'Nobody is Going to Let You Coach Them Until They Trust You'

It was an elimination game, and Clint Hurdle was torn over whom to pitch.

There was the fiery veteran competitor A.J. Burnett or the gifted rookie Gerrit Cole — the Pittsburgh Pirates’ season hanging in the balance.

“That was a hard day, that was a hard day,” Hurdle said nearly a decade later when reflecting on the decision to go with Cole.

“Leadership can be very lonely at times, and you’re going to disappoint people, people who you love.” 

The Daily Coach spoke to Hurdle — the former Pirates and Colorado Rockies manager — about the pressure of expectation, what all great teams have in common, and the emotions that come with being fired.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Coach, thanks a lot for doing this. Tell us a little about your childhood and some key lessons from it.

I grew up in Michigan. My family moved to Florida early in my childhood. I had a Michigander background. It was a very rural upbringing. My dad’s parents lived in Big Rapids, Mich. My dad was one of five, with four sisters. His father was a left-handed pitcher who was on the cusp of signing a professional contract with the Cincinnati Reds. In the middle of the week before signing, his father died, and he went to work at a Ford factory at the age of 16 and didn’t stop for 50 years.  

There was baseball in our blood. My dad would take us as kids to see the Tigers every summer when the Yankees were in town. Those trips were like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and are still some of the best memories I have. My father was a very good athlete through college at Ferris State. He played every sport and was offered a contract by the Chicago Cubs as a shortstop. Two days later, he was drafted into the Army.

You were a really heralded baseball prospect and were famously on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1978. How did you manage what came with being labeled a “phenom?”

There’s intrinsic pressure you put on yourself, and there’s pressure you aren’t even aware is around you until it happens. Then, there’s the pressure from peers and an inner circle. I don’t mean it in a bad way. It’s like the genie in the bottle. On the cover, the term they used was “Unlimited potential.”

There were a lot of unmanaged expectations and emotions, and it carried into the year with my performance. I do think there were many times where I navigated it well but, unfortunately, I was on my own. They didn’t have PR departments to walk you through things like they do now. I was trying to play to a level I never had before because of what was expected. I found out slowly the surest way to not make anybody happy is by trying to make everybody happy.

Your playing career had several highs and lows. What retrospective advice would you give yourself about some of the hardships you experienced?   

It’s O.K. to share uncomfortable feelings. It’s O.K. to tell somebody this is making me a little anxious. This is a lot to comprehend. There was a period of time when if you were a guy, you put your head down and you went hard. If you got in a hole, you dug yourself out. It wasn’t a really smart mentality, but it was the way generationally we kind of did things. I probably didn’t handle it the best.  

My advice, pretty much, would be you know your authentic self. You know what makes you happy, you know what makes you sad, you know when you’re nervous. Share it with somebody close. Let them help you navigate.

Was coaching always on your horizon?

Basically, my career went from being a can’t-miss, to a miss, to finding a way back and making a team. I also went through a period with all of the anxiety and the challenges where I started numbing my feelings and emotions. I’m a recovering alcoholic, and I had nobody to put that on but myself.

I was fortunate, though. Some people helped me. Davey Johnson turned me into a catcher. He told me he wanted me to do drills and reps with the catching coach in AAA to play and extend my career. That part right there opened the prism for me to look at the game through a completely different lens. It allowed me to develop different relationships and understand the importance of making each pitcher feel like he's the baddest dude in the park that night, having the ability to draw up a plan B if plan A isn’t working.

It came to the point in 1988 where I only had one offer to go back to spring training. I got a call from a Minor League director asking if I’d ever considered managing. He said, “I think you’d learn more about yourself, and I think you’d be a benefit to a Minor League system with all you’ve been through in life and experienced. I think you can lead men.”

What were you good at early on as a manager and where did you find you really needed to improve?

As soon as I started coaching in the Minor Leagues, I realized nobody is going to let you coach them until they trust you. You have to have thoughts on how you’re going to develop trust. It’s not going to arrive at the same time for every player. I tried to ask players non-baseball questions. Where do you come from? What’s your dad like? Was it hard? Was it easy? Were you entitled? You ask those questions and start putting the pieces together, but it all predicates on trust and building the relationship.

The best way to initiate trust was to be vulnerable first, share things about myself and hopefully get their attention like, “O.K., he’s not B.S.ing us.” The magic is when they know you care about them as people, not just that they’re a middle infielder with first-step quickness and a barreled bat. “Johnny likes movies. Johnny’s not a hugger.”

I would take courses online, read books, do self-awareness exercises. I read some people don’t like to be hugged. I thought, “My God, I’ve been hugging people all this time. I could actually be pushing them away.” I found out who needed the hug, who needed the fist bump, who needed the arm around them, who just needed the pat on the back and move on.

I got to know the players and my coaches, and they got to know me. Before you know it, you’re not building walls, you’re building bridges, and they can come to you with anything. In my lifetime, two divorces, a recovering alcoholic, traded, released, World Series. There were a lot of experiences I could share.

You went on to manage the Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates. What do the great teams have in common in your experience beyond just talent?

I think it’s a Buddhist term called Mudita. That’s the ability to express happiness for somebody else’s excellence. Not every team has that. Every good team I was on did, though. I was on some teams where when I hit a home run, I was the only one happy, The great teams have it where even if you’re not playing, you’re involved in the dugout and being engaged. The teams that play well really pull for one another and celebrate each others’ successes. It’s not magic. It’s a selflessness.

It sounds simple, but you just show up to help win the game. You’re not pissed if you’re hitting sixth. You’re not mad getting pulled out or, if you are mad, you know there’s a bigger thing going on. That would be the one thing I’ve experienced. When you don’t have it, you know you don’t have it.

You were in the World Series in 2007 with the Rockies, then you were fired less than two years later. How did you get through that period?

I jokingly said in ’07 they threw us a parade at the end of the season. In ’09, they threw me a parade two months into the season to get out of town. The reality is it was probably the most raw experience I’d had to date — and I had had some raw experiences. Life is hard, and it’s not fair, and it’s not going to be fair. You have to figure out what hill you want to choose to take a stand on. That was rough.

The thing that got me through was I had some unbelievable relationships. One was with the team president, the ownership group and the general manager. What I took away — and I’ve had to do this a couple of times — is you honor the exit. For five years, I was a hitting coach in Colorado and preached team unity, cohesion, selflessness. Then, I got to manage for eight years and preached the same thing. If I leave kicking and screaming and pointing fingers, it tears down 13 years of hard work, of sweat equity, of human capital I put into it.

Was I disappointed? Absolutely. Was I sad? Absolutely. But the team president, Keli McGregor, shared with me my first day on the job in ’02 that as long as God wants you in that chair, no man can take you out. When God doesn’t want you in that chair, no man can keep you in. There came a day where no man could keep me in. It was time to go. I walked out and knew I did my appointment. As soon as I got out of the chair and Jim Tracy moved in, they went to the playoffs. It was an incredible season. I told them the day I was fired, “I hope this gives you a clean slate. There’s no more excuses, there’s no more distractions. You guys can play. If you don’t think you can win your division, shame on you.”

I had an opportunity to do it again in Pittsburgh after nine years. You get let go on the last day of the season three hours before the game. But for nine years, there was so much good, so many people I’m still pulling for in Colorado and Pittsburgh. How could you not want good for people who you’ve invested life with even though you’re not there? That’s how I’m built. That’s how I’m wired.  

A lot of successful managers like Joe Maddon, Dusty Baker and Buck Showalter are now out of a job. How is managing different than it was decades ago and what do you think the larger leadership implications of turnover are?  

I use this example in a couple of places. My first scout meeting as the manager in Colorado had eight people in the room, my coaches and our advanced scout, maybe our video guy. My last week in Pittsburgh for a weekend series against the Cubs had 25 people in the room. Everyone had a role and responsibility. 

The expansion of the staffs, the compartmentalization of certain skills, the data, the science, the research and analytics, it’s like you went from making a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich to now making a seven-course meal before playing. The good teams are doing it more efficiently. I still believe your best level of production comes from a hybrid model of human analytics and statistical analytics and research. It’s a game played by people. When you can show loyalty to your people, it breeds energy. The energy breeds effort. The effort is what gets you the results. Sometimes, that’s easier to do with 10 than with 25. 

Some teams are doing a much better job of getting all of the information, filtering it down and putting it in the hands of someone who can disseminate it to the players in understandable language. That’s been the secret sauce for some teams, and other teams are trying to figure it out.  

Q&A Resources

Clint Hurdle ― Website | Twitter 

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