Accelerated Leadership Podcast: Recent Episodes
Kyle
Welcome to the Accelerated Leadership Podcast where Coach Audra May & Coach Kyle Harris talk about navigating leadership, coaching, teaching, & parenting. Audra & Kyle are both spouses, parents, elementary school teachers, & business owners that work with baseball & softball players. Audra & Kyle both have unique experiences coaching and teaching pre school age children through professional athletes. Join them as they share their experience in developing & empowering themselves, their colleagues, & generation z & beyond.
In this episode we talk to Josh Johnson, Shelby McCombs, & Darrick Brown about some of the absolutes of softball pitching. In our discussion we address some of the pitfalls we make when coaching softball pitchers as well as some of the cues we'd like to see stricken from softball coaches vocabulary. The experts weigh in on some of their absolutes and how they address coaching pitchers at various levels as well as some other interesting nuggets. This is a must listen to for anyone that works with pitchers or is a pitcher and is trying to continue to develop.
*DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately the initial 45-minutes of our talk was not recorded. However, this discussion was so good we felt obligated to share the final 30+ minutes.
- Josh Johnson is the current Mississippi State Pitching coach. He was previously a coach at Ball State and he's a former MVP in the men's professional fastpitch league.
- Darrick Brown is a former NPF & Collegiate coach that has won multiple championships. He also played men's fastpitch and currently works as a Pitching & Mental Performance Coach.
- Shelby McCombs is the owner of McCombs Elite Fastpitch and a former Ohio State University standout, 2-way player. She also pitched professionally in the NPF.
Kyle Harris, Nick Showman, & Justin Liserio talk strength training for youth softball and baseball players. In this episode we addresses myths of strength training for youth athletes (8-18), benefits of strength training, positive adaptations to strength training for youth athletes, movements youth, MS, HS, & collegiate athletes should focus on, and more. The conversation is diverse, with many similar underlying principles, yet from three different perspectives from three highly qualified coaches within the strength and conditioning profession. Conversation includes a myriad of strength training topics for young athletes all the way up to professional athletes.
Nick Showman is the owner and head trainer at Showtime Strength & Performance. He has trained the HS powerhouse softball program Hebron Lakewood (5 state finals appearances and 4 state championships in the last 7 years), as well as All-American softball players from schools like Ohio State, and even NPF Professional players.
Justin Liserio played college baseball at Heidleberg and is a former pitching instructor & strength coach at The Bob Harris Baseball School. He interned under Zach Dechant at TCU and currently works as a Performance Coach at Tread Athletics.
Kyle Harris has masters degrees in Leadership and Administration, as well as Applied Exercise Science. His research culminated in a thesis on preventing injury and increasing throwing velocity in baseball and softball players and was being processed for publication. He has been a certified strength coach with the NASM & NSCA. He is a full time elementary PE teacher and has been an instructor and coach for over 20 years. He has coached baseball, softball, basketball, & gymnastics; coaching ages 3-collegiate.
Properly warming up the body prior to throwing can exponentially increase performance, decrease rate of injury, and provide long term adaptations that increase throwing velocity and increase shoulder and elbow resilience longitudinally.
In this podcast Kyle addresses his personal injury history and how he's dealt with ongoing shoulder pathology for over 2 decades.
We also discuss:
-The importance of a proper warm-up
-The short and long term benefits of properly warming-up
-How to build a pre throwing routine
In this episode Kyle and Audra talk about vulnerability and how vulnerability can be a superpower for leaders, coaches, parents, and teachers.
Their conversation addresses:
- How vulnerability allows us to connect with each other
- How vulnerability builds rapport and relationships
- Their most vulnerable moments as teachers, coaches, and parents
- How to take steps to becoming vulnerable
- Identifying support systems and priorities so vulnerability doesn't seem so "vulnerable"
Links:
The Medal That Hangs from My Mirror
The Power of Vulnerability - Brene Brown
“Discipline and punishment are not the same things. They’ve been made to seem synonymous, but they are not. Discipline is giving people meaningful work to do...punishment is breaking them meaninglessly.” - Buck Brannaman, Horse Whisperer
- Using time wisely as a coach to develop skill & discipline
- Developing a classroom culture where discipline presides over punishment
- Parenting with expectation & accountability to develop a discipline over punishment relationship
- Using discipline to foster growth
- Questions to ask when behavior goes awry to help move toward discipline and away from punishment
In this episode of the Accelerated Leadership podcast Audra and Kyle talk about the importance of helping athletes create exit strategies when their season or playing career is over. They also address:
-Using failure as an opportunity for growth
-Planting seeds for interpersonal growth
-Slowing things down/introspection
-The altruism of sports
-The importance of looking for trends & being accountable to those trends for continued growth
-Being intentional with feedback