Mike Deegan on the Joy of Coaching

Mike Deegan is the head baseball coach at Dennison University, where he is entering his 10th 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: [email protected].

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