Oklahoma Breakdown: Baseball's Hotbed in the Heartland, 1-on-1 with Shane Hawk of Choctaw High School | Ep. 116

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley sits down with Shane Hawk, head baseball coach at Choctaw High School in Choctaw, Oklahoma. Hawk was an all-decade left-hander at Oklahoma State and a fourth-round pick of the New York Mets before three straight shoulder surgeries ended his pro career. He grew up an OSU fan watching Gary Ward's teams in Stillwater, and now runs one of the state's steadiest high school programs.

The conversation starts with what makes Oklahoma baseball different, then gets specific: how Hawk teaches pitchers to attack with the fastball, the nine-zone bullpen chart his staff uses, what he would change about his own training, the coaching mistake that cost him a state tournament game, and the hard parts of coaching your own kids.

The highlights:

• Why Oklahoma baseball is blue-collar, gritty, and built to handle the weather
• A pitching philosophy built on heavy strikes and roughly 85% fastballs
• Redefining the opposite field, and why pitching in helps his hitters too
• Zone percentage versus strike percentage: how Choctaw charts every bullpen
• The strength and deceleration work he wishes he had done as a player
• Coaching teenagers like teenagers, not professionals
• "Choose Hard," the team code borrowed from a Notre Dame visit
• Coaching your own kids, and why the car ride home matters to the whole team

Baseball's Hotbed in the Heartland

Hawk says you could ask 50 Oklahoma high school coaches what defines baseball in the state and get 50 slightly different answers, but they would all come back to the same thing: blue collar. The good programs hustle all the time, hold each other accountable, and care about the little things. He remembers a third baseman who took a ball off the nose and asked to be taped up so he could play the next day.

The weather is part of it. Oklahoma teams scrimmage in 40-degree February weather with a north wind and put in offseason work through a run of 100-degree September days. Hawk ties that toughness back to Mickey Mantle playing on bad knees, and says it is why visiting teams like coming through on spring break — and why Oklahoma teams like traveling to Arizona, Florida, and Texas to prove they belong.

"If we're going to graduate a bunch of guys and you don't know what we're going to have, we're still going to win 20 games because we do the little things right."

Relationships Outlast the Playing Days

Before any of the baseball talk, Ross asks what the game's relationships have meant to Hawk. His answer is that the goal was always to be the best teammate he could be. Being a good teammate at events like PBR in Georgia, the Area Code Games, and the Cape Cod League left him with friends all over the world, from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela to former players in Japan. Social media makes it easy to keep those connections alive, and the network has only grown in value as he has gotten older.

From Pro Ball to the Dugout

Hawk was pitching his best in the Mets organization when his shoulder gave out. Three surgeries in three years ended his career before it really started, and he is candid that the transition was hard. His daughter had just been born, baseball had been his whole identity, and he credits his wife, Meredith, with carrying him through it.

He went back to finish a business degree, which MLB paid for as part of his draft deal, and figured he would go work in Oklahoma's energy industry. Then the Choctaw head coach called and asked if he would help with the pitchers. It felt like riding a bike — he coached pitchers the way he had attacked hitters from the mound. After a stretch of American Legion coaching and office work at a plumbing company, he and his wife decided they wanted the same schedule as their kids, so both became teachers. He has been teaching and coaching ever since.

Attack With Heavy Strikes

Hawk's pitching philosophy is one word: attack. He was a velocity kid himself, but he tells his staff that a pitcher who cannot throw strikes will not have much success. If he is calling 100 pitches, around 85 of them are fastballs. His logic is simple: even the best hitters in the game fail seven times out of ten, so go after them — while still mixing looks, holds, and times, changing eye level, and surprising a hitter with a hard fastball in when he is sitting on a breaking ball.

That plan also shapes how Choctaw hits. From age 12 to 18, most pitchers work hitters down and away, so Hawk redefines opposite field for his players. It is not the right-field line; it is the gap from second base to the first baseman. Wear out the second baseman and you are doing well. Most high school pitchers are afraid to pitch in consistently, which is why he builds that skill into his own staff.

"My pitching philosophy almost coincidentally makes my hitters better, because we can train for how I'm going to pitch them."

The Nine-Zone Bullpen Chart

Choctaw's pitching coach, Mark Morris, built the charts the staff uses. The strike zone is split into nine zones — one through three at the bottom, four through six in the middle, seven through nine at the top — and every bullpen pitch has an assigned target: fastball zone one, changeup zone four, fastball zone seven. Pitchers work in groups of six, three throwing and three charting, then switch.

The key distinction is zone percentage versus strike percentage. Early in January the zone goal might be only 30%, and pitchers get frustrated seeing a 20% day. But if that same bullpen was 80% strikes, it was a good day. The longer-term target is 40–50% in the zone and 85–90% strikes. The chart doubles as a diagnostic: a lefty who keeps missing up and away in zone seven is probably flying open. The pitchers charting are learning too, because Morris coaches through the session and they hear every correction.

Without a budget for $500 hitting dummies, the staff uses concrete, a pole, and a neon pool noodle at the front of the plate. A newer facility also put two bullpens in the batting cage, so in January and February pitchers throw to live hitters who are tracking pitches.

What He Wishes He Had Known as a Player

Asked what he knows now that he wishes he had known then, Hawk goes straight to training. He was a conditioning guy who ran three miles after outings and was told to stay loose rather than lift. He could produce velocity, but his back, scapular muscles, and decelerators were weak.

"I blew out because my body wasn't equipped to handle my velocity."

Choctaw now has a strength and conditioning coach who builds a baseball-specific program around hip mobility and shoulder health, separate from what football or volleyball is doing. He also spends more time teaching players what the data they track, like exit velocity, actually means.

Coaching Kids Like Kids

His biggest early coaching mistake was assuming. Choctaw lost a state tournament game 2–1 when the pitcher and third baseman collided on a bunt coverage the team had run a thousand times. Now assistant coach Travis Bethel runs first-and-thirds and bunt coverages every other day, even if only for ten minutes. Hawk takes ownership of the losses and tries to give the players ownership of the wins.

"That was my problem as a young coach — I coached them like they're professional baseball players, and they are not."

Ross adds advice he got years ago from a coaching friend in Dallas: you cannot assume they know what you know. The details extend to how the team carries itself. Hawk wants Choctaw to beat opponents at stretch and catch and at the national anthem, and former players who reach college tell him the routine was more thorough than they realized.

Choose Hard

Each class gets a team code. During his son's official visit to Notre Dame, Hawk saw a "Choose Hard" sign in Marcus Freeman's home, and Choctaw adopted it this year: HARD stands for hustle, accountability, resilience, and discipline, and the standard is a choice. Anybody can do easy; easy is comfortable, makes excuses, and avoids failure. The team's strength coach has already noticed the difference in how the group attacks the last 30 minutes of the day in the weight room.

Coaching Your Own Kids

Hawk and his wife have three children: a daughter who played volleyball at Seminole State College, a senior son committed to Notre Dame for football and baseball, and a 15-year-old who is already 6-foot-8 and left-handed. He calls coaching your own kid hard and not for everyone. After losing his temper with his son in the dugout, he apologized in front of the team and nearly handed over the keys — until his son told him he wanted the old dad back.

He also addresses the "he only plays because his dad is the coach" criticism head-on, stays out of all-state selection politics, and gives players a message every year about the ride home. When a parent criticizes a teammate who is starting ahead of their son, that player has a chance to stand up for his friend.

"The ride home could become the worst thing for your baseball team."

Hawk credits his father, a hardworking heating-and-air technician and salesman, for the discipline and manners he brings to the program.

Advice for the Next Generation

Hawk's advice for players is to do all the little things right, then do them again. The fundamentals a 10-year-old learns are the same ones big leaguers are working on before the playoffs. He points players toward Dustin Pedroia, a 5-foot-9 competitor he played against when Pedroia was at Arizona State, as a model of how to play with passion. Passion plus effort every day, he says, leads to success even when it does not feel like it.

For a walkout song, Hawk used Korn's "Thoughtless" at Oklahoma State. His playlist runs from Lil Wayne and Young Dolph to Slipknot, Deftones, 311, Sublime, and the Offspring.

Episode Timestamps

Tap any timestamp to jump the player straight to that moment.

• 0:36 — Introducing Choctaw High School head baseball coach Shane Hawk
• 1:01 — Gary Ward, and growing up an Oklahoma State fan in Stillwater
• 4:05 — What baseball relationships and your network mean for life
• 7:45 — Oklahoma: baseball's hotbed in the heartland
• 9:01 — Blue-collar, gritty, and hard-nosed: what defines Oklahoma baseball
• 10:42 — From Mickey Mantle to spring break: why teams come to Oklahoma for a challenge
• 13:12 — Three shoulder surgeries and the end of a pro career
• 14:05 — A business degree and the phone call that started his coaching career
• 16:25 — Legion ball, a plumbing shop, and choosing his kids' schedule
• 19:24 — Pitching philosophy: attack with heavy strikes
• 20:30 — Why roughly 85 of 100 pitches are fastballs
• 21:38 — Redefining opposite field, and pitching in to high school hitters
• 23:07 — Zone pitching and the nine-zone bullpen chart
• 25:27 — Hitting dummies on a high school budget and live hitters in the bullpen
• 29:04 — Zone percentage versus strike percentage
• 31:29 — Why the pitchers charting are learning too
• 33:06 — Four years of development in the Choctaw program
• 35:03 — What he wishes he had known as a player: strength and deceleration
• 38:06 — What he wishes he had known as a young coach
• 38:55 — A state tournament loss on a bunt coverage
• 40:06 — Stretch and catch, the national anthem, and never assuming
• 42:57 — "Choose Hard": this year's team code
• 44:46 — Being a parent and a coach
• 46:30 — Apologizing to his son in front of the team
• 50:59 — The car ride home and defending your teammates
• 52:06 — The dad who raised him
• 53:56 — Walkout song: Korn, Lil Wayne, and a playlist with everything
• 55:42 — Advice for the next generation: do the little things, then do them again

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Shane Hawk is the head baseball coach at Choctaw High School in Choctaw, Oklahoma, and can be found on X. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.