A day in the life of a coach: Aaron Meade

By: Cody Vannoy

Sports Editor

Even though the 2022 Tarleton State University baseball season will not start until February of next year, Head Baseball Coach Aaron Meade constantly stays busy. Most mornings are filled with meetings that could include administrators, academic advisors, staff or anyone from the athletic department. After that is taken care of, Meade will create a practice plan for the day. Currently, the baseball team is doing skill instructions for practice.

“Skill instruction gets to be a little more hectic cause it changes from day to day,” Meade said. “You have different groups come in at different times.”

Due to NCAA regulations, Division I (DI) baseball programs are only allowed 45 days of full team practice. Within those 45 days, teams are allowed to practice 20 hours per week; however, the head coach decides when they start team practices. Most program’s individual practices typically last three to four weeks and are the first weeks of school in the fall. During this period, student-athletes can only be doing baseball activities for eight hours per week and are required to have at least two off-days.

 Meade explained how his job is different during these two different periods.

“You have to get all your administrative work and everything else done in the office around your skill instruction time,” Meade said. “Things seem to flow a little bit easier when we get to team practice.”

When it comes to recruiting, that is a never-ending cycle except for Oct. 11 through March 1, which is a recruiting dead period mandated by the NCAA. DI coaches are not allowed to go out and recruit players, but they can have players contact them and have them on campus. In reality, the Tarleton baseball program is always on the search for their future Texans.

“Recruiting doesn’t ever stop,” Meade explained. “Doesn’t matter if it’s COVID or what’s going on from the fall to the spring season. Right now, in the fall, probably 25 percent [of our job] is recruiting, 50 percent is baseball and 25 percent is administrative/behind the scenes work.”

Another thing that Meade is always on the look for, is his next opponent. Baseball is one of the NCAA sports that typically schedule their games anywhere from one to four years in advance.  Meade was able to explain why he chooses to do this.

“Some of the bigger non-conference ones you try and get done as earliest as possible to try and get the games you want,” Meade explained. “We are going to Mizzou this year and I’ve had that scheduled well over a year now.”

Meade also elaborated on how he schedules those big non-conference games as well as the ones that are so far in the future.

“A lot of it is word of mouth and having relationships with other coaches,” Meade said. “There are a couple of website or social media pages…that have open dates and teams can go and post on there.”

While the young coach is only in his third year of his first head coaching job, he realizes that there are more important things in life than just being a coach. He and his wife, Katherine, are expecting their first child together in October. Meade explained how his wife is super supportive of his career and how excited he is for his daughter to be out on the field with him.

“I want my daughter to be at the field,” Meade said. “I’m not gonna be afraid to bring her up. I want her to grow up around the field.”

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