Interview With Head Baseball Coach George Petik Part 2 of 3

Click here to read Part 1 of this interview.
Click Here to Read Part 3 of This Interview

Now we will pick up the second part of our interview with Coach George Petik.

Anthony : You mentioned young coaches. How much has the discipline end of it changed from when you first started to now, as far as, not only the difference in discipline between some of the older coaches and the younger ones, but also how society allows coaches today to discipline players.

Coach Petik : I think it’s just society in general. Early on at Gibbons, what I said, I mean what I would tell kids something, they would jump. And you know I was a hands on guy, not that I would abuse kids, but I had no problem, you know touching a kid, patting them on the helmet, doing that.

Now you know, even when you’re teaching in a class, you touch somebody and they’re looking at you like, “what’s going on?” You could say things to kids in those days that were not taken as abusive, or in a negative way. “He’s just trying to get my attention.” Now you gotta watch every single thing you say, everything you do, what you do with your hands, your mannerisms, because it may be construed as bullying or abuse or whatever and that’s, I think, that’s not just high school baseball coaches, that’s society in general that has changed, everything’s changed.

Anthony : Is it making for softer players?

Coach Petik : Absolutely. Absolutely. And what I see is, you may have a team of 15 kids, you have 15 individuals, going off and wanting to do their own thing and often times you see that attitude, “what are you gonna do for me coach?” In the old days, it’s what can I do for the school? What can I do for the team? And my philosophy always was if the team is successful, we’re all going to benefit individually. That means recognition for scholarships, post season recognition, newspapers, maybe even professional baseball scouts come out to watch you. And we did it collectively. If we won and were successful, and we did it in a good way, morally and ethically right, people are going to come out and want kids from our program. That’s changed a lot. Now it’s what are you gonna do for me? Not what can I do for the school and the program. And it’s sad.

Anthony : How much do you think society, the fact that the kids have a lot of other things going on, I know when I played it was baseball, baseball, baseball, and now with the PlayStations and the social media, the kids seem to have a lot more options. Does that have something to do with it?

Coach Petik : Absolutely. And yeah, you’re right, there’s a lot more options, but players don’t spend as much time perfecting the sport. They want to spend less time, they, you know, you’ll see kids show up late, leave early, that didn’t happen in the old days. When I was at Gibbons, they knew Petik-time. If practice started at 3 o’clock, you better be there at 2:30 or you were late. If you weren’t running through the gate when you came in, that was inappropriate. Well, those things have changed now. You know, they don’t see it like that anymore and that’s a shame, cause I think the work ethic has gone down and I think it’s just society in general, not just high school baseball players. It’s a shame.

It’s really a shame, cause I was – come early, stay late – wer’e gonna follow the plan, and we’re gonna follow it through and do it the right way. Well, that’s, that’s changed and I guess you have to be more accommodating to the kids now. In the old days you would tell them, there’s one of me and there’s 20 or whatever of you, you all are going to have to get used to me. Now you almost have to modify or adjust according to each individual on the team. And it’s tough.

Anthony : How much does it affect the program in general, and how hard is it to keep the discipline as a coach now compared to when you had full control at the beginning? How hard is it to keep that full control and get players buying into a system , when you’ve had to alter so much?

Coach Petik : If this was a college program or a program where we could pick and choose, the players that we want, it wouldn’t be that bad. Cause we’d go out and watch and look for, you know, attitudes, we would look for the guys just like a professional scout used to come and sit in my parking lot at Gibbons, just to see, when did this player get on the field for practice? And, did he hustle on the field, and, how did he work it, did he spend extra time? Well if we could do that, the kids that potentially are our players, that would be great.

But especially at Pompano, we have to work with whatever shows up and that’s challenging. And the flip side of that, it’s challenging in the way that I’m bound and determined, I could make you better. And other schools may start out here (holding his hand high), but if I’ve gotta start out here (low), I’m gonna get you here (middle). I may not get to that other school’s level, but make sure that you learn every single thing you can and your gonna be a better ball player and a better person for it. And that’s why I said the kids at Pompano this year, they got it. It’s a great year to go out on, a good year, cause they got it, they understood. And it was a fun year.

Anthony : You mentioned the scouts, how much do you think major league baseball has to do with this changing? Like you said, the scouts aren’t as concerned these days about attitude and they feel they can change the attitudes with all the psychological stuff that they do.

Coach Petik : The biggest difference I see is, you know every kid and their parents think they’re gonna be professional baseball players and their gonna be D-1 players, and it doesn’t happen that way.

Anthony : And their being told that?

Coach Petik : And their being told that. Ok. Somebody has got to be the deliverer of truth. And that’s always been me. And you may not like me now, but I don’t want to set you up for misery and failure later on. You know I had a pitcher at Cardinal Gibbons, I won’t mention his name, 5’9, you know, 150lbs., great little High School pitcher, but when he came out of High School, he didn’t have a lot of options because he didn’t throw 88-92, you know wasn’t 6’3, and parents sometimes, they don’t understand.

You know, well, ‘he was good in little league, why isn’t anybody interested now?’ Well, the success pyramid goes about like this, I tell those kids one out of every 12,500 that play this game will ever sign a professional contract. Ever. Of those that sign professional contracts, 1 out of 200 make it to the major leagues and stick. So the odds are against you. Get an education.

This year I pounded into these guys, what you have in your head and what you have in your heart, nobody can take that away from you and that’s not judgmental. Somebody’s gonna judge your hitting ability, your pitching ability, your defense, everything about your game. And your future is based on somebody else’s judgment, but if you got the academics, and you’re a good guy, nobody can take that from you. It’s on paper, get the test scores, get the grades, it’s golden, if you happen to have the baseball skills, so be it, that’s a plus, that’s icing on the cake.

Anthony: What would your advice be to parents?

Coach Petik : Well, I’m a parent, and I’ve got two kids that are athletes, two girls. Doesn’t matter girl or boy, number 1, I want my kids to have fun. I want them to have fun. And if they go out for team, and they make it, but they don’t play, well they are going to stay on that team. They are not going to quit because they don’t get to play because, they are going to learn a lot just being a part of the team.

Go out and be the best you can be, don’t come up with excuses, if there are three people better than you, what can you do to help the team? It might be handling a pitching chart, it might be stealing a coaches signs, there is always something you can do to help the team. And you know, when the seasons over, if you feel you don’t want to do that again, fine, but once you’ve made that commitment, and the coach has made a commitment to you, you stick with it and you live by it.

Often times kids now have the attitude, “Oh well I’m not a starter, oh well I’m not gonna prepare for the game, why should I work out? I’m not coming to practice.” Then all of a sudden that kid that’s sitting on the bench, somebody gets hurt, somebody else gets hurt and they have to play and they are not prepared. That’s the big difference. You know, I make sure MY CHILDREN are prepared, no matter whether if they are going to play or not. It’s just part of life. You go to work every day, make sure you learn as much as you can, pay your dues, it’s all about, what can I do to prepare myself for the rest of my life? Not professional sports.

Anthony : And to the players? What would your advice be to them?

Coach Petik : Number one, have fun. Number two, in the old days kids used to watch baseball. They would go to games, they would watch college games, professional, they watch it on the TV, it seems like they’re not fans anymore. When I was a kid, I would sit there and watch every single little thing. My dad wasn’t a baseball guy, I probably learned more baseball just watching on TV and listening. Kids aren’t fans now. We’re in a have it your way, have it now generation and they want to be good right away. If they are not good right away, they bail and look to do something else. Baseball, especially because it’s such a high skill level game, hitting and pitching, takes years to develop. I had a kid at Cardinal Gibbons, Monty Barnes…

Anthony : I played with Monty.

Coach Petik : You played with Monty? I cut him freshman year. He asked if he could be the manager. Sure Monty, you can be the manager. Tenth grade year, he’s my manager, he listened, and hung with me and the whole deal. Eleventh grade year, he made the team. Twelfth grade year, he made the team and got signed by the New York Yankees. You know, 6’7, 240 helps too, but he stuck with it. Often times kids, if they don’t make it now, they’re done. Forget it, let’s go do something else.

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Part 3 of our interview with Coach Petik will be released on Saturday.

Click here to read Part 1 of this interview.
Click Here to Read Part 3 of This Interview

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