So …. this past weekend,  a 2017 Gamer told be about a “situation” at his high school where parents of other players and then the coaches of their high school team were criticizing the Gamers program saying that  “the Gamers fees are so high to pay for the Cadillacs”.

I am sure that if this situation is happening there, it is happening other places … so it is going to be addressed since I am the one that drives a Cadillac (not Matt, Scott or Dave). There are ignorant people out there spreading lies and I am going to directly address it so Gamers players and parents understand the truth.

I went to engineering school, worked hard in the the oil industry in the Arctic Circle and the middle of the Gulf, went to Harvard Business School and for the past 25 years have worked by butt off in the business world.  Between my business life and the Gamers, I work over 100 hours a week, every week.  I work hard and am pretty good at what I do.  So, I will drive whatever car I want to drive.

I take ZERO compensation from the Gamers program and have personally invested more money into the program than you can imagine —  well more than one Escalade of money out of my family’s pocket into youth baseball.  Most of this money went directly  to support kids that would not otherwise play select, travel baseball.  So, while others are trying every sly scheme possible to make money in youth baseball and then pointing to my car, I am taking nothing and investing in youth baseball.

Over 100% of the fees from the Gamers program go directly into baseball — coaching, instruction, practice, uniforms, games, etc…. Playing or practicing the actual game.  It is over 100% of fees because corporate sponsors and others (including me) donate money to support the Gamers program mission.  Our fees may be $2100-3000, BUT our kids all get >>$3000 worth of baseball.

Other programs that charge $2-3000 for baseball are delivering significantly less baseball and a lower quality experience, unless you define quality as less practice, poor instruction and lower expectations — which too many people buy into.  It is funny to hear people use “less baseball” as a selling point for their program.  Where does that money go then??

Less baseball = PROFIT.   More baseball =INVESTMENT

Gamers fees go into baseball, not nice cars.

So, for the critics, feel free to criticize the Gamers for working too hard, for running too much, for setting expectations too high, or for making the game a big deal.  If you want to criticize my car, I invite you to spend a month with me and try to keep up.

Organizations, businesses, schools, teams — any group of people together for a period of time — develop a “culture”.  It is hard to define exactly, but culture is how people act and interact when they are together.  It is “how we do things” together.

The Waffle House culture is iconic, especially in the South.  A 24×7 restaurant delivering “Good Food, Fast” in hundreds of locations is not easy.  Waffle House’s culture is the foundation of its success.   Here is a short video on the Waffle House culture.

Culture matters.  It enables team members to hold themselves and each other accountable to a standard of expectations.

For the Gamers, our name embodies our culture.  Wikipedia definition of a Gamer — “A player who plays particularly hard  and is prone to making the right play at the right time, often in big games”.  Gamers Play Big, and play hard.  

Our specific style of play and expectations are written down and define our culture.   We hold each other accountable to these expectations.

The Waffle House kitchen, which is out in the open for everyone to see, is totally paperless and computerless.  Everything is 100% based on spoken and visual cues.  For, example if you ordered three scrambled eggs with bacon, hash browns with cheese and a waffle, the waitress stands at a specific spot on the floor of the kitchen as would say 

“Pull bacon, drop covered, mark triple scrambled hold grits” —  Click here for more details.

As the waitress yells the order, the grill operator 1. Pulls the meat for the order and puts it on grill, 2. drops hash browns on the grill and 3. marks a plate with visual cues for the rest of the order.  

Here is what the visual cues look like:

The result is Good Food Fast, based entirely on spoken and visual cues.  To work at Waffle House, you must memorize and execute under pressure these spoken and visual cues for the entire menu.

That is why only 1 in 80 employees make it through the first year.  It is a different language and operating system.

To work at Waffle House, you need to be able to learn, apply that learning and execute under pressure.  

Sound familiar?

For about 10 years, out of town baseball trips have always included visits to Waffle House for me.  Whether it is late night post-game, or early morning pre-game, there is connection in my mind between Waffle House and travel baseball.  Part of it is no doubt the overlap between Waffle House locations and good baseball.  It is a special place, any time of the day or night.  Good Food, Fast is the motto.  Plus, some entertainment.You can learn a lot from Waffle House if you pay attention.  So, this is first installment of “Lessons from Waffle House”.

My wife Lauree shares my affection for Waffle House.  A big difference, though, is that she actually has conversations with people and learns things.  Here is what she learned at Waffle House in Southaven MS this weekend:

Of the people who are given jobs as wait staff or cooks at Waffle House:

Only 1 in 5 (20%) make it through the 2 week training

Only 1 in 10 (10%) make it through the 3 month mark

Only 1 in 80 (1.25%) make it through their 1 year anniversary.

The way Waffle House operates demands fast paced work, good communication and the ability to learn a strict verbal cue system for ordering, food prep and service.  It is a very challenging job.  There is little room for error — if you screw up the verbal cues at Waffle House, all hell would probably break loose.  I would end up with onions in my hash browns.  So, people try out for the job, the vast majority fail or are fired and then they move on to more traditional work.

As 14 year veteran waitress Margie boasted on Saturday morning “If you can work at Waffle House, you can work anywhere”.

And you thought playing college baseball was hard to do.  7% of high school baseball players go on to play college baseball at some level.  It takes a lot of training, playing, practicing and hard work to get there.   Those are pretty stiff odds.  But, a lot better odds than making a career at Waffle House.

It’s not just Waffle House and baseball though.  To EXCEL at something, to be EXCEPTIONAL requires you to stand out and beat the odds.  Part of it is talent, part is effort, part is passion and a big part is perseverance — the ability to overcome barriers that block other people.  That how exceptional performers separate themselves.  To be exceptional, you need to do exceptional things.

This past weekend, a number of Gamers teams made the annual journey to Southaven MS for the Super NIT event, comprised mostly of teams from the mid-South — AR, TN, MS and AL.  A few teams from St. Louis and a few from Louisiana.  Midwest teams that make the trip down usually end up with a short game schedule and rarely make it past round 1 of elimination play.  And, the scores at young ages (say 10-12u) get way out of control.  It sometimes looks like men playing against boys at young ages.

By contrast, when the Gamers 15-17u teams play these same mid-South teams/programs in the summer, the competitive levels are very close and we tend to win more games than we lose.  What explains this difference in outcomes?

First, there are clearly important regional differences between the sports environment in the mid-South versus St. Louis.  Here are the obvious ones:

– Soccer and hockey are only minor sports in the mid-South.  Kids play baseball, football and basketball.  In St. Louis, a number of very good athletes are playing these sports instead of baseball. This makes a big difference at 10-13u.

– Baseball is just a bigger deal in the South.  Despite the Cardinals fanfare, St. Louis is not a baseball town.  Just compare the quality of baseball fields and facilities in the mid-South versus those in the Midwest.  It is night and day.  Small high schools in TN have better fields and practice facilities than any college in the St. Louis area, including SLU.  10 year olds in Memphis play and practice at better facilities than high school players in St. Louis.

– Not only is baseball a bigger deal in mid-South, so is youth football.  Football training, even without weightlifting, makes kids stronger and faster.  Athleticism from football translates immediately to the baseball field.  The 11 year olds hitting home runs in Southaven are probably great offensive tackles.  Not many young offensive tackles in St. Louis are athletic enough to also play baseball.

– Finally, and most importantly, baseball is a warm weather sport.  The 4-8 weeks of warmer temps in February/March makes a huge difference.  Many of the teams in Southaven this weekend had already played 40+ games — versus 20 games for our teams.

The net impact of all the factors above is that kids play more baseball against better competition in the mid-South than they do in the Midwest from ages 7u-14u.  You get good at baseball by playing baseball.  There is no other way.   For example, the Memphis Tigers 7u team played 47 games last Spring/Summer. Repeat that difference at 8u and 9u and it is a hard barrier to overcome.

I strongly believe the “10,000 hour rule” discussed in Malcolm Gladwell book “Outliers”.

Below is my rough estimate of the cumulative hours of practice/game baseball time for kids in the Mid-South versus St. Louis.  I also added the Gamers program hours of games/practices from 10u on.   Eventually, because of how we run the Gamers program, our players catch up — usually at around 14u.  At 14u, we play head to head vs. good mid-South teams every year. But, we are definitely playing catch up from 10-13u.

Thanks to Northwestern Mutual, the large financial services company that has been around since 1857, the Gamers program is able to award two $2,500 scholarships to graduating seniors who represent the principles of the Gamers program.  This was our first year for the awards, and it was incredibly difficult to select the recipients.  So many 2014 Gamers could have received the award, including:

Trey Bauer – MICDS, going to Cornell, 5 year Gamer

Jackson Bishop – Montgomery County, 3 year Gamer, going to BYU

Shane Strom — Timberland HS, 3 year Gamer, going to Quincy University

Conner Wardlaw — Desmet HS, 6 year Gamer, going to Jeffco

Lucas Swindle – St. Charles Lutheran,  4 year Gamer, going to Missouri S&T

Clifford Chi – Parkway West, 5 year Gamer, going to DePauw University

Trenton Green – Perryville HS, 4 year Gamer, going to Missouri S&T

Graham Thomason – St. Charles Lutheran, 4 year Gamer, going to DePauw

All of players listed above are prototype Gamers — great academics, hard workers who care about doing things right.  They are going to be very successful young men.  They have been and continue to be an absolute blessing to the Gamers program.  They have earned a lot of respect and love around the Gamers program.

The two scholarship winners hold a special place in my heart and are both 6 year Gamers.

Adam Mundle is literally an Eagle Scout who is an incredibly gifted athlete and a 4.2 GPA student.  If I had a daughter, Adam would be the one kid I have coached that I would want her to bring home.  At 13u, Adam was the best player on the least talented team in the history of Gamers program.  At 14u, he taught himself how to switch hit, and despite going 1-35 at the beginning of the season, led his 14u team to an incredible winning streak in June in July.  Since then, he has been playing SS or CF, batting at the top of the order and using his speed to impact games.  He is a great student and does everything well.  I would trust him in any situation. He is the guy I want up with 2 outs and the winning run at 2B — just ask Dulins Dodgers.

Jake Hemphill is the best pure pitcher and toughest kid I have ever coached.  He has been a Gamer since 13u, when his head coach wanted to cut him at the end of the season. Then, he grew a foot and, through hard work and shear determination, molded himself into an exceptional HS pitcher.  He might not light up the radar gun, but, I have never seen a HS kid dominate the strike zone and compete on the mound like Jake.  That is why he is 16-1 in HS baseball, against the best HS teams in the area.  With the Gamers,  for the past 2 years he pitched against the best teams in the country every weekend and gave his team a chance to win every game.  When he is on the mound, ice runs through his veins.  It does not matter if he gets hit around a little.  The next pitch will be a 2 seamer in that gets a double play.  He is a relentless competitor.

These two players, along with the players mentioned above, have been an incredible honor to coach and to mentor over the past several years.  I cannot wait to see their futures unfold!