Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadToday’s conversation is with University of Arizona head baseball coach Jay Johnson. Coach Johnson enters his 2nd season with the Wildcats. In his first year, he leads the Cats to a College World Series berth making it to the final series losing to eventual National Champion Coastal Carolina. We talk about his early days growing up in a small town in California as a football and baseball star. We also talk about what kind of player he was at Shasta College and later at Point Loma Nazarene.
We discuss some of his stops as an assistant coach and how he made a name for himself as one of the top recruiters in the nation. He was responsible for recruiting N.L. MVP Kris Bryant and we talked about what it was like coaching a once in a lifetime player.
His program is quickly becoming known as one of the most fun programs to play for in the nation. Not only are they winning, but they also drew some attention during the World Series for their dugout antics, which we discuss. The team recently released a promo video where they did a parody of the movie Major League. Watch the move here if you haven’t seen it yet…it’s great!

Books that Coach Johnson recommended are The Obstacle Is The Way By Ryan Holiday and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
You can follow Arizona Baseball on Twitter @Arizonabaseball and follow coach Johnson @UAcoachJ