"Teaching The Game Of Baseball
The Right Way"
Steve Burleson: Head Coach for KCKCC Baseball
Playing baseball for Steve Burleson won't guarantee making it to the major leagues as it did for his best known products, David Segui and Kevin Young.
But as both Segui and Young will attest, it will guarantee learning baseball from the ground up.
Coach at Kansas City Kansas Community College, Burleson in his fourth decade as head baseball, 31st season which starts September 1, 2007.
"He instills in you how to play the game and what it takes to be successful," says Young, 30, a six-year major league veteran who is in the first year of a four-year, $24 million contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
"He teaches you the right way to play the game and to play hard," agrees Segui, 33, a first baseman with the Toronto Blue Jays who will earn $4.5 million in his ninth major league campaign.
"But you learn more lessons that are not baseball related than baseball related," adds Segui. "He believes in living right, in having respect for your parents and families and doing the right things. Whenever I come by anymore, we don't even talk baseball. It's usually how I'm doing and things like that." Burleson is the first to tell you that Segui and Young are in the major leagues because of their desire, determination and ability and not because they played in his Blue Devil program.
"Both of them had the ability to see things in themselves that scouts and coaches couldn't see," says Burleson. "That's what motivated them. It was from within. And both of them have mothers who are very, very involved in the development of their sons, perhaps the key figures in each case.
"David is the classic example of you can have anything you want but you can't have everything you want and the one thing he wanted was to play baseball in the big leagues. The personal sacrifices he made to that are vast. "Kevin's challenge was to eliminate the low spots in his game. In his youth, he could be the best hitter and the worst hitter; he could make a brilliant play and boot the ball right at him, By the time he got to us, he was already ironing those things out.
"Kevin has such incredible hand-eye coordination while Dave would have found his way to get to the big leagues even if he had gone to a community college that didn't have baseball."
Young and Segui, however, will tell you Burleson's influence on them was huge.
Young, in fact, wasn't even recruited after playing high school baseball under Rich Pieper at Washington. "No one else wanted me so I just walked on," he says. "I didn't get a scholarship until I was a sophomore."
And he almost didn't play at all. "He (Burleson) almost cut me during the winter break," Young remembers. "It was kind of one of those challenge things. I was suspended indefinitely until I decided I wanted to play the game or not. I was in tears when he told me I was suspended.
"He knew how to get a point across and when a strong hand was needed. It was a gut check and he allowed me to make my decision."
A late bloomer who grew three inches between high school and his freshman year, Young responded by hitting a torrid .441 after stepping in as the starting first baseman when sophomore Chris Sisler blew out a knee in the final pre-season game. As a sophomore, Young recorded the highest average in the Jayhawk by hitting .477.
"The best thing about him is that he's able to adjust to the individual player, which is one of the best qualities in being a successful coach or manager," says Young. "He knew I was a different type person and when I needed a kick in the rear or when we needed to sit down and talk. He made a big difference in what he got out of me as a player."
Segui, who was a high school standout at Bishop Ward, had the advantage of a father (Diego) who pitched in the major leagues for many years and a solid Little League coach in the late Jerry Yoachum.
"Jerry was an excellent coach and I learned the fundamentals and right way to play the game but when I got to KCKCC, it was a different world," says Segui. "It was an awakening. Because we were so much alike in the way we motivated and pushed ourselves, we butted heads a little until I harnessed my emotions a little in my sophomore year and learned how it is.
"My father installed the work ethic in me but Coach Burleson was the first coach who demanded as much of me as I demanded of myself. I had never played for anyone who pushed me as hard as I had pushed myself and he challenged me to prove him wrong.
"When I went there, we had guys quit who couldn't hack it, it was too hard. There was a certain level that it took and you had to do it right or get out. You get guys who were always the best on their team and were accustomed to preferential treatment. Coach Burleson always treated each player the same, which is something I always respected."
Like Young, Segui learned one lesson the hard way. "One day I threw my bat and after the game he took me over and had me throw my bat up a hill and then sprint up and get it," Segui remembers vividly. "I did that for about an hour and I was not going to let him know I was dying although I'm sure he knew I was."
Segui led KCKCC to back-to-back Jayhawk East and Region VI championships in 1985 and 1986. As a freshman, Segui hit .421 while clubbing a record 20 home runs and driving in more than 80 runs in a 53-10 season that was KCKCC's best ever and followed it up with a .454 average and 23 homers in 42-13 campaign. He earned All-Region VI and All-Central District honors both seasons.
Segui enrolled at KCKCC because of Burleson. "My primary goal was to play in a junior college so I could get into a pro career," says Segui. "My brother, Diego, was playing there and I met Coach Burleson and saw how he approached the game and ran his program and really liked it."
He got an even greater appreciation for the Blue Devil program when he transferred to Louisiana Tech after his sophomore year.
"All we did there was throw balls and hit, there was no organization," says Segui. "After practice, I would do extra work or run because I never felt satisfied I had done enough. You'd drop on the floor after Burleson's workouts."
That work ethic continues today. A typical off-season day includes an hour each on the exercise bike and treadmill, an hour of lifting weights and extensive work in the batting cage.
"There are days I'd love to go to the lake and go fishing but you can't," he says. "It's discipline. That's all it is. I was lucky my father instilled that in me. No one has ever had to push me. If you get in the pro ranks and you require being pushed from the outside, you're probably doomed."
Segui believes Burleson would be equally successful at the professional level. "He could jump right in," says Segui. "He'd really be good in the lower levels of the minor leagues where guys don't know how to play the game right and don't learn because all the coaches are worried about getting to the major leagues."
Coaching or managing at the professional level, however, was never a priority. Raising a son, Jordan, was.
Despite his accomplishments, Burleson has also stayed out of the spotlight. Approached recently about submitting his accomplishments for nomination to the Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame, Burleson passed. "That's just not me," he says.
His credentials, however, are Hall of Fame quality. In addition to 609 wins, he coached the North team to the gold medal in the National Olympic Festival in North Carolina in 1987; coached a U.S. All-Star Junior College team that played in The Tournament of the Americas in Cuba in 1991; was the first president of the Jayhawk Coaches Association; and served on Hall of Fame and International Competition committees for the NJCAA Baseball Coaches Assn. He's also involved annually with the Mickey Owens Baseball School and coaches Kansas City's representative each year in the Senior Men's Baseball League national tournament.
Perhaps the ultimate respect, however, comes from Kevin Young. "He definitely had a big influence on me," he says. "He made me want to coach in a junior college when I get done playing."