talk us through how you first got into working on ball fields.
- You know, I got to thinking about this the other day, and I guess it was when I was a young boy, and it's like God reached down and said, "You got this." And I grew up in the oil field. My dad was an electrician, so he had a shop behind our house. And across the street we had a oil derrick.
- [Scott] What part of the country?
- Oklahoma City.
- [Scott] Oklahoma City, okay.
- And part of this was a big open field with grass up to your knee. Well, baseball was my sport. So I'd take dad's lawnmower, go over there and I mowed me a baseball field.
- [Matt] No kidding.
- Yeah, and then I made my bases. And so I had my own field. Well, I'm in elementary school when I do this. So that just kind of caught on to me. And then when we got into high school, I looked at dad because in his shop, he was an electrician, but I learned to do plumbing. I learned to do carpentry. I learned to do cut and weld steel. I learned to be a mechanic. I learned to do all these different things. So my dad set me up by teaching me all these things for the future. So I'm in high school, I said, "Dad, we don't have a scoreboard." So dad and I built a scoreboard for my high school too.
- [Matt] No kidding.
- So I go to college, played at Oklahoma Christian. I get there and I said, "Dad, this place is a goat trail." So I said, "Can we build stuff?" He goes, "Yeah." So we built foul poles and flag poles, and we built a scoreboard and built the dugouts.
- [Matt] Wow.
- And then my shortstop and I took care of the field. I graduate from there. I go to start teaching. I teach elementary physical education for 21 years.
- [Matt] Wow. And you survived.
- I did.
- Well, he didn't have my kids then.
- He didn't have mine either.
- I had a period of time when I was not in coaching, but then in '85 the local high school coach didn't have an assistant, so I said, "Hey, can I come help?" So that's where I got into high school. And so then we started working on fields, and I'm starting to build things, you know, 'cause I look at things and say, "Oh, that could be better," and do it. And so then in '97, I moved to another high school in our district and I was the head softball, head baseball. And they had to tear out my field because they're gonna build a field house. But the operations director came to me, he says, "We've got a problem in our district." I said, "What's that?" And he goes, "We're fixing to have a Title IX issue, "because baseball is so much better "than anything softball's got. "Would you help me?" So I designed a stadium that they copied three times.
- No kidding.
- And so now they all there, well, I got to build mine. The maintenance department built theirs, but I built mine. And so I was very proud of it. And I told my AD, I said, "When I get done, the service will be as good as anything "at the Hall of Fame." He goes, "Yeah, right."
- [Scott] A little foreshadowing there.
- So at that time, I had a former student coach, a player that was the head of Washington University, and they made the World Series.
- [Matt] Ah.
- So I said, "Hey Scott, come and practice at my place." So he came. I said, "What do you think, Scott?" He goes, "This is easily in the top 5% "of anything I play on at the collegiate level."
- [Matt] Wow.
- So it started there, and everything went great. And then in 2004, my alma mater, Oklahoma Christian, came to me and said, "You know, we dropped our program in '01. "We wanna start it back up. "We want you to come and do it."
- As coach?
- [Chuck] Well, initially I was interim AD.
- Okay.
- [Chuck] But eventually-
- All right.
- I became the coach. So I went back in '04 and started working in developing a vision for that. So then they finally said, "Let's do this." And I said, "Okay." So we started getting serious. So I developed the vision for what we're gonna do. I designed it. I went out and helped raise a million and a half dollars.
- [Matt] Wow.
- I designed it, I built it, I maintained it. I was the coach, the scheduler. All the different things to go with that. Recruiter, all those things.
- You know what word comes to mind when I hear him telling this story?
- Oh.
- We use it all the time at ABI. Passion.
- Oh yeah.
- All I'm hearing is passion from a child all the way to currently in your story, I'm just hearing passion, something that you love. Made your heart beat.
- That's right. Go back to what I was telling you. "You've got it," when I was a young boy.
- [Scott] Right, right.
- And it just stayed with me.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- [Matt] Incredible.
- And I love taking a field. It's like sculpture. You go out there and you develop and then look at this.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- And I did a field on Friday and I said, my son was with me. He said, "You play on this field." I said, "Yep, in high school and college." He goes, "Did it look like this?" I said, "No way." I wish I could have played on a field that looked like and played like this.
- [Scott] Right, right.
- So what I'm not here then is any, along the way, anytime you went to, you know, a groundskeeper, or you started working with a professional installer and you, you know, somebody brought you in under their wing. Like, you just you figured this out by installing 'em on your own. Like, what worked, what didn't? It was trial by fire, right?
- Yeah, absolutely. I designed it all. I designed the dugouts, the backstop, built the backstop, built out field fence, did all the grade work, everything.
- Good gravy.
- I put in the irrigation, built the bullpens, you name it. And then a couple of years after that, I designed and oversaw a indoor hitting facility. Coaches locker rooms, player locker rooms, workout, hitting tunnels, all those different things.
- [Scott] Right.
- [Matt] Goodness. So talk about the jump then from Oklahoma Christian to USA Hall of Fame. How did that happen?
- We started the program and actually started playing in '08. Unfortunately in '09, my wife was diagnosed with frontal temporal lobe dementia. So we unfortunately knew what was gonna happen.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- So I told my players at the time, I said, "Listen, there's probably gonna be a time "when she's gonna need me and I'm gonna be gone."
- [Matt] Yeah.
- In '12, I was on the road. She had a bad episode, and so I just, at the end of the year, I just went to my administrators and my players, and I said, "Listen, love you guys, but you're not my priority. "My wife is."
- Wow. Good for you, Chuck.
- So I quit everything.
- Wow.
- I quit coaching, I quit teaching, and I went full-time to be her caregiver. And so I did that. About a year after that is when I lost her.
- Oh.
- In 2013.
- Wow.
- And so I kind of stumbled around for about a year. And then I had a good friend, Dylan Ripley, who has United Turf and Track. Now, it wasn't then, but it is now. And Dylan said, "Come work with me." And so I did. But into it a little bit, I get this knock on the door or a phone call and says, "Hey listen, the USA needs a groundskeeper. "They're a month from starting the season, "and they don't have anybody."
- And I'm sure the field wasn't in great shape.
- No. Because the administrators have been taken care of it.
- Right. That's what I'm saying.
- Ooh, yeah. But anyway, I went and interviewed with them, and we talked for a while, and, you know, they called my baseball coach and they interviewed, and he goes, "You want him 'cause he can be build anything."
- [Matt] Yeah.
- He called Middel public schools. Mike said, "This is what he did for us." So I got the job, and we started.
- [Matt] Wow.
- At the time I started doing it, I was just the groundskeeper. But eventually I became in charge of groundskeeping and maintenance.
- [Scott] Right.
- And so then I took it over, and then we started doing different things.
- You know, one of the things I learned in this business is that, you know, as a little boy playing little league, you don't think about the field. I mean, you don't think about the maintenance of a complex or a municipality or a high-end field. You just don't think about it. You just think it's the same every day. I mean, there's so many variables. I mean, there's so many things that change on a day-to-day, sometimes hour by hour basis that it takes somebody with in-depth knowledge on how to handle every situation in order to make the field playable.
- I think one of the things that really got to me was when I was at Midwest City and I was coaching and I was in the summer ball and I had a day off, and I came back and my short stop, I look at him, I said, "Dave, what happened?" He got a black eye. I said, "What happened?" He goes, "A ball hopped off of that lip there on that grass "and hit me in the face." I said, "Well, that's the end of that." So you start paying attention. So in this day and time, it is about looks, aesthetics, but it's more about safety.
- [Scott] Right, right.
- [Matt] Absolutely.
- And especially when you get to the USA level and you're doing division one, international world cup, high school state, it is safety.
- [Matt] Sure.
- And so there are a lot of those things that pour into that. They look great, but they're also very safe.
- [Scott] Yeah, yeah. You know, you think about getting hit by a pitch. My baseball story, my baseball career ended in second grade. I got hit by a pitch. That was it. I figured I could hit a golf ball and it wouldn't hit me back. So that was the end of my baseball career.
- [Matt] Sounds like a really good excuse.
- Whatever. But at any rate, the point is this, when you think about safety in baseball, most people just think about being hit by a pitch. Oh my gosh. The field, the warning track, the turf, the way the ball bounces, the way you slide, you know? I mean, there's just so many things that go into the safety of the game.
- And that's what I notice is that all these people want a field. But when I walk up on a field for the first time, I'm going, nobody thought about this before they built it. Okay? Well, when I built Oklahoma Christian, I spent a significant amount of money getting the ground right, because if the ground's not right, neither are the dugouts, neither are the fences, neither are the drainage. None of the stuff works. So you do a lot of pre-planning.
- [Scott] And subsurface work. I mean, your subsurface has to be right.
- But it's not, it's because you know that once it's built, now I gotta take care of it.
- [Matt] Right, right.
- So you build it with a mind of, okay, when it's built at the end of the job looking back, what do I have to do?
- [Matt] Yeah.
- And unfortunately in today's world, oh, there's a patch of grass, let's build a baseball field, a softball field. No, it doesn't always work if you're gonna do it right.
- [Scott] Right.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- [Scott] No doubt. Interesting history.
- Yeah, well, and Chuck, one of the reasons that we wanted to talk with you, and I know one reason that you accepted our offer to kind of jump on this and share some wisdom is that you did teach yourself over the years, I'll say years instead of decades. It's been decades. But you've taught yourself. So, and you said that heart for education as a teacher for so many years is still inside of you, and you want other people to learn this trade and share that passion, like you mentioned, Scott, as well. So let's say I'm that kid. I'm that kid that maybe I got hit by a ball that jumped off a lip and like, oh, I wanna take care of fields. This is a love. What do you recommend? Like, how would you recommend kids getting into this or young people getting into this as something to do with their life?
- It's kind of a unique thing. Not many people want to do it. And what I find is, I could teach you to do it, right? But if you really want to do it, if you don't have the want to, it ain't gonna happen.
- Right.
- This is a very time labor intensive job.
- Yeah.
- And you cannot be discouraged by when the sun comes up or when the sun goes down. You cannot be discouraged by how much it rains or how much it doesn't rain. But you've got to look and prepare for all these things. Well, there are a lot of people that just don't want to do that. So it's want to.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- Okay? Now I know this is repetitive but, "You got it," when I was in elementary and I built my own field.
- [Scott] Your dad saw the passion.
- The good Lord put that in me, and then my dad helped me cultivate the skills to do that.
- [Scott] Right.
- And so I look for people like that. That's the way I raised my boys.
- [Scott] Yeah, yeah.
- [Chuck] And they started at a very young age going to the high school and helping me. And now what happens? I work alongside of them.
- Right.
- [Chuck] We all work together.
- Well, you go from working with your dad on the back lot to now your kids are working with you. I love it.
- [Chuck] Exactly.
- You know, Matt, you've been in hiring at ABI for...
- A while.
- Eight years, seven years. Been in the hiring, you know, HR and doing a lot. And I know one of the things you look for is passion. It's hard to find. It's hard to find people who have found their spot that have a passion for what they do day in and day out. It's really tough. And I know that's one of the things we wanna talk about with you, Chuck, is how do you find your staff? How do you build your team? And what's the balance between your human team and your equipment team? 'Cause there is a fine line. No one here is gonna say you shouldn't have staff. But at the same time, sometimes equipment can maximize and help you-
- Well, when I first started in high school, we didn't have have any equipment. It was a garden tractor was what we did everything with.
- [Scott] A rake and a hoe.
- Yeah, a rake and a hoe. We did everything by hand. Beat ourselves up. I'm glad I was young then 'cause I couldn't do it now.
- [Scott] Yeah, right.
- And so as we'd go along, I leave with the first high school, go the second high school, I got an AD that will listen to me. And so now we bought a commercial tractor, and so I took the skills my dad built and gave me and I go build implements for that tractor to make my job easier.
- Oh, he's one of those guys. No wonder You like Kevin Kegley?
- Yeah, exactly.
- I'll just build it myself.
- So I did that at the high school level. And then when I got to the collegiate level, I was able to buy a little bit better equipment. But I'm still building my own drags and my own stuff to do what I'm doing outta need, outta necessity because they just weren't out there. Okay? So now I leave there and I go to the Hall of Fame. They have some, but it needs to be upgraded. And I just tell 'em, "Hey, you're the capital of the World Series, softball, "you should have the best to do what we're gonna do "and we're doing this year round. "I don't want to kill myself." So equipment is a big, big deal.
- [Scott] But so is the employees.
- It is.
- [Scott] You know, I mean, you gotta have, 'cause I know we sent some of our guys down to work with you and Taylor comes back exhausted. Because oh my gosh, I've never worked that hard in my life. Right? So, you know, finding those men and women who-
- Taylor actually stayed at my house when we did that. So we'd get up early and we'd go to the ballpark and, you know, six o'clock in the morning and we'd come home midnight.
- Yeah. So let's talk about those, even if you've got the right equipment, you've got really long days and not just days, into nights. And, you know, we've heard stories where sometimes you've got the flips that, you know, one tournament day into the next, and so the nights might be a very short night to go catch a nap on a cot before you're back up and at 'em. How do you avoid burnout? Like, how do you, not only for yourself have you done it over the years, but how do you help your team make sure that they're getting their rest?
- Well, on a personal level, you do struggle with it, okay? But you just learned through time and dedication and the passion we spoke about, I'm not giving up. I'm gonna find a way. And I've got a break coming, and during that time, that's when I kind of rejuvenate myself a little bit.
- [Matt] What's that look like for you? Like, personally, how do you rejuvenate? When you've got a day or two in a row that you can actually step back away from it, what are you doing?
- I get the weekend off and I don't do much of anything.
- [Matt] Good for you.
- Which is really, at times I feel guilty because I feel like I need to be productive.
- [Scott] Right. You are being productive.
- But like at Oklahoma Christian, I'm having to build a field. I work seven days a week for five years, no vacation.
- [Matt] Wow.
- Was it tough? Absolutely. But my vision was greater and my desire was greater than the burnout.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- But that is a problem.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- It really is a problem. And some of the older guys like myself, we knew we had to do that. Some of the younger guys coming up just that's not in 'em.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- And so when you find somebody like that, you identify that and you start cultivating a personal relationship with them.
- [Scott] Sure.
- Okay? Like, the boy that works with me now, I recruited him in 2007 as a baseball player. He was a pitcher. So I taught him, we taught him how to build a mount. Okay? He graduates, I go to the Hall of Fame. "Hey Ryan, come help me."
- [Matt] Right on.
- And he comes and helps me, and I bring another pitcher and another catcher and they help me. And at one time, each one of those were a part-time, full-time, part-time employee for me. And to this day, Ryan is still with me at United Turf and Track.
- [Scott] Wow.
- But I identify this guy wants to do this, he's got the skills, he's teachable, he's learnable, and then I just invest in him.
- So not only do you have to know how to maintain a field, build a field, build everything around a stadium, you gotta understand psychology, and you gotta understand leadership development, and you gotta know how to mentor. Sounds like you're a mentor as well.
- And then, you know, you teach 'em something, and then you give 'em some and go do this and let him go do that. And then you politely critique it and help him tweak it and stuff. I guess the best thing that I can say to it is I left the Hall of Fame in 2020 and Ryan took over.
- Oh yeah. And you brought him up from...
- About six months into it. He sent me a text and he says, "Thank you." I said, "What do you mean?" He goes, "I did not realize how much you were teaching me "and setting me up for the future "how to do these things until you left."
- And Chuck, this is really important. This is kind of a passion, I know it's a passion of yours. We talk about leadership development all the time. But it's one thing to just be a doer and just do the job and just drive your staff to get the job done. And it's another thing to be a coach among your team and your staff. And I've seen many men and women who are really, really good at what they do, and they don't wanna teach anyone because they don't think anybody can do it better than, I guarantee you, hearing your story, I guarantee you you sent guys out to do things that, you know, you could have done better, but you had to trust them and let them learn, let them make their mistakes, and then you had to guide them. And that's leadership.
- You know, and sometimes it's not telling them, it's showing them, okay? So they do something and then they see me come back in, and I'll just tweak it just a little bit, and they'll see me do that and then they'll pick up on it. You know, here's a story about that. We're doing the World Series and Taylor is there with me. I'm edging the outfield warning track, and I'm coming around, and I'm almost obsessed with good lines.
- Yeah.
- And I did a line, and I didn't like it, backed up, and I did it again. I backed up and I did it again. I didn't know Taylor was behind me. Tyler goes, "That's why this place looks like that "'cause you did that thing three times "'til you got it right."
- Yep, yep. So, and I hear your willingness to train, your willingness to raise up, your intentionality and your strategic nature that you're applying to training people up. But talk to me about kind of a bare bone component. Let's say you've got a young guy that he's played ball, he knows the game, he wants to jump into, he or she wants to jump into groundskeeping. If there were one or two things that you just really wish that person knew coming out the gate about the field, about the build of a field, about the maintenance of a field that would kind of launchpad them into an easier training process, what are a couple of things that you wish people would know?
- You know, as I think about your question, there's just so many things that run through my head.
- Yeah.
- Okay? But being intentional. Okay? Having good vision, understanding. Never stop learning, always asking questions, always looking. And I'm looking for that person who is not satisfied. They want to do better, and they want to do better every day, not just on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And I'm looking for that person. Okay? And I wish they understood that. And sometimes... It's hard to find, to be honest with you.
- [Matt] Yeah, I'm sure.
- It is really hard to find. My alma mater, we did that at the college. We went in and did overseeding and tod dressing. And there was a boy there that was working on the field, and so I got to talk to him. His name was Blake. I said, "Blake, are you an assistant coach?" "No, I'm a player." "What do you play?" "Right field. "Right now and I'm a starter." I said, "Why are you out here?" He said, "I love fields." And I could tell, and I was, what I saw led me to the conversation I had with Blake. So when I got done, I called Lonnie, the coach. I said, "Lonnie, tell me about Blake." "Oh, coach, he loves the field." So he's my contact now.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- I called him instead of calling the coach. I said, "Go talk to Lonnie, the coach, "and tell him this is what we're gonna do." And so then Blake starts texting me, "Hey, is there a place for me in United Turf and Track "during the summer?"
- [Matt] Wow.
- An internship.
- [Scott] Right.
- And so, yes. And so he started asking me about positions and time. And when I find somebody that's got that kind of inquisitive, I'm gonna single him out. And now he's in my phone, and he knows he can call me anytime and I can call him.
- Right. There's no doubt you never lost the teacher in you.
- Yeah.
- Right?
- Oh, absolutely. You can see that.
- You can see that all the way through this history. Yeah, for sure.
- And it sounds like you're willing to be a great contact and a great kind of open door to people that you know, so they can get into the industry. What about people that don't know the great Chuck White? What about players at any level that they also love the field. They love to play, love the field. They wanna make a career in this, but they don't have a Chuck in their life. Any recommendations for them? Who to go to? Who should they be looking for in their life? Who should they send a text to to see if they can get in somewhere?
- You know, it's really crazy. Sometimes I have former players that say, "Hey, this, that," you know, become firemen or a policeman or this or that or so on. Some of 'em become teachers and they call me, "Hey coach, I got a mound, you know, "and so I've got a home plate "and I've got this and that and so on." So I try to direct them. But I always tell them, "Listen, you call me anytime, anywhere 24 hours a day. "There's no time too late or too early, you call me."
- [Matt] Yeah.
- Because I want them to understand if they're gonna be good at what they're gonna do and that's what they gotta do. Your phone doesn't click off at 8:00 PM. No, you call me at 10:00 if you need me to.
- Yeah, but if we put your number up on the screen right here, you wouldn't have time to answer all the questions.
- [Chuck] Well, I get quite a few of those.
- So to Matt's question then, if they don't have you, if they don't have access to you, how does a young player, a young person who wants to make the transition into maintenance, how do they get started? Where do they go and get their education? What would you recommend?
- They're gonna have to go seeking. They're gonna have to go looking. 'Cause those people aren't gonna come knock on your door.
- [Scott] Right.
- You're gonna have to go find them. You're gonna have to turn over a rock. You're gonna have to find a resource that will point you towards somebody else or some other thing. It's just not gonna come. In this business, that's not the way it is.
- Yeah. I know in this business there are educational courses that you can take. There are, you know, what they call, the schools, universities of groundskeeping. And I'm not knocking that. I think that's very important. But I would suspect, I guess I put it in a form of a question. Is that enough? Is that kind of education enough or do you need that practical mentorship? You know, I don't know if I'm saying it right. The education that's out there via the web or via, you know, whatever, is that enough? Or do you really need somebody like a Chuck White in your life?
- I think it's easier for you if you do have someone, okay, that can help you. And let's say you ask him a question or ask me a question and I don't know, I'm gonna tell you, I don't know. But let's go find that person. And you've gotta go be not be willing to just sit back and say, no, I don't know. I'm gonna go do that. And I think that's one of the things my dad taught me as a young boy, okay? He taught me how to do all these skills, but he taught me an approach to doing a job and asking questions, seeking out resources, finding the right person, and don't give up.
- [Scott] All right.
- You know? You may see that person, or that person may be come to me and I turn you on to that person in that area. Okay, so there's no one solution. It's kind of a relation. And to me that's what this is about is relationships. Because that's one of the things I want to do now where I'm at. I know how tough it is as a coach to do stuff. I want to be that advocate for a high school or small collegiate coach.
- Yep.
- Because they don't have the knowledge, the experience, the skill, the money, the equipment. And so I want to be that for them.
- Yeah.
- "Well, I don't know where to get this." Well, go here and talk to this guy and go here and talk to that guy. That happened this week with another guy. I said, "Yeah, do you know somebody?" "Yeah, here's his phone number. "Call him. "And when you call him, tell him I said, Chuck said." And I said, "That'll open the door for you."
- [Scott] Yeah.
- And he called me back, he said, "I'm gonna call him right now."
- [Scott] That's great, that's great,
- So Chuck, you've talked already about kinda the balance between people and equipment and how you can have some really phenomenal crews, but if you don't have equipment to help out, it's hard to hit some of those efficiencies that you need. And even it sounds like, and this is new to me today, Scott, I didn't know this, that you started out inventing some of your own-
- [Scott] I know, that was fascinating!
- [Matt] I know. No wonder you appreciate the Force. So talk to us about the, some key components of the equipment that you have to have at this point. Like, what are some features of the equipment? What do you use and what are some features that you rely on heavily in order to keep up with the demands that you're facing?
- [Scott] And not to confuse 'em, but I'd like to know what you've used in the past too. I'd like to, you know, we jumped into this in 2009. I'd love to know what the progression was of what equipment you guys used in the '70s, '80s, '90s and before, you know, companies like us stepped in. So I'm really curious.
- Yeah. I'd like to go back to the beginning and talk about my dad's shop.
- [Matt] Sure.
- One of the things that my dad taught me by me watching him was, okay, this is, I grew up in his shop, you know, in the '60s. I'm young. And my dad would just be blown away with all the power equipment we have now. Just amazing, you know? But I would see my dad say, "Well, we need this to do this." And there was none of this. And so I would watch him and his head would just, you could just see it and he'd come up with a plan and he'd go and build his own equipment to do the job that we needed to do. And so that rubbed off on me. And that has rubbed off on my boys. And Ryan that I referred to a while ago as a young man that I recruited, he plays. He goes, "You're the only guy that I know "that buys a brand new piece of equipment "and then tweaks it." I said, "Because it is made for a big picture. "And we're a little picture. "And we need this done. "So we tweak it just a little bit." So before we got something like the Force, we had a garden tractor, you know, and a spike drag and this and that and so on. And it just didn't meet my needs all the time. If it's wet, if it's dry, if it's this, if it's that, it just didn't meet my needs. And so I would build my own drags to do what I wanted to get done in that environment, 'cause not one situation or one piece of equipment meets all the needs all the time. And so through my dad's influence, I do that. And we would build things at the high school level. I would build drags and other things at the collegiate level. We got to the World Series prior to the ABI Force, and I would still be building things to do what we wanted to do because it's just to step up, a little bit better, a little bit better. And Ryan looked at me one day and he goes, "Where did you learn to do this?" And I said, "Eddie taught me." That's my dad. And so he's learned to do it. He sees something like that and he goes, "That's an Eddie thing." That's an Eddie thing. We've gotta have the right equipment. And so I've learned by experience, if I don't have the right equipment, I'm gonna kill myself.
- [Scott] Right.
- And I'm not gonna do as good a job as I could do if I had the right equipment. So we're always looking, tweaking a, I want it to do this, I want it to do that. So we build it, we take it apart, we tweak it, we put it back on and we keep tweaking until we get what we want. And I think that's the beauty of the Force. The Force does so many things and multiple things simultaneously. So it saves me times because I got the belly doing one thing and the back doing another thing. And that saves me time 'cause I don't have to do this and go change it and then come back and do that. I can do things simultaneously, and it's kind of like, oh, okay. Well, this and that work today, but this and that works tomorrow, because yesterday it was wet. Today it's not.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- And so manufacturing and having different pieces of equipment for different conditions is priceless. It makes your job better, it makes your product better, it plays better, it's safer. It's all these different things. So equipment for me is key.
- How do you take a budget and balance between employees and equipment? And I guess what I'm looking for, or I guess the answer that I'm looking for is, does good equipment help maximize your dollars and your staffing? Have you seen that you've been able to reduce the cost of labor because of good equipment? Is that important to you? Or, you know, I still watch major league baseball and it's still at the seventh inning, they're out there hand raking. You know, but I think that's more of a tradition than outta necessity maybe. Maybe not, maybe I'm wrong. But talk to me about that. Talk to me about the balance between staff and equipment and how that's evolved over time.
- You know, you can never have enough good people, you know? And identifying and doing that, but the same for equipment. And what I found specifically in the Force, I can do so many more fine things that it almost eliminates one person.
- [Scott] Wow.
- Almost, not quite, but almost. But like in my case, I found out, okay, it does this. Now I'm gonna teach Ryan or my sons to do this and that lets me go do that.
- [Scott] Sure.
- So it's better use of time management because I can do this and teach them to do this. They become proficient on this, and that releases me. I don't have to be on the Force. Ryan, Colin, Aaron can be on the Force, and I can go do something else. So that makes my product better.
- [Scott] Yeah. So it's not like you ever run out of things to do. It's like with good equipment, you get more things done.
- And I don't try to, "Oh, that's my piece of equipment. "You can't get on it." I want everybody to run everything. Because on any given day, I'm not here, they're not here, somebody else can get on equipment and do as good a job. But if they don't have the right equipment, they're not gonna be able to do a job just like I would. So it's a balance. It's efficiency. It's a spontaneous, this happens, that happens, whatever, you know, so field conditions, weather conditions dictate a lot.
- Yeah. Share with us a story, and I love stories. I like to tell stories, like to hear stories, about how equipment saved your bacon. I don't care if it's the Force or it's something else, but I'd love to hear a good story.
- So first year, Taylor comes down.
- [Scott] Oh, first year you had the Force?
- Yes.
- [Scott] Okay.
- Taylor comes down, he's staying at my house. I go up in the press box and Mike from OU, they're the sponsor for that. And Mike is the operations guy. So I go up, once we get the last game started, I go up in the press box. I said, "Mike, how are we looking for tomorrow?" "Chuck, there's 10% chance of rain, no big deal." And he goes, I says, "So tarp tonight?" "Nah, don't worry about it." Okay. We finish up about midnight, we go home. I wake up in the middle of the night about 4:00, 4:30, kaboom! Lightning and thunder's going off. And I go, what? I jump up, I go in Taylor's room. "Taylor, get your clothes on. "We gotta go." He gets dressed, we get in my truck, we take off. My house is about 10 miles from the field. We're getting there about eight miles from the field. It starts raining. No tarp on the field. We're in trouble.
- [Scott] World Series tomorrow.
- World Series tomorrow. And we come around the corner and it just looks like a lake.
- [Matt] Oh.
- It is a lake.
- [Scott] How many inches?
- Oh, I don't know. Probably half to a quarter, maybe almost three quarters of an inch. Just like that.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- And it's five o'clock, and we got the lights on, and it's just raining cats and dogs. And Taylor looks at me and he goes, "We're in trouble." I go, "No, we're not." He goes, "Why?" I said, "'Cause I got two Forces." He goes, "You serious?" I said, "Yeah." I said, "We'll let it set to about 11 o'clock." Fortunately at that time we were to the championship series, so we didn't play 'til 6:00.
- [Scott] Okay.
- I said, "By 3:30 this'll be ready to play." He goes, "Are you serious?" I said, "Yeah, it will." We came back in, we came in a little early, called the other guys. We start, Taylor and I started working on the field. He's on one Force, I'm on the other. My guys come in.
- So what are you doing with the Force?
- [Chuck] We're just opening it up and turning it over.
- Just ripping it up.
- [Chuck] And letting it dry out.
- Okay, got it.
- And so we start working. By 3:30 it's ready.
- [Matt] No kidding.
- If I don't have those two machines on that field and the right help and the right material, this ain't gonna happen.
- [Scott] Yeah, wow. Game played well?
- Played great. And I told them, I said, we did that, and then we lasered it afterwards, and I said, "Boys, that may be the best surface of the whole series."
- [Scott] Wow, wow.
- So that's where equipment saves your bacon.
- Yeah, 'cause you couldn't have done that with staff. It took a mechanical effort.
- Yeah, and it's one of those machines, and this is what people don't understand. I can drive in, I get stuck, I just raise all the implement and drive out.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- And so I know my field and I know and I can see, and so I just start working pieces of it. You can't do that with just any machine.
- [Scott] Right, right.
- You just can't do that. But once I got both machines, simultaneously. Taylor's experienced, I'm experienced, we start working, I start instructing, bring this, bring that, do this, do that. 3:30, we're ready to play.
- [Scott] Yeah, that's awesome.
- And nobody knew it.
- Yeah, nobody knew the miracle you pulled off.
- [Chuck] Nobody knew it. Not even the teams. Nobody knew it.
- [Scott] Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. That's awesome.
- That's one of, you know, a handful of things that I could talk about.
- [Scott] That's cool.
- So Chuck, you've been on countless fields, way too many to count at this point. Give us, if you had to boil it down to the one or two most common issues you see walking onto a field that maybe has not had an expert groundskeeper taking care of it, or of the phone calls, you get somebody reaching out like, "Oh, I've got this issue," what are one or two of the most common issues you face?
- When I look at a field, I look at several different things, but you got the grass part and you had the dirt part. What most people focus on when they walk in, like through the World Series or something, and the first thing they make a comment about is, "Man, that grass is beautiful."
- [Matt] Right.
- And I look at 'em and think, did you see the dirt?
- [Matt] Where we gonna be playing?
- Because what they don't understand is 80 to 85% of this game is played on the dirt. You got nine defensive people on the field, six are on the dirt.
- [Scott] Right.
- Three are on the grass. Then you add umpires and base runners, and the next thing you know, you've got a crew on this dirt and it takes a hit. So taking care of the dirt is big on mine, because that's where the game is played, on the mound, at home plate.
- Yep.
- Okay, on the infield, base runners, all these different things. So the dirt is a big deal. Getting the right materials, getting it lasered, putting it back where it's supposed to be. One of the things that a lot of people don't understand, probably one of the biggest things about dirt is moisture, is keeping it wet. So it will play consistent. It gets dry, it craters out. It gets wet, too wet, it's muddy. So managing moisture.
- [Matt] Yep.
- And one of the biggest challenges at the World Series, you got four games a day trying to keep moisture in the field from game one to game four is a big deal.
- [Scott] Keeping it the same from beginning to end.
- And that way it's consistent. So I try to get my people, say, and I tell my coaches, "Hey, I worked your field today. "You need to backwash the edges. "You need to drag and everyday water your field." They don't do it.
- Right.
- Why? Time. It's a time management. A lot of 'em aren't willing to stay 30 minutes to an hour after everybody's gone and you come and do it to get it ready for the next day. They just turn off the lights, pick up the bases, and they're gone.
- [Matt] Right.
- Well, if you don't do that, then how do you expect your field to play like it's supposed to play the next day?
- [Matt] Right.
- And if you do that season long, and so when I walk out on the field, I'm looking at the edges, okay. The edges are dead giveaway. I look at the shape of the mound, I look at home plate and there's holes in the ground, you know? And it's really strange in my family, I have two boys and a girl, and my girl even helps with the World Series.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- But I've ruined them.
- [Matt] Oh no.
- We're watching a ball game on TV and she'll text me, "Dad, you watching this ball game?" Yeah. "Did you see the baseline at this place?" And this is major league level.
- Right, right, right.
- I had a guy that played for, I mean, he's father, he helped me build a field and take care of the field. And he goes, "You've ruined me." I said, "What do you mean?" He goes, "Man, their edges just aren't quite straight." So it's critiquing it and just making it straight, you know? Taking care of the grass, knowing what to do, when to do it. Too much water, not enough water. All those different things. So you've got to manage a lot of different things.
- Well, Chuck, it's been great having you here. I've already learned a lot. Matt, I know you've learned a lot.
- A lot.
- You don't know much to begin with. But that's okay.
- Cutting deep.
- Cutting deep, no, no. I already learned a lot. I know our audience is gonna learn a lot, but we're not done with you. I know we're bringing you back, and we're gonna be talking about leadership. We kind of hinted at that a little bit earlier in the episode. But we're gonna be talking about leadership and what that looks like for you and how you've used leadership to develop young players and young field maintenance guys.
- [Chuck] Good.
- Glad to have you, buddy.
- [Chuck] Look forward to it.
- Yeah, so if you are in a leadership position at a groundskeeping crew, make sure to stick around next episode. We're gonna pick Chuck's brain there on how to lead teams. And friendly reminder as well, if you are watching this show right now, we do have a podcast version, "Ground Et Cetera." Check us out on your podcast mediums. And if you're listening to us instead of watching us, well, we are here on the camera as well. You can check us out on YouTube. We look forward to seeing you next time. Take care.
