Tim Gotzler was born into a family of coaches.
"My parents were coaches. They coached us through baseball and basketball and we kind of grew up as kids in the gym," says Tim Gotzler, Head Baseball Coach at Menomonee Falls High School.
So naturally, Tim's playing and coaching careers are on in the same.
"I was fortunate to play college baseball, so I started coaching as a freshman in college and I've been coaching ever since," says Tim.
That said, Tim will admit he was no natural at running the show.
"Yeah I knew everything; I was the smartest coach that ever lived. Just a lot of arrogance and anger and emotion. You think your brains are going to connect where the player thinks what you're thinking," says Tim.
But as the years passed, Tim grew and adjusted. In hindsight, all in preparation for a world-sized adjustment.
"Friday the 13th, 2020, the infamous day. You know, bring your computers home, we will see what happens, see you in a couple weeks. On the baseball side, we were supposed to start on Sunday. Pitchers and catchers were going to report, and that was my first year here," says Tim.
With life on hold in Menomonee Falls and everywhere else, coaches turned to the same form of communication we all did.
"These massive Zoom calls. You had coaches that had never been home before. Major league coaches, minor league coaches, college coaches, and guys like myself. All of a sudden there's these Zoom calls with a thousand coaches," says Tim.
From infield play to Twitter, Tim had a chance to basically relearn the game.
"And I thought, this is a phenomenal education. What a way quick little sabbatical in my career to sharpen the sword a little bit," says Tim.
Branching off into smaller meetings, Wisconsin baseball's community was closer than ever.
"For about six weeks, every Thursday at noon we had a one-hour, two-hour Zoom call. And it was again, Hall of Famer after Hall of Famer across the state of Wisconsin," said Tim.
It wasn't until normalcy returned, Tim realized they had struck out looking.
"I took a phone call from one of the coaches who was on there, and he said, 'Man, I wish we would have recorded these,'" says Tim.
How could Tim recover the knowledge lost? The answer comes from another form of media that boomed during the pandemic.
"I mean, I feel like there is a podcast for everything. 25 years ago it was we should start a band, now it's we should start a podcast," says Tim.
Baseball Wisconsin Podcast was born, and the rest is recorded history.
"I get to talk to the best coaches in the state of Wisconsin and some nationally. Now I can see what they did at their school, what made them so successful," said Tim.
41 episodes later, Tim can say he is a teacher, coach, and podcaster who doesn't plan on hitting pause anytime soon.
"As popular as it is, people cutting their grass, shoveling snow, driving. I'll continue to do it. I absolutely love doing it," says Tim.
Coach or not, if you love baseball, play ball and press play on the Baseball Wisconsin Podcast.
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