Ep. 15 | Roberto Gallegos, The University of Texas Arlington

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley sits down with Roberto Gallegos, an assistant coach at the University of Texas at Arlington. Roberto came to UTA in the fall after four years on staff at Navarro College, one of the stronger junior college programs in Texas, and he spent years before that giving lessons and coaching select teams in the Dallas area.

Ross and Roberto first crossed paths around 2010 at a North Texas training facility, and this conversation covers the long version of the path from there to a Division I dugout. Most of it is about the parts of the game that do not show up in a box score: playing catch on purpose, holding a twelve-year-old to a start time, and what college coaches actually notice when they evaluate a player.

The highlights:

• The unhurried route into college coaching — lessons, summer ball, and a first break in 2014
• Growing up outside El Paso with parents who could not attend his tournaments, and the mentors who filled the gap
• Why he calls UTA a sleeping giant in the middle of the Metroplex
• What genuinely separates players at each level, starting with knowledge of the game
• Points of emphasis for playing catch, including throwing from different arm slots
• How he evaluates character from the parking lot to the dugout
• Teaching moments, and why a player being three minutes late matters
• What he wishes he had known about the weight room, nutrition, and sleep

The Long Way Into College Baseball

Roberto graduated with a criminal justice degree he had no plans to use and took his first coaching job in June 2009. He never held a graduate assistant post, which is the usual on-ramp, so he built a résumé out of private lessons, summer ball, and the coaches he met along the way. That work opened a door in 2014, and four years at Navarro College followed before UTA hired him.

He is candid that none of it was a plan. He liked working with four-year-olds and eighteen-year-olds in the same afternoon, he was making a decent living, and college baseball was not something he pictured for himself. He also admits he did not think he was good enough for it until he arrived and found that he was.

The Mentors Who Opened Doors

Roberto grew up in Sunland Park, New Mexico, just outside El Paso. His parents came from Mexico, did not speak English, and could not take him to tournaments — so at twelve he was choosing where he played and booking the hotel himself. He credits two men, Ken Guthrie and Larry Hernandez, with telling him college was possible and then making it possible. He lost his father at twenty-four, on a Friday night in the middle of a lesson, and it was those same relationships he leaned on to keep going.

That history is why he talks about coaching the way he does.

"Making better husbands, making better fathers, making better godly men — that's my passion."

He shakes hands before practice and asks about school and family before he asks about baseball. Players can tell the difference, and he thinks the connection has to come before the instruction.

UTA, a Sleeping Giant in the Middle of DFW

Two months into the job, Roberto likes what the program has. UTA sits in the middle of one of the deepest talent areas in the country, with Houston, San Antonio, and East Texas within reach and a ring of strong junior colleges nearby. His view is simple: if the staff can pull one or two players from each of those pipelines, the Mavericks can compete with the established programs down the road.

Inside the building, he points to a staff with decades of combined experience that runs the program with structure and clear accountability. The head coach opens most days with a "mental minute" that has nothing to do with baseball — treating a custodian the way you would treat a president, for example. Roberto also slips into the weight room from time to time, not to coach the lifting but to see what makes his players tick away from the field.

What Separates Players at Each Level

Physicality is the obvious difference from fifteen to eighteen to twenty-one. The gap Roberto cares more about is knowledge of the game: bunting, running the bases, picking up signs, paying attention to detail. He thinks players in the ten-to-twelve range are playing too many games and learning too little, and that switching teams every few weekends teaches the wrong lesson.

That pattern is a red flag on his desk, because it predicts what a player will do the first time things go badly in college.

"You're either in a storm, in the middle of a storm, coming out of a storm, or about to be in a storm. How you respond is what shows character."

His standard for a young player is short: have fun, learn the game, and learn how to work as part of a team.

What Respecting the Game Looks Like

Roberto shows up early to watch players before anyone is watching them — how they walk in, how they speak to their parents, what they do in the dugout after an at-bat. A hitter who comes back and passes along what he saw from the pitcher tells him something about the player's teammates, not just his swing.

He is equally direct about arriving in sandals, and about what he already knows before he sits down: the velocity is in his notes. What he needs to see is whether a pitcher can throw strikes.

"One thing we can't defend is a walk. We can defend anything else."

The teams he has enjoyed most, as a player and a coach, could pitch, catch the ball, and hit at the right time. His head coach at UTA preaches the same three things.

Points of Emphasis for Playing Catch

Roberto spends most of his time with infielders and hitters, and he starts with the throwing routine because he cannot ask a player to make a throw in the hole if he will not take pride in hitting a partner in the chest from thirty feet.

"It doesn't take a lot of talent to play catch."

His emphasis list stays the same whether he is with ten-year-olds or a Division I infield: a four-seam grip every time, staying on top of the baseball so it carries with true backspin, and getting the lower half moving toward the target once the distance stretches out. He also builds arm slots into the routine on purpose — throws from one o'clock down to six o'clock, off the right foot and the left foot — because a third baseman charging a slow roller will not have time to find a comfortable release. Game day is the exception; on game day he leaves players alone and lets them compete.

Advice for Young Coaches

Roberto's central piece of advice is to treat small breakdowns as opportunities. A player arriving three minutes late is not a reason to run him or embarrass him in front of teammates — it is a reason to pull him aside, explain that the coach had a plan, and ask him to send a text next time.

"When you have a teaching moment, take advantage of it. You're in a unique situation to change this kid's life, even at ten, eleven, twelve years old."

The rest follows from that: communicate, tell families the truth, have a plan and execute it, and do not abandon what you preach when the record turns. He also tells coaches to stop counting rings, because college staffs do not ask how many youth tournaments a player won. They do ask about grades, which he describes as one fewer thing for a staff to worry about.

What He Wishes He Had Known

Asked what he would tell his younger self, Roberto goes straight to the weight room, the nutrition, and the sleep. When he played, lifting was something football players did, and the rest was not discussed. Now he works alongside a strength coach and a dietitian and hears those conversations every day.

His closing thought is about what actually lasts. Nobody remembers who hit thirty home runs at eleven years old. They remember how hard a teammate played and how he treated the people who helped him.

Episode Timestamps

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

• 0:00 — Introduction
• 1:23 — From a criminal justice degree to a first coaching job in 2009
• 2:42 — The junior college road: Navarro College to Division I
• 5:22 — Why relationships, not wins, drive the work
• 6:39 — Sunland Park, and the mentors who opened doors
• 9:15 — UTA as a sleeping giant in the middle of DFW
• 14:26 — What separates players at each level
• 17:04 — Roster hopping, and how a player responds to failure
• 20:00 — What respecting the game looks like, from the car to the dugout
• 22:21 — Throwing strikes, and the one thing a defense can't defend
• 26:14 — Points of emphasis for playing catch
• 30:13 — How baseball changes a young man's life
• 35:28 — Advice for young coaches: take the teaching moment
• 46:10 — What he wishes he had known: weight room, nutrition, and sleep

---

Roberto Gallegos is an assistant coach at the University of Texas at Arlington. Follow him at @CoachG_UTA and the Mavericks at @UTAMavsBSB. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.