ABCA Podcast, Episode 386

ABCA Minority Member Spotlight: Alex Wyche and Reginald Hollins, Minority Baseball Prospects

The American Baseball Coaches Association strives to help diversify the baseball community and help bring opportunities in the game to all areas. The ABCA Minority Spotlight series looks to capture the experiences, coaching style, and impact that baseball has had on different ABCA member coaches. A new Minority Spotlight feature is released on the ABCA Podcast on the third Monday of the month and we will transcribe a small portion of the interview, which you can find below.

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The ABCA Podcast releases a new episode weekly featuring coaches from all levels of the sport. Discussions run the gamut of baseball coaching topics, from pitching, to hitting, to the mental game, practice planning, recruiting and more. The podcast is hosted by Ryan Brownlee, longtime coach and current Assistant Executive Director of the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA).

Alex Wyche founded Minority Baseball Prospects in April of 2020. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, MBP is the creator of more than 40 annual programming events, developing and spotlighting athletes from grade school to professional levels. Wyche previously served as the first black coach at Griffin High School (GA) and also had a stint at Redan High School (GA). In seven seasons at Redan, Wyche produced seven MLB draft picks and had 60 student athletes commit to college programs. Reginald Hollins is currently the President/COO of MBP. He was previously coaching at the college level for 13 years as an assistant and head coach at Tuskegee University. In his tenure at Tuskegee, the Golden Tigers had the most wins since 1999 in his first season as head. He also led the Golden Tigers to play for a Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) Championship for the first time since 1989.

Ryan Brownlee: How did you all get connected with each other for this?

Alex Wyche: You know, the blessing was I was a high school coach and I had some good talent so he (Reginald) kinda had to come through me when he wanted players.

Reginald Hollins: Absolutely, we had mutual respect throughout the baseball world. I always admired his success and what he was doing for the youth at the high school and also amateur level. One thing he (Alex) did not mention was, he has put 100 percent of his guys into college and into the draft each year.

RB: Do you all miss coaching at all?

RH: I don’t miss the actual physical engagement of being a college coach. A lot like you said we are getting that fix through our events. We are touching the high school kids, we’re touching the amateur kids through development, we’re touching the college kids and are able to teach the mental side.

AW: Yeah, not for real. You kind of miss the art of competing and just getting a chance of wins and losses and trying to win a state championship.

RB: Reginald, when you got in, what were some of the tweaks when you got there with what you guys started with and what you’re kind of doing now?

RH: I would say the only tweak is more so affecting the amateur kids at the base level. So we’re talking, you know, that 6 to 14 range. I was not able to reach those kids while coaching at Tuskegee but I knew what they needed. So I also wanted to be able to go back and address those kids well before they got to college.

RB: Alex, did you have a feeder program with your high school?

AW: We did, but not as strong as we should have. I think that the thing that killed it was kind of the little league stopping and the daddy summer ball.

RB: Was it hard for you all to delegate when you got a head coaching job?

RH: It was a struggle because sometimes when you want it done right you do it yourself. At the same time, I know the coaching process was about developing others in leadership, just as someone did for me.

AW: Yea, for me, it was tough until I got to Redan. At Griffin I was all by myself and I wanted everything to be structured. Young gun hole coach, I thought I had a million ideas but when I got to Redan I had old time coaches. They said, “Hey man this is how we’ve been doing it for 40 years and been successful.”