By: Mike Carter
Driving around town, you can’t help but notice it. The stunning quiet of the baseball diamonds. The grass is cut, the dugouts look ready to receive the players, but due to the current pandemic, no one is playing, save for a few travel teams, and the occasional loose practice with a few kids and dads. Spring was quiet and lonely here in Batavia, Illinois, a small town of 26,000 nestled on the Fox River about forty miles west of Chicago.
As I was driving past our high school, I noticed one man lugging some heavy bags around, and it made me wonder out loud to no one in particular. What is this guy doing? Who is he? Which leads me to other questions, invariably: what is a high school baseball coach doing these days, when there are no games to be played, no signals to give, no advice or in-game decision-making?
Upon further inspection, I learned that the guy heaving the bags around, alone on the field, was varsity assistant coach Josh Miller. No one asked him to do it; he was tending to the fields and helping to refurbish one of the dugouts. I have known Josh for several years as he has coached my son and countless other kids here, and I asked if I could interview him about what he is up to with no season to manage right now.
Miller is a Batavia native who stayed in town after college. He married his high school sweetheart, Laura, and together they are raising two baseball-obsessed boys. Both are not only excellent players, but also exhibit high character and sportsmanship with their teammates and opponents. The Millers’ backyard is something to behold: Josh and Laura have created a love letter to baseball. They lined it like a baseball field, put in bases, and even put a “press box” and dugout back there. All the kids who come to play there are asked to sign their name on the dugout wall. It is an amazing place to watch kids play from the comfort of their porch. Laura “is a saint,” as Josh rightfully puts it.
Miller is an excellent coach, but an even better teacher. He coaches several teams in the area, from 6 year olds to high school kids, and most of his evening and weekend hours are dominated by coaching. My son Jack, an emotional young guy, always asks at the beginning of each season “do I get to play with Coach Josh?” His impact is immense.
Interestingly, Miller’s dad was born in England and came to the United States at the age of 5, and didn’t know much about baseball, but learned quickly that it was a way to connect with local kids.
As for Miller, he learned at a very young age that he had been bitten by the baseball bug.
“When I was two, my mom was hanging laundry in the backyard, and I hit a whiffle ball so hard that it cracked a window. I started playing with the local, older kids when I was four. I became obsessed.”
Miller played for Batavia Youth Baseball, a rite of passage little league for many boys and girls in Batavia. He went on to play with the Fox Valley Royals, a prestigious travel team, before making the high school varsity as a sophomore. Miller says, “I was the only shortstop on the team so they had very little choice but to play me.”
Miller had visions of playing Division I in college, but that did not happen. He had attended a showcase after his junior year in high school, but did not get D1 scholarship offers. After leaving Grand Valley State, Miller went into the business world to get a jump on his same-age peers in working, many of whom continued to pursue baseball careers. Miller came back to Batavia and played for the Aurora Braves, a team in the Mexican-American League for a couple of years.
He got into coaching almost by accident; Laura has a brother who was coaching 14U and 12 U teams in the area. Miller went to help him on an “as needed” basis. And the coaching world grabbed on to him.
Miller started coaching at the high school level four years ago, as an assistant coach on the sophomore team to head coach Brett Bartos. When varsity head coach Alex Beckman took over the program, he turned to Miller for help. “Essentially I had the flexibility to get to practice,“ Miller says modestly, “but it was a great opportunity. He knew me, and I was available, and I have been there ever since.”
Miller is now Beckman’s assistant on the varsity. Miller feels he has the freedom to be able to define his role, which does not always happen in high school sports. Beckman is a coach unafraid of having multiple voices around him.
“My role is to help the team understand strategy, and that includes knowing where to put your best athletes on the field,” said Miller. “We are very heavy and specific on technique development to make kids better…we call it microcoaching.”
Not lost on Miller is that only in his late thirties, he is the oldest coach on the team, and he dispenses advice to all without being pushy. Having coached young kids with him, I have seen this quality in abundance. He is patient, works diligently with individual players, while holding them accountable and responsible, even at the age of 7 or 8. Miller is not afraid to get down on their level, put an arm around the shoulder, but then offer the needed instruction and help the kid improve his game. And this goes for every kid on the team, not just the star players.
“It’s all in how you communicate, how you schedule, and how you evaluate. I have an outside perspective having run a business, and that really helps. I am invested in this town and its kids.”
So what has Miller been doing with no season to prepare for, it having been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic?
They are looking at “lost time” differently. Rather than looking at the time as lost, the staff looks at it as an opportunity: there are things they can do productively and proactively to get better.
“We have been trying to keep morale up, and reminding the kids we need to stay together, this is still your team.”
The coaching staff set up weekly video conferences with each athlete, and assigned individual workouts for each player. They asked them to do a drill, put it on the team Twitter page, and send it to the coaches for evaluation. The athletes then hashtag with #workinglikeadog” so that their peers can see what they are doing each day to make themselves better despite not having practices or a season. The hashtag emanates from the team nickname, the Bulldogs. It’s a huge symbol of this town.
The staff even put together an “MLB The Show” video game league to keep the team engaged with each other. They branched out to include kids from other towns in other high schools.
As Miller says again, “we are all in this together and will get through it together.”
Another important aspect of the coaching job is to reach out to college coaches on behalf of their senior players.
Asked what he misses most, Miller give a lengthy response.
“It’s being in the dugout with the guys…pitchers, manipulating the game, hitting fungoes, calling pitches, taking grounders….everything. Everything that brings joy. I am lucky as an adult to put on baseball pants, a windbreaker and hat and step into the dugout.”
I asked as well if he ever thought about legacy. Miller is a Batavia staple, and is well known around town.
“I hope the kids know I am here to get them to play at a high level, maybe even the next level, but that I was hard yet supportive, and shared knowledge with them…that I helped better them.”
One thing that I always ask people who spend time around the best game in the world what the biggest threat is to the game. In today’s MLB, for example, it seems to be money as the owners and the MLBPA argue over how to get the abbreviated season.
“It’s adults,” Miller states without hesitation. “Adults forget it is a game. The kids are there to “play,” right? Too often decisions get made that benefit adults and not kids. The most important aspect of this game is the development of kids; their experiences are the most important.”