Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself and how did you get into coaching baseball?
A: I played at IONA college in New York, Division 1 ,and one of my favorite coaches showed me a lot of things that I never thought I could learn, from a college perspective, so he got me interested in coaching. Went overseas, played professionally in Australia, started learning about how people coached, taught people how to hit, field, and started to teach little kids. Got involved in the college ranks, Lehman College, division 3, but before that I was coaching summer ball, Elite league in NY, Highlander training academy. We went all over the place, a good program had a ton of kids that went division 1, got drafted. That got me interested in the higher levels, and what it would be like in college. I’m a personal trainer by trade, that’s what I started as, and I never wanted to work a day in my life behind a desk and push papers, and wear a tie. I love baseball and I wanted to have the opportunity to give that back to somebody. Whatever didn’t get me to where I wanted to be as a little kid, hopefully I can get them there, and I have. It’s been a great journey so far.
Q: What are you most excited for this summer?
A: You know last summer, I was the assistant with the Snowbirds, we had a lot of fun, met a lot of great people, I guess I’m just looking forward to getting back with the kids, so they can get better. Some leagues, the players aren’t involved as much. All these kids are here because they want to get better with training and good teams from all over the country.
Q: What can you take from your coaching experience that you are going to take to lead your team over the summer?
A: Simple stuff, it just comes down to smart hard work, hustle, and having a good time, kind of bottling that up, and looking forward to getting better every single day. If you have that outlook, you can leave after a couple of weeks of just being with some new coaches and new players, and you can learn something every single time you go out there. That’s what I want them to do, just don’t get stuck in a rut. I want them to come out, saying “hey I’m still playing baseball”, because I don’t think they understand that your timetable, the clock’s ticking. The last day you play you may not know when it is. Playing like every game is your last game, and you’ll have a good time, and you will look back at it, and say “I gave it all I had” and I can be content with that.
Q:What’s your end goal for the summer? Career?
A: For the summer, try to get the players better, that can translate to, if you want to call it wins and a good summer season and also for them to go back to their schools to and say they did something positive for themselves because their summer workouts and summer schedule we’re all about getting better every single day and that’s what I want from the team’s perspective and summer perspective. From my perspective, I just want to stay in baseball as long as I possibly can, it doesn’t matter at what light that I’m in it and if it takes me to higher places that would be great. I’ve never been one to say that, I look at this journey and say “where I’m at is exactly where I have been planning”. I just keep doing what I love to do and it just keeps taking me to new places because I have a passion for helping players, a lot of passion for all the little things for an athlete. Not just from a baseball perspective, but growing up as an adult, in school, getting you better at life. And I think that if you have all of those things together, this game is amazing because it can teach you a lot of those things, every day that you step onto the field.
Catch DJ Price managing the Snowbirds on Opening Day at 9 AM EST! Coverage will start at 8:55 AM EST! You can watch this game as well as the other 161 games this summer on GameKast Live! Visit clpbaseball.com for more information!
You can go check out DJ’s personal business he owns in New York! https://www.thecompleteathletelab.com/