One Rule: Do the Right Thing

A Proactive Coaching podcast interview with Jim Clem — career educator, athletic director, member of six Halls of Fame, winner of over 1,100 baseball games across high school and American Legion ball, and current pitching coach for the Bellingham Bells collegiate summer league team — hosted by Bruce Brown as part of the "Greatest Coaches You've Never Heard Of" series. Topics covered: whether the career teacher-coach is a thing of the past, and the survival skill of building a winning culture; his one rule — do the right thing — broken into four trainable areas (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual), including focus on controllables, breathing work for a racing heart, finding your "happy place," and the spirit you bring to every team you're on; players grading themselves after wins and losses; the abnormal path of team-first selflessness ("nobody should care who gets the credit"); intentional versus left-to-chance cultures; his Hall of Fame mentors (Gary Radlet, Frank Osborne, Glen Ricker, Don Leach) and his psychology background; choosing leaders by who the kids respect most — often the hardest workers, not the best players; his most important goal (whole people whose sport doesn't define them); The Mental Game of Baseball; and advice for young coaches — find a mentor, because coaching is a lonely world.