Ep. 70 | James Leverton, McLennan Community College

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley sits down with James Leverton, head baseball coach of the McLennan Community College Highlanders in Waco, Texas. Leverton was named head coach that summer at one of the most respected junior college programs in the country — a place he knows well, having started there as a volunteer while he finished school. He played at Texas Tech as a two-way player, was drafted as a pitcher, spent seven years in pro ball, and coached at Little Rock and Baylor before coming back to Waco.

He inherited a roster with three returning players and rebuilt it in weeks. The conversation covers the standard he intends to protect, why his staff asks every recruit whether the big leagues are the goal, the coaches who taught him to handle players one at a time, and practical answers for young coaches on batting practice and fungos.

The highlights:

• The standard at McLennan: junkyard dogs who are willing to eat last
• Why every recruit gets asked what his end goal in baseball actually is
• Learning to delegate in his first months as a head coach
• Turning the scoreboard off and playing to a process instead of a result
• The high school coach who grabbed him by the shirt, and why the next pitcher got a different message
• What gets a player noticed in recruiting, and the answer that ends a recruitment
• How he ranks the tools for pitchers, outfielders, and infielders
• Practical help for young coaches on batting practice and fungos

Taking Over in July

The hardest part of the new job was learning to delegate. He credits the staff he handed the work to: a pitching coach he leaned on immediately and an assistant he hired as soon as he got the job, who had volunteered in the program for four years. The need was urgent. With three returning players, the staff brought in roughly a dozen position players in three or four weeks, including transfers from Division I programs.

Now that the churn has slowed, the adjustment is setting the vision and trusting people to carry it out. Asked later in the episode why McLennan picked him, he says the best coaches are themselves, because players see through anything else. The athletic director already knew his backstory and knew he would treat the place with care. He is equally clear about what McLennan is not: a landing spot for players out of options.

"This isn't Last Chance U. We don't want to be that place. We want to be a place where people come here and go, man, this is a Division I program at a two-year school."

The Standard: Junkyard Dogs Who Eat Last

Asked what it means to be part of the program, Leverton starts with the standard rather than the baseball. Be a good person and a good teammate. Be a good student, because not every Division I program is fully funded and academic money is real money at the next stop. And want to play at the highest level.

The teammate piece has a specific picture attached to it. Whatever is short at the end of a long day — the last protein bar, a shake, water — you give it up so the guy next to you gets the advantage.

"We say we want junkyard dogs that are willing to eat last. If your teammate needs something, you're willing to do without for them to get that advantage of the day."

He compares it to organizations that sustain success across decades rather than one good year, and says the only way to get there is to treat today as the most important day. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow can wait.

Why the Goal Has to Be the Big Leagues

Every recruit gets the same question: what is your end goal with baseball? If the answer is Division I, that is not the answer the staff wants. The reason is practical — the players who get to the majors are the ones who will do the work daily — and Leverton says the proof is in the program's history, pointing to five former Highlanders in the big leagues at the same time.

The two-year window in Waco is also supposed to produce more than a transfer. A player should leave knowing his identity, his routines, and which lifts work for his body, so that when he reaches pro ball and the offseason is on him, he is not starting from scratch.

Turn the Scoreboard Off

His stamp, in his own words, is a team that plays to a standard regardless of the score. Down ten or up ten, they run hard, stay on the current pitch, and do not give away at-bats. He wants confidence that comes from the work rather than the result, because a three-for-three can include two bad at-bats and two infield singles.

"I want the team that we're playing leaving there knowing that we got beat because that was a mature group of men that played baseball the way it should be played."

The picture he keeps coming back to is men playing against boys — body language, the way a team takes BP, the way it treats the game and its opponents.

The Coaches Who Shaped Him

One name comes first: a veteran coach Leverton spent six years facing from the other dugout, whose calm stood out as much as the freedom he gave — he let his assistants coach and his players play. Leverton also credits the head coach who gave him his first Division I job for running an organized program with a pro mindset while still holding people accountable, and the coach he worked with at both McLennan and Baylor for teaching him how to get a room to buy in.

The biggest influence was his high school coach, whose offseasons had almost nothing to do with baseball and everything to do with who was going to quit. The lesson that stuck was how to coach each player individually, and Leverton tells a story to explain it. Pitching in the first round of the playoffs, he walked the bases loaded in the first inning and looked toward the dugout. His coach walked out, grabbed him by the shirt in front of everyone, and delivered a line he still repeats — the clean version of it, anyway.

"You've played all over the country. You're supposed to be all world, and you can't throw a strike in Garland, Texas."

He struck out the side. The next day another pitcher, a more cerebral left-hander, got into the same jam, and Leverton watched from center field expecting fireworks. What his teammate actually got was: hold them to two runs and we're going to win this game. Years later he asked about it and got the explanation — you cannot coach two players the same way, because the other guy would not have responded to what worked on you. That is now how his staff approaches makeup. He also credits his stepdad, who raised him with one rule: compete hard, respect your teammates and the family name, and nobody is going to ask about the box score.

What Gets a Player Noticed

Everyone can spot the obvious talent, Leverton says. The harder skill is seeing the player who is missing one or two things — strength, a swing adjustment — and knowing he will make that jump inside their program. That judgment comes from multiple looks, repeated conversations, and how a player carries himself when something goes wrong. The staff gravitates toward bigger, levered-up bodies because strength gains tend to produce bigger jumps, though he points at the smaller big leaguers who make that a preference rather than a rule.

The red flags are just as specific. He was watching an outfielder in Tomball on a brutally hot afternoon and asked between games how he was feeling. The answer was that it was hot, he had another game, and he just did not know. That was all Leverton needed, because practices in Waco run three and a half to four hours, plus weights, plus school.

For parents: enjoy it. His advice to a room of parents is to stop being coach dad or coach mom, because the car rides and the hotels and the memories run out sooner than anyone expects. If their son played hard, kept his focus, and treated people with respect, that was a good day.

"Just sit back, relax, enjoy the game, try to find some shade, and soak it up for as long as you can."

He would also rather a player fail early than late. Slumps reach everyone eventually, and the players who first met failure at 15 tend to shorten those stretches in pro ball. That shapes what the staff looks for in a live look: he will sign a hitter he watched go 0-for-10 if the process was right, because the ground ball to short might be the best 6-3 they have ever seen — good swing, good time down the line, and a pitcher who simply made a pitch.

Fungos, BP, and Being Willing to Be Bad First

Young coaches message Ross asking how to throw good batting practice and hit a good fungo, so he puts it straight to a college coach. The answer is reps and a willingness to be bad in public. Leverton wants two-hop to three-hop ground balls, learned by moving them around, and he tells the former players on his staff that they will be good at it by the end of the season if they actually work at it. Players have a role too: be mature enough to let a coach work on his craft.

He came to BP from the other side, as a drafted pitcher who spent his first volunteer season throwing what amounted to ride heaters to hitters who did not need them.

"You're not going in there to carve. You're going in there to see how many nukes you can give up. So keep them at the belt and kill the spin."

Asked what he most enjoys teaching, he refuses the premise. He was drafted as a pitcher and was a position player at heart, and the joy is the light bulb going off, whatever the skill. He will watch a 12-year-old game and see something worth stealing for his own level.

Ranking the Tools

One of Ross's sons asked a question worth passing along: what is the order of importance among the tools? Leverton splits the answer by position. On the mound it is arm talent, because velocity buys room for mistakes in the zone and puts more teeth on the breaking ball.

For an outfielder he goes bat-to-ball, run tool, power, defense, and arm strength last — if a player can really run or really slug, nobody worries much about the arm. For an infielder, especially up the middle, defense comes first, then bat-to-ball, speed, arm, and power, because power is the tool most likely to arrive later with maturity and strength. A player who cannot run and already has power is a corner profile. None of it means the arm gets ignored; it means it is the tiebreaker rather than the entry fee.

From Two-Way Player to the Mound

Leverton is living proof of the converted-pitcher path. He went to Texas Tech as a two-way player and spent most of two years in the outfield and at first base, until a new coach arrived from a program that had just won back-to-back national championships. He asked Leverton his goal, heard "the big leagues," then asked him to name a left-handed-throwing, right-handed-hitting Hall of Famer. Leverton said Rickey Henderson. The reply was that he was not that fast, and it was time to get back on the mound. He was drafted the next year and pitched professionally for seven seasons.

That is why he thinks a coach's job includes setting realistic expectations, and why delivery matters as much as message: give a player time to fail, know him well enough that he hears it as care, and be clear the goal is his career. Ross tells the same story from the other side — the coach who recruited him said plainly that he would not hit once the pitching reached 90-plus, but that his arm gave him a real shot on the mound. He was right, and it meant everything. Leverton worked the mental side of his own transition with that Tech coach and the physical side on his own, studying big-league left-handers on YouTube for anything he could borrow.

Blues, Classic Rock, and the Practice Playlist

Leverton is a classic rock, blues, and Motown guy who walked out to the Black Keys, and he and Ross spend the last stretch on Gary Clark Jr. — whose take on "Catfish Blues" is one of Leverton's two favorites, and whose music his wife walked down the aisle to. At practice, the staff asks every player for three or four songs and builds one playlist, on the theory that nobody can hear the same BP mix all spring.

One song is a fixture in their in-and-out: "Run Through the Jungle" by Creedence Clearwater Revival. His father, a former Marine, told him about hearing it blaring from the choppers when backup arrived. The players may not know the band, but the coaches hear it and get to work. Closing out, Leverton says the trophies and facilities are not what make McLennan work — move the place to the middle of nowhere with the same administration, coaches, and players, and it would still win.

Episode Timestamps

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

• 0:00 — Introduction
• 1:29 — The biggest adjustment: learning to delegate
• 3:29 — Upholding the standard: junkyard dogs who eat last
• 5:57 — Why the goal at McLennan is the big leagues
• 8:30 — The foundation players should carry to the next level
• 10:12 — His stamp as a new head coach: turn the scoreboard off
• 12:48 — The coaches who shaped him
• 16:20 — The high school coach with the biggest impact
• 17:24 — Bases loaded in the playoffs, and a grab by the shirt
• 20:42 — What gets a player noticed in recruiting
• 23:31 — Red flags, and a hot afternoon in Tomball
• 25:20 — Advice for parents: enjoy it
• 28:45 — Why early failure matters, and the best 6-3 they ever saw
• 30:16 — How to throw good BP and hit good fungos
• 33:53 — His favorite part of the game to coach
• 36:08 — Ranking the tools
• 37:56 — Stacking the tools by position
• 41:49 — From two-way player to full-time pitcher
• 43:28 — Helping players set realistic expectations
• 47:25 — Why McLennan hired him
• 50:22 — Music: blues, classic rock, and the practice playlist
• 53:16 — Run Through the Jungle, and a closing word on McLennan

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James Leverton is the head baseball coach of the McLennan Community College Highlanders in Waco, Texas. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.