ABOVE: North Union head coach Steve Ryan, middle, talks with players during a baseball game earlier this season. Photo courtesy of Kim Meyer

ARMSTRONG, Iowa – As sports fans we follow our favorite teams religiously, but we rarely take the time to get to know the coaches that help make the teams what we come to know and love. What about the coaches? Steve Ryan, the head baseball coach for the North Union Warriors took the time to help us do just that, get to know the coach.

Caleb: Where did you originally start coaching?

Steve: “I started probably in 1989 coaching at Louisa-Muscatine [in Letts, Iowa]. I was a middle school coach, then I moved to Houston, so that was the end of my [time in] baseball for a while. So, five years ago, I started at St. Mary’s in Storm Lake, and I coached there for two years as a varsity coach.”

Caleb: What is your favorite sport that isn’t baseball?

Steve: “Oh, that’s a tough one. It’s either football or basketball. I suppose because I’ve had so much success in football and basketball over the years. I love playing football. I love playing basketball. I love coaching it. I love all the aspects of both of those games. I’ve had so much success over the years that that’s probably the real reason why I like them so much, but that to me is a serious toss-up between baseball and football.”

Caleb: What was your playing career like in high school, college, etc… Which position and sports did you play?

Steve: “Football, I played a little bit of quarterback and wide receiver in high school. Then on the defensive side of the ball, I was a cornerback. Played that four years. Basketball, I played, back then it was called a wing, so off guard, if you will, in high school. I played college football at Iowa Wesleyan as a wide receiver. I ran track in high school, played baseball in high school, and wrestled in high school. That was pretty much my high school career was sports, sports, sports, sports, sports. Although I was in newspaper and yearbook, drama, those types of things. I did a little bit of the other stuff, so I was just looking for something to do.”

Caleb: What is the message and or mantra you try to convey to your players?

Steve: “I think the biggest mantra I try to convey to our players is that the harder you work, the better you’ll be, and the smarter you work, the harder you work, the scoreboard will take care of itself. That’s, as a coach, that’s what I’m all about. If we do our job in practice, the scoreboard in a game will take care of itself.”

Caleb: Do you have any superstitions that you follow leading up to a game?

Steve: “Absolutely not. I shave my face, I change my socks. I get out there and it’s pretty simple.

You either know you’re going to win or you don’t, and there’s some baseball games that we walk into and I can tell in the first few minutes whether we’re going to win or not, but superstition, no. I work with a few coaches that have them and I kind of laugh a little bit. Never had them in high school and don’t have them now.”

Caleb: What do you enjoy most about coaching?

Steve:“I would say the kids. You get to see so many different personalities. So many different kids. So many talents. Different talent levels or athletic abilities, and I think one of my most favorite things about coaching is taking the kid who’s the underdog, doesn’t have the name, maybe doesn’t have the athletic ability that your number one kid has, but has the ability or wants to really be successful and works their tail off for it. Those are my favorite kids. Those kids that everybody else looks at and says, ‘Yeah, they’re not going to be our top 11 or our top 5.’ I’ll take those all day long. I work with a kid right now who’s not going to be your top dog, but I’ll tell you what, he’s going to be a workhorse and he’ll be more successful than most kids who have the athletic ability because he knows how to work.”

Caleb: How do you unwind after a game?

Steve: “I don’t think I do. You know, from a baseball game, I’ll come home, maybe shower, get all the sweat and the dirt off and eat, but my mind’s still going. You know, I’ll go back over that game and think about, you know, what did we do wrong, where are our errors, what can we do better, how can we as coaches do better, what are we as coaches not doing, or what do we need to do better. So, constant evaluating, going back over and seeing or trying to figure out where we can make improvements to make our team a better team and more successful. So I don’t think I really unwind for quite a while, but eventually, you know, the next day or so maybe, depending on whether we got games back-to-back or not, I eventually move on, but I don’t know if I really ever unwind. Not much sleep in this household.”