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 back to another episode of Elevate with Elsner. Today, we're not just talking baseball, We're talking about building men, because the field, that's just the classroom. Discipline, adversity, accountability, leadership— those things don't show up on a stat sheet, but they determine everything. And as a dad, this one matters to me. We live in a time where everyone wants exposure, everyone wants highlights, everyone wants scholarships. But the real question is, are we developing competitors Or are we developing character? Today I'm sitting down with Dave Wiggins, baseball coach at Principia High School and senior director at Recruits Baseball Club. He's in it every single day. He sees what works. He sees what doesn't. He sees the pressure. He sees the environment, the entitlement, and he sees the kids who separate themselves. So if you're a parent, if you're a coach, if you played ball, or if you just care about building leaders in today's world, this episode's for you. Dave, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Absolutely. So give us a little rundown on, you know, who you are and how you got into the lovely game of baseball. Yeah, you know, I was— I pretty much grew up here in St. Louis, lived in Webster Groves most of my childhood, up through high school. So went to Webster Groves High School, played 4 years of baseball there. From there, went to Culver-Stockton College, an NAIA school in Canton, Missouri. Quickly found out that that level of baseball was, you know, a little, a little too much for me as a player, and I wanted to get on the field. I wanted to get an opportunity, and, you know, I didn't really understand NAIA baseball, especially at the level at which Culver was playing it. You know, when I got there, we had just had a kid drafted in the 9th round. You know, I get there, I'm one of the few Midwest kids there. There's, there's Puerto Ricans, there's, there's dudes from Florida, there's dudes from California. You know, our head coach Doug Bletcher was, was from West Covina, California. So he was recruiting some, some pretty insane international and coastal talent, essentially guys that probably couldn't go Division I because of their grades or because of behavioral issues. But, but they could flat out play. And, you know, I got there and quickly realized, okay, Okay, this is different than anything I'm used to. So transferred to Maryville University here in St. Louis. We were Division III at the time. That was really my best chance to get on the mound. I was a left-handed pitcher. I didn't throw very hard but was crafty. And, you know, I just loved to compete out there. Like, put me on the mound with a batter in the box, I was going to be better than any bullpen I ever threw. I just loved getting out there and giving, you know, giving my all for my team. Finished up at Maryville in 2009 and essentially had my first coaching stint as a fall ball coach for my little brother and you and a lot of your buddies, the Keller Williams agents, thanks to your dad, Brad. I mean, that was, that was some of the most fun I'd had. And yeah, I loved playing, but I quickly realized, whoa, man, I really like coaching. This is a lot of fun. You know, I get to be around dudes that are way better than I was or than I am and just get to see their love for the game and get to, you know, get to start to kind of mold young minds. And I mean, what was I, 19, 20 at the time, 21 maybe, you know. So I did that. I coached Krievkorps Legion. I guess I actually coached Krievkorps Legion junior varsity before I had you guys. Because I had Anthony Gatti on that. He was going to be a junior in high school, so I had Anthony Gatti, I had Zach Hansen, you know, a bunch of, you know, 2010 grads. They're now full-grown men. That was essentially kind of my first go-around with high school level baseball. And, you know, I grew up playing Legion ball. I played for Kirkwood Legion, so it was cool for me to come back to to Legion ball and coach Creve Coeur. And then, you know, the next year I coached Kirkwood varsity Legion because my little brother was a— was a— I believe he was a senior and I wanted to, you know, coach him a little bit. And then I went and got the assistant freshman position at Webster Groves High School, my alma mater, uh, coaching with, uh, just what a gem of a human, Terry Whitford. Terry's a Marine vet. He— it's funny, he would— he came to our games the last couple years at Webster and sat there and watched. He was essentially the first guy that I kind of got to experience high school baseball with, and it was a lot of fun. I was a young dude in my 20s. He was probably in his 60s, grizzled Army vet, and we actually got along really, really well. But that's just kind of how everything kind of, you know, jump-started. I finished up at Maryville, and I wanted to coach. Yeah, that's, you know, that's— looking back on the time that, that we got to play, or I got to play under you, it was just kind of a fun fall league. But you learn a lot. You don't realize like how much fun you have, how much you learn, how much you just connect with, with people, like-minded humans. So, you know, that's cool. So what, what would you say, like, at what point did baseball stop like being about baseball, if you, if you kind of get that drift? Yeah, absolutely. I really think it stopped being about baseball when I coached. And man, I've coached for so long, I keep forgetting places I've coached. You know, I think my first coaching, my legit coaching gig was actually junior varsity baseball for Oakville Legion. And it was with one of my best friends in the world, James L. Key. And James L. and I had played men's baseball together. We started a men's baseball team when we were done with college. And we wanted to get into coaching. And we just, we talked to Matt Boyer who was running Oakville Legion at the time. And, you know, Matt's sons played Legion ball with us. I played ball with his younger son, Adam, at Maryville. And we started coaching junior varsity Legion baseball at Oakville. And I started to realize that the baseball part was a lot of fun, right? But getting to know, getting to know these kids on, a deeper level than just, hey, how hard can you throw? Hey, you know, how fast can you run down the line? Can you hit this ball? Like, more about kind of getting into their psyches of like, why are you struggling, or why are you seeing success? Um, and I was such a young coach, I, I can't even— I can hardly remember a lot of those times. But what I remember is just being way too intense, um, way too focused on things that, that really don't matter. When it comes to not just winning games, but developing young kids. Like, I didn't realize that I'm a 19, 20-year-old boy, not a man, 19, 20-year-old boy, and I'm coaching 15 and 16-year-old boys. And their parents are dropping them off, or they're driving, and parents are basically leaving us under their care for however long a practice or a game is. And my only thought was, OK, we got to go out and win. We got to go out and win. We got to do this. It's like, no, man, my job is to help them continue to love the game of baseball, but it's also to help develop young men and leaders. And it took me a long time to figure that out. Now that I'm 39, I have just a completely different outlook on coaching in general, coaching high level. I mean, I've— the team I had the last couple of years, the class of 2026, I've had some of the best players to ever play baseball in St. Louis. And I genuinely, like, I love them and their families, right? And I feel like in today's world, you know, we as coaches, sometimes we want to push parents away. We don't want to talk to parents. Parents get in the way. Parents ruin youth sports. You've really got to develop a strong relationship with mom and dad and even the siblings if you want to retain quality people And if you want to help them grow through their baseball careers, you have to get to know them and you have to get to know their family. And you have to— their family has to trust you. They have to trust that you can't only help them become a better hitter or a better pitcher, but that you have their best interests in mind and you're going to help them in life, not just on the ball diamond. Yeah, and I think that's kind of shifted over the generations. I'm assuming you'd probably agree, like, not saying like we're softer today, but it's just we're just coached differently, you know, right? I think that's a good way to put it. So what would you say, like, you know, a disciplined high school team, um, you know, in the winter, right? You know, let's just say dead of winter. What's a disciplined high school baseball team looking like in'26? Obviously, maybe they're playing other sports, but I'm sure they're doing, doing something, correct? There's a commitment to the weight room. There's a commitment to getting bigger, better, stronger, faster. Um, that, that has shifted significantly since, since I was a player. Um, you know, when, when I was at Webster, we would, we would go Monday, Wednesday, Friday in the mornings starting in October all the way up until our season started. And not only is that to obviously get better, stronger, faster, but it's also to build team, it's to build camaraderie, it's to get the freshmen in with the seniors, it's to start to really enhance the culture that we've tried to build as high school coaches where the seniors and the juniors can explain to the younger guys, the underclassmen, hey, here's how things go. Here's how we do it here. It just means more when you're a 14, 15-year-old kid and you hear it from that 17, 18-year-old that you look up to that might be the starting shortstop that takes a second to tell you, hey, man, that was a good rep on that squat. Or hey, maybe you can do something a little bit different here. Hey, dude, why were you late? We don't show up late. We show up early and little things like that. So their commitment to just getting more physical and more explosive as athletes as a group is big, but also those disciplined high school teams, those guys are doing that on their own. They're getting outside of the high school weight room. They're working with performance coaches. Maybe they have a membership to Club Fitness or one of those other fitness spots, and they're doing things on their own. But I mean, you just go around and look at the varsity baseball teams. Here and everywhere else, the physicality is insane. It's nuts. I was, I was doing a podcast with the head coach at Lafayette, Cole Dupont, the other day, and I asked him, I said, hey bud, what is, what's the one change you see from when you played to now? He goes, the pitching. He's like, the velocity, the spin, the breaking stuff, it is, it's enhanced greatly, making the hitter's job obviously harder. And you know, outside of the strength and performance asset or aspect, we as high school coaches in Missouri, we get 7 weeks where we can work on baseball-specific practice for 3 hours a week at the end of winter break up until dead week right before season starts. So a disciplined high school team, they're almost at 100% membership at those high school workouts. And a lot of these kids play club baseball. A lot of these kids play for clubs that are training them year-round, training them in the wintertime. And something that I always tried to make a point of with my boys was I understand your club team is helping you develop, and we need them to help you develop. As high school coaches, we can't develop you nearly as much or as often as they can. But our season's in a month. Our season's in a month and a half. We need to get around each other as often as the MSHA, the state high school board, will allow us to. We got to build that sense of team. We've got to come together as a community. And in the club world, it's not like that. In the club world, it's, hey man, we're going to— we're an all-star team. We're just going to go out and we're going to beat everybody. We're going to do whatever. It's more of a me sport where you're trying to get offers, you're trying to, you know, put yourself in a spot to get recruited. But in high school, you got to come together and you got to believe that you guys can achieve way more than maybe your talent level as a group could allow you to, but just because you are that tight and you are that reliant on the other person to get you through those sort of times. Yeah, and that's obviously reliant. You got to be disciplined and you got to have a schedule. I feel like that's one thing that even myself to this day, I'm always working on. You got to know what you're doing at the time of day to, to advance your career, advance your whatever your niche is. Um, and I'm sure you'd agree with that. So I'm sure those kids have schedules throughout the day, whether it's class, working out, you know, etc. So time management is massive, right? And some of these kids are in high-level classes, some of these kids are playing other sports, they're in other clubs, they're— you know, one of, one of my guys, um, is the student council president at Lafayette, right? I mean, he's got other things than baseball on his mind, you know, certain days, but he's also going to Emory University, which is one of the top Division III baseball programs in America. So, and Emory's a high academic, he's not going DIII because he's a DIII player, he's going because he's a high academic guy and he wants to get a first-class education while also playing really good baseball in the South. And I think you're starting to see a little bit of a shift there as well where the D1 or bust mentality is going away. And these parents, these families, these kids, even the club coaches there and organizations are starting to understand there's way more beyond just playing Division I baseball and the value these kids can achieve by just playing at the collegiate level no matter what the division is and having different reasons for why they're going different places. You know, that makes sense. It kind of reminds me of kind of like the material thing. Like, oh, well, I'm not going to go play unless I can play at Iowa. I'm not gonna go play unless I can play Tennessee. And it's like, wait a minute, I love baseball. I, you know, I want to further my education. Why not have the best of both worlds, right? So I, I don't blame— I, I don't blame that thought process anymore. Like, that's, that's spot on in my opinion. Yeah, I think a lot of it is thanks to social media. You know, when you commit to that school everybody knows the name of, you get your cool commitment post, you got a graphic, you know, you get to It's essentially like, in a way, it's your way to brag about your achievement. And it's just, it's not as sexy to put a post about committing to a D3 school or a JUCO. And man, watch college baseball nowadays. It doesn't matter what level it is, NAIA, JUCO, D3, D2, D1. There are programs out there that would blow you away. Like you could watch not knowing the division they are and think, is that a Power 4 school? Like Central Missouri is the number 2 Division II school in America for baseball. They lost to UTampa last year in the, in the College World Series for Division II. And they're in our, I mean, they're in our backyard, right? Their number 1 was 95-97 a couple weekends ago. Their number 2 was 93-96. Like you're telling me that that dude can't go pitch at LSU? He probably could, but he found a great fit at Central Missouri. Yeah, you love— I love hearing that. That's just, that's a, that's a cool thing because you're obviously not, not only expanding opportunities, but you're expanding the mind to, to process like, hey, this is, this is okay, you can do this and you can still make it. Like, you don't— yeah, that's, that's truly, you know, I, I, I can't, you know, thank a coach like yourself more, um, to, you know, be able to to help these kids because it truly is incredible. So flipping over to like the college side, since we're kind of on that, that talk, what are, what are college coaches really looking for? Somebody that played college, somebody that talks to college coaches, somebody that's been in this field forever, you know. So what are, what are they looking for? Obviously, there's, there's prerequisites to play at the collegiate level athletically, metrically. No matter how many strikes you throw, if you're 74 to 77, you don't have a great chance of getting recruited. You know, it just is what it is. But college coaches, when you talk to them and you're talking to them about a player or a group of players, you're seldom talking about the player's ability and what he can do on the field. They know what he can do. That's why they're interested. Yes, in today's game, especially at the highest levels, kids probably aren't staying at the same school for 4 years anymore. But the coach has to approach it as if he's going to spend the next 4 years, 4 to 5 years, with our rules now 4 to 6 years, with this individual. Does he want to be around him? Is he a fun guy? Is he likable? Do his teachers like him? Have you had any grade issues? Is he a good teammate? How does he talk to his mom? How does he talk to his dad? How does he respond after striking out 4 times? What type of character does he have? You know, it was, it was so cool. We were 2 years ago, we had a big arm on the mound and we were in Grand Park at a highly scouted event. And there were a good number of Division I schools there to watch our arm throw. And they also knew we had some hitters too. So, you know, they're there watching and we're facing a guy who's like 74, 76.. And you could instantly see the coaches leave the thought of, okay, I'm not going to watch the hitters hit because nobody in our conference at our level throws 74 miles an hour. We don't care if these dudes can hit 75-mile-an-hour fastballs. And they moved and like migrated over towards our dugout. And they were listening to conversations my boys were having. They were listening to how my boys spoke to their parents. They were paying attention to how many parents came over to our dugout. To talk to our kids or to give our kids a water. Or, you know, they were watching how they, you know, whether a kid barreled a ball or not, how did he handle, you know, the adversity that he just faced on the field. And it was really cool because I had a parent approach me after the game and say, do you see what just happened? I'm like, no, man, I'm coaching the game. I had no clue what just happened. He's like, those coaches, they stopped watching our hitters and they walked behind our dugout. They started listening to what our boys were saying in the dugout. I'm like, boy, I don't know about that. That could be— Whoo! But it just goes to show you, and I'm so— I was so big with that group because they were getting recruited at such a high level from so many schools at a young age. It's more important that you run as hard as you can out of the box if you pop up to the infield than if you actually do the act of popping up to the infield. You're going to pop up to the infield 100 more times in your baseball career. But if you show that coach that after you popped up to the infield that you busted tail out of the box, maybe he's got a stopwatch on you. Maybe he's timing how fast you are out of the, out of the box from home to first. And if you never go 100% out of the box, he's never going to know how quick you are. Um, I had a kid drop a bunt base hit down in front of, in front of a Division I coach when he was a sophomore. The D1 coach walked up to my dugout and said, dude, so-and-so was at 387 down the line. I'm like, that's why I had him bunt, so he could show you his speed. You know, it's, it's little things like that where, you know, it's almost like these coaches want to see the nitty-gritty. They don't want to see the full class. They, they know these kids can play. That's why they're there. What type of person is he? Am I going to like being around him? Can I rely on them? Can I rely on them to show up at 6 AM for weights and then after breakfast show up at 9 AM for field work and then after lunch show up again for another— for, for an inner squad? Or is he going to check out? You know, it's things like that that I think a lot of these kids, they're not considering in their They're hyper-focused on the gameplay, the metrics, the exit velocity, the throwing velocity. Those get you in the door. But we're seeing right now a lot of guys are having a hard time staying when they enter that door. They enter it, they got a chance, and boom, they're gone. Because these coaches, no matter what level, they got to win. How can you help me win? And you can't just help me win by your gameplay. You can help me win with your character. You can help me win with your, your intensity, your compete factor, things that, that can't be measured with a radar gun or a TrackMan. You know, that's really interesting that you, you said that they kind of migrated over. It's almost like one day we're gonna have a team of college coaches on, you know, in disguise on the field listening, right? You know, but, but it really is. Like some don't wear their, their team gear on purpose to kind of blend. In. Hey, that's, uh, you know, that's smart because yeah, as much as a kid hits the ball 400, you know, feet, it's like if he's gonna be a, you know, a nemesis in the clubhouse and, you know, bad, bad culture, bring in, you know, bring that in, it's just, it's not worth it. Yeah, you're gonna go find somebody else that can do it because like you said, they can all do it, right? Um, it's just a matter of filling in the rest of the, you know, pieces of the puzzle. So Um, what would you say, like, as we kind of transition to even, I guess, if they make it into college, how do they, you know, like you say, it's very, it's a full-time job. Like, how do they stay focused in on the task without, um, you know, straying away with all the. Distractions? It's, it's so hard because you, you as a high school coach and you as a, as a club coach cannot create the environment that they're about to be thrust into at the collegiate level because I'd be fired from my high school and I'd have a lot of parents mutiny against me at the, at the club level. You, you can't talk to these boys the way they're about to be talked to. You can't treat them the way they're about to be treated. And, and obviously they're, they're away from home. They're away from, from anything that's holding them back from doing something they may not they may, should not do. And there's a lot of temptation there. And obviously it's dependent on where they go and the access they have to certain things. But I mean, we see it. We send some talented kids off to some good schools and a couple months later they're back home. Not because they couldn't cut it athletically, but they miss morning weights. They failed two classes. They got in trouble with a girl in the dorm, they were drinking underage. There's just so many avenues for— there's so many temptations. Obviously, as a high schooler, kids are tempted to do that stuff, right? But when you get to college, mom and dad are not breathing down your back. If you have coaches as role models at the high school level, they're not there to help you. You're on your own. You're completely dependent on yourself and your teammates and your buddies and your roommates. And maybe you have bad influences there. Maybe you're, maybe you're that straight A's dude that heads off to college and you get in a dorm room with the wrong guys and they got you doing some things you shouldn't be doing. It does come down to time management, right? If you're not good at time management in high school, you are not going to be good at the collegiate level. If you cannot maintain at least a 3.5 GPA, at a high school where most of your GPA is determined on how much work you turn in, not the quality of it anymore, right? If you can't maintain that and you can't play at least one other sport and work to get better at that sport and take care of what needs to be taken care of at home, college baseball is going to be a smack in the face. It's going to be a rude awakening. And, you know, I've had talks with, with with coaches and kids that are off to those schools. And coaches will ask me a couple of weeks or months in, hey, was so-and-so like this in high school? Or did so-and-so struggle with this? I said, actually, yes, he did. And we had numerous conversations that when you get on campus at School X, you're going to get smacked in the face. You are not going to know what hit you. You have to prepare early. The earlier you are focused on being a good student, the earlier you are at— if you have

00, and you have to be in the weight room, you know, right after that hitting lesson at 7, and you got homework right after that at 8. It's like, well, you got to find time to get dinner because you got it, you got to get your nutrition. There's so much that these kids have to be really, really good at now, just at the high school level, that when you get to college, unless you're going to a, you know, a big-time Division I that's basically got your schedule like micromanaged for you and you have everything at your fingertips, that's that's 1% of our population, right? Like, that's 1% of the, of the high school baseball players, if even less. You, you have to be locked in when it comes to understanding what you need to do each day to remain successful at that. Level. Yeah, it's, it's true. And then not to, you know, drop the whole NIL stuff, but that, you know, I'm sure that's a whole, whole nother ball game that now you gotta kind of deal with, with, you know, it's a smaller percentage, I think. Feel like everyone thinks everybody gets paid, but, you know, I don't think it's really like that. Um, you would know, right? Yeah, actually, in Missouri, um, we have, we have some kids who were paid or who are being paid as seniors in high school, um, NIL from those, from those universities. It's something that Missouri allows. It's pretty cool for the kid. Um, and then obviously once they get on campus, you know, that, that NIL money tends to go up. Um, but man, if you're getting NIL from a Power Four, you're probably a draft prospect nowadays. You know, you're, you're probably deciding, do I take that, you know, $750,000 to $1 million in the draft, or do I go to that SEC school and, and give myself a chance there? Um, it's, it's just, it's never been harder for high school kids to break into college baseball, especially at the Division I level. You know, you are— you're competing against journeymen. You're competing against guys that excelled at levels below at the D3, D2, NAIA, Juco, mid-major level. You're competing against grown men who've shown that they're ready to play at that— let's use Power 4, for example— that Power 4 level. You know, you're 18, 19 years old coming out of high school, and you're going to go try to win a job against a 24-year-old, and this is his 5th school. I mean, it's, it is hard. That's why I'm a big proponent of junior college baseball. And junior college baseball is getting more and more competitive. It's good. It's blowing up in the Midwest. We have so many great junior colleges. And it gives these kids a chance earlier, gives them a chance to compete against an 18 to 20-year-old instead of someone who, you know, in my opinion, should have either quit by now or played professional baseball. Right, you're seeing some of these athletes, they're in like the— just saw one guy who was in the, I think he was in the NBA G League and now he's back in college. Yeah, that's crazy. I'm like, yeah, that— I mean, you learn that stuff and then you come back, I mean, yeah, it just seems a little, you know, disconnected. But yeah, because I mean, it's not just our sport, right? I mean, you heard with Carson Beck, you know, when he was saying that class— I don't, I don't have class. What are you talking about? Like, dude's like 26. Yeah, that's— it's strange to hear. I thought that was a joke at the— you know, you, you're like, wait a minute, is he kidding? Like, oh, I guess you're right, he doesn't have class. So yeah, no, well, uh, no, I appreciate you coming on here and, and kind of spewing, spewing your knowledge and your, your coaching leadership. And obviously you've been doing this so long that, um, I always, I always try to think of coaches that really have stuck with it and And you know, you're one that's truly, you know, known around St. Louis, and it's kind of reason be is you've helped a lot of kids and even myself. So I appreciate all you do. Hey, man, I appreciate you. Thanks for having me on. It was fun. I'm always happy to talk baseball. Absolutely. We'll be rooting on Principia. Yeah. Principia baseball program. Principia Panthers, man. We're up and coming. Just give us a chance. Up and coming. I love that. I love that. You know what I— you know what they say, if you don't build greatness overnight, you build it rep by rep, choice by choice, day by day, right, Dave? He knows. That's awesome. All right, until next time, one. Love. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and tell your friends about the show. Until next time.