College Baseball Coach Interview: Brian Billings
BRIAN BILLINGS is the Head Coach of the Pacific University Baseball Team. He has been married for 20 years this August and has an 11 year old son. His son is interested in athletics, especially baseball and snowboarding. Brian has been at Pacific for 8 years. They were back to back NorthWest Conference champions. Last year he was the West Region Coach of the Year on d3baseball.com and the NorthWest Conference Coach of the Year. Before Pacific, he was the Head Coach for Puget Sound for 12 years, being a head coach in the NorthWest Conference for 20 years now. Before that, he played in the conference. Living in Beaverton, he spends all of his free time with family. In this episode, we will be talking about his approach to coaching baseball at Pacific University using a growth mindset and giving his athletes the tools to be successful on and off the field.
Below I have written most of what we talked about but you can listen to the full podcast on Anchor / Spotify or on Apple Podcasts.
Q: How do your athletes handle the transition from high school to college?
A: Student athletes at Pacific and student-athletes that have played for me in the past, when they finish up their 4 years, we don’t want them saying “what next?”.
We want them to get involved not only in their sport but in clubs, or different social groups on campus.
There’s no secret to it. It’s a lot of hard work, but I think the guys are prepared for their next chapter in life after their experience at Pacific.
I think a lot of it comes down to time management.
When you come to college, you have a lot of things pulling you in a lot of different directions.
You have academics, baseball, social things you’re involved with, etc.
Q: How do your athletes prepare for life after graduation?
A: We tell the guys that despite everything you have going on, it’s still the most free time you’re going to ever have in your life. We try to not overload them.
I was a D3 student-athlete myself and most of our coaches were as well so we understand the grind.
We try to be efficient with their time and make sure we’re not overloading them, which allows them to have success academically and on the field.
Q: You told me that when a kid reaches graduation day and they’re wondering “what next”, you didn’t do your job. You also know it’s up to the athlete to have that plan in place, you’re just steering them in the right direction. How do you make sure you give your athletes the right tools to be prepared for when the lights go out for baseball?
A: One of the best things about athletics is that some people might say that ‘athletics builds character’, but I say that ‘athletics reveals character’.
We really try to recruit kids that are wired a certain way.
We want kids that have a growth mindset, that have a low ego / high performance work ethic, that really grind.
We want kids that put in the work and are going to do whatever they can to be the best version of themself.
That’s going to translate for us in performance on the field and hopefully ultimately wins for the team. It also creates a good culture and a good environment.
We try to recruit kids that fit that profile.
When they get to Pacific we try to promote a growth mindset and take the approach that when they show up at the field they’re just trying to get one percent better.
When you start stacking up those days, the idea is that the student-athletes improve exponentially over 4 years.
We are trying to create a culture that promotes a growth process and create the positive experience for student-athletes.
Q: You talk a lot about pushing a “growth mindset” in your athletes. How does that apply to sports and in life?
A: The growth mindset is a concept that was introduced to me 10-15 years ago by a legendary women’s soccer coach Randy Hanson from Puget Sound.
I was in a rut personally and professionally and turned to him for some guidance.
He recommended me a book called Mindset by Carol Dweck.
She discovered these 2 conflicting mindsets: the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. I tried to adopt the growth mindset in all aspects of my life.
It’s helped me professionally, within my personal life, my relationship with my wife, my son, my friends and family, and carrying that into parenting and coaching.
I’ve had a lot of success with that. With that, I’ve been learning how to work through adversity and disappointment.
I am learning my role in these student-athletes lives. I try to look through a lens of “everything is not fixed”.
My intelligence and talent is not something that is fixed, it’s something that can be improved upon. We focus on process.
If you focus too much on results, you lose track of the process.
The way that you message things to your student-athletes is super important.
I certainly stub my toe with that a lot of times but I try my best.
Q: What is “Mudita” and how do you implement that in your coaching?
A: I’ve heard Coach Murphy speak before at conventions. He goes to a lot of baseball conventions even though he’s a softball coach. He’s a very bright coach, one of the best in the country.
He’s used a concept called “mudita” in his program. It’s a buddhist term that basically means ‘vicarious joy’, or celebrating others successes.
We’ve tried to take that concept into our program. I think it’s human nature to have a little bit of an ego and want to achieve things for yourself.
It’s easy to lose sight that this is a team game. It helps to build that team chemistry if your teammates and your coaches know that they’re all pulling for you.
It’s a really positive thing for our dugout and the guys on our team have really embraced that.
If one of our guys gets a hit or has a big moment, our dugout goes crazy or gets excited for that teammate because they know how much work that guy has put into it.
If you want to promote a growth mindset and mudita, you have to talk about it.
We try to talk about it by honoring players when they show these qualities. In the dugout, on the field, in the clubhouse, wherever it is we try to point out to the whole group so other players are encouraged to behave that way and create that culture.
It’s kind of fun to see a dugout with so much energy celebrating one players personal individual success.
Q: You have won “Coach Of The Year” on multiple platforms. How do you make sure you have a championship team and be a coach who is a great leader?
A: To me, it’s just trying to stay focused on the process and trying to create a great experience every year.
Every year it’s a new team, a new group of players, a new locker room, a new team chemistry. Just trying to recreate that culture every year.
This season upcoming is a real challenge to us because over the last 2 years we have graduated quite a few leaders in the clubhouse. Recruiting-wise and culturally, recognizing that, we’ve really tried to double down on work ethic, growth mindset, and integrity.
We’re trying to bring in an excellent group of freshmen and transfers that fit that model.
We’ve seen how successful a great culture can be so we’re trying to recreate that with a new set of players and we’re excited for that challenge.
Just because we were good the last two years, that doesn’t guarantee anything.
I’m really excited for the new group and looking forward to the challenge of trying to recreate that culture.
Q: Coaches make a huge impact on young players lives. What has been one of your favorite moments as a coach?
A: There’s been so many. It’s easy to say seeing our team dog pile on the field back to back years.
Some of the more memorable experiences have been with players that have had to deal with some sort of adversity and had overcome it at some point in their career.
We had a kid who came to us as a freshman from a small high school. We cut him so he decided to run track that year.
He was one of the top sprinters but he loved baseball.
He came back out as a sophomore and made the team, mostly playing on the JV team.
As a junior he improved quite a bit. In the spirit of the growth mindset, he really developed.
He got his first start, first at bat, hit leadoff, laid a bunt down, stretched out at first and ruptured his patella in his knee.
He missed his junior year, but he worked his tail off after surgery.
He came back his senior year starting off as a pinch runner. Next thing you know, he’s a part time starter, and all of a sudden he’s leading our team to a conference tournament win.
Those are the types of things you remember as a coach. The kids that come in that really have to work their tail off to achieve something.
I’m really proud of that student-athlete.
There are so many examples of kids who came in and overcome these things.
We had a kid come in with the yips. We’ve helped him work through that.
There’s been a lot of highs and lows, and those are some of the highs for sure.
Q: How has being a father impacted the way you coach college baseball?
A: More than I can explain in words. It’s been a game changer for me.
You’re responsible for another human being’s development and you really learn a lot on how to mentor, how to coach and how to raise kids.
It’s definitely helped me see things from a different perspective.
My son’s battling for playing time in little league and I’m starting to see things from a different perspective.
All of that perspective just makes you a better or more experienced coach. It’s been good. I don’t think I know it all, I have a lot to learn.
Definitely being a dad has shaped me into being a better coach. I’m trying to soak it all in and enjoy the years with him and support him and be the best dad I can be.
Q: How do you make sure you have a work life balance?
A: That’s a challenge. You have to be intentional about setting aside time to be with your family.
Turn your phone off, really engage with your kids and your significant other.
It’s been a challenge for the about 5 months I’m not around much.
I see them in the mornings and then I usually get home after my son’s asleep.
It’s been a challenge but luckily my wife has been able to work from home to be present for our son. We take it day by day.
This summer has been really good watching him play in little league all-stars.
He snowboards, too so my wife takes him to the mountains on the weekends when I’m coaching.
I wish I could make more time, that’s for sure. I definitely feel guilty when it’s been multiple weeks and I haven’t spent much time with my kid.
You sacrifice a lot as a coach in terms of your family and your personal life.
Luckily I have my wife who’s a great mom and makes a lot of sacrifices in her life and her free time.
Luckily she gets it but usually after the season she’s pretty gassed just like I am, we’re exhausted.
I try to be as present as I can when I do get the time to spend with my family.
If you missed the last podcast, our guest was sport mental performance coach Krystal Vazquez. In that episode, we talked about how she uses her bilingual skills to give back to her hispanic community in her work as a sport mental performance coach. Up next we will have Brooke Butkovsky as our guest on the podcast. In that episode, we will be talking about her experience as a dual athlete in college, going straight into coaching after college, and her podcast After The Athlete.
If you have any more questions for Brian, please leave comments below or contact me. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call or text the Suicide Hotline. It’s toll free and available 24/7 at 988 or 800-273-8255.
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