Pennington found his way back to his alma mater as an Earley assistant

An 11-year MLB veteran, Cliff Pennington is back in Aggieland after four years at Dallas Baptist as he joins Michael Earley's coaching staff at Texas A&M. In returning to his alma mater, the former All-American joined TexAgs Live on Friday to discuss his new role in Maroon & White.

Key notes from Cliff Pennington interview

• I hope it's a lot different being a coach compared to player here. When you first start coaching, you’re used to being a self-coach or maybe coaching a buddy. There’s already a relationship there with your buddy. Your eye automatically goes to the things you had problems with. You watch a player and say, “Oh, here’s what I did.” A lot of times, these kids are different from you, though. Learning how to meet them where they’re at is a process. Evaluate them and say, “Hey, this is what I like.” That was a transition. When I first got into it and I was like, “Man, do this, it's what worked for me,” but the reality is it doesn’t work for everyone.
   
• The Aggieland part of the hiring process was a huge draw. I'd be lying if I didn’t say it was the ultimate goal at some level, but it wasn’t enough. It was going to have to be a belief in coach Michael Earley, and he did that. He admitted that he learned a lot last year, including many really cool things that you can’t do unless you’ve been through it. The belief and the plan for going forward are great. We just have to go and do it now.
   
• I’ve always talked about playing the whole game as something I learned early on. When you play a team that has an identity, whether you like it or not, they are hard to beat. That is going to be part of my job.
   
• Earley is like, “Hey, this is what you’re going to do to help us establish an identity on the base paths that makes the other team stop us.” We’re going to hit homers and have guys drive the baseball. Our object on the base paths is to take advantage of weaknesses that other teams have and make them hold us. Hopefully, we are more offensive because they will have to be quicker to the plate or they’re worried about bouncing that breaker and they leave it up, then we hit a double. Sometimes, the effects of the running game and being able to put pressure on someone else isn’t the stolen base category; it's what they have to do to stop us. Then, because of that, what advantages did we gain? Hopefully, it's not just one stat that tells the picture. Hopefully, it's the whole offense.
   
• When I got into coaching, it was seeing what I liked because it's what I did and then making guys do it. There will be a big portion of players for whom it is the recipe to help them get better. There are certain guys that it does not play to their strengths. It’s almost like the two-strike approach to hitting. You have to have one, but if we're making everyone’s approach the same, we are doing half our lineup a disservice. That's not going to work. One message won't work for everyone. Each of them will have some flexibility within that.
   
• To be honest, talking to the player we just landed, I can't tell you right now, “Hey, this is exactly how we're going to fix you”. I told him that on his visit. I said, “Hey, this is what I see now, but if I'm trying to fix you from 30 minutes of film, I’m guessing. Let’s get in here and get to work.” There’s some fundamentals we can start with that work for everyone, but as we work more together it will be like, “Hey, you have to make this play this way and another other play that way.” It’s not going to be the same for each guy.
   
• The turf plays like the ball stays down. The fundamentals of playing below the ball and catching below the ball still play on turf. Obviously, you’ll get more forgiving hops, but there will be times we play the turf, and you can play the ball high. The cool part was that because we got to play on turf every day at Dallas Baptist means our fundamentals should be perfect. The object of the coaching staff is to make that stuff as hard as possible. The good thing about being on dirt is you don’t have to worry about that part as much because the dirt will do it for you. You still have to be fundamentally sound and understand that we don’t catch the ball when it gets to us. We catch it when we want to. Just some principles there that will hopefully make guys more consistent.
   
• Funny thing is that the way this job works is that I don’t think we’ve blinked on that side yet. Obviously, I'm super excited, and hearing you say that I get to wear Maroon & White again gets me chills. The thing is, Earley says you’re in, and it’s like, “Where do I go? What are we trying to do?” You don’t really have time, but it will probably fully sink in that first week we have players on campus when we start to game plan for the fall. I haven't really gotten there yet, but just hearing you say that gave me chills just thinking about it.