FIVE QUESTIONS WITH BASEBALL ASSISTANT COACH CHRIS COLLAZO
-5th season as an MU assistant
-2010 graduate of Monmouth
-10 total seasons of collegiate baseball coaching experience
What were some of the highlights and memorable times from your playing career at Monmouth?
That was an incredibly special time for me and the history of the MU baseball program. My graduating class won in total 132 games over 4 years, a regular season title, and went to 2 NCAA Tournaments. I am not 100% sure but I have to think that my class by the number of wins and championships has to be the most successful class in program history. We were lucky to have great classes and teammates that surrounded us as well, both older and younger that helped and allowed us to be so successful. We were also lucky enough to have great coaches throughout my 4 years as a player. I've tried to bring that winning mindset to MU as a coach and help Coach Ehehalt continue to instill it in our players. I now have four completed seasons as an assistant at MU, two 30-win seasons and a Regular Season Championship. Outside of baseball, the lasting relationships and friendships created and formed are what really matters. The ability to be able to pick up the phone and call teammates at any time for any reason and knowing that they will answer, over 10 years later, is priceless and important in all our lives. This includes a Friday night Zoom video chat during the current quarantine that we call the "MU Cowboys", which includes nine people right now but seems to be growing each week.
What is the outstanding message of the Monmouth Baseball program?
The MU Baseball message is simple and is to pay attention to and dominate all the details that go into daily life, in the classroom, and on the field. It is paying attention to the little things that will make you that much better each day. We use the term "stay on the path", which means stay on the path set forth in front of you by the program and do the right thing. Attention to detail in all aspects, win the classroom, trust the process of training, embrace competition, go hard and aggressive without fear, be involved in the community, be a great communicator, develop lasting and meaningful relationships, and always strive to be the model program on campus. All are a part of us staying on the path and continuing to move the program forward in a positive direction. When someone strays from the path, it is the responsibility of every member of the program to help that individual back onto the path.
What is your recruiting philosophy and what do you look for when seeking out players to join the program?
Find the best possible people that are the best fit for our program. On field skills are a small piece of the puzzle that also consists of academic evaluation, work ethic, recommendations from high school coaches and travel coaches, guidance counselors, teachers, and more as well as how the prospect communicates and his excitement surrounding his recruitment by MU Baseball. These all play a part. When in the recruiting process with a student-athlete we make sure that we provide a clear portrayal of our program so that all parties involved know what they are getting into.
Our process when recruiting a student athlete can be broken down into a few steps:
1-Evaluate Talent and Athletic Ability
-Done multiple times in person by at least 2 coaches on staff, as well as evaluating any video, stats, and metrics available
-Decide where the player fits on our spectrum from dude to development guy
2-Academic evaluation and academic fit Assessment
3-Work ethic and background evaluation from secondary parties
4-Personality, player-to-coach communication, and what drives the player assessment and evaluating the student-athletes fit to our program
5-Evaluate on our sliding scale between talent/ability and the other factors
6-Take all this information and move the process forward
What are some things you've been doing differently during this quarantine to continue to coach and interact with the student-athletes?
The most important thing we are stressing to our players during this quarantine is having a productive and simple daily routine that can be followed. Our players are developing daily routines and creating daily goals for themselves so that at the end of the day there was productivity, and something was accomplished. The routines include a daily wake-up time, a school work time, a baseball skills development time, a strength and conditioning time, a household chores time, a baseball research time, and a learn something knew time (one player mentioned researching and studying the stock market), as well as a free time for Netflix, video games, etc., followed by a get to bed time. Also included in the routines are mealtimes and a tracking of how much sleep they get. All of our players fill out Google Doc sheets daily that includes what they are doing each day in their routines, what they are learning, how much sleep they are getting, what types of food they are eating and putting in their bodies, what their goals are for the day, how they are going to help someone that day, and what they are thankful for that day. Each position player also has at least a one-on-one meeting with me each week via FaceTime or Zoom (Our pitchers do the same with Coach Epstein, and Coach Ehehalt and Coach Dalton mix in one-on-ne player meetings each week also). In those meetings we discuss everything from academics, baseball, books, social media follows, TV, family, creative ways to train and really drive home and continue to develop the best routine for each individual possible based on their resources. We will also have one full position player meeting on Zoom a week where players will bounce creative ideas off of each other based on what their resources are. They will also talk about their days and what they are doing to be productive and how they are creating their own best environment for learning. When players have creative ideas for skill development, strength and conditioning, etc., we have them video themselves and post in our group chat app so that we have it documented and players can refer back to it. I also like to post something in the group chat on a bi-daily basis that pertains to baseball or hitting that aligns with what we do and our philosophies. Video and clips of big leaguers, drills, approaches, film break down, mental game talk, overcoming adversity and motivational speeches video, book recommendations and more. We have a once a week full-team meeting on Zoom to continue discussing our current situation and keep our players as informed as possible.
What is something a lot of people don't know about you?
I love music. I have been playing guitar since 7th/8th grade. I am a huge Springsteen fan and have been to over 20 of his live concerts over the years. If there is one thing we all need right now in the world based on everything that is going on is a Springsteen and E Street Band tour.
Chris Collazo is in his fifth season as a Monmouth Baseball assistant coach. Collazo finished his playing career in 2009 as the all-time hits leader with 247, and still ranks second in program history in the category. He was a two-time First Team All-NEC selection in 2008 and 2009, while earning 2009 NEC Tournament MVP honors.
