Paul Svagdis is entering his 19th season as the Head Baseball Coach for Azusa Pacific University. Before arriving at Azusa, he spent 6 seasons as the head coach at Pomona-Pitzer, and in 25 years as a college head coach holds over 600 wins and has been named PacWest coach of the year each of the last 3 seasons.
In this interview, Evan Burk speaks with Paul on how he uses his football mentality in his approach to coaching baseball, finding leadership potential in the recruiting process, and how having a player that sets the standard is a crucial element on all his great teams.
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Topics Discussed:
1:40 | What has impressed you most about your players over the past year since the canceled 2020 season?
4:10 | Teaching baseball over zoom + keeping players engaged in a virtual world
8:30 | Bringing the football mentality to his baseball coaching
12:30 | The adaptation + difference in how he led early in his coaching career to now
16:45 | Recruiting: Worrying less about results and more about how they handled the results
20:40 | Building the team mindset + culture - Does resiliency come from recruiting, or from the coaching staff?
22:30 | Shifting the Culture at Azusa - What stood out to you as the things that really helped flip that culture?
28:20 | Having a Player that sets the standard
33:15 | Being purposeful in his approach to recruiting + asking the right questions
38:45 | What are you looking for when looking at a potential prospect?
42:15 | Are there exceptions that you make in your evaluation? Or pretty rigid in your evaluation process?
44:50 | NFL Team Building: Putting guys in the right system
49:15 | Reflecting on the ability to take teams from good to great
55:20 | What goes into a good baseball nickname?
