Under The Gun: Mike Current

Date: January 17, 2019
By: Eric Leary

Thanks for your time Coach Current to go Under the Gun with the Dirtbags.  Can you take us through your journey of coaching at the college level?

Ever since I was in high school, my dream was to coach college baseball at the Division I level.  I was extremely fortunate that I got the opportunity to do so right out of college. I will forever be grateful to Jim Brownlee for taking a chance on me when I had no real experience and hiring me at Illinois State University.  After my third year there, Coach Brownlee announced his retirement and Mark Kingston took over as head coach. Again, I was very fortunate that Coach Kingston retained me on staff. In all, I spent the first 9 years of my coaching career at Illinois State.  Following the 2014 season, Coach Kingston got the head coaching job at the University of South Florida, and I went along with him, this time as the recruiting coordinator. We spent 3 seasons at South Florida before Coach Kingston got the head job at the University of South Carolina, where we are going into our 2nd season in 2019.

As you enter year two at South Carolina, what are you most excited about the 2019 season for the Gamecocks?

Every season is exciting because each team is unique – even a team that returns a large number of players from the previous season.  While this year’s team returns a few key pieces from last season’s Super Regional team, there will be a lot of new faces in the lineup each day.  Getting those guys prepared for the grind of the SEC is a major challenge, but it’s also very exciting. Figuring out ways to shorten the learning curve of our players and get them as prepared as possible as quickly as possible is a lot of fun.  At the end of the day, helping our guys develop and become the best players they can be is the reason I got into coaching in the first place.

If you could give all youth baseball advice on how they prepare and play the game, what would your message be?

I know that it may seem a bit cliche, but my biggest piece of advice is to focus on the things you can control.  Show up to the park with a great attitude every day, work extremely hard, and stay committed to the process. If you focus on those things, you are going to maximize your ability.  Baseball is a tough game. The more you focus on the results, the more frustrating it can become. Don’t allow yourself to lose sight of the fact that you started playing baseball because it was fun.  I firmly believe that the more fun you have, the better you are going to perform.

Being a coach at a Division I school is a tough task. Add to that, you are the recruiting coordinator at South Carolina. Share with us how you balance the rigors of coaching, recruiting, and family.

Finding balance may be the most difficult aspect of the job.  There is a part of you that always feels like you are short-changing something.  When you are spending time with your family, you are worried that someone else is passing you by in recruiting or player development, and when you are on the road recruiting or stay late at the office you feel like you are prioritizing your job over your family.  At some point, you realize that this is a never-ending battle and it often leaves you wishing there were more than 24 hours in a day. But, since there aren’t, you do the best you can. The same way that we encourage our players to stay in the moment and focus on the task at hand, I have to remind myself at times that this applies to me as well.  When I’m on the field with our players or evaluating players on the recruiting trail, that needs to be my focus. At the same time, when I am at home spending time with my family, they deserve my full attention as well. As a young coach, this can be a difficult task at times.

Take moment to give us a glimpse of a typical game day if the “Gamecocks” are playing at home.

I’ll walk you through a typical Friday in-season.  Everyone’s class schedules are a little bit different, and a lot of our guys don’t have class on Fridays.  However, the guys who do are typically finished no later than noon. Our guys start arriving at the facility shortly after that.  We always eat our pre-game meal 4 hours before first pitch. The majority of our Friday night games begin at 7 PM, so we eat at 3 PM.  The players generally use the time before that to get treatment in the training room, take some swings in the cages, and watch video on the opposing pitchers or hitters.  We stretch as a team at 4 PM, take infield/outfield around 4:30 and batting practice begins a little before 5 PM. Once we finish BP, our guys will typically head back to the locker room to get a smoothie or some snacks and relax.  By the time they return to the field to watch the visiting team take infield/outfield, the crowd has started to arrive. We will have a short pre-game meeting to review the scouting report for the night about 20 minutes before first pitch.  After that, it’s time to play ball.

What message would you give to players that are looking to play college baseball?

The best piece of advice I can give you is this: Don’t give college coaches any reason not to recruit you.  There are a lot of things related to your baseball career that you have no control over. However, you need to make sure that you do take good care of the things that you do have control over.  That means you need to work hard in the classroom. You need to stay out of trouble off the field. You need to be aware of the things you are putting out there on social media. You need to play the game the right way.  Just because you do a great job in these areas doesn’t guarantee that your dream school will recruit you. However, not taking care of one or more of these areas makes it almost certain that you will close some doors that should be open to you.

Thanks so much for taking a few moments with us here at Dirtbags Baseball.  We wish you and the Gamecocks all the best in 2019!