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.
Maintaining Ballfields on a Limited Budget – With Taylor Coquillard
In the studio for this episode is Taylor Coquillard; he’s here to help you get the most out of your baseball and softball grooming equipment. Taylor has loads of experience playing, coaching, and maintaining local fields. He knows his way around a ballfield and the challenges that come with working with limited time, labor, and budget for equipment.
To learn more about ABI Force infield grooming equipment visit: https://www.abiattachments.com/abi-sports-turf/
- I'm Scott Holmes.
- I'm Matt Metzger, and you're listening to "Ground Etc." This season we are going to be talking all things infield grooming from routine maintenance to leading a groundskeeping team to full serious renovation work. We talk to experts in the industry on the field, about the ground, about the work.
- Et cetera.
- Et cetera.
- Yeah. You know, I got a question for you.
- Yeah?
- Have you ever heard of the 80/20 rule?
- [Matt] Yes.
- Yeah, you know, it applies to almost anything in life.
- [Matt] It's terrifying.
- It is really terrifying. And if you really take a look at any aspect of your life, 80/20 really works. 80% of the people do 20% of the work, or 20% of the people do 80% of the work. 20% of your budget's put towards, you know, 80/20 just kind of works in most-
- That's gonna put me into an esoteric crisis, just so you know.
- I know. You're gonna have to think a lot about this. But here's my point. My point is, is that when it comes to sports turf fields, 80% are not the major league, they're not the minor league, they're not the collegiate.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- It's the high school, the junior high, the little league, the softball fields, the church fields. That's 80% of our customers. That's 80% of people-
- Yeah, think about how many fields I drive by on the way to work. And I don't drive by any major league or minor league fields.
- [Scott] No, you drive by the municipalities. You drive by the little leagues, you drive by the-
- It's probably at least a dozen, yeah. And I'm only three miles away from the shop, and it's at least a dozen fields I drive by.
- So we had a guest come in. Taylor Coquillard.
- Yeah.
- He's young, but he's spent a lot of time in the industry.
- Well, to you, everyone's young, Scott.
- Well, this is true. I got kids that are in their mid-30s, so yes. Anybody's young for me. But a lot of experience, but really has spent a lot of time with the 80% of the fields.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- The lower, not lower level as in importance, but lower level as in budgets maybe.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- Size, complex size. And he's given us a lot of great insight into how to work those, how to maintain those, you know, how to really work within that budget that 80% of our customers deal with.
- Yeah, well, and it's, I think it's important. It's what actually Chuck White mentioned a couple of shows ago, that when you have a limited budget, when you have a limited staff, if it's maybe just up to you to figure it out, it takes a lot of creativity.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- I mean, it takes so much work to take care of the upper echelon of fields. No doubt there. Full crews, big budgets because you've got high dollar play happening. But if you don't have lots of people and you don't have lots of tools, you just gotta figure it out. And there's a different level of ingenuity required when you're working on those fields.
- Absolutely. No doubt. I mean, you can't expect that a local municipality's gonna have the budget of a college.
- [Matt] Sure.
- It's not gonna happen. You're not gonna have that kind of money.
- Well, and there's no less passion though. I mean, I'm thinking about, I mean-
- Sometimes more.
- Yeah, well, I mean-
- I'm just saying.
- If you've ever been to a little league game, there's a whole lot of passion.
- Whole lot of a passion. That's usually behind the fence, you know, with the parents.
- The kids may just be chilling.
- The fist fights that are going on. Lots of passion.
- Oh, man. But really though, I mean, every parent wants good for their kid.
- Absolutely.
- Right? Every parent wants their kid to have a great experience and a great love of playing, to know that their kid's gonna be safe on the field. But I mean, I remember my son played little league for the first time, started out a couple years ago, and I know the volunteer crew did a heck of a job that summer. I know they were there constantly trying to take great care of the fields. But still, if there's a bit of a rain, my son had to run around a puddle between second and third base, right? It's just gonna happen no matter how many man hours you've got. It takes some more work. There's a lot of fields there to take care of.
- But, you know, a lot of those issues can be dealt with with the proper knowledge.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- And even proper equipment. It doesn't have to be the Force. I mean, just good equipment and good knowledge on how to maintain a smaller complex.
- [Matt] Yep.
- That solves a lot of problems right there.
- Which is exactly why we're having, we had Taylor on and we are picking his brain on how to, just a couple of tips, a couple of maintenance, a couple of grooming steps that someone can do no matter what equipment they have to take great care of smaller fields on a tighter budget.
- Yeah, 'cause we don't wanna forget about the 80%.
- [Matt] That's right.
- I mean, they're just as important as the major leagues.
- [Matt] That's right.
- So we're gonna deal with those topics.
- Hey, so we have got Taylor with us today. Taylor Coquillard. Taylor is a baseball nut, played baseball growing up as a kid, then got a scholarship into play college ball. You have coached a little league. You have been an assistant varsity coach on the high school level. You have helped out with the Louisville Bats in tournament situations. You've helped out Chuck White in USA softball tournament situations. And you've been hanging around ABI and sports turf and the ABI Force for around eight years now. Taylor, we're gonna pick your brain for hours at this point. This podcast is gonna, this episode's gonna be the longest one so far.
- He's gonna be hoarse by the time we're done.
- I know, right?
- I hope so, let's go.
- Hey, welcome to the show, man.
- [Scott] Yeah, welcome.
- Thanks, guys.
- Mr. Coquillard, you and I know each other from a long time ago and-
- Has been a while.
- It's terrifying. Sorry, man.
- I bet that most ABI employees don't even know that we go back 30 years as long as you've been alive.
- [Taylor] Absolutely.
- [Matt] Are you 30 years old?
- Yeah, I've known his family.
- [Matt] Wow.
- He's 31. Do you know how old that makes me? Since I knew him when he was a little baby. So, Taylor, we are thrilled to have you here and glad to pick your brain, and, you know, I've watched to grow up, I've watched the experiences that you've had, the good, the bad, the ugly. And it's been fun.
- We've been through quite a bit, haven't we?
- [Scott] We have been through quite a bit together. We have. A lot of different things. So let's talk, let's start by talking about your experiences in field management and playing. Just kind of give us your story, your history. I mean, you know, we got an overview here.
- Yeah, where'd you get started? Since he's known you since you were a baby, give us-
- Yeah.
- When did you first put your hands in a rig, Taylor?
- I'll give you that story. I give a lot of props to my father. My dad worked for a compost farm in Niles, Michigan growing up.
- [Matt] No kidding.
- So the man was really good with rakes. Mixing chicken manure with dirt and making compost.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- So obviously from a young age I was working in dirt, playing in dirt, the Tonka trucks, right? Always in sand. The big move towards the baseball side of things was, I'm trying to think of how old I was. Probably eight or nine. I played little league at Edwardburg Little League in Michigan. And my dad and I would go and prep the fields before work.
- [Matt] No kidding.
- So my dad would drive me up at 5:30 in the morning. We'd rebuild a mound under the headlights.
- [Matt] No kidding.
- And then he'd have to leave. So then I would finish striping the fields, getting the batter's box all prepped.
- [Matt] You're out there by himself as a kid?
- [Scott] At what age?
- By myself, probably eight or nine years old.
- [Scott] Wow.
- [Matt] Stop.
- I promise. And then, again, he'd leave and take off to work 'cause he had to work his 8:00 to 5:00. And then my mom would come pick me up, eh, 8:30, 9 o'clock after he'd leave, so I'd have the last half an hour to get everything striped up and ready for the game that day.
- I can see little Taylor in the dark, you know, with just the fog coming up and just a little eight-year-old lining the fields.
- Gotta get that on camera. That's footage right there.
- It was incredible. Such incredible experience. And little did I know that it would lead to now working with ABI and talking about dirt.
- [Scott] Dirt.
- And doing what we do well in dirt.
- Isn't it amazing? I mean, we talk about dirt. We built an entire business around dirt.
- Amen.
- But it is just so critical.
- It really is.
- So did anybody else on your team, like playing little league eight years old, anybody else out there? Like, were you with other kids that were also working the field? Like, did anybody else like get that or was that something that was just kind of unique to you?
- I can't recall that anyone else was like, "Hey, I'll meet you out there. "Like, let's do this together." I feel like a lot of it was my dad and I, and that's what I think of. I guess my little brother would've been somewhat involved. But again, my dad was coaching as well, so it was kind of just a given that, "Hey, before the game, before we play today, "let's get it as nice as we can."
- And I have a question for you. When I was eight and I was told to do things with my father, it wasn't always something I wanted to do, you know?
- I understand that.
- Did you enjoy this? Is this something that you just, you looked forward to that? Was it father bonding time for you? Was it, I just love the feel of the dirt under my feet? I mean, did you just, was there, you know, we talked to Chuck about passion, you know? And at eight years old you're either doing it because you're afraid of getting disciplined because you won't, or you love it.
- It wasn't a feeling of hatred or disciplinary. It was pure enjoyment, I'd say at that point. And pride in how I played. The field is so important when you think about playing the game. And I don't think many people think about it that way. But when your cleats are in the ground and your glove is on and that ground ball's coming to you, you better hope that you took care of that field before because then you know, you can expect what's coming.
- Yeah.
- Go ahead.
- Well, so you've coached little league, you've coached the high school level as well, and I'm sure it'd be difficult to help, I've got a five-year-old, trying to help my five-year-old understand like how the dirt matters to his play, right? It might be a little much. But you get to the high school level, is in your experience working with high schoolers and players and helping them be their best, do you think that there's a general understanding among high school players of the importance of the ground that they're playing on?
- I would say based on my experience coaching in the last year, I would say no. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think the focus is just spun a little bit. I think there's a great opportunity for coaches to teach their athletes how important their surface is.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- And I think that the better the surface, not only the better the athletes play, but the more the athletes remember and think about, "Man, I got to go play on that field. "And that's a pretty one." I remember playing the little league, we got to play down at Warsaw, and it was the first field that had lights. And like playing under the lights was a huge thing for us.
- Oh sure.
- It's like different start times, right? We're used to playing that 4:30, five o'clock game, right? Dad barely makes it 'cause he's gotta finish his job.
- Right.
- You know, mom's lugging all your gear everywhere with you. But that seven o'clock start and it's dark and the lights, the superstars come out when the lights are on.
- [Scott] Right, right, right, yeah.
- There was also one-
- The level of player, or at least the level in your mind just went way up. Like, "I am a superstar."
- You think you're a stud no matter what age. And I think that's probably the biggest impression of a ball field is like when it's top notch, you remember.
- So as a player then, as you think about all the different fields that you've played on, like you can tell the difference, you can tell the difference on the quality of play?
- [Taylor] Without a doubt. Yeah.
- The one I didn't get to play on my senior year because of, I think it was a rain event ironically, but was the Fourwins Field used to be a synthetic field.
- [Scott] Right.
- And so we were supposed to, Edwardburg was supposed to face Jim Town. And for some reason, I don't know if it was inclement weather, but we weren't able to play. And that was one that always kind of stung because I was excited to try-
- [Scott] That's a minor league field.
- Exactly. It's a big league field, right? You feel like you're one of the big leaguers. So that again, that memory still sticks with me even though I never got to play there.
- Right, right.
- So I still tell that story and it's like
- Well, you know, my partner and I have talked about our equipment, you know, through the years obviously about designing it. And, you know, he comes from the blue collar world where it's hands on. I mean, he, you know, he ran a seeding company for 30 years before we started ABI. And, you know, he talks about helping the employee enjoy their work, right? If you create equipment that helps 'em enjoy what they do, they will do a better job. I think it applies to sports as well. So if you give an athlete a better field, they will enjoy it more.
- [Taylor] Amen.
- Right?
- [Taylor] Absolutely. And again, they'll remember it.
- And remember it, right?
- It'll stick with them.
- Yeah.
- And we've talked about how, like in your experience whether or not high school players recognize the like importance of maintaining the ground that they're on. They can tell the difference between the fields, but making that jump over to like, no, actually spending time and investing in the details of the field. What about coaches? And again, like your experience here at ABI and playing and coaching before you came to ABI, talk to us about the awareness that coaches have at all levels, whether it's little league coach or organized ball, school ball up to club ball. Do you think that the coaches have a tie into the quality of field, the quality of dirt, the quality of maintenance into the quality of play?
- Absolutely. Being the high school varsity coach and walking in with two other coaches that have never done field work before, I was immediately the field work coach, right? So like after the games, you're dragging the fields, making sure it's, you know, everything's raked, pulling the bases, that type of thing. I think they're... Go with me here. I think, I always think there's room for more. If that makes sense.
- [Matt] Well, you've been doing it since you're eight.
- Right. I just think that the coaches could always, should take pride in teaching the children and their athletes how important that actually is.
- Yeah.
- [Taylor] I think it's just under shadowed a little bit.
- I mean, well, you're teaching 'em how to pick up a ground ball, you're teaching 'em how to bat, you're teaching 'em how to pitch, you're teaching 'em how to be teammates. Why not teach them the importance of the ground, right?
- Well, and Ted and I were talking before too. I mean, you've got, at younger and younger ages, you've got student athletes who are encouraged to go to the gym, encouraged to participate in strength and conditioning training, and encouraged to, you know, head to the performance facilities in the off season to make sure that their batting and their pitching is up to snuff and their fielding is up to snuff. And so in all of these different, in all the different ways the coaches are encouraging the players to up their performance, but then is that same level of attentiveness being put to the ground that really does pay such a big impact into the performance once the game is being played.
- Absolutely. The regimen, you mentioned the regimen, like it's bigger and better nowadays, right? And there's more, there's more expectations, higher expectations. And, again, I really believe that if you don't have the equipment, if you don't have the right rakes, if you don't have the right mentality, if you're not practicing this, it can easily get washed away. And all the other activities that you must do, and you're trying to be the better athlete and be the stronger, you know, the stronger athlete. So I believe that there needs, there could be more attention to it, at least in our area, I should say that.
- So as an athlete then and as a coach and as an advocate for the game and as a groundskeeper, right, you kind of fall into all those categories. You've played all those roles at different times. If we've got players who are listening right now, whether it's rec players, adult rec players, whether it's student athletes, if there's any word of encouragement, like the number one reason why as a player you should take time to learn the ground and learn ground maintenance and be a part of maintaining the field, what's like the number one reason you'd give players to take a vested interest in that?
- Their play and moving on to the next level. You can only play as well as your field plays. I firmly believe that.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- And so if you take the time and learn, it's out there too. Podcasts and books and just watching people and experience. If you take the time to learn and then you apply that to your position, even if you're raking your own position, at least you have like a peace of mind when you get that ground ball, when you get that, you know, the last out of the game and bases are loaded and you're down, you know, you're up one and trying to preserve that game, at least you know, your field, your position is taken care of. I think there's, again, pitchers, you know, pitchers doing the mounds. That was one thing in high school we always had to do. We'd finish the game, we'd go out to right field, have a conversation with the coach. So everyone's on a knee, right? You come back in, coach goes to the dugout, talking to his other coaches, the athletes go to the field and we're raking the lips. We're taking the brooms and brooming the conditioner and the dirt out of the lips, right? And then we're grabbing the drag mats, and at that point it was a Cub Cadet tractor.
- Yeah.
- And we're dragging, you know, spinning out the infield.
- Yeah.
- And then the pitchers are rebuilding the mound with the clay, and the catchers are rebuilding the home plate and their catcher's box with the clay. So that was just how we learned. You didn't sit back and watch the coach do it.
- Right.
- You got out and you learned it yourself.
- But I mean, certainly you saw organizations or little leagues or high schools that didn't operate like that.
- Absolutely.
- [Scott] You know, where parents did or the players just walked off the field and they were done. And so it's not everybody's experience, but it should be is what I'm hearing you say.
- I really, I firmly believe it. And I think one of the big issues now is finding volunteers that want to help.
- Yeah.
- [Taylor] So just getting people on the field to want to help.
- Well, I think that would be partly education. I mean, you know, when we did our introduction, we talked about the 80/20 rule, right? You know, where 20% of the people who are our clients are collegiate, minor league, and professional major league baseball.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- But the 80%, the mass majority are churches, little leagues, softball complexes, high schools, junior highs. There may be an educational gap there. I mean, certainly the minor league and MLB groundskeepers, they know the importance of dirt, and not just dirt, but the outfield too. The warning track for goodness sakes, right? The warning track can make or break a major league game with a ground rule double, right?
- Absolutely.
- But at the 80% and under, that knowledge of how important that is may not be there. So how do we educate the 80%?
- I honestly think the ABI Force is a huge advocate for exposing groundwork because it looks cool.
- [Scott] I wasn't trying to lead you there, but thank you.
- Realistically, it's the truth. It's a cool looking machine. And again, I'm growing up with a Cub Cadet tractor and a drag mat behind, and we made a homemade nail drag for Edwardburg little league, painted orange and blue. And my brother and I had our initials on it. So it was something that we took pride in. But as you get older, the fields get, they're different. They get better.
- What are some... If you've got players, if you've got student athletes or coaches of, you know, the municipalities or the small clubs or the schools that may not have as much funding, may not have as much training into it, they're listening right now like, "All right, I'm in, man. "You sold me. "Like, I want to take great care of my field. "I wanna help my students "and my athletes take care of the field. "Where do I start? "What are some of the most important fundamentals "that I might be missing out on?"
- I wanna point to a program. Beacon Athletics does Groundskeeper U. And it's a free program that's online based. You can do it from your tablet, from your iPhone, from your computer, and you can go through and learn some of the basics.
- [Matt] Right on.
- [Scott] That's good.
- Working on the mounds and working home plate and actually dimensions of the field and what lips should look like and lip maintenance and renovation work. So something, like there's a bunch of keys out there and tools out there that you could use to learn a little bit. And it starts internally, right? You gotta have to want to learn. But I think coaches can work it into the regimen, especially if the knowledge is already out there. And that's the one thing about baseball is we pass things along. Like, it's a game. It's rich in our history. So there's things that are passed along, and it's out there. You just gotta wanna find it. I believe if coaches take the time to learn it themselves and then implement it into their training regimen, the workout, the weight room, and add like a field maintenance aspect to it-
- See it as part of the training, part of the conditioning, part of the performance. So let's take the next step then. Let's say that I'm a coach at a, again, like at a small club or at a facility that I've got a either a board of directors or I've got a, you know, an athletic director ahead of me that my schedule's packed, man. Like, I'm here early, I'm helping the students with strength and conditioning and maybe I've got a teaching schedule that day, I've got practices all evening, I'm working with parents, I'm solving problems, putting out fires, right? Where like, how can I convince my AD, how can I convince the people responsible for my schedule, how can I convince them to give me a gap so I can participate in some of this training? What's the value there? If I go to my AD and I say, "Hey man, like can we cut this out "so I've got 30 extra minutes to do this thing "because it's this important," what's the pitch? What am I pitching the AD to say this is how important this is?
- [Taylor] I believe athlete safety is number one.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- I've got a good story about that too, that we'll probably cover here in a minute.
- [Scott] Oh, give it to us. Give it to us now.
- So I play softball regularly. I'm a two night a weeker. I would say competitive for the area.
- I played with you. You're very competitive.
- I'm very competitive.
- I'm not allowed to play with you because you're competitive. Let's put it that way. Did not get invited to that team.
- I apologize.
- No, you don't.
- You've watched, you came and watched.
- I watch, I'll support.
- We play at a high level.
- [Matt] Oh yeah.
- [Scott] I know you do.
- And it's something I take pride in. I practice, right? 'Cause I want to be better. But I play two nights a week, and this is my first year, actually 2022 was my first year not playing in five years, and it was because I tore my ACL.
- [Matt] How'd that happen to you?
- I still have flashbacks to this. And it wakes me up in the middle of the night sometimes. But I was playing on a, we play out of South Bend, but sometimes they'll send us off to auxiliary fields due to either overbooking or tournaments that come in. So they send us to one of their auxiliary fields, and it's one that just isn't maintained very well. And so the fundamental things, your base pegs, the base pegs were loose. So actually like where the base is seated was loose. And so the base, there's wiggle to it. And I'll say this too, 'cause you'll appreciate it. I hit a double.
- [Scott] Okay.
- Gapped a double.
- [Scott] Yeah, nice.
- I'm on second.
- [Matt] There you go, there you go.
- There you go.
- [Matt] There you go, atta boy, atta boy.
- And the guy behind me hit a line drive to the second baseman. I let off second like I was heading for third, realized he caught it, went back to the bag. As I'm outstretching back for the bag, the base is loose, I hit the bag and my knee explodes.
- [Scott] Caves in?
- Yeah. ACL meniscus.
- [Scott] 'Cause the bag moves, so your knee went down.
- I thought I was on something firm, and when it gave my knee blew out. So I'm five months post-op walking around, grace of God. I mean, it's been a heck of a recovery. But again, those little, the little details. That base-
- If that would've been locked in, you could have probably avoided a major injury.
- Yeah.
- [Taylor] A very expensive injury too.
- Right. Well, not only that, I saw you when you walked in and you were depressed. I mean, and rightfully so. It's like, "Holy crap. "My whole year of softball's gone. "I can't-"
- Can't golf.
- [Scott] Can't golf, I know. 'Cause you're a big golfer too.
- Oh man. I lost the whole season and that was detrimental. I mean, it and mental health and all that stuff comes in and it's real.
- So safety of the game. And ABI's pitched that. I mean, even when we were designing and learning from other people, we knew that safety was the fundamental thing, for sure.
- So then what are some heads up? So as a coach then, and we keep bouncing back and forth to you as a player, you as a coach, you as an advocate, right? So as a coach, if you step onto and think back to your, you know, the varsity season last year, you step onto a field that you're looking like, "Man, I don't like, this field's not, "it's not up to our par "when it comes to how we like to keep our field." Do you give your students, your student athletes any advice, your players any advice, and "Hey guys, you gotta watch for this, "gotta watch for that." Like, what are you looking for as a coach when you're stepping onto a field for the first time in order to help your players stay safe?
- I think there's one thing that all the coaches did when we initially got to the stadiums or the fields we played at, and we all walk out together and kind of check out the playing conditions. 'Cause you want to exempt, you wanna be able to tell the kids, "Hey, it's a little soupy around second."
- [Matt] So you're walking the field?
- Absolutely. And it's mostly the infield dirt. The outfield we'll experience a little bit more once we're playing catch and warming up. So you'll find the mole hills or you'll find the random holes or the sprinkler that's not, you know, sat all the way down on the ground. So there's definitely like a discovery when you go out there. 'Cause again, each field plays different.
- Yeah.
- My question is experience. So every field is different, we know that, right? It's really funny. You're flying across the country from a 30,000 foot view and all baseball fields look exactly the same. Right?
- [Taylor] Ideally, yeah.
- Ideally. No, they do. But when you get down to the ground, they're all completely different.
- Absolutely.
- It's really amazing. Have you ever come across in a competitive experience where you were supposed to play a game where you walked out on the field and you said, "Nah, we just can't do this. "My kids are gonna get hurt."
- To be completely frank with you, there's a couple local fields that are that way.
- [Scott] Oh, wow.
- It's truth. It's truth. And I don't know if it's based on the original construction that are just failing or just the lack of maintenance over time. But yes, there's been a few that it's like, "Eh, I don't know if I really wanna send my kids "out to play on this."
- Yeah.
- So that kinda goes back to education too, right? Like, I've heard you say that there's like a big difference between a lot of times at a lot of, whether it's local facilities or club ball or local schools, that sometimes the people responsible for caring for the fields are also the people who are responsible for landscaping and mowing and lawns and just general facility maintenance, and they've got a full plate. Like, that's a full-time job to take care of lawns and facilities. But then to throw on a very specialized kind of maintenance for infield, that's a lot to put on someone if there's no official training for that.
- Absolutely. And I believe it takes equipment to do that as well, right? We try to probably rob more equipment from other facilities and other uses around our facility to try to do the work that they think the baseball field needs. When really there's a poll that, you know, some specialized equipment that can do that and keep them efficient and not take them too much outta their realm as far as the landscaping versus the ball field maintenance.
- [Matt] Right on.
- But that's the thing too, when you're bringing guys that are great at mowing and facility maintenance, ball field maintenance is different.
- It is. You know, it's funny, I won't mention the name of the school 'cause I don't wanna get anybody in trouble. But, you know, we have a local school that we've kind of sponsored and we've donated for, so we've donated. And I think they've had Forces now. You know who I'm talking about. They've had Forces now for six years, seven years, something like that, right?
- [Taylor] The original, I believe.
- The original, I think they had the Z18, yeah. Every time we go over there, they're not using it right, they're not maintaining the field right. It is not as simple as raking out the cleat marks.
- Amen.
- It's just not. It's not that easy.
- More to learn.
- There is so much more depth there. And even when they have the right equipment, if they don't have the right knowledge, they can't do it. And if they have the right knowledge but not the right equipment, they can't do it.
- [Taylor] Absolutely.
- So it's kind of a combination. I mean-
- Yeah, that goes into, I mean, we've already talked about advocating for more knowledge, right, encouraging the players to educate themselves, encouraging the coaches to see this as a safety issue, see it as a playability issue, encouraging even like board directors and athletic directors to make time for understanding the field for anybody involved in the field work, whether that's a facility team, a maintenance team, or a sports team. So we've talked about the education aspect, but talk about, and Scott, what you just said, the equipment. What if it comes down to you've got players and coaches and support staff that are eager to learn, they're eager to know the stuff, but it's just so time consuming because they don't have the right equipment. What do you recommend for players, volunteer coaches, staff coaches on whatever layer of play? What are some talking points you can give those listeners right now to say, hey, like here's some pitch points to the people with the purse strings to say, "Hey, this is gonna be a big deal. "This is gonna have a huge ROI, "and this is gonna be great for us "if we can free up some funds to get a budget "for some equipment."
- Absolutely. I think the athletic director in the high school setting is a very pivotal person in this equipment purchasing. At that point, most of their influence is coming from the coaches. And that's boys and girls both.
- Yeah.
- So I believe that the athletic director really needs to be excited about field maintenance and have a little bit of understanding about it. Just, again, from experience, it might not be the top thing on the budget. Everyone needs new baseballs every year. Everyone needs new pitching nets. But again, your athletes can only be as good as their fields play. So at that point, there's ways to allocate budgeting and being able to, you know, even buy base equipment and then add on over years to initially just get the benefit of a better piece of equipment. I think there's plenty of ways to work around that. Again, I'm not the AD sitting in the chair that's, you know, pitching the school board. But something to be said again about athlete safety. That should be very high in the list. And that's almost the pitch there is, "Hey, our fields are not necessarily inadequate, "but just not up to par, not up to snuff. "And there's ways that we can make them better."
- So help me move my budget around. Let's say in your experience, again as advocate, working with coaches, working with ADs on making strategic purchases to help the players improve the performance. What, in your opinion, are a couple of things that are common overspends that if a coach were to say, "Man, here's my budget," or an AD says, "Here's my budget," and it's like a challenge to you, like, all right, T, like find it in the budget. What are some things you're like, "Hey, typically people spend a lot on these one "or two things. "They could probably shrink that for a year or two "to free up some funds for a piece of groundwork equipment."
- I believe like the big hitting nets. There's big hitting domes that you put over home plate typically for BP. So things that you're spending money on that aren't actually involved in the game, that's a pregame type of thing. There's no big over net dome, you know, when you're playing a game, right? Everything's open.
- [Matt] Got it.
- And dugouts. I mean, there's a lot of money spent on making sure that the players have a nice landing place when they come in from the field.
- Almost like comfort experiences or luxury experiences of like, oh, we wanna make it look nice or feel nice, but does it actually affect the safety and performance of the game?
- [Taylor] Absolutely.
- Interesting. That's a great way to think about it.
- All the kids want new cleats. All the kids want new bats. All the kids want new helmets. There's exciting things that come with that, right?
- [Matt] Sure. It's flashy.
- [Scott] Do they want new crutches?
- They don't want new crutches, right? Ooh, that's powerful.
- He gets one in every now and then.
- Every now and then.
- That's powerful. I've fallen into that too, right? You wanna get the new, the new, the new. But again, if you don't have the structure, the foundation.
- It's tough working with the players too because it's, I mean, my kids don't like eating their veggies. They want dessert, right. But like if the veggies is the ground, like no, this is gonna make you healthy, this is gonna make you strong, this is gonna be good for you, then allocating time, energy, budget for those things, and yeah, the chocolate chip cookies can wait. Like, let's get this in first.
- I'm gonna throw a story in there. It's not baseball, but it is coaching. I was a collegiate university coach, but it wasn't for baseball, it was for women's lacrosse, right? So we dealt with field, we dealt with turf, synthetic fields, natural fields. And as a coach, I hear you. The AD really is, I mean, they're the ones that go to the board, the president, you know, or to the principal or wherever they're getting their funding from, right? But as a coach, I had a horrible field. I mean, I had a player tear tendons in her ankle. I had a player blow her knee out because a hole's in the field, right? Just a lack of maintenance. But I had to fight. And I guess I would encourage coaches to fight for your players, fight for their safety, because, okay, you may have the knowledge, your players may have the knowledge, the parents may have the knowledge, but the AD may not, the board may not, and you may have to just say, "Yes, we are doing this." And you may have to be a pest. You may have to go in eight times in a quarter and say, "I've got to have this."
- [Matt] Yeah, fight for your kids.
- Fight for your kids. Fight for their safety. Because typically you'll get blown off. I mean, in most cases.
- They're spreading budgets between multiple-
- And I don't blame them. I understand it. I've been at the university level. I get it.
- Just be the squeaky wheel.
- Be the squeaky wheel.
- Amen.
- That's what I'm saying.
- And the coach has a lot of power when it comes to that 'cause, right? 'Cause they're feeding the AD all the information, right? All the game experiences and these certain instances that might've come up because of the playing surface. So you've got, you've really, like you said, you gotta be the squeaky wheel. You gotta be the squeaky wheel.
- But even, I mean, I know I was talking collegiate 'cause that was my experience, but even at the little league, be the squeaky wheel. Force that board to do a fundraiser. I mean, whatever it takes. Fight for your kids.
- If there's parents out there that have the ability to donate, right? I mean, if you see value in it, do it. Go for it.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- And if you've got the knowledge, share it with somebody else, right? Talk about it. Once it's talked about and that energy keeps moving that direction, things can happen.
- Yeah, and I know we talk a lot about the Force, but it doesn't have to be a Force. I mean, ABI's got a full line, and other companies have products that are capable. I'm not saying we're the only one. Just find what, you know, fits your organization, then fight for the safety of your kids.
- [Taylor] Absolutely.
- Taylor, this has been fantastic. You've given us some great tidbits of knowledge here on players taking more ownership in the field and talking about ways to get educated and some of your own personal stories. You've had a heck of a year this past year, coaching varsity ball and then blowing out your knee. That's been rough. Talk about 2023. What are you looking forward to this year? What are you looking, personally, what are you looking forward to doing? What do you got going on?
- I think I'm back this year. So I chose to do the surgery-
- Playing ball.
- I chose to do the surgery because my goal was to continue to play.
- [Matt] Yeah.
- So I'm still working out some of the cobwebs and things that have, you know, built up over time, the atrophy. But my goal is to be back on the field.
- [Matt] That's awesome.
- I think that's where I'm most passionate, and I can play the game at a high level, and I'm excited to get back to it. I'm also ready to play some golf, I'm not gonna lie. I guess mainly just be outside.
- Right.
- Enjoy the weather.
- I can't imagine. By the way, don't use the word atrophy around guys our age.
- Don't group me into your age.
- You wanna talk about atrophy?
- Sitting down for three months, things don't move the way they did before. It's real.
- If you work with Taylor on finding the right equipment for your fields and you're calling on a Sunday or Tuesday night, just know he's probably gonna be in the field. He's not gonna be answering his phone. You might have to leave a voicemail on those evenings.
- I'll call you back. A text always works too. Give me a little brief summary and I'll get back.
- This is case study work. That's where it is. He's making sure that he can speak knowledgeably to what you need in the field.
- On the ABI side of things, we're going to some trade shows this year. We're expanding into the golf market and into the landscape market. So I've gotta do some learning. I'm excited for the continued education this year.
- Speaking of trade shows, a few months ago, you got back from the SFMA. First time we used that acronym. Used to be called the STMA.
- A little bit different.
- A little bit different, SFMA. Sports Field Management Association. What's new? What's new out there? You know, especially what's new for maybe the 80% that we started the episode with? What's out there that the little leagues can get their hands on?
- Sure. Again, great, great trade show, first of all. A lot of people. It's a big, it's a big, hey, you're still in the market guys, right? You're still involved. I spent a lot of time, I'll tell you, Scott, I spent a lot of time in our booth and probably not as much time as I would've liked to going around and seeing other equipment.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- There's some new equipment that I'll choose not to speak about on here. But I'll tell you what, in our ABI Force booth, really happy with the amount of people that have come back over the years. I probably went, 2019 was the last time I went to the show. And again, it was STMA at that point. To see the evolution of the API customer was really awesome this year for me. A lot of guys that were interested initially in the unit and then now own multiple units, that was probably the most promising thing for me, was like, "Hey, what new attachments do we have?" It's not, "What is this," or "How does this work?" It's, "I've got two, this many hours, what can I add?" Right? So-
- And we probably won't put this on air, but I heard a story from one guy out there that came in saying, "Hey, my starter went out. "My starter went out." And the sales rep said, "How many hours?" He said, "Oh, only 13,000 hours." And he's like, "Well, then you're lucky it's just the starter." So they do use our machine.
- Absolutely. It's being used. I gotta learn a couple good stories and this might tie into our next-
- [Scott] Episode.
- Episode, yeah, with Leah.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- They had a sand pro that was on the field grooming before the game. 25 minutes and the machine went dead. Everything down on the dirt. They had to literally pull the unit off of the field, all that conditioner into the grass, into the aprons. And then the ABI Force got to shine. They brought it out and they had to use it for the rest of the year, and were blessed to use it for the rest of the year. So something they had originally pitched as just their laser maintenance and laser grading machine, then became their daily groomer.
- Yeah, cool.
- Taylor, really appreciate your time, man.
- Thank you, gentlemen.
- Definitely excited to have you back some of the times. Tell some more stories. Appreciate your, too, your heart, not only for the ground, but the player and the game. You're able to see all of that connected together and you can see the, yeah, the interconnectedness between the quality of play and the excitement of play, the passion for play and the ground that we're all playing on.
- Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me. Pleasure.
- Well, we appreciate you tracking along with us with Taylor today. It's a lot of fun picking his brain. If you are listening to this episode, remember we have these shows available on video as well. And if you're watching, go check out your podcast if you need to be driving or need to be running the ABI Force or a lawnmower whatever you're working on. If you wanna be listening to these conversations while you're getting your work done, check out the podcast medium as well. Excited for the time with Taylor today, and we look forward to seeing you next time.
- [Taylor] Thank you. Go Cubs.
