A life partner is the most important choice of your life!

Story time: .......in the late 1980's I fell in love with coaching. Then in 1991 I was blessed to have Palmer Muench become my mentor. Coach Muench taught me the game of baseball from the bottom up, in the early 1990's he was years ahead of his time, teaching methods and theories I am still seeing high level modern day coaches just figuring out today.

Coach Muench was more than just baseball......a God fearing Lutheran man he always sat a good example (which I fell short of in so many ways). He played professionally in the A's association, before becoming a coach.

His most famous player was Ozzie Smith (Coach Muench was Ozzie's first coach in pro-ball in Walla Walla, Washington. Thou some of you may remember another of Coach Muench's player.....Kerry Robinson, the pitch-hit for Mark McGuire, ending his career.

He was the head coach at Southeast Missouri State University when we met, and he took it upon himself to finish my education as a man and especially as a coach. It was because of Coach Muench I had an offer to coach at the IMG Academy in 1995. I seldom step onto a baseball field that I don't wonder where I would be if I had accepted that job......

Coach Muench taught me so much (in time I will share a lot of his advice) with one of the most important things being what it takes to be a GOOD coach. I will never forget him telling me the first step, marry the right girl!

The Coaching world is hard..... you have to find a woman to share your life that is willing to sacrifice while you work your way up the coaching ladder. She has to trust with no guarantees except her belief in you.....

I chose wisely, Tonya has always had my back....if I had to go to war, she might not dig the holes, but she would help me hide the bodies for sure..... But life is a 2-way street.....as Mr. T once said, "....I pity the fool that messes with Tonya......" well, maybe he didn't say that exactly, but you get the idea......?

Tonya is the voice of reason, always there knowing the right things to say, "....is it worth going to jail," or ".....do they have cameras...." and my personal favorite, "......now listen, we don't know if they are doing this on purpose, maybe they just suck at coaching......"

Tonya and Coach Muench each shared this little piece of advice, ".....less is more, which was fine tuned by Coach by saying, ".....don't make a lot of rules. If you make a rule, you have to enforce it, regardless of which player broke the rule. Then if you don't punish everyone equally, you will lose the respect of every player. The star players that don't get punished will not respect anything you say....because you have shown them you don't follow through with your threats. And players you do punish will resent you for not being fair."

I once played a baseball game with just 8 players....oh, I had 2 on the bench, but they broke rules.....and I sat them to stay consistent. Was it easy, hell no..... did we win, also hell no, did the discipline problem go away.... you better belief it did. Did the team parents support me, oh hell no......and thus the problem with society today.

Did Tonya have my back? 110%