UAPB head coach Logan Stout addresses his group this fall (Picture courtesy of UAPB)
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A lot of the X (previously often called Twitter) bio of Arkansas-Pine Bluff head coach Logan Stout incorporates data you’d anticipate it to include, like that he was an MLB scout for 22 years and that he’s the founding father of the Dallas Patriots journey ball group.
Nevertheless it additionally incorporates some stuff you wouldn’t anticipate, like that he’s an entrepreneur, a speaker and a best-selling writer.
Once you learn the “About Logan” part on his web site, an entity that’s in and of itself a uncommon factor amongst school baseball coaches, you don’t see references to the legendary baseball coaches he’s rubbed elbows with or the standout gamers he has coached. As an alternative, you see references to John C. Maxwell and Zig Ziglar, names which can be extra acquainted to the C-suite executives of Fortune 500 corporations than the coaches who roam the halls of the ABCA conference.
And that’s exactly why he’s essentially the most fascinating rent of the 2024 teaching carousel.
Stout has choices at this level in his profession. He may have continued a profitable profession within the enterprise world. As a keynote speaker and writer, he may have leaned extra closely into that house and used it as a way to fulfill extra fascinating individuals and journey the world giving talks on subjects he’s captivated with.
And if he needed to get again in school baseball, absolutely there could be a ton of curiosity in somebody who was on workers as Dan Heefner was turning DBU into the machine of a program that it’s now, who has labored as a scout for greater than twenty years and who based a journey ball group that may say it produced huge leaguers like Josh Bell, Trevor Story and AJ Minter.
So then, with all due respect to all events, how did he find yourself as the top coach at Arkansas-Pine Bluff, a program that has by no means been to the NCAA Event and hasn’t even been to the SWAC Event since 2019?
Because it seems, there are a number of solutions right here.
One is that he had felt a pull to get again into school teaching to start with as the sport crept an increasing number of into his life whereas he was grinding away within the enterprise world.
“I’d sit in these boardrooms with enterprise icons and I’m sitting there checking my telephone for the most recent D1Baseball Twitter submit. It’s like ‘man, there’s a Friday recreation beginning at two on ESPN+, I’ve obtained to get out of this boardroom,’” Stout stated. “I’m sitting there and I’m like ‘I’m within the incorrect place.’”
The second signal for Stout that it was time to get again into the sport was a dialog together with his two sons.
“They got here to me one night time and stated ‘Dad, didn’t you used to educate school baseball?’ I stated ‘yeah, I did.’ They stated ‘at Dallas Baptist College, proper?’ I stated ‘yeah.’ And so they stated ‘we actually suppose it might be superior if you happen to’d return to school teaching,” Stout stated.
After which, as soon as Stout knew he was going again in, a dialog with former huge leaguer Torii Hunter helped nudge him within the route of UAPB. Although Hunter isn’t an alum of the varsity, he grew up in Pine Bluff, has made main donations to the baseball program and has his identify on this system’s baseball complicated.
“Torii Hunter is a pricey pal. After all, a legend of the sport in Main League Baseball, and Torii and I’ve owned a couple of corporations collectively, nonetheless do, really, however he known as and stated ‘hey, I’m from Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I’m an enormous supporter. We want a brand new baseball coach. Can I join you with the athletic director? I feel you’d do actually particular issues if they simply hearken to you, and I feel actually particular issues may occur there. It’s a baseball city, a baseball state. I feel you might do great issues and make an influence, not solely on the gamers’ lives, however an influence on the college, an influence in the neighborhood at a time the place it must be achieved.’ I feel that’s what actually resonated with me,” Stout recalled.
Stout is clear-eyed about what he’s taking over. UAPB isn’t a turnkey operation, and in reality, it’s nearer to being regardless of the reverse of a turnkey operation is.
There’s little or no historical past to be discovered in comparison with convention mates like Southern, Jackson State and Bethune-Cookman, and whereas Hunter’s donations have put the Lions ready the place their facility compares positively with many of the remainder of the SWAC, there’s not loads of further funding to be discovered.
It’s not from an absence of care about this system—Stout really raves concerning the UAPB administration—however the monetary realities are what they’re.
“I grew up grime poor. My mother raised me and my little brother. Lots of people don’t know that a part of my story. I’ve labored full time because the age of 12, and so I simply have a coronary heart for the underdog,” Stout stated. “I’ve an enormous coronary heart for applications which can be underfunded. It’s public information so I’ll say this, this isn’t a secret, our baseball program is essentially the most underfunded program I feel in school baseball on the Division I stage. Something that could possibly be a roadblock, we’ve obtained it, and to me, that’s why I consider, at the least on this season of my life, UAPB is the place I used to be imagined to be.”
It’s a harsh actuality that UAPB can’t anticipate to win by doing what everybody else does and attempting to do it higher. Even when executed completely, heading out to all corners of the nation to search out undervalued recruits after which teaching them up higher than everybody else nonetheless may not be sufficient to win huge with the headwinds that face the Lions.
His expertise in scouting provides him a eager eye for expertise that may be developed right into a fully-formed participant, however there are many coaches who’ve that sort of expertise. Comparable issues might be stated about him having labored intently with a lot of huge leaguers.
However what each different school coach within the nation doesn’t have going for it’s a connection to the fact TV present Shark Tank. And that’s exactly the place Stout would possibly be capable of present some further worth.
“I feel these school athletes are on the lookout for greater than only a school baseball expertise,” Stout stated. “I’ve helped mentor some of us for the present known as Shark Tank. (The sharks) endorsed the books I wrote, most just lately Grit Issue, okay effectively (the gamers) love that present. So I feel it’s cool that I get to mentor these children on how you can begin their very own enterprise. We had a child decide to us final night time and the mother simply instructed me ‘he had Energy 4 provides, however he needs to have the ability to spend day by day with you, studying from you about entrepreneurship and enterprise.’ One other child needs to put in writing a guide. He needs to discover ways to do this. So I feel for me, one of many fulfilling points of how my life ready me for faculty teaching is I get to sort of convey stuff from off the sector so as to add worth for these children.”
Will Stout’s connections give the teaching workers the flexibility to recruit and retain a stage of participant that UAPB hasn’t beforehand had entry to? Perhaps. Or possibly not. However the hope is that the sting they achieve from these connections, mixed with Stout’s scouting and training acumen, plus that of assistants Mark Moyer and RJ Pearson, shall be sufficient to maneuver this system ahead.
It helps that Stout has little or no to lose in taking over this problem. You received’t hear him say it, however he’s made his cash from his time within the enterprise world and people avenues will stay open to him regardless of how issues go at UAPB.
So to place it bluntly, he doesn’t want this. He’s not doing this for the paycheck or to climb the teaching ladder, and that viewpoint will help a coach make choices and take a long-term view that one may not be capable of take within the sometimes pressurized environments of school sports activities.
Stout already made one such resolution since taking the job over the summer time by not slicing any gamers from the group that returned to Pine Bluff after final season. In a world the place there’s the expectation that the roster will virtually fully flip over any time there’s a training change, that’s fairly uncommon.
“I didn’t reduce any gamers,” Stout stated. “May I’ve discovered higher gamers? Yep, I may have. I feel the gamers know that. They’re not dumb; they’re sensible. Nevertheless it was the center of the summer time, finish of the summer time (and) I’ve two boys, Miles and Cooper, and I’m a dad, and I deal with each one in every of these gamers as in the event that they’re my very own son. And if my son have been at a college and it have been late in the summertime and I obtained a telephone name and the entire sudden, I’m canned, I’m dumped, I’m now not there, and with little or no time, if sufficient time in any respect, to discover a new place to go, I’d not be okay if my son was handled that means. I get it. It’s a enterprise. I get it. I’m not throwing shade on anyone, I’m not being disrespectful to different individuals’s mode of operation in any respect. I get it (however) for me personally, I simply consider the precise factor is all the time the precise factor to do, and these are human beings on the finish of the day. That is somebody’s son. It is a individual with a heartbeat. So I didn’t flip the roster over.”
Finally, Stout is aware of that the tip outcome for his UAPB groups goes to primarily come all the way down to the extent of expertise he’s in a position to get to Pine Bluff. The entire connections and expertise and spectacular resume line gadgets received’t matter if the Lions don’t find yourself having higher gamers than different groups within the SWAC.
With a lot working towards him and his workers, that received’t be simple, however that’s the purpose of doing this in any respect.
“I like being right here, and as with something, there’s going to be hurdles,” Stout stated. “There’s going to be partitions to climb, however there’s no such factor as a easy mountain. If there have been, how on the earth would you climb it?”
