Ep. 71 | Ross Steedley, Appalachian State University

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Host Ross Hawley sits down with Ross Steedley, an assistant coach for the Appalachian State Mountaineers in Boone, North Carolina. Steedley came up in a baseball family — his mother's father played professionally, an uncle played at App State, his father played at Liberty and Pfeiffer — and he and his brother both played at Charlotte before he went straight from the field into coaching in 2012.

The conversation gets specific about what draws players to Boone, what the staff needs to see before a name moves up the board, how a roster gets built now that high school, junior college, and the portal all feed it, and the three words head coach Kermit Smith wants his team to play by.

The highlights:

• Why "the A never leaves you," and how a brand pulls recruits from Texas to Boone
• The single question the staff asks about every potential Mountaineer
• Sun Belt baseball on a national stage, and why the fit has to work both directions
• Six of App State's nine everyday starters last season came out of high school
• Fast, physical, and tough: the identity behind the style of play
• What a decade of staff stability looks like from a recruit's side
• More than 30 former players back for a home weekend, and a baptism on the field
• How to throw good batting practice and hit a good fungo

Boone, the Leaves, and a Field That Goes Viral

Boone holds roughly 20,000 people and the university enrolls around 25,000 and climbing, so the town essentially doubles when the fall semester starts. Campus and downtown bleed into each other — walk far enough down King Street and you are on campus without noticing where the line was. Steedley says his head coach delivers the same verdict at least once a day: it does not get any more perfect than Boone.

The ballpark is part of the pitch. Every October the backdrop turns and the field makes its annual run around social media, drawing what Steedley learned to call leafers, the visitors who spend weeks working through the western Appalachians to see the color.

Why the "A" Never Leaves You

Steedley starts at the top when he explains the draw — the administration, the athletic director, the leadership around the department. The line the AD repeats, and repeated at a staff meeting the morning of this recording, is that the A never leaves you. Strangers turn around on planes to say "App State," then follow it with their graduating class or a memory of the football wins at Michigan and at Texas A&M. On the baseball side, the program has now set an attendance record three years running.

What It Takes to Be a Mountaineer

App State plays in what Steedley calls, without apology, one of the top five conferences in college baseball every year. One Sun Belt opponent, Coastal Carolina, finished two wins short of a national championship this past season. Finish in the top half of that league and you have had a real year.

The checklist he gives a recruit is plain: be a good student, want to play at the highest level, bring a work ethic, and have the tools to handle it. Recruiting then splits into the skill set and the makeup, and only after both hold up does the staff get to fit.

"Does the player help us get to Omaha? It's a yes or no question."

That is the question Smith puts to his staff about every name on the board. Fit runs both ways from there: the player has to fit App State, but App State also has to fit the player — the climate, the setting, the size of a town where the campus is the town.

Building a Roster in the Portal Era

Steedley thinks people overestimate how much of college baseball has become a portal sport. Six of App State's nine everyday starters last season came out of high school, and this year's roster will look similar. High school recruiting is the foundation and the highest ceiling, he says, while junior college and the portal work like free agency — that is where you go get a right-now Friday night starter or a right-now three-hole hitter. Because every team's needs are different, the staff forecasts roster construction two and three years out.

Fast, Physical, and Tough

Three words carry the program: fast, physical, and tough. The practical translation is to do everything aggressively, which Steedley says is another way of saying play free. The staff talks about a sliding scale — mistakes on one end, the highlight play on the other — and App State would rather live on that scale than coach the aggression out of anybody. The other piece of shorthand is TGHT: the game honors toughness.

Late in the season, an opposing Sun Belt staff told Steedley what happened in their Thursday night meeting before playing App State. The first thing out of their head coach's mouth was that nobody would play harder than these guys, so his team had better match it.

"There might be teams that we play that will play as hard as us, but nobody will ever play harder than us."

A Decade of Stability, and What Family Actually Looks Like

Smith has been in Boone for about a decade, and he and assistant coach Britt Johnson have worked together for more than 15 years. Steedley argues that continuity belongs on a recruit's checklist next to facilities and academic support, because a player is choosing a staff as much as a school. The track record is there to look at: two more players drafted this past year, and left-hander Jeffrey Springs pitching in the big leagues for the Athletics.

Plenty of programs put family on a bumper sticker. Steedley points instead at the last home weekend of the regular season, when more than 30 former players came back with wives, girlfriends, and kids. One of them asked to be baptized on the field, at the position he used to play.

"I think that is the biggest win you're ever going to have."

Faith at the Center of the Program

Asked what role faith plays, Steedley says it centers a person and gives peace, purpose, and focus. He remembers an FCA magazine piece in which Mike Matheny pushed back on the idea that Christian athletes are passive — Matheny's argument was the opposite, that the fire is what makes them compete. For Steedley, the point is not to be perfect in front of 30-plus players but to actually live what he claims.

It is also a long game. Twenty new players arrive every year, some take two rocky seasons before something clicks in the third, and others circle back years later to say what it meant. This is the first staff he has been part of where all four coaches share that foundation, and it shows up as a weekly staff Bible study, a player Bible study, and FCA on campus.

Advice for Players, Parents, and Coaches

For players: have a dream, have a goal, and build a relentless work ethic behind it — then check whether your daily actions actually point at the thing you say you want. Be in the weight room, keep your priorities straight, and set goals realistic enough to chase.

For parents: be a support and an encouragement, not a second coach. Steedley's own parents never forced baseball on him or his brother, and he believes a kid who genuinely wants to be a big leaguer does not need prodding. The line he likes after a game is simple — I enjoyed watching you play today.

For coaches: let them play multiple sports. He knows it may ruffle feathers, but he is a product of it and thinks it builds a more well-rounded player.

The Art of BP and Fungo

The best fungo hitter Steedley has seen is the assistant coach who recruited him and his brother to Charlotte, a man who could put a ball two hops and three feet to the left of the shortstop on request. He threw exceptional batting practice too, and Steedley notes that either skill alone can sustain a coaching career. Both are harder than they look, and his advice is to stop copying somebody else's delivery and find whatever makes you efficient, even if it looks funky.

"It's about the guy you're throwing to, not you."

The same rule governs fungo: do not try to look good hitting it, and understand that the toss is the whole thing. He learned the nerves part while rehabbing a shoulder one college summer, helping Jim Gantt with Rowan County American Legion, when Gantt whistled over and told him to hit infield-outfield for the first time in his life in front of a few hundred people. He duffed the first ball to the left fielder, and after that it was easy.

No Regrets, and Staying Authentic

Steedley says he has no regrets, and ties that straight back to his faith: he believes every step was ordained, so calling any of it a regret would be arguing with where he was led. The honest version of the question is different. Are there players he wishes he had reached better, or given better tools? Yes, and he treats those as learning rather than regret. What has not changed is authenticity, because players pick up on anything fake — and a coach cannot give what he does not have.

"I can't pour into our players if I'm not filled up from a spiritual standpoint, and if I don't have at least someone pouring into me."

His support system is specific: his Charlotte coach, Loren Hibbs, who happened to call while this episode was being recorded, his high school coach, and three close friends he talks to daily, one of them across the office in Boone.

One last thing about the name. Steedley's legal first name is Mark; Ross is his middle name, and after years of first-day roll calls he stopped answering to Mark. As a Charlotte freshman, when upperclassmen still picked your walkout song, they gave him a Rick Ross track that repeats his name for 20 seconds. Once he could choose, he switched to worship music and Lecrae, and these days it is country, classic rock, worship, and NEEDTOBREATHE.

Episode Timestamps

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

• 0:00 — Introduction
• 0:36 — Boone, peak leaf season, and a field that goes viral
• 2:45 — Two guys named Ross, and a last name nobody spells right
• 5:42 — The draw to App State: people, location, and a powerful alumni base
• 8:53 — What it takes to be recruited by App State
• 9:59 — Sun Belt baseball on a national stage
• 12:15 — How the college game got older, and how rosters get built now
• 14:47 — Six of nine everyday starters came out of high school
• 16:58 — The identity: fast, physical, and tough
• 19:22 — What an opposing staff told its team before playing App State
• 20:33 — Why staff stability should matter to a recruit
• 22:51 — Former players coming back, and a baptism on the field
• 23:53 — The role faith plays in coaching and in a program
• 27:53 — Advice for players, and why he wants kids in multiple sports
• 31:30 — The best fungo hitter he has ever seen
• 33:02 — Advice for coaches on throwing BP and hitting fungo
• 36:56 — Regrets, mistakes, and learning as a coach
• 39:58 — Authenticity, staying connected, and a support system
• 41:40 — Walkout song, and what he listens to now
• 44:11 — A final word on App State

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Ross Steedley is an assistant coach for the Appalachian State Mountaineers in Boone, North Carolina. Subscribe to the Baseball Forward Podcast for more conversations with the players, coaches, and leaders elevating the next generation of the game.