University of Georgia Athletics
Quick Chat: Scott Daeley
May 21, 2020 | Baseball, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
Scott Daeley has kept himself busy during the coronavirus pandemic by doing projects around the house. The Georgia baseball associate head coach, hitting coach and recruiting coordinator has been spending every spring for about 30 years at the ballpark, so being home in April and May has been an unusual development.
Daeley said during a recent Quick Chat that his projects don't always go as planned, but they're giving him plenty to do. He also talked about his playing days, eating Chipotle and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: How have you been keeping yourself busy during a time when you're used to being at a ballpark every single day?
Daeley: I think that's been the biggest challenge for everybody. This is the longest any of us coaches have ever been away from our sport or our players, whether it was coaching or playing. I think we're all just trying to find stuff to do. For me it's been stuff around the house that you've been putting off because your busy schedule doesn't let you get to, like redoing a closet or painting or laying sod. It's been a little bit of everything.
I try to come up with new projects every couple of days and I think I get myself in over my head more often than I don't, and I find myself a little too deep in a project that's a little beyond my skill set. Usually, I'll pick a project that I think will take a day or two and it will take four or five.
Frierson: Is there a project that you've done that you're the most proud of?
Daeley: I don't know that any of them have turned out the way I pictured them yet [laughs], I think they've all come up a little short of my expectations. I think that's why my wife wants me to go back to work, she's seen all these things turn out not quite the way we had hoped. I know just enough about doing stuff around the house to get me in trouble.
Frierson: Growing up in California, were you a sports-obsessed kid?
Daeley: It was always something and I always leaned towards baseball. I played soccer, some football, but mostly baseball as a youth. I just loved everything about baseball and kind of dived all in. I was collecting baseball cards and reading up on players and teams — I remember when I was really young, USA Today used to come out with a Baseball Weekly newspaper and that's all it was, it just covered baseball, and I'd always read that.
I was never the biggest guy in the room so that kind of eliminated a lot of sports. That made basketball and football pretty tough, so baseball is always what I went towards.
Frierson: Who was the first player that you really looked up to?
Daeley: You know what, I was all over the map. For whatever reason, I kind of went towards Gregg Jeffries of the New York Mets. He never really became a superstar but he was a good player, was a big prospect when he was young and he's a Northern California guy. We'd go to a lot of Angels games so guys like Wally Joyner I looked up to — those are kind of my earliest memories of baseball, going to Anaheim Stadium and watching the Angels.
Frierson: Was there a moment when you knew that baseball was the sport for you for life, in terms of playing collegiately and then staying in the game after you were done playing?
Daeley: I think the moment I knew baseball was my sport was when I got to high school and I was 5-foot tall and 100 pounds. Most of the girls in my class were bigger than I was [laughs], so I kind of knew that was the route I had to go.
Playing collegiately and being able to play professionally always kind of seemed like a long shot. I was a good player but obviously the size was a challenge. I just wanted to play for as long as I could. My dream was just to play collegiately, I just wanted to be able to go to a good school, get my degree and play baseball while I was doing it.
That option wasn't there coming out of high school so I went to junior college for two years and grew up a little bit, and then I got the opportunity at Wake Forest and I was fired up about it. I felt very fortunate to have that and that was where I thought it would end, play college for a couple of years and get my degree. Then I got my opportunity with the Giants and was able to play in their organization for a few years.
Being limited with my size and never really being the superstar or best player on the team, it really helped me to be able to stay in the moment and not really look forward to the next step too much — because I didn't know if there was going to be a next step. I was never worried about being recruited in high school because they were recruiting everybody else, they weren't recruiting me. Or when I was in college I wasn't really worried about the draft because the scouts weren't there to see me.
It was a blessing in that regard because I was able to be where I was, I was able to be really present and enjoy those moments.
Frierson: When I look at Major League Baseball now, hitting is so much about the home run. As a hitting coach, is it tougher coaching young players these days because a lot of them are trying to hit homers the way the pros do?
Daeley: A little bit. Obviously, there's more emphasis on that and doing damage with extra-base hits and that's all a good thing, ... The one thing I tell our guys is, the biggest thing first is to become a great hitter. I think when you look at the best hitters in the major leagues, they hit for power and average. Those guys became really good hitters before they became power hitters, and I think sometimes people put that backward and try to hit for power and try to become a good hitter as they're hitting for power. I think that's really difficult to do.
We try to get our guys to become really well-rounded hitters, become a tough out, know how to handle the bat and do a lot of things to understand your swing. I think when you do that, and (strength coach Ryan Gearheart) does such a great job with our guys in the weight room, you do that and you add strength, then the power can come.
Frierson: What's the best meal you've ever eaten? Is there one that stands out above the rest?
Daeley: Yeah, absolutely, Chipotle about four times a week. That's the best one, hands down.
Frierson: What is your go-to order?
Daeley: It's a chicken burrito, it stays the same. Every once in a while I'll go with a bowl, but I don't mix it up too much.
Frierson: Are you like that with a lot of things, keeping the exact same routines with the things you do?
Daeley: Absolutely, it gets really boring in my life. It's not a lot of fun being my wife, it's a lot of routines, it's a lot of the same orders. A lot of the places I go into, they know my order before I go up there to order it. I'm an extremely picky eater when it comes to that stuff so I'm pretty limited in what I can choose from, that's for sure.
Frierson: If you could travel anywhere in the world on somebody else's dime, where would you like to go?
Daeley: My girls and my wife, we've all been watching "The Amazing Race" reruns and we've probably knocked out about four or five seasons during this whole thing. They had a leg in Switzerland a couple of nights ago and it looked awesome, so we kind of decided that's on our bucket list and we need to find a way to get out there.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Staff Writer
Scott Daeley has kept himself busy during the coronavirus pandemic by doing projects around the house. The Georgia baseball associate head coach, hitting coach and recruiting coordinator has been spending every spring for about 30 years at the ballpark, so being home in April and May has been an unusual development.
Daeley said during a recent Quick Chat that his projects don't always go as planned, but they're giving him plenty to do. He also talked about his playing days, eating Chipotle and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: How have you been keeping yourself busy during a time when you're used to being at a ballpark every single day?
Daeley: I think that's been the biggest challenge for everybody. This is the longest any of us coaches have ever been away from our sport or our players, whether it was coaching or playing. I think we're all just trying to find stuff to do. For me it's been stuff around the house that you've been putting off because your busy schedule doesn't let you get to, like redoing a closet or painting or laying sod. It's been a little bit of everything.
I try to come up with new projects every couple of days and I think I get myself in over my head more often than I don't, and I find myself a little too deep in a project that's a little beyond my skill set. Usually, I'll pick a project that I think will take a day or two and it will take four or five.
Frierson: Is there a project that you've done that you're the most proud of?
Daeley: I don't know that any of them have turned out the way I pictured them yet [laughs], I think they've all come up a little short of my expectations. I think that's why my wife wants me to go back to work, she's seen all these things turn out not quite the way we had hoped. I know just enough about doing stuff around the house to get me in trouble.
Frierson: Growing up in California, were you a sports-obsessed kid?
Daeley: It was always something and I always leaned towards baseball. I played soccer, some football, but mostly baseball as a youth. I just loved everything about baseball and kind of dived all in. I was collecting baseball cards and reading up on players and teams — I remember when I was really young, USA Today used to come out with a Baseball Weekly newspaper and that's all it was, it just covered baseball, and I'd always read that.
I was never the biggest guy in the room so that kind of eliminated a lot of sports. That made basketball and football pretty tough, so baseball is always what I went towards.
Frierson: Who was the first player that you really looked up to?
Daeley: You know what, I was all over the map. For whatever reason, I kind of went towards Gregg Jeffries of the New York Mets. He never really became a superstar but he was a good player, was a big prospect when he was young and he's a Northern California guy. We'd go to a lot of Angels games so guys like Wally Joyner I looked up to — those are kind of my earliest memories of baseball, going to Anaheim Stadium and watching the Angels.
Frierson: Was there a moment when you knew that baseball was the sport for you for life, in terms of playing collegiately and then staying in the game after you were done playing?
Daeley: I think the moment I knew baseball was my sport was when I got to high school and I was 5-foot tall and 100 pounds. Most of the girls in my class were bigger than I was [laughs], so I kind of knew that was the route I had to go.
Playing collegiately and being able to play professionally always kind of seemed like a long shot. I was a good player but obviously the size was a challenge. I just wanted to play for as long as I could. My dream was just to play collegiately, I just wanted to be able to go to a good school, get my degree and play baseball while I was doing it.
That option wasn't there coming out of high school so I went to junior college for two years and grew up a little bit, and then I got the opportunity at Wake Forest and I was fired up about it. I felt very fortunate to have that and that was where I thought it would end, play college for a couple of years and get my degree. Then I got my opportunity with the Giants and was able to play in their organization for a few years.
Being limited with my size and never really being the superstar or best player on the team, it really helped me to be able to stay in the moment and not really look forward to the next step too much — because I didn't know if there was going to be a next step. I was never worried about being recruited in high school because they were recruiting everybody else, they weren't recruiting me. Or when I was in college I wasn't really worried about the draft because the scouts weren't there to see me.
It was a blessing in that regard because I was able to be where I was, I was able to be really present and enjoy those moments.
Frierson: When I look at Major League Baseball now, hitting is so much about the home run. As a hitting coach, is it tougher coaching young players these days because a lot of them are trying to hit homers the way the pros do?
Daeley: A little bit. Obviously, there's more emphasis on that and doing damage with extra-base hits and that's all a good thing, ... The one thing I tell our guys is, the biggest thing first is to become a great hitter. I think when you look at the best hitters in the major leagues, they hit for power and average. Those guys became really good hitters before they became power hitters, and I think sometimes people put that backward and try to hit for power and try to become a good hitter as they're hitting for power. I think that's really difficult to do.
We try to get our guys to become really well-rounded hitters, become a tough out, know how to handle the bat and do a lot of things to understand your swing. I think when you do that, and (strength coach Ryan Gearheart) does such a great job with our guys in the weight room, you do that and you add strength, then the power can come.
Frierson: What's the best meal you've ever eaten? Is there one that stands out above the rest?
Daeley: Yeah, absolutely, Chipotle about four times a week. That's the best one, hands down.
Frierson: What is your go-to order?
Daeley: It's a chicken burrito, it stays the same. Every once in a while I'll go with a bowl, but I don't mix it up too much.
Frierson: Are you like that with a lot of things, keeping the exact same routines with the things you do?
Daeley: Absolutely, it gets really boring in my life. It's not a lot of fun being my wife, it's a lot of routines, it's a lot of the same orders. A lot of the places I go into, they know my order before I go up there to order it. I'm an extremely picky eater when it comes to that stuff so I'm pretty limited in what I can choose from, that's for sure.
Frierson: If you could travel anywhere in the world on somebody else's dime, where would you like to go?
Daeley: My girls and my wife, we've all been watching "The Amazing Race" reruns and we've probably knocked out about four or five seasons during this whole thing. They had a leg in Switzerland a couple of nights ago and it looked awesome, so we kind of decided that's on our bucket list and we need to find a way to get out there.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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