Mike Deegan on the Joy of Coaching

Mike Deegan is the head baseball coach at Dennison University, where he is entering his 10^th season. Coach Deegan has had tremendous success at the Division III level, winning 3 National Championships. He has also played in 2 National Championships as a player.

 

Mike had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“For a while I would make fun of people for being arrogant, but secretly I would surround myself with arrogant people because that’s what I was missing” (6:15).

“I’ve been beat over my head in my life to be humble so much so that I think it affects my performances” (6:30).

“You have to look at yourself as a coach ask how my behavior is affecting our team’s performance” (7:30).

“Being humble has served me very well. It makes me relatable and people enjoy me for the most part. But now I have found myself in rooms where I’m humble and I’m listening and I’m curious, but there is this small moment where I would probably be the expert and I don’t throw myself in the arena. And to me, that’s when humility can be hedging” (10:30).

“When those moments arise, I want to take it from a place of confidence to a place of arrogance” (11:20).

“You do everything you can within the rules to win the game” (14:30).

“We’re competing, but afterwards they shake your hands” (14:45).

“You can see culture” (15:20).

“What fills me up, where I think I can make the most impact, is by trying to be a transformational coach and preparing them for things outside of sport” (18:45).

“Why I love sports is because when the ball goes in the air, or the umpire says play ball, color of skin, religion, socioeconomic status, none of that matters. I feel that as a steward of sport, I have to hold onto that” (20:45).

“I have to be curious in order to keep up” (25:30).

“I want to be able to achieve, I want to be one of the best. The only way to do that is to keep learning and to keep growing” (25:50).

“I started not attaching my identity as much to performance as I used to” (28:00).

“At the center of everything for us is the relationships and joy” (31:00).

“If you were to see us play, I hope you see us with big smiles on our faces” (31:15).

“If you play in a great program, the star revolves” (33:35).

“You need to reflect and understand what do I want out of this experience” (43:50).

“The success that we’ve had, the growth that we’ve had, has been a long time of maximizing those training opportunities” (58:30).

“I used our budget this year not to buy bats to buy books” (59:45).

 

Make sure to follow Mike on Twitter and to check out his website as well. Additionally, you can buy Mike’s book, Let it Rip: Life Lessons Learned Through Sports, anywhere they sell books. I would also encourage you to check out The Coach’s Clinic Podcast. Lastly, please feel free to reach out to Mike if you would like via email: mike@coachmikedeegan.com.

Thank you so much to Mike for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

-Brian