Sunday Morning Chat: Monsignor Pace’s Tom Duffin

Rick: On the flip side, every coach has their individual things that excite them within a game or practice. What happens on the field that every time gets you fired up positively?

Coach Duffin: There’s no question, when I kid clutches up and makes a big play. You work and work. You take thousands of ground balls. You take thousands of swings and you see a kid get put in a situation where when the game’s on the line or the inning is on the line and the kid comes forward and he gets it done. You watch and you see the things you have been working on. The player makes the adjustment, whether it be on how he gets to a baseball or how he swings the bat on a two-strike approach and you see the player make the adjustment and then succeed, that’s what it’s all about. For me as a coach, you can talk about the wins or all of our egos are big and we like to have these wins, but when you see what you’re teaching is actually being performed I think that’s what it’s all about. That’s the high point of my day when you can say, Hey, I’ve given something or my staff has given something to a kid and he’s going to make himself a better ball player.

Rick: I agree. I still get chills just thinking about, going back to last year, thinking about Gomez hitting that home run there. That was one of those moments as a baseball fan as big as I am, I will never forget. That’s a great example of seeing a kid in a moment like that.

Coach Duffin: Sure.

Rick: What keeps you coming back year after year?

Coach Duffin: Well like I said, this is my nineteenth year coaching and fifteenth as a head coach. It’s tough with the ever-changing game itself where things are changing as far as players and attitudes and so forth. It’s just, I would say the ability to work with coaches that I have with me. My assistant coaches that I’ve known for a long time. To go to a job that you don’t mind getting up and going to work for. When you have sports, in particular baseball in your blood, it’s something you have or you don’t have. It’s either in you, and it’s hard to describe unless you played the game and you’ve played it at different levels. To be able to come and do a job that you enjoy; to be able to give back to kids and see them succeed and go through that. And the regiment of what it takes to be an athlete is something that, its instilled in us no matter how old you get. But I’m not going to say it’s not tough. I have kids of my own. There’s a lot of sacrifice with my wife during the baseball season, and with my boys. I’m missing a lot of their games and practices and I try to do the best I can but it’s not easy. People on the outside don’t see that. They are only worrying about, my kid, my kid, not what I’ve been doing along with my coaching staff for the last nineteen years. We’ve been raising everybody else’s kids. When I go to my own kids game when I can finally make it, I’ll sit there and say, God, I’ve missed this and I’ve missed that. I promised myself that I wasn’t going to miss too much. It’s still tough when this is your main job and this is what it takes to try and keep your program on top, there’s a lot of sacrifice. So those are the things that would keep me coming back and hopefully one day my boys will be able to play for me.

Rick: How old are they? How close is that?

Coach Duffin: My oldest Tommy is in fifth grade and he’s eleven. And my youngest Sean just turned eight last Saturday. They’re both playing. They’re both playing and if they continue to progress and hopefully one day they’ll be here. So Tommy’s four years out from being a freshman here and Sean will be right behind him. That’s a lot of drive. Speaking with Ray Evans at Flanagan, that’s another big reason why he’s staying in it for so long because I believe his son is getting ready to enter the ninth grade next year and he wanted the opportunity to be able to coach his own son. I guess, as a father and a coach that’s something that you look forward to.

Rick: I know Pace, just as you’ve said, there is the tradition, the pride, the program, all of that. Now you’ll get a chance to put family pride and family tradition with that as well.

Coach Duffin: Sure, sure. I mean they’re in the dugout, they’re in the practices all the time. They’re wearing Pace paraphernalia everywhere. They’re going and they already have it in their blood. So they’re going to have a head start on knowing what the traditions are. They’re tired of hearing it from daddy, but they’re living it. They’re going to see it and hopefully one day, they’ll be able to live it. But the main thing is, I want, again for any coach that has kids, I think we have a good perspective dealing with what has gone on all over in our society. I can speak for myself, that as long as my kids are happy, I don’t expect them, if they don’t want to play, they don’t have to play. I would love them to play and I think any coach that has a boy, or has boys, of course he would love them to play. But my main thing is that I learned what not to do. I’ve watched parents force kids to play and they’re playing for all the wrong reasons. So this is a good litmus test for my kids to be here everyday to see if they really want to do this. They see what our practices entail and the commitment and the early morning workouts and that stuff.

Rick: You run a great program here at Pace, but give me the one coach you look at and say, Man, that’s the way a program should be run. In other words the one coach that impresses you with the way that they handle their program.

Coach Duffin: I’ll tell you, there are so many good ones out there. I really can’t narrow it down to one. I mean because, I would be doing an injustice to many of the coaches. You can’t argue the success that Ray Evans has had at Flanagan. And again, I remember when Ray was at Miami Beach and he was doing good things at Miami Beach. But it was just tough for him at that time to get a lot of the personnel that he needed to fit the puzzle. He was going to the districts and stuff and even winning but it wasn’t where he was making deep state runs. And he really does a nice job; he’s finally got a program going where he’s getting quality players and he’s done very well with that. So he’s one, of many. There’s so many others that I could mention. I’ve known Ray for a long time. We’ve had some great battles over the years and we’ve got a really strong relationship going back to the Little League days. I would say Ray would be one of the coaches, but again there’s many, many coaches that… I don’t want to keep mentioning names because I don’t want to hurt or insult anybody.

Rick: Having been at many big games, give me a time where you second guessed yourself afterwards and thought, Man, I really messed that one up.

Coach Duffin: You know, it’s funny because when it works, you’re a genius and when it doesn’t, you’re to blame. I can’t really say that there has been many instances like that and I’m not saying that I’ve always made the right decision but I have a good bit of coaches and one of my bench coaches, Carlos, who I’m throwing things off. Carlos had eleven years in pro ball and is a great situational guy and we’re always bouncing things off of each other and I would say 85 to 90% of the time we’re making the right call. Now, we may make a call and or a coach, in that fact might make a call and we know it’s the right call but the player doesn’t execute. Or you give a sign and the guy does the wrong thing. There’s a lot of variables there but I really think that I’ve surrounded myself with some very sound baseball minds and I think most of the time we made the right calls. And sometimes they’ve worked and sometimes they hadn’t, but I think for the most part as long as we’re able to look at ourselves in the mirror and realize that in that situation we considered all options and we went with what we felt was the best. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it don’t. I guess that’s the luxury of the people in the stands. They get to sit back and question you and if it works, you’re a genius and if not you’re a goat. I don’t really second guess myself because I go ahead and make sure that before we make a lot of these decisions, they’re either made before the game is started. We’ve already round-tabled, that’s what I call it, with the coaching staff. Or I’ve pow-wowed in the dugout to actually make that call.

Rick: All right, last question. What’s the ultimate joy that the game of baseball has ever brought you?

Coach Duffin: I think the camaraderie that you are able to establish and the relationships that you’ve made playing in this game, and just like anybody that has played any organized sport and has taken it to the collegiate level, the professional level, you meet a lot of people. A lot of good people who share the same goals and desires. And these relationships that you’ve built and that you’ve made, they are life long and they last for a long time. And it’s one of those things where it’s a connection, no matter what nationality you are, what race you come form, ethnic background, it doesn’t matter because baseball, or any sport is blind to that. It’s a brotherhood and a fraternity that you belong to and you can be from all different likes of the world and walks of the world. It’s one of those things where that camaraderie that you have and that bond that you share is probably the biggest joy. I enjoy watching kids reach their goals as well and make it to professional baseball. I had the pleasure of watching three to four former players go on and make it to the major leagues. We see them on TV and that’s our biggest goal as coaches. To see that a little part of you has made it. That camaraderie that you’ve built with the players and also the coaches over the years is probably the biggest reason of joy for me.

Rick: Again, here at Pace, you see a lot of those people come back when there’s a game. There are so many of those faces and those friendships and those connections that you’ve made over the years, they’re always back. And you say fraternity, you always see that when you’re here.

Coach Duffin: Absolutely, it’s good to know that these young men are going off and being productive people in society. They’re going out there, whether they’re becoming a professional or collegiate athlete, they’re taking the discipline that they’ve learned here, the hard work ethic that they’re learning here and they’re putting it into their studies or their professional world and they’re making things of their life. And that’s all you can ask for as a coach. In my opinion, if it’s all about you and your own personal goals then you shouldn’t be coaching high school. I say it all along. If you have an ego, it’s one of those things where you should really think about going into college and pro-ball because they sure as heck don’t pay you enough and the salaries don’t justify the hours. But yet, we don’t do it for that. Those are the things that stick in high school, I believe honestly that, we’re doing it because we feel this is the one stage where you can really have a lasting affect on young men and how they play the game. And if it’s all about you and about dollars than you should think about going into collegiate level or professional level where you can actually really make a nice living and put yourself in the record books. Because I say it all along, when it’s all said and done, it’s high school baseball, man. I’m not on TV. I’m not getting ESPN interviews and I’m not getting endorsements from Nike and Reebok and all that stuff. So again, it’s one of those things where it’s got to be about the kids. It’s got to be about the kids.

Rick: I know you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but right here at Pace baseball.

Coach Duffin: Yup, that’s true. That’s where I started and they’ll probably have to bury me here, you know, so we’ll see what plays out. Hopefully I have a lot more years left to go.

Rick: Hopefully you have a lot more years. Coach, I thank you for the interview, the best of luck for the rest of the season.

Coach Duffin: Thank you sir, I appreciated it. We’ll give it a go.

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