Inside Pitch: What is your coaching philosophy?
Dennis Rogers: Since I started, I always believed that it’s all about the players, which could not be any more cliché, but it’s the truth. I tried to teach them the spirit of the game. I believe the game is deep in your soul, “Man, this is something I really want to do, I know the obstacles, I know the joy it can bring.” I always talked about that.
I played and coached for John Scolinos at Cal Poly, and the things I learned! He was the most selfless human being on the face of the earth. He truly cared about it all—the baseball, the personal and player development, the education, all of it. So when he gave me the chance to coach for him I tried my best to return the favor. “Coach, I'm going to handle everything. You’re going to use your skills and your mind and your brilliance to just coach. Don’t worry about uniforms and buses or sandwiches. I’ve got all that. That day is over for you, that’s done.”
IP: How do you establish a program that’s all about the players?
DR: You’re trying to put a structure together that helps them develop and improve skills. You want to help them discover psychological tools they can use to enhance their game and knowledge. The ability to breathe, to focus, to clear the mind, to erase mistakes— that can be learned, developed, and carried into the rest of your life. I know based on feedback I’ve had from former players that these tools can be used in an everyday routine as a player and as a human being.
IP: What are the best ways to give your players the opportunity to learn these skills?
DR: You sell to your players that this is critical for their baseball career “life expectancy” and for their lives moving forward. Give them some rope to understand how failure truly feels because they all need to fail. I would never say that to players directly, but I needed them all to fail so I could find out how they’re going to deal with it—then I can really jump in and help them. Now, does this mean we lost games? My belief is that players and coaching staff alike need to understand that they can stand alone, fail, and do it all over again.
IP: Speaking of matriculation, more movement is happening at every level now. What would you say to coaches who want the portal and the transfer environment to be over and done with?
DR: Let’s reevaluate why you got into this. It’s no different from the coach who is at all the 6am lifts, “if we don’t win something, what's the purpose?” Why don’t you just resign so you don’t have to worry about it?
If your players get better and a bigger school wants them, so be it. Some places cannot compete with NIL, or games on TV, or 5,000 people in the stands. We called it a one-year romance. “If we can pursue something in one year, whether it’s a four-year or the draft, you’re gone.” And for the guys like Jesse Chavez or Tommy Hansen who wanted to stay, I was surprised!
IP: How did you equip your players for making decisions on their next steps?
DR: Any time our kid went on a visit to a school, no matter where it was, I gave them a list of 20 questions to ask. This is a business proposition. You’re going to see a ton of people, pretty girls, outstanding baseball, and you’re going, “Where do I sign up?”
But do you know what 30 percent is of $25,000? No? Well, you better figure it out—that’s tuition. How much more expensive is the total cost of attendance? What is the tutorial help like? Do they have your major? The first 10 questions are all directed towards education and long term. The other 10 were focused on the strength training program, mental conditioning, assistant coaches, questions such as “How do you see me today? As a starter? As a reliever?” And so forth.
These coaches would call after hosting my guys and say, “What in the world? He didn’t just sign right away? He’s going home to talk to you and his parents?” And I reply, “Yep, that’s how it works. This is a business transaction.”
IP: What did your practices look like?
DR: Early on in my career, it was, “Okay, we’ll out-work everybody.” That ain’t happening.
IP: Good way to guarantee being more tired than everybody!
DR: Yep. I did believe in early work with certain guys, but not long sessions, 20 minutes, hit every detail. Ninety percent of our practices throughout my career were skill sets for a particular position, not just random ground balls, but functional ground balls, with drills. The same with hitting. But everything was structured around pitching. If practice started at 1:00, pitchers came out around noon, psychological work, visualization, body function, play catch, sidelines, cardio or strength work. And then if we didn’t have anything else for them, they would go home. But pitching is the most important thing in any sport. You can talk about quarterbacks all you want, but pitching is the most dynamic, the toughest to develop.
There was a level of precision in our practices that guys sometimes resented. But I believed how we played catch was pivotal, for example, so it was supervised so that it was done functionally right: “We are trying to create a habit of how you throw the baseball and how you catch it.”
Team events, like how we took infield, was seven-and-a-half minutes, no wasted time. It was all functional as we got loose and prepared to make the adjustment to game speed. But overall? Our practices were vanilla; we are doing the same thing repetitively with adjustments along the way, keeping the individual in mind.
IP: How did you divide the time between individual and team development?
DR: I followed the “40-60” Rule: 40 percent of the time we’re all going to do the same thing, but that 60 percent is going to focus on the individual, because they all have different needs at a given age, position, or general standing in life. That took a lot of work, individual structure, and communication, but it was always something I believed in. For me, true culture is created by the standard you set and the way you teach your players how it can be met—or not met—and what to do next.
IP: What did your teams do best?
DR: From a physical standpoint, we’re going to create a standard when we walk in the ballpark. When we got off the bus we were dressed properly. We didn’t dress in the dugout. Everything was going to be set up correctly and then we were going to pursue our approach for the day. Everybody—including the coaches—had responsibilities to put things away when the day was over.
You can walk up to a team practice or game and learn what that team is about just by how they present themselves, how they go about their business, how the coaches handle themselves. How do they overcome adversity? Do they just talk the talk or do they live that life?
IP: How did you navigate team meetings? Were you a “postgame talk” guy?
DR: I did more individual meetings than I did team meetings, which can get dislodged. I tried to hit every player with a conversation every couple days, and as a result I learned more about what they were thinking instead of what I was thinking. And I very rarely talked to the team after the game. “Let’s get on the bus.”
I had to have time to dissect what I wanted to talk about anyway, the players needed time to detox and they didn’t need to hear me—we all knew the result, good or bad. Most likely, we would convene the next day at practice, if anything. Sometimes we just wanted to talk to talk, but you’d better have something functional to say—you’d better keep their attention.
I made a 12-Minute Rule. Whenever I talked to the team, I had someone tell me I was done after 12 minutes. I'll lose them after that. We were just trying to put the mind in a place for it to think about performing, which is critical. It’s very difficult to stay in “one pitch at a time,” mode; it’s great theater, but sometimes it doesn’t work. Let’s stay in a one-inning plan.
IP: What’s an example of that?
DR: Don’t disrupt where your players are psychologically, don’t disrupt their rhythm. You’re not making a mound visit just for the sake of getting somebody warm—go reestablish one thought, “You got this, we got your back, here’s what we’re going to do.” End of discussion.
Say “we’re going with you,” meaning the whole team is behind them. Look for those moments anytime you can. I believe that you can penetrate a player’s soul and make them understand how they can influence and impact the game and everything in it. That’s development. We talk about winning, winning, winning, but sometimes you have to develop, develop, develop to win.
IP: Did you talk about winning championships?
DR: Of course, that was the ultimate goal, but we only talked about it when we got there. I never brought it up during the season, because you’re going to miss a lot if you spend your time talking about the last game.
IP: Have you always looked at technology as a supplement to your program? A driving force for what you do on a daily basis? Or has it taken over and it shouldn’t have at this point, in terms of coaching and development?
DR: All three factors come into play. I think what level you’re at will determine how much you’ll use, because it’ll be a financial cost. Technology is brilliant as far as the things you can do to elevate your program, but you must pursue the knowledge and have direct communication with your team and its individuals.
You have to carve out additional time to spend with your team, to make them understand how the tech works and why it’s an advantage. But that time can’t replace your team development that’s already in place, and there are times you need to put the technology away.
As a coach, every aspect of human and player development is your responsibility. You cannot deny it. If you run away from it and say, “I’m just going to trust my abilities,” well, your abilities erode. You’ll get stale, and you'll stop learning a new way of doing things. So what if it’s not the best method for you personally? It may be the best for your team. After all, adjusting on the fly, pitch-to-pitch, game-by-game—isn’t that what baseball’s all about?
IP: Can coaches avoid getting stale?
DR: It’s coming. You’re going to get stale. When that happens, it’s easy to put the blame on the player. “He’s just not responding, just get rid of him.” No. There’s something you’re not doing, there is always something left to do. But it’s human nature to lose that emotional attachment—not necessarily to the game, although it could happen—but to self-improvement. You start feeling sorry for yourself, and once you walk out there with that attitude, it’s going to depress everybody at the field, and your words no longer have value.
There is a fine line with the new stuff. We didn’t invent the game. I’ve talked to a couple of coaches before and I was thinking, “Abner Doubleday, really? I thought you were dead.” The game signed you up, not the other way around. It was here before you, it’ll be here after you’re gone, and you need it more than it needs you. And once it’s time to go, you go. As long as you keep that in perspective, you will be able to bring it back and make it about the players.
IP: So what happens when you put in all that planning time and something isn’t working?
DR: Everything looks good on paper initially, and then things change, for the good and the bad. When things backfire, you have to be humble enough to admit fault. Once you do that, the players learn that you care. It’s not just your agenda, “my way or the highway.” When they know you care and learn that you know the game by demonstrating the ability to pivot, there’s your opportunity to establish trust and really elevate your kids and the program.
The Rogers File
• Played for legendary John Scolinos at Cal Poly Pomona
• Coached at HS, JC, DI, DII and pro levels
• 90 of Rogers’ former players signed pro contracts
• Led Riverside CC to three consecutive CCCAA state
titles from 2000-02
• Added a fourth crown in 2007
• Four-time CCCAA Coach of the Year
• ABCA Hall of Fame class of 2020
Career timeline
1976: John W. North (CA) HS (assistant)
1977: San Gorgonio (CA) HS (head coach)
1978-79: San Bernardino Valley College (assistant)
1980-83: Cal Poly Pomona (assistant)
1982-84: Oakland Athletics (managed rookie teams
after college season)
1986-87: Pittsburgh Pirates Class-AA (manager)
1988-89: Cal State Fullerton (assistant)
2003-04: Oakland Athletics Rookie League (manager)
1990-2009, 2011-15: Riverside CC (head coach)