Sunday Morning Chat: American Heritage Manager Carm Mazza

American Heritage Manager Carm Mazza has his Stallions squad near the top of the standings once again in 2014. Mazza has been at the helm for Heritage for the past 16 seasons, and this week he sat down with HSBN to discuss family, the changing state of high school baseball, and if he has plans to call it quits. Enjoy…

Anthony: Alright, start off by giving readers a little background into your coaching career.

Coach Mazza: Well, this is my 16th year at Heritage. I actually started the program as a middle school program when it was All-Star Academy and went and finished my own career playing. I went to Boca High, assisted there for three years. Then came back to Heritage, and have been there ever since. 16 years as the varsity head. So I started the program years and years ago.

Anthony: Obviously managing at a high profile school such as Heritage brings plenty of stress. What would you say is the biggest stress you face that maybe some of the other coaches don’t have?

Coach Mazza: Stresses I have?

Anthony: Yes

Coach Mazza: I think one of the things that we kind of pride ourselves on is getting guys to the next level. We’ve done a really nice job of that, and now I think that is something that is expected. Where some schools may be sending a guy or two to college to play, it seems like we’re sending, well, about 78% of our guys have a chance to play college baseball. That brings some pressure. It calls for a lot of extra time and work. It’s fun time and work, its good time and work. Working with scouts and coaches and stuff like that. College coaches. That can be hectic at times. Like a time like this year, we have, I don’t know, nine juniors and they all want to play college baseball. So, I feel it’s our job as a program to help them find that home.

Anthony: One of the tough situations for you that we’ve talked about before, being at a private school, is that there is always people out there that accuse you guys of recruiting. Set the record straight on how admissions really work at Heritage.

Coach Mazza: I mean, that’s what everyone wants to feel and believe, but for us, you go to admissions. There’s financial aid through the state. Anyone can go on, it’s for any student. It’s all need based. That’s how they do it. And there’s also a work program where you come and you can work hours on campus as an employee and that works off tuition.

Anthony: With most of your guys, are they coming to you? Obviously the perception is that you’re going out and finding guys, but the reality may be that they’re coming to you?

Coach Mazza: Prior to these boys coming to me, I probably never saw any of them play somewhere else. No, we’re not going out and about. I go watch a game locally because of a kid I’ve coached, or something like that. If I go watch them during the summer, I kind of feel like everyone is looking at me. So I don’t like going out and doing that. Kids come. The first year we went to state we graduated a catcher, shortstop and a center-fielder. The next three people in admissions were a shortstop, catcher and a center-fielder.

Anthony: So they kind of know your needs?

Coach Mazza: Parents pay attention. They know the programs that are solid. We offer a really good program and we have really good academics.

Anthony: OK, moving on. Who’s the one coach you wouldn’t want to see across the field from you with a trip to states on the line, and why?

Coach Mazza: Probably, Benedict (Scott Benedict, PB Central Manager). I mean if you’re going…any school?

Anthony: Yes.

Coach Mazza: Probably Benedict, and there are others too, but he is number one. He’s a guy that really prepares for other teams. He’s called me and I’ve called him. He’s called me numerous times on teams that we’ve played that he’s going to run into in the playoffs. So I know the work he puts behind it. Also, he’s the Grand Poobah of coaches out there. He’s the one guy, he’s one of the guys that you look across and you say, “I better have my A game today”.

Anthony: Having a family with young kids is always tough on coaches. How do you handle keeping the keeping the balance between your responsibilities at home with the demand of the hours that are expected from you as a coach?

Coach Mazza: It’s getting tougher and tougher. All of them are active in sports and school activities. My wife is also active, she’s a soccer coach, club, and at the school. So it’s tough. What we call the Heritage training, we want all the parents and all the siblings and the coaching staff families to do stuff together. I keep them involved. When I’m at a game and my wife’s at soccer and my kids are at the field, I really don’t have to worry because I have so many parents that keep an eye. It’s time consuming. I’ve had to learn over the years when to hold back, and when to make sure I’m spending a lot of time with the family because they are number one in life.

Anthony: Is there ever a time that you think about shutting it down because of the family?

Coach Mazza: No. I love baseball. I love the kids. I love being around them at all times. Would that time come that it’s ever pushed because of family? I would never blame them. It would never be their fault, it would be my own decision. But as of right now, we’re good.

Anthony: Give me a time you were talking to your team, trying to be stern with them and deliver a message, and something happened where you just lost your train of thought. Something funny or something just broke your train of thought.

Coach Mazza: With some of these guys, just kind of some of their looks or comments that they may make, you can lose your train of thought. This year, it’s a really good group of kids. When we’ve had to get on them there’s always kind of one liner digs or something, where we try and keep everything easy and light. It happens. It happens more times than not that there’s always a good chuckle. So far I haven’t had to really rip into these guys yet.

Anthony: What’s the best part of your coaching job?

Coach Mazza: The kids. We’ve seen kids come here because of what we’ve done and then seen kids come back. This year we had two of our pro guys come back and work and hang out with these guys. We’re having college kids come back and work with these guys and having them just being treated like a family. It’s just nice because they are great relationships. And that’s really what you love to see.

Anthony: And that’s something that a lot of programs don’t have. How important is that to your program that your guys constantly come back and workout with your guys in the off-season and are around some of the newer guys?

Coach Mazza: Very. It carries tradition, pride. It lets these guys see what hard work can do. And these kids talk. It’s nice when one of the older guys comes back and say, “Hey guys, coach really hits this on the head. We do this in college, we do this at the next level. This is what you do here at Heritage and they do that at college also”. It’s nice. It’s good that they see that.

Anthony: Every coach says that they put their players first, but give me an example of when you did something to help a player out and you had to sacrifice either yourself or the good of the team to help the player.

Coach Mazza: I don’t know. There’s probably an instance, but, like even recently, a school came down to look at one of our guys and he wasn’t in rotation and there was no opportunity to throw so the team did go first. The gentleman wound up throwing from the bullpen after the game for the coach. Not that there wouldn’t be a scenario, but right now we want these guys to understand that its what’s on the front of their shirt, not on the back.

Anthony: How hard is it as a coach, especially now because the scouts are flocking to South Florida for players? How hard is it too, when you know that scouts are coming to see certain guys, to keep them in rotation or keep them off the mound or out of the lineup if that’s what needs to be done.

Coach Mazza: It’s tough. The scouts do a pretty good job of communicating with us. I do a good job of giving my rotation out if it’s a pitcher. But for instance, Todd Isaacs, who’s being looked at, they’ve been asking me, “Hey, how’s he doing? Is he playing?” He’s had a little hammy issue, we’re not forcing him. He is important and it’s more important for him and his future to be healthy. Today he happens to be healthy but those scouts knew, we let them know up front that he’s not healthy to play.

Anthony: Give us something that you do away from the field that your players would be shocked to know. A hobby, something out of character from your coaching persona.

Coach Mazza: I like to…I do the food shopping in my family. So I like to food shop. I like the Publix Buy One Get One, and I go buy the deals at Doris’ and Western Beef. No one really knows that, but I like doing that.

Anthony: Well they know now.

Coach Mazza: [laughing] Maybe I should have kept it quiet then.

Anthony: You’ve been at Heritage for a long time. What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in high school baseball from when you started until now?

Coach Mazza: Probably the influence of travel ball. It’s made it a lot tougher for fall season. It’s made it a lot tougher on us. It’s given these kids, in some instances, a little too much hype, too much work, too much to worry about. I do know for a fact when a college coach or scout…when they want to see these guys they’re going to see them in the summer. But when they want to know what kind of kid he is, they’re still calling the high school coach.

Anthony: How hard is that as a coach? That’s been one of the developments in recent years, that most coaches now are coaching these summer teams and these travel ball teams. How do you keep that balance with what you do in the summer with your travel teams, and the school program you have to run?

Coach Mazza: Well, I’ve done some travel ball coaching, but I really try to stay away from it. I want to see where our kids are playing. I know where they’re playing. If they need help finding a team, we’ll help them find one. But I kind of get away from it. I work for Team One and getting more into that kind of aspect of it. Going and scouting and watching games in that sense. I have to get away from the efforts and the time we put in from January to May and then fall ball also. I don’t know how these guys put in all that time in summer. I just don’t. I work a different way in baseball.

Anthony: So the summer for you is a refueling and that’s really family time?

Coach Mazza: No, actually the family goes to camp…

Anthony: So that’s your time?

Coach Mazza: That’s my time, but I also stay around the game. I go around the country. I was lucky enough to be in the All American game last year as a coach. Working for Team One gives me a lot of opportunities to see a lot of different players and different kids and help do their evaluations for college.

Anthony: Talk about last year, going to Wrigley Field.

Coach Mazza: Oh, it was a great experience. The All American Baseball Factory people were great. The Under Armour people were great. People at Wrigley were great. The people I got to meet, the players, the talent was unbelievable. So, it was really, really nice. It was rewarding as a coach. It was nice because a couple of those kids I think we’re going to get a chance to play against. I got to see Touki (Toussaint) up there and we became closer. It wasn’t just Heritage against Coral Springs Christian, and we have to go face Touki. I met the young man and he’s a great young man, and he met me and saw who I was outside of rivalries and everything else. You have to have more of that in life.

Anthony: What’s the one thing if you walked away from coaching tomorrow you’d miss the most?

Coach Mazza: The kids and the coaches. The kids and the coaches. Being around the kids and sitting around and talking and life issues that come into baseball and just talking about what the future holds and what you need to do. And trying to be that helping hand. And just the camaraderie of the kids and the coaches.

Anthony: Alright, let’s finish with this. Give me the best piece of advice you’d ever been given from another coach.

Coach Mazza: Advice isn’t necessarily the thing but, when I first took over here at Heritage a lot of coaches wouldn’t play us, but there were guys…There were the Joe Russo’s and Scott Benedict’s and some of these guys had been around forever. They let me into the ‘good ole boys network’. They said, “Hey you know what, forget that it’s American Heritage and what they are supposed to be doing. We want to play a good baseball program.” So they gave us that chance. That was probably the best thing to see that. The baseball guys said, “We’ll play them. It’s a good program, he’s a good guy. He’s running things the right way. We want to play the best teams on our schedule.” So since then, forever, we’ve been playing. I have a relationship with Barron Collier, Barron Collier and Palm Beach Gardens and Palm Beach Central. We’ve been playing them for years, back and forth. And that’s a testament to those guys to say, “Hey you know what, there’s nothing wrong with that.” It’s probably the best overall message that I’ve been sent. Baseball guys are always baseball guys.

Anthony: Alright, well thank you and good luck the rest of the year.

Coach Mazza: Alright. Thank you, Anthony, and thanks for everything you do. We all really appreciate it.

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