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Each month, Texas State University President Dr. Kelly Damphousse sits down with faculty members, staff, students, alumni, and community members for a conversation about all things TXST — the past, the present, and the bright future of the university.
Part of the TXST Podcast Network: https://www.txst.edu/podcast-network.html
- That was probably my favorite win, because that was the highest we've been here at Texas State. And so that's our goal every year, is to get past that next step. And so, that win in Stanford was pretty cool.
- You talk about negativity, that's highest of highs, and lowest of lows at the very end, right?
- Yeah.
- At some point, every team loses their last game in baseball, except for the ones that win at the end, right?
- That's right, yep.
- And you gotta go in the off season with that loss burning in the back of your brain, and that inspires you to do better next time. So glad today to be joined by our head baseball coach, Steve Trout. Thank you for being here today, Coach Trout. And they call you Trouty, right?
- That's right.
- Kinda your nickname here. Now, it was kind of interesting about baseball, in the major leagues you're a manager. And if you're called a coach, people would kinda make fun of you. But if you're here, we call you coach. If we called you a manager, that'd be kinda like a insult, right?
- Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it sounds like I'm old or something, right? So actually learned the hard way when I was playing pro ball, the coach, who I thought was coach, didn't hit me a fungo. And I said, "Coach, hit me a fungo." And they were like, "No, no, no, no, his name's not coach. That's Skip.
- [Dr. Kelly] Yeah, Skip, that's right.
- And so I had to learn. But yeah, Trouty, Coach, I answer to all of them.
- Yeah, it is funny about athletics for people, nicknames is very common, right? And so I was a hockey player, and it seemed like no one went by their real name. Everyone had some kind of nickname or some kind of play on their name and so on. Tell us a little bit about your story to get here. I know you've been coach here since about 2019 or so, but fascinating story about how you became the head coach here at Texas State.
- Yeah, a great story. It's really one of those stories that come full circle. I graduated from TCU in 2007. Played a year and a half independent baseball, and then came here in 2009 with Coach Harrington as the volunteer assistant.
- Where'd you grow up, by the way?
- I grew up in Hooks, Texas. So right outside of Texarkana. Little small 2A, 3A town, one red light town. Went to junior college for two years, and then went to TCU.
- Were you just a baseball guy in high school, or did you play all different sports?
- Oh no, we had to play all of 'em, right.
- Yeah, small town, huh?
- If not, we didn't have enough for the team. So I was the quarterback for the football team. Point guard for the basketball team, and then baseball. Played golf to get outta school. Make sure I got my Thursday rounds in, so.
- [Dr. Kelly] That's great.
- But yeah, what a great place to grow up.
- Yeah, and then you went to junior college, TCU, and then you started coaching under Coach Harrington?
- I did, I did. I hopped in as the volunteer assistant. Pretty much making money doing camps and doing lessons. And I was here for two seasons, won two Southland Conference championships there. Paul Goldschmidt was on our team. And really good run.
- I've heard of him.
- [Steve] Yeah, he's pretty good, so.
- Pretty good guy, yeah.
- Good run. And then went to the University of Houston for a year as a volunteer. Then got the head junior college job, where I played back at Texarkana. I actually lived with my parents at their house. We did the laundry there in our parents' laundry room. They were in the concession. Great, great, great year. And then they actually shut down the program.
- [Dr. Kelly] Oh.
- So finally, when I got a job that paid me and insurance, a year earlier later I lost my job, and so.
- You ran that program right in the ground.
- That's how bad I was.
- "This is such a terrible ordeal. We're gonna shut it down."
- I know. "Just shut it down, this guy's not good enough, so." But then that's when I got led out to West Virginia. And I went out there for three and a half years with Coach Mazey. And cool times, 'cause they were entering the Big 12 at that time. And West Virginia baseball wasn't very good, and so we had to do a lot of different things to get relevant. And was there for three and a half years. And then Coach Harrington called me again in 2016 and said, "Hey, my hitting job's open." And for Blair and I, we always wanted get back to Texas. We wanted to start our family in Texas. And obviously we're very comfortable with Texas State. And so we came back in 2016, and I was the assistant for four years. And then Coach Harrington retired after the 2019 season. And it just worked out perfect for me to get that job. So this is actually year 12 overall that I've been at Texas State. 10 in a row, so, which is pretty awesome.
- Wow, that's awesome. And there was pro ball in the middle of that too?
- Yeah, I played some indie ball. So some great bus trips from Fort Worth to El Paso, Kansas City to Winnipeg, Canada, so.
- It's so glorious, a professional baseball player riding a bus to Winnipeg.
- That's right. Yeah, brutal, brutal, so.
- Yeah, you've been to Winnipeg, so you know it's not the most glamorous part of Canada. So just to let you know, there are are other places that are more attractive.
- I have to go visit those, so. Winnipeg's baseball stadium was awesome.
- Oh, is it?
- I mean, they had five, 6,000 every night.
- Oh, that's great. Well, there's not a lot going on in Manitoba, so.
- That's true. So I got my first pro hit, so I remember that. So, but it was a good time.
- Do you still have the ball?
- I lost it somewhere through the shuffle.
- It's one of those things you, when that happens it's the biggest moment. Then 20 years later, like, "I got the ball somewhere. I don't know where it is, but yeah."
- That's right, yeah.
- So, where's Blair from?
- So Blair's from Midlothian, which is south of Dallas. And she cheered at TCU. So we actually didn't know each other at the time. I actually was coaching here when we got introduced, she was a senior at TCU. And we had mutual friends. And so the crazy story for our relationship is we never actually lived in the same city the entire time we dated. And so finally, when I moved to West Virginia, I was like, 20 hours away, I probably need to put a ring on it or this thing's gonna go somewhere else. And so, and then she finally moved up to Morgantown with us, so.
- That's awesome. Well, great to see. One thing, great thing is about baseball, you guys play a lot of games. Over 50 games, right? How many games this year?
- 56 scheduled, so.
- 56 scheduled. And a lot of home games. And games are kinda longish, and so three hours or so. And it's, I love seeing all the coaches' wives kind of sitting together and they got the kids there. The kids are growing up. It's been fun for me, this is my third season now, to see the kids kind of where they were and where they are now. They're running around like they own the place, right?
- Oh yeah, oh yeah. They run the stands, they run the suites, they run it all. There's a lot of high stress in that area, so I think it kind of helps out when the kids are kind of acting up sometimes.
- I do notice that. I think our fans enjoy the game and they get kind of hyped up about it. They don't understand the pressure that coaches feel and coaches' spouses feel about how great a win is and how tough a loss is, and how that plays out even in family dynamics, right? It affects everything, because during the season it's all consuming.
- For sure. It's one of those things I had to learn through my career. I actually was telling the story yesterday to one of our players, that when I was a junior college head coach, we got swept at a double header and Blair actually came in town to see me. And I got in the car and I was just silent.
- [Dr. Kelly] Yeah.
- And she finally looked at me and goes, "Hey, listen, if you're not gonna talk to me, I'm not coming back in town. I get it, you're mad right now, but we've gotta figure this thing out." And so I've learned really quickly to not take the losses home. They're gonna love me either way, and so you walk in the door and you go to dad. And so I kinda like, we live in Buda, I have about a 20 minute drive home where I can kind of decompress and get my thoughts together. And then you walk in the door and let's go be dad until you wake up the next day and you're back to coach again.
- A lot of great fun this season already. You played two top 25 teams, autonomy four conference schools, with some pretty good success. So Oklahoma State first up in Arlington, and then most recently over in College Station, taking on the number one A&M team. Talk about those games and what those mean for you. The midweek baseball games are always kind of odd and interesting, but talk about what those wins mean for you guys.
- Yeah, I think for us, if we wanna be an at large team and get a at large bid into the regional, usually you gotta win those Tuesday games. That's kind of the kicker, is win the weekend series and go win the Tuesday games. For us, for our PI purposes, our Tuesday games are usually Big 12 SEC schools that we gotta play really well. And so first one at Globe Life, you're in a major league ballpark, which every guy dreams to play in. You dream to coach in, right?
- The weather was terrible, so the crowd was down a little bit.
- That's right.
- But there were a lot of Bobcats there.
- That's right. But it's inside, so we actually feel good about that one. And so yeah, we got there. And Jesus Tovar made his D1 debut and pitched unbelievable. It was just a really good night for us, especially on the mound. And so got that win under our belt and kind of gathered some momentum. And then, yeah, walked into College Station on Tuesday. And there's something about this team, and granted we have a long ways to go and we've had a lot of injuries, but there's something about this team, the way they walk around and carry themselves, they expect to win. And you have teams that say they expect to win, but you can see it in our guys' eyes that they truly expected to win on Tuesday. There was no doubt in their mind we were gonna not leave there without a win. And so, obviously from the first at bat, Farber hit a home run, and then it just carried on to the rest of the night. And then Alex Valentin goes viral on social media. And so, yeah, but yeah. For us, anytime they're talking about Texas State baseball or Texas State University, I think it does a lot for all of us. So yeah, two huge wins that I think when they look in our resume at the end of the year, they're gonna go, "Wow, what two great wins for the Bobcats." So hopefully we just keep stacking on.
- I shared this with you, but when I was applying for this job, in the midst of all that, you all hosted Texas maybe on a Monday and then played up there on a Tuesday. It was back to back games, I can't remember the timing of it. And you almost won here. And then you go up there and you win, and your pitcher makes a downward horns signal. And Beth and I were watching the game at home and we're going, "I want that job so bad now." 'Cause I just love the spirit of the team and how exciting that was. And athletics, in many ways is the window for the world to see the university, but it's also a way to rally our alumni, and our fans, and our students, faculty and staff as well. Because they love to be around successful programs. And when yours is successful, it makes everyone feel a little taller. It's not just being those guys on the team, it's also the whole university feels different. The sky is blue or the grass is greener--
- That's right.
- After you beat a number one team.
- No, it does. And I've said all the time, the one thing I love about coaching at Texas State is when you come to our games. One, we get a lot of students at our games.
- [Dr. Kelly] Yes.
- Which I think is, you got a lot of places in the country, it's usually just alumni. Which is great, I love our alumni obviously. But when you look up and you see your student body up there cheering and getting after it, that's really cool for our players to play in front of. And then you throw in our season ticket holders and our alumni and our families, it's a special place to play in front of. And so, hopefully after these wins, hopefully this weekend and into the season, that place gets packed. 'Cause it gets really rowdy on some of those Friday nights.
- Yeah, it's exciting too. It got a little too rowdy a couple times last year. Which is fine, the students get really excited about it. But it's all in good fun.
- [Steve] It is.
- And there's another group, by the way, of students, special group of students called the Diamond Sweethearts. Those young ladies are there all the time. And they were actually at the men's basketball game the other night. They fill up a whole section. And so it's exciting to see students really getting engaged with athletics, especially with baseball.
- For sure.
- Yeah.
- And they sit through the cold weather too.
- [Dr. Kelly] Yeah, I know.
- Those ladies are impressive, because I know they have games they are supposed to come to and games they have to come to. But they don't miss a beat, they're there every game. They got their blankets and they're cheering. So kudos to the Diamond Sweethearts.
- So you've got this wide ranging experience being in junior college, coaching in junior college, being at an autonomy four school, coaching at one, and then now coaching where you are now. I'm sure you've evolved your leadership skills over that time, right? So you probably are a lot different as a coach than you were at the beginning. How has that evolved? Can you think about how you were before, and like, "Ugh, can't believe I did that," and then maybe how you've changed since then?
- For sure, I think for everybody you just mature over time, right? I think as when you're a young coach, you're always looking for that next stop, or that next job, or the bigger paid job, or whatever it might be. And sometimes with the volunteer, it's probably needs to 'cause you gotta go make money eventually, but--
- Exactly, you gotta, I mean the plan is not to stay as a volunteer.
- [Steve] That's right, that's right.
- Or an assistant even.
- And thank God for my parents, they helped me out through those three years of doing that, so I could survive and it led me to the job now. But I think the biggest thing was, I'm always a high energy guy with our team. But before that I was, it was a lot of yelling and screaming as a young coach. It was, when something didn't go well, I was the yelling and the screamer. Now, I'm pretty chill, to be honest with you. If the guys aren't hustling, or not invested in the game, or something on the mental side, that's different. But you come to our games, it's kind of weird, there's not a lot of yelling and screaming. It's more just trying to keep our guys encouraged. Baseball's such a negative sport, where you fail seven outta 10 times, you're still really good. You can throw the perfect pitch and the guy could hit it 400 feet. So there's a lot of negativity with our game. So if you have a negativity game and a negativity coach, to me it's really hard to be successful. So we talk about the be in the present moment, get to the next pitch as much as you can. So for me, when something bad happens, I try to staying positive and get to the next pitch. And I know if I can do that, hopefully that leaks over to my staff and to our players as well. And nobody hits the panic button. Just like on Tuesday night, we score one, they hit two home runs.
- There was no flinching. It was, hey, oh cool, they took some good swings. Let's go get after it. Where maybe when I was younger, maybe a clipboard would've flew, or a scully or something like that. So, but yeah, you definitely, you grow with time, you grow with experiences. And I think just from a health standpoint, it's so much better to coach this way.
- So you mentioned social media. Was actually pretty interesting, there was a couple of things. One is our, we've got this great film and video crew and photographers that are out there. I saw CJ Halloran at the end of the game, going out there taking pictures. Some of the photographs from the Texas A&M game were so great. They just put out this really great four minute movie that looks like it could win an Academy Award.
- Yep.
- But there's a quote in the beginning of it where, I think you say, "I love being at a visitor park when it's really loud, really noisy, and then you hit a dinger and it goes silent." And then we go out there, lead off home run, right?
- There we go. That's right.
- And then you got your relief pitcher goes out there, Valentin. And Alex is kind of fired up. And he's firing his team up. And really successful outing for him. And I saw a video of someone kind of talking about him that got over 3 million views.
- [Steve] Right.
- And that again, people going, "Oh, Texas State." It's another way of seeing this. How has social media, and our film crew, and photography crew and so on changed college baseball?
- Yeah, I mean, it's pretty unbelievable the videos they come with. I don't know who gets less sleep, CJ or yourself, 'cause I don't think either one of you ever sleep.
- No, seriously, CJ, yeah.
- He's unbelievable, and so--
- And his crew, it's unbelievable, yeah.
- They did a great job. And it's funny when you see 'em moving around, I'm trying to figure out how they're gonna piece it all together. They just knock it outta the park every time, and so. But yeah, it's been humongous. I know even back into our '22 season, we went to the Stanford Regional, I know just our website alone got over a million clicks. But a lot of that's because of what we're putting on social media. And so it's definitely changed the game. And more importantly, recruits wanna see that. They wanna see the team having fun, the team having success, and having cool videos of themself. And so to me it's just, it helps out on the recruiting side, but also helps out with just getting more notoriety to our university and to our program.
- Now, how has technology changed college baseball? Compared to, I'm sure the pros were always advanced in these kind of things, but college ball is getting a little bit more high tech as well.
- It is. We have so much information out on our opponent. It's almost too much, to be honest with you. So we do a great job. It can be too much. Knowing too much can be overwhelming.
- It can be. And I think what we try to do as a staff is to take it, learn from it. But what we give to our players is the very simple form of it. And so, Coach Linahan coming from the Twins, I mean he knows every metric under the sun. But he knows how to explain it to our guys to where they're not just overwhelmed with their hitting, and same thing on our pitching side. And so you've gotta take it, understand things. Pretty much what they've done is, everything back in the day when we played baseball, you'd see a guy, look, the guy's throwing a rise ball, or the guy's got carry to it. Well, now the guy's got high spin rate, the guy's got induced vertical break. There's just terminology now behind it that when you see that you've gotta make these adjustments physically, which are cool. And so to me, I love it. Some people hate the technology side of the game. I think as far as our game has advanced, I think that's why it's better than ever. And there's some things I don't like about it, but for us it just gives you more information. But the other teams have that as well too. So it's not just like we have it, nobody else has it. So you gotta be great on all sides of the ball to make sure that you're doing your part to teach it to your team the right way and also use it to your advantage.
- I think I heard recently that you've got a TrackMan that you're using now. So talk about how that works. I've seen TrackMan for golf, but I've never seen exactly how it works for baseball.
- Yeah, so it sits right up top of the press box, and it tracks every pitch coming in and going out. So anything that happens to that baseball, we get every number under the sun. I mean, every number that comes out, from the velocity to the angle the guy throws from. It can even show how far the center field. Or remember the play on opening night when Farris ran into the wall?
- Yes.
- It can show how far he ran to go get to that ball, and how far he had to, how many steps. And so it gives you every metric with that baseball coming into the plate, and then once it's hit. It just gives you every metric you can with that baseball, so it's pretty amazing.
- So, what else is changing in college sports? Anything else changing?
- Not much, not much.
- It's pretty complicated now, right?
- Roster sizes, scholarships.
- Well, baseball's actually gonna benefit from some of the changes, right?
- It is, it is. We've always been the least funded sport in all the NCAA, and so.
- And it's kind of a weird, the current scholarship limit is?
- 11.7.
- That makes perfect sense, right?
- Yeah, exactly.
- Who came up with that metric, 11.7?
- No idea.
- And so now, it's gonna move to 25 or so?
- Yeah, we can max out at 34.
- At 34, yeah.
- If you go to 34. Every school is trying to figure out what they're doing. Some conferences are putting limits or minimums. So still a lot to be determined. So we're still trying to figure it out heading into next year. But to me, it's a great thing. Parents are gonna spend less money going to college now.
- [Dr. Kelly] Yeah.
- But they're also cutting our roster size down from 40 to 34. So it's a good thing that we're gonna have more money, but we're also gonna have less roster spots as well. So high school players, junior college players, it's shrinking the number of guys that are gonna get to play division one baseball.
- Yeah, I don't think people realize that a lot of your players are not on, most of 'em are not on full scholarships. And some of them are not on at all, right?
- We don't have any players on full rides. So you try to stack it up with academic money, and then guys on NIL money, and guys on different things. But yeah, I mean you gotta mix it up, where guys are on 25%. The average scholarship is about 35% right now. And so those guys are still paying a lot of money trying to figure out how to make it work out. So yeah, it was the 11.7, just a random number, so we'll see what we head into. But yeah, it's definitely gonna be easier as far as trying to get more players in, 'cause we're at more money.
- Now, talk about your favorite Texas State baseball memory. And it could be at any level of where you've been volunteering or assistant or head coach, but favorite Texas State baseball memory.
- Yeah, probably my favorite. I mean, this week has been awesome. I mean, honestly anytime you beat number one is really cool. I think in '22 when we beat number one, that was really good. I thought the best win we've ever had was at Stanford. The second day of the regional, Levi Wells goes out and throws an unbelievable game. Tristan Stiver shuts it out, and we beat their all American pitcher as well in their house. And so we go 2 and O in the regional, and set ourself up to hopefully win it. And of course, fell short of that win. But that was probably my favorite win because that was the highest we've been here at Texas State. And so that's our goal every year, is to get past that next step. And so that win in Stanford was pretty cool.
- You talk about negativity. That's highest of highs, and lowest of lows at the very end, right?
- Yep.
- Because it just, at some point every team loses their last game in baseball, except for the ones that win at the end, right?
- That's right.
- And you gotta go in the off season with that loss burning in the back of your brain, and that inspires you to do better next time, right?
- People don't believe, I still watch that Stanford game when we lost on the two home runs and the walk off. I still watch it all the time for motivation, right. You start getting complacent or you start thinking, I go back and watch it 'cause I wanna get back to that moment and get those last three outs.
- You get past that, yeah. What's the future of college baseball look like, do you think?
- It's gonna be interesting, as we talked about the roster cuts. But everybody having more money, what's happening is more guys are not signing pro and they're going to college now.
- 'Cause they can make a living as a college baseball player, yeah.
- They can make more money through scholarship, revenue share, NIL. Some of those guys are gonna make plenty of money, to where in three years, where they're more ready to go play pro baseball. So to me, that's why when you start seeing college baseball at the highest level, guys throwing 95 to a hundred. that's why. Used to those guys were all signing, now they're all going to college 'cause they can make a lot of money for three years. Have all the resources we have for 'em in the weight room, and nutrition, and on the field, and the mental game coaches. And prepare themselves, when they are in pro baseball, they're not 18 years old walking in and trying to figure it out. They're now 21 and they can go dominate and go make that real money. And try to make the millions, and then more importantly get to the league, where they're gonna make a lot of money.
- Yeah, so we also have big plans at our ballpark, right? Talk a little bit about what we're gonna do to, we got great fan amenities, but the athlete amenities are not as good as they could be. And so we've got great plans for improving that.
- Yeah, we're really excited. The biggest thing was right now our cages, the biggest thing was we wanted cages and a pitching lab. So we're gonna knock down our cages, put in three brand new indoor cages, indoor pitching lab to use all those metrics we talked about to develop our guys. Bring the locker room over to the steam as well.
- Yeah, right now the players get dressed in the basketball arena.
- That's right.
- And then walk two blocks to the, and softball does the same thing, right, so.
- For sure. Yeah, we pass the train tracks, make sure the train's not coming, so. But it'll be great 'cause our guys will all be right there. They can go from the dugout to the locker room, get their work in. And they can live at the field. I think that's what we want, is we want those guys to live at the field and be there all the time. 'Cause when you're there, you got a better chance to go to work. And so yeah, we couldn't be more excited to see. We're still working on some plans and making it all map out perfectly how we want it to flow. But it's gonna be huge in what we're trying to do to bring in great players and retain great players that we have in our program.
- And there's some fan amenities built into that as well. Different suites over in that kind of the third base side of where we're talking about.
- There is some hospitality areas. They're trying to decide exactly where they wanna do it, but there'll be some new fan experience as well that'll be some good dynamics. And then we've got some things future too that we're, OK, let's do this, but let's keep in mind for even down the road even more. So we love our fans to be there and to just give 'em more reason to come to games.
- Thank you for everything you do for Texas State. As I said earlier, athletics in so many ways reflects the university and opens people's eyes to what's going on here. And you could say that's not a great thing for a university to rely on athletics, but it really is important for us. And so every time you guys win or do well or are successful in any way, it reflects well on us. And there's a halo effect of that as well. So thank you for being a great leader. Thank you for your service. What you say, 12 years, or 10, 12 years?
- 12 years here at Texas State.
- Yeah, that's like a quarter of your life.
- No doubt, I know. I mean, I tell people all the time, they go, "Where are you from?" I'm like, "Well, I'm from Hooks, but both my kids were born here. It's where we started a family. So San Marcos is home to us."
- Coach, we got this tradition here where people who watch the podcast ask me questions.
- OK, perfect.
- And so I'm gonna let you open that.
- I'm nervous here.
- They always say, "Do you want to read 'em in advance?" I prefer not to. I've not seen the question, so I'm happy to let you fire away and see what I can do.
- Right, this will be a good one. "What was the most challenging course you took while in school?"
- Holy cow, that is a great question. I gotta think back. So I loved reading when I was a kid, and so English was always my favorite class. And I took a history class one time, I loved the professor that taught that class. And it actually was, he was actually an English professor, so I took his class again, and it was called Chicano Literature. And I only took it because I loved this guy.
- Right.
- And it was really hard because as a Canadian, I didn't know anything about Chicano culture or the culture of the Southwest. And so it was really hard, but I still remember that class. I remember everything about that class. I still have the books, I never got rid of the books. And I reference it a lot because we actually have a book award for Latino writers that we give every year. And I always reference that class because it's, I was a criminal justice major and it's kind of weird that I was interested in stuff that wasn't criminal justice or law enforcement related. But hard classes are ones that stick with you, and you tend to learn more in those hard classes.
- [Steve] For sure.
- What about you, your toughest class?
- Mine was... It's funny, as soon as you said that I knew exactly. Anatomical kinesiology.
- Yeah, that's sounds terrible.
- By far the toughest one. It's what led me to be good. You know what, I'm gonna do general studies. And get my degree and get outta here. I'm gonna go coach. So I knew exactly what I was gonna do, with an emphasis in kinesiology, so. But, yeah, what'd you get in that class?
- I got an A in that class.
- OK.
- I killed it. But it was hard, yeah.
- I did not, so we're coaching good now, so.
- Yeah, that's great. Thank you, Coach Trout, for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed that. Look forward to hearing more from our faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends at university here to learn more about what's going on at Texas State. States Up, everyone.