Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now, here's your host, Blake Elsner.

Welcome, listeners, to another episode of Elevate with Elsner. Sponsored by Integrity Title Solutions, your title company to close at. All right. We got Eric Rule with us. He is the vice president of Center Florence Incorporated. He does quite a bit. He also is a coach. I want to welcome him to the podcast. Welcome, Eric. Thanks, Blake. Appreciate you having me today. So tell us a little about yourself and, uh, kind of how you started what you did growing up and kind of what, what led you to, uh, being the vice president of quite a, quite an operation.

Blake Elsner

Yeah, it is definitely quite an operation. So I was in college and got hurt my freshman year, playing baseball and had to have surgery. And so I came back that summer and really couldn't do anything. So that's how I got into coaching, started coaching for the STARS program in St. Louis when I was pretty much 18, 19 years old. And then from there, just kind of continued the passion of coaching, was able to at that point after one season, move into coaching, what was the Midwest Chiefs, which you played for me on that team, and in some good, good times back then. And then, thereafter, went over to the St. Louis Sting and started to coach there and was there for two years. And then after that, left there, made a transition over to the Prospects organization in St. Louis, and have been there since pretty much 2013, 2014, coaching and now directing one of the branches of the organization. I run the Southside organization. we will have next year for the 2025 summer, we'll have probably about 11 baseball teams and we will have seven softball teams. So between the two of those, you know, have, you know, have had built it and grown it from when we started the South program back. And I want to say it was probably 2016 is when we started that.

Eric Ruehl

But, you know, I've been coaching... Yeah, I remember that South program. You started that, I think, right? Right as I was exiting coaching with you, which we might touch on, but I think you had just started that and that was probably 2016. Yeah.

So yeah, I would say that's that sounds about right. Yeah. So did that. And I've been out of the club coaching scene for maybe, you know, two or three years, spending more time with the family and stuff. But now it's my turn to go back around and I am. taking on the adventure of starting a 6U baseball team for next summer. So that's going to be interesting because I've been pretty much coaching high school baseball since I got out of college. So it's going to be a little bit of an adventure. But 6U will, I will be the head coach of a 6U team next year. In addition to, I also coach over at Vianney High School too. So I started over at Vianney in 2014 and then coached there until 2020. When COVID hit, obviously we had to cancel the season. And then I took a year off, went over to SLU, St. Louis U High for a year. And after that one year, I came back and I've been back at Vianney coaching ever since. So.

So they didn't appreciate you going over to SLU.

You know, No, there was a coaching change at the top. And I realized pretty quickly that leaving Vianney was probably not the best choice for me. So I went back pretty quickly.

So the 6U team is this, tell people who don't know you, you obviously have a family.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm married. We've been married. Allie and I have been married eight years and, uh, we have two kids. We have Colton who is five. He'll be six in March. And then we have Maddie who's two should be three in about a couple months. So, um, and then it's just the two of us. We live out in Baldwin and, um, you know, coaching and run center Florence incorporated, which I'm sure we'll get into.

Yes. Center Florence incorporated it. A large facility with multiple basketball courts, multiple volleyball courts. It's a large operation. Tell us a little bit as we kind of transition from your coaching hat. To which will jump back to that, but go back over to center and now you put on your center hat. Tell us what you do and what you on a what's your daily daily tasks look like for center Florence.

That changes every hour, it kind of seems like. But honestly, for Center Florence, Center Florence is made up of three LLCs. One is Center St. Louis, which is our large indoor sports complex that you just mentioned. We got six basketball courts. We have Eight volleyball courts, big turf field, batting cages, pitching lanes, a private volleyball gym. We have a private training facility in addition to some banquet space upstairs. Obviously, our prospect club runs out of there. We host large tournaments every weekend, whether that be basketball or volleyball. And then in addition to on the weeknights, we have league games through CNR, but we've also partnered ourselves with one of the larger volleyball clubs in the St. Louis area, K-Elites Volleyball, and she takes over the courts Monday through Fridays. So, that's one of the entities. Another entity is Royal Park, which is the country club of South Carolina. We have a full-blown country club, 18-hole golf course with a full membership. In addition to, we own a bunch of property in that neighborhood consisting of somewhere right around 60-ish acres of undeveloped land with an additional 30 31 or 32 already developed home lots that are currently ready to build on. Part of my job is to oversee the operations of the golf course and making sure that they're following budgets and sticking to tasks and making sure they're getting all the operations completed. But in addition to, I oversee all the housing projects that are going on in the neighborhood as well. And then the final LLC underneath center incorporated is Florence development Florence development is a large industrial park right under 1000 acres right down the street from the golf course. We have CSX rail to spurs on site. In addition to a few buildings that are currently under lease. And in addition to all of that, we also have a few contracts out there that we're working with. Can't really share too much in depth about it, but we're about to start a large development, pretty much taking everything down to grade and then working on building up a single user site for a car company to come in and utilize pretty much I would say pretty close to that thousand acres of property. In addition to, we have a bunch of road frontage that land that is currently under contract, portions of it are to build retail and things of that nature, gas station and things of that nature, which is on the main road to Myrtle Beach. It's a prime location for us.

Wow. You go from coaching, Six year coaching high school to running in multiple three LLCs, a country club, real estate, this new venture.

And what was that? I said, and coaching softball out of Valley Park and coach.

That's a lot of hats. That's a lot. That's a lot to do. And obviously you're a father. So what, how do you, you know, manage your time to do all this and then also, you know, be passionate with your, with your kids because You know, I see you involved, you know, in their lives. And and so to be able to do all this stuff and then still be in their lives, like what do you have to sacrifice and and kind of give up in order to make an impact that like such?

Yeah, you know, a lot of it's just finding the right work life balance. And you know, I've kind of developed a routine that works for me. I get up early, I knock out some emails and things of that nature. Depending on the day may go hit a workout or not just kind of depends. But after that, it's getting the kids up, you know, right now, they're obviously on summer break. But you know, during the school school year, it's getting them up, getting them ready for school, making sure they're ready to go. from there, getting them off to school and then heading into work. After that, it's, you know, I'm pretty much in the office by about 8, 8.15 every morning. And you know, I just, I try to stay organized and I try to I try to delegate as much as I can to certain people. The nice part is I have a team in St. Louis, Andrew and Brad, that do an absolutely phenomenal job. Brad's been with us since 2014, and Andrew's been with us for about a year. having those guys to be able to rely on and know that, you know, hey, if I can't be there for some reason, or I can't do certain things, I know that they'll get the job done. You know, being able to lean on some of those guys. But then also to, you know, making sure that, you know, I sit here and put what is what is first in my mind, which is my family. And I've always put my family first. And, you know, there may be things that, hey, it's got to wait. You know what, if I got to miss a practice or I got to miss a game or, you know, I can't go into the office because we got other stuff like on Monday, couldn't find a babysitter for the kids. Allie had training and I had the kids for the day. And yeah, it was it was tough because I had a bunch of phone calls and emails coming in. But it's it's a find that nap time. Maddie goes down for a nap. Colton and I run outside and play baseball for a little bit and then come back inside and knock out a couple emails and phone calls. So it's finding that balance and prioritizing is really what it comes down to. I'm not going to say that I haven't ever had to run off and go do something real fast. I think we've all done it. Unfortunately, at times the family may have to be secondary to certain situations, but very rarely do I ever let that happen. I think it's something that as you go on and you got to just be able to prioritize, there are things that can wait. Not everything has to happen right in that exact moment. Things can wait. People can wait a little bit. Not saying that's not something that you try to hold off as long as you can, you know, if you got phone calls coming in or you're trying to, you know, take care of family stuff, some of that other stuff, you know, obviously has to wait.

Yeah. And that, that brings you back to it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. And when you call, when you talk about that work life, I like to say it's work life integration, not much balance because we can't really balance it. And you do do it, the work life integration. So with that, obviously I've always known that you've had a smaller, as I start to kind of fill myself with knowledge, I. I've started to realize that some people have smaller circles and I've always, that's always something that I've kind of known about you, but I haven't really recognized. Um, but that's a powerful strength that you have. So just kind of tell me about like, kind of like your inner circle. You, you, you definitely, you know, you give, you give to the people that are willing to bring you up and, and then you, you realize, Hey, some people aren't worth it. So how do you, how do you judge that?

Yeah, you know, it's, you know, you learn a lot of people, you learn a lot about people by just the way that they interact with other people, maybe not necessarily you. Because to your face, people, for the most part, are probably going to tell you what you want to hear, you know, what you know, what what you think what they think you think is best and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes that's not what you want to hear. Sometimes you want to be able to watch them interact with other people. to really understand who they are and what their character is about. I try to align myself with the people that have the same core values as I do. Family, faith, and then, you know, beyond that, it's my work. It's my, what do I enjoy doing as a passion? You know, I've always enjoyed coaching as a passion, not as a job. I've always seen it as a passion, something I enjoy doing. I've always said I'd rather go coach a baseball team than go spend, you know, 150 bucks on a golf course, because I know I'm just about to lose a bunch of balls. But for me, it's that core circle of people that I know I can trust. I know that if something goes wrong, I know that I'm going to have your back and you're going to have my back. It's keeping a well-knit community that I rely upon. I share myself with share, you know, share the things that I do, the things that I enjoy with the people that, you know, I enjoy being around. And it all comes down to trust, right? I want to be able to trust you. I want to be able to trust that, you know, and it goes like that in business, too, right? You know, you sit there and you're dealing with, you know, a bunch of money or dealing with certain situations, the last thing you want to do is not be able to trust somebody. I think trust is the biggest thing and the biggest factor of why I try to keep it tight. I try to keep it close as possible for many reasons.

To, in order to, you know, move people in and out of your circle to know that you have these boundaries and, and, and whatnot, do you ever, you know, think to yourself, Hey, this person doesn't belong in my circle anymore. And do you, do you internalize that at all?

You know, at times I do. And I think, you know, I think before I even, you know, I would say, let them in. It's more of a, hey, I'm going to closely evaluate how I'm going to, you know, react or, you know, how I build my relationship with that person. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm somebody that once once you get to know me, you know, everything about me, you know what I mean? You watch once once I open up to you, you know, you know, everything about me. And, you know, I try to stay in my circle. I mean, people know, hey, he's having he's not having a good day or something's going on. You know what I mean? They can tell pretty quickly. I also am very, you know, I can be fiery at times, too. But, you know, it's it's finding that balance. But it's also, you know, It's also using those relationships that you have built over the years to continue to let people in and learn from your mistakes and learn from things that people have or haven't done or things that you've seen other people do or their circles do that you're like, that's not somebody I want to align myself with.

Yeah, that's awesome. Awesome info right there. So if you're, if you're going to give somebody some advice on that, you know, somebody that wants to coach, you know, from six, you all the way up to high school baseball, I was fortunate enough to, obviously you coached me and then I got to, which tells you, obviously you were coaching at an extremely young age. Cause we're close in age. And then also we got to coach together. So, yeah, I've got to see both sides of your impact, whether it's the impact on me as a as a coach to better myself or as a player. I got to as well. So how do you how do you, like, hope to make, you know. These lives of these kids better, and, you know, if somebody wants to become a coach, what would you recommend?

You know, when I first got started, you know, I was, hey, we got to win, we got to win, we got to win. Winning almost comes secondary. Winning comes from doing things the right way, continuing to build and work upon those things, whether that be in the game itself, whether that be in life. The one thing I would say and tell people is it's not about you. It's not you as a coach. It is not about you. It is about your athletes, whether that's, you know, I mean, summer ball, it's about 15 of them. High school baseball, it's somewhere between 25 to 30, you know, softball, it's, you know, between 12 to 15, 18 girls. It's not about you. It's about these kids. And it's how do I take them from where they're currently at the day that I meet them? and how can I make them b the field to not only bet also make them a better a have goals, they have, th and aspirations that you to fulfill. So it's gett it's getting to know who part of a relationship with those athletes to where you can understand and learn who they are as a person and what they want to do and help them achieve and attain those goals and aspirations that they might have because there's no better feeling than sitting here and watching your players go on and get a college scholarship or for your instance, getting married and then going and having kids, you know what I mean? That for me, that that is the ultimate, you know, hey, I succeeded. I succeeded in what I wanted to do because I see that these guys have, you know, attained their goals and what they wanted to do. And I mean, you you played with a guy that, you know, we were both. I coached him. You played with him, Mike Harp. I go back to him a lot and just think about some of those times that we had. He had a big impact on my life. He passed away a couple of years ago, unfortunate circumstances, but he had a big impact on my life. My circle, the guys that know me know that he had a big impact on And, you know, what, you know, some of the some of the things he did and just kind of the the demeanor and his goals and aspirations and almost, you know, knowing that he could not go out and live that dream because, you know, other circumstances held him from doing that.

So, yeah, Mikey Harp, we we I played with him and unfortunately, yeah. lost his life at a young age. And, you know, you think about that stuff and you go, Hey, why, why did that happen? Um, you know, as, as we, you know, we're coaching and playing with him, how, how does certain things transpire? And you just you just never know what people are battling. And sometimes I think we all try to hide from our problems. And instead of, you know, becoming passionate and trying to help people out, we like to back away. And so how do you like incorporate like new, you know, as you learn and like, as you're saying there and you, you kind of adapt to different kids and they all have different mindsets, you know, how do you take an approach to every single kid with a, with an open mind?

Yeah, that's it. I mean, you got to go at it with an open mind. Otherwise, you're going to sit there and you might be beating a dead horse because what you what you try to do with with one athlete is not how another athlete is going to respond. You know what I mean? You can sit there and you know, some kids tough love is the best love. You know what I mean? Some kids can't can't take that. you know, and so you got over time and and sometim mistakes, right? I mean we you got to be able to read a room too. You know what I mean? You got to be able to see how people and athletes and kids and how they respond to certain things and actions that you do and certain words that you say because ultimately, you know, you're making an impact on their lives, whether it's a positive or a negative. There is an impact you are making and Obviously, if you can sit there and try to relate to them the best you can and show them that you care, I think that that's part of, you know, as coaches, we've got to be able to sit there and show them that we care. And it goes the same with work. I mean, I do the same thing with my employees. I take the time to get to know them. I take the time to understand who they are, what they have going on in their own lives. You know, whether it, I mean, you know, whether that be an athlete whose parent is, you know, suffering from cancer or if it's, you know, somebody that, you know, I work with that, you know, is having a rough time or maybe they're addicted to something or, you know, whatever, you're out there. I feel as if I've been provided so much in life that I feel like at times I don't give enough back. And that's where for me, I continue to, look myself in the mirror and say, what can I do to help everybody else? I'm always out there to try to help people, whether that be in sports, in life, in business. It's being able to get to know everybody and really kind of help them go achieve their dreams.

Yeah, and like you said, you're able to do that because of You know, you have yourself for the most part, obviously, we're never going to all get there, but you have yourself figured out your best self. So that way you can now give people your best self and give these kids your best self so that they can go forward. Exactly. Yeah. So, well, I mean, I. I think this has been a tremendous conversation, and I really think we'll probably have to do this again. But in the meantime, let's let's tell tell people. Center St. Louis or what? What is the exact?

Name? Center St. Louis. Yep. Center St.

Louis. And they want to book court times anything.

Give us a phone call. We've got turf reservations available for the wintertime, cage reservations available. Court time is very limited, but we might be able to sneak them in. And on top of that, I mean, we have Output Performance, which is a very nice training facility, which, you know, whether you're an athlete trying to train, whether you're, you know, somebody trying to lose weight, they do have mental coaches there as well. Always a great tool and always a great option if you're in the area to go head out to output as well.

Awesome. Awesome. And then on the South side, the South prospects, if anybody, you know, is listening and they have kids that, you know, they're trying to get out of that I-9 or they're trying to graduate to a higher magnitude, where could they do that?

Go online to southsideprospects.com and under the become a prospect tab, just go fill out a just go fill out a tryout request form. In addition to we obviously have a lot of information on our website regarding our programs. You know, our youth programs are designed to teach the game. Obviously, at 6U and 7U and 8U, we're really trying to teach them teach them how to feel the ball, how to throw a ball, how to catch a ball, where to throw a ball once the ball comes to you, right? Once we get past that stage, it's starting to build those more baseball skill, you know, whether that be a pitcher or a catcher, your skill position, trying to really focus in on that. And then as they grow, it then becomes a, you know, high school, you know, 14s and then into high school, it's really not only continuing to, you know, refine those skills, still develop, it's all over development, whether you're 8U or 6U all the way up through high school, it's all about development for us. But it's that continued development and taking that next step and then You know, if you're an athlete that is fortunate enough to to go on and want to play at the next level, we have the resources to help you do that as well.

Well, that's awesome. I can tell that you are passionate. I know you're passionate about all these LLC's about your coaching on the prospects by your coaching with Vianney. So yeah, if people want to come come see it, they can find you most likely on some type of a court court field.

I'm probably there.

Yeah. Well, we appreciate it. And thanks for coming on, talking with us, talking with me. It's been awesome. I can't wait to have you back on here again, and we'll have to continue our conversation next time. Absolutely. I appreciate it. All right, Eric. Thanks. Let's elevate together.

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