It took about 24 hours, but after Jeremy Sheetinger’s Georgia Gwinnett program won the 2021 NAIA national championship, reality finally set in for the second-year coach.
“Holy smokes. We did it!” Sheetinger said. “This is awesome.”
The euphoria lasted about a day.
“It’s exciting and everything you think it is. Then, the next day you wake up and go, ‘What’s next?’” he said.
“I needed to make sure alumni knew this was built on their backs. I needed to make sure the recruiting class knew this was a checked box. Then, it’s, ‘Boys, we’ve got to get back to work because it’s going to be incredibly tough to get back here.’”
Jeremy Sheetinger earned the national Skip Bertman Coach of the Year award in 2021 after leading Georgia Gwinnett to a national championship. (Photo: Georgia Gwinnett College)
Sheetinger is now in his seventh year at the school about 30 miles east of Atlanta. He’s won more than 80 percent of his games, been to the NAIA World Series five times and has been named the Skip Bertman National Coach of the Year.
Best of 7 spoke to him spoke to him about assessing character in recruits, cultivating maturity in players, and resisting complacency as a coach.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Best of 7: Coach, when you took over at Georgia Gwinnett, what did you want to establish right away?
One of the unique dynamics of our program is we’re getting guys who have probably been at a school, or a couple of schools, before they land at our place. Those guys are sort of listening to a narrative and story that’s been written by other people — previous coaches, or parents, or circumstances.
I wanted this to be a place where they could grab the pen and start writing their own story. You get to choose what kind of life you want to live. If you want to put immature decisions behind you, you can do that here. If you want to be challenged as a man to grow up, you can do that here. If you want to turn on a dime and go in this direction and start walking a path, you can do that here.
The process I trust is if you’re building better people, you’re building better baseball players. I can’t sacrifice the baseball lessons if we’re not building men. I think our guys heard, early on, “Hey, these conversations in the classroom don’t sound like turning double plays. They sound like maturity, self-awareness, responsibility, accountability.”
Several good thoughts. How do you assess character in recruits when you may only have a few hours with them?
You can’t, and you really can’t when the majority of our recruiting is done over the phone and through videos. But one piece of it is you have to, as the evaluator, be incredibly emotionally intelligent. You have to be so in tuned with people that you can read body language, tone and word choice. I think that skill gets lost because, sometimes, the other side isn’t really listening. They’re just waiting to respond.
I also try to be diligent about recommendations and references. If we get a junior college kid, we’re certainly talking to his coach, but I’m finding out who his high school coach was and who his summer ball coaches were and talking to other coaches in the league. We spend a lot more time on that than maybe even talking to the kid.
You touched on it a bit before, but how do you mold character?
I think as the leader and curator, you better be incredibly intentional about everything that you say and everything that you do. I don’t leave anything to chance. We sincerely teach everything.
We teach how you enter our classroom. We teach how you walk through the hallways. We teach how you stop in offices of other coaches and say hello. It’s how we walk up and down the steps, leave the locker room. At 1:24 p.m., we’re ready to rock because we start at 1:25, so there isn’t a guy sprinting down the hallways busting open the door. When we clap and get into our message, there’s no more talking. It’s complete focus and attention.
In many cases, you only have players for one season. How do you rapidly build culture and get buy-in?
We turn over our roster every year. It’s kind of like starting over. I have to go back to the letter “A” and culturally teach why we do what we do from minute one. You have to be intentional, persistent with it and unwavering. I’m not coming off of who we are, what we do, and where this thing is going. When the players and coaching staff see care level, it reverts back to there’s a higher standard inside of that. You see dots get connected, that there’s a reason we do this.
The vision I had is we’re going to have elite, uncommon standards. Not every guy can play here. Not every coach can coach here. It’s a tough place until you raise your expectations and standards. As the leader, it’s one thing to talk about it, but if your players see you’re willing to take shortcuts or circumvent something, you’ll deteriorate. If we talk about being certain places at certain times, I’m not walking in late. When I talk about a high standard of consistency, I want to be the most consistent person in the program.
I think coaches talk about high standards and cultural aspects, but sometimes, they miss the mark and don’t carry through. If the leader’s actions don’t match up, that cultural component won’t live.
You win that national championship and have been back to the World Series several times since. How did you resist complacency and avoid a drop off?
The vision of our program was to put ourselves in a position to always have the opportunity to win the last game. Being at the World Series gives us that opportunity. At that point, it’s about winning a 10-team tournament.
But high standards are a driving force. It’s at the forefront of my mind. That’s what drew me here, that’s what wakes me up, that’s what fills me up, that’s what I think brings out the best. It’s getting guys to reach for the very, very top rung of the ladder. There’s attitudes that come with that, habits that come with that, daily routines that come with that.
I would imagine given your success, you get asked frequently about when you might make a jump to a higher level. How do you manage outsiders’ perceptions and expectations for your own career?
This is my 22nd year, and I’ve been on every level except for junior college. I know what Division I looks like and DII and DIII and now NAIA. To your point, people perceive that in coaching, we’re all on this journey up the ladder. In their heads, it’s high school, then college, then Division I, then pros.
And it’s like, I don’t have to go on that journey. If you want real fulfillment in life, figure out what truly checks the boxes and motivates you and fills up your fulfillment box every day. There’s a blank spot after blank spot that Georgia Gwinnet College answers for me.
Also, If you play us, you’ll see I think we have a Division I-caliber team. We just play NAIA baseball. I think when they watch us, see us on social media, see how good our players are, the people who really know start to figure it out.
I also try to find the opportunities to educate. A lot of people have perceptions, but sometimes when you’re on the ground floor, you can use the misinformation and say, “Let me kind of explain it to you.” We have really good players. I never miss an opportunity to do that.
What’s the toughest decision you’ve had to make as a coach and how did you get through it?
Sometimes, you have to let good kids go. They have maybe hit the wall talent wise. You always try to do right by people. You don’t always make decisions that are positively benefiting just you or even just the program. You have to make decisions that benefit the people you care about. Sometimes, I’m looking at a really good kid who’s just up against it talent wise.
It's sitting down with those kids and being comfortable having uncomfortable conversations. I’ve gotten used to it, but it’s never easy. It’s that night before rumble in my belly. As tough as it is to say the words, and it is, if you know the spirit it’s coming from, you’re there for the right reasons.
That’s probably the toughest part of the job. It’s not making game decisions. It’s trying to always think of the 35 guys and make decisions that are right for each of them. That’s not easy.
What I learned…
Continuity in sports is largely associated with having the same roster from one year to the next. But Coach Sheetinger opened my eyes to the fact that it really stretches beyond just having familiar faces in the locker room or clubhouse.
Within his Georgia Gwinnett program, continuity consists of the habits he instills and the larger standard he refuses to bend.
“I have to go back to the letter ‘A’ and culturally teach why we do what we do from minute one. You have to be intentional, persistent with it and unwavering,” he said.
Ultimately, it falls on the coach and leader to re-establish his/her expectations and cultural norms each year and be the one constant in the larger organization.