Greg Schnute is one of the more interesting figures in club softball and is a lot of fun to talk to about his opinions on the game and the future of softball.

Coach Schnute is like most club coaches in that he has a day job; in his case he’s an owner of Mobile Installation Technologies, which he describes as an installation company that puts laptops in service vehicles like police cars.

“The advantage of being an owner,” he jokes, “is that I can get away with softball being my night job!”

To hear him tell the story, Greg escaped the Indiana winters as a teenager and once he played baseball at Florida State he knew he’d never end up leaving the South.

The father of three daughters and a son, he started coaching softball in Birmingham, Ala. and moved to the Atlanta area in 1991 when slowpitch was still the dominant sport. However, he saw the writing on the wall and knew that the SEC would soon jump into fastpitch and he smartly approached the head of the EC Bullets—which was and is still famous for its baseball arm—and said, “Hey, it’s time to start a softball organization.”

Greg was put in place to run 12U, 14U, 16U and 18U teams and before too long the Atlanta Vipers came along and the Peach State hasn’t looked back since, now ranking as one of the top five states in the nation for the sport (at least in my book!).

I caught up with the colorful coach last week and got his input on some softball topics… you should find this interesting reading from the !

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FullCountSoftball.com: You played baseball at Florida State, what was the biggest adjustment you had to make switching over to coaching softball?
Greg Schnute: It was trying to understand young women, that was the biggest thing! It’s a totally different mindset. You can go out and lose a game 1-0 in baseball and five days later the guys are still talking about it and kicking themselves. In softball, you lose in 10 innings and 15 minutes later they’re all laughing and having fun. The girls get over it much quicker than males do and that’s a good thing because it doesn’t stay with them very long.

FCS.com: There were something like 13 Georgia players in the 2016 Hot 100 list… why do you think the state has become so adept at producing talent?
GS: I think it’s because of the dedication of the players and coachers playing the sport. So many people are into it here; we’re playing high school ball now and will end Halloween weekend, but club teams are still working out on Saturdays practicing. We’ll hit all through winter—and the winter will be terrible weather-wise— and we’ll be inside and then go outside. A lot of people are now keeping the sport going year-round and it’s a big deal here.

FCS.com: High School ball takes place in the fall in Georgia, do you think this helps or hurts players in various ways, such as developing their talents, getting the reps with club ball and getting exposure to college?
GS: It’s great for a couple reasons: one is the players just got done playing club ball at a high level and they’re in peak condition after the summer. They can simply change uniforms and still compete at this level of play. Another key one here is they don’t have to deal with weather and conditioning and the other big issue that takes place down here in the South where the weather is so much better in the fall. In Georgia we don’t get good weather until April or May. I feel it’s a combination of the facts that the kids are in better shape and ready to play and the weather is good through October. A third would be that there aren’t a lot of other sports in the fall; we were worried that football would impact softball but it hasn’t had an impact. Football parents to the football games and softball parents go to their kids’ games.  The high school tournaments are on Fridays and Saturdays in the fall, there are three weekends to play which is allowed by rule and the state champ will play 35 games while most will play 24 or 25 games so the it works well here. I think all states should consider playing high school softball in the fall.

FCS.com: What do you feel is the most pressing issue in club and high school softball today?
GS: The main problem is recruiting and there are many angles to it. If a 14-year-old kid is playing high school ball, driving or flying out of state to take eight trips you have to ask if she will will be tired and burned out? And if she commits, will she stop working? Does she think that since she has this scholarship in her back pocket, “I got this done, I don’t have to travel or work as hard?” Then there is the problem of the girls who mature when juniors and seniors and they are great players, but there aren’t scholarships. Anymore, if by the end of your freshmen year if you’re not committed it’s unusual. There are a lot of issues, not just in softball, either. There is now a lot more intensity in the recruiting process. I know a Top 10 program that has a player who’s committed who can’t play at that level and the school took her because she runs well. So, a year from now do they go up to her and say, “It’s not going to work and we’re going to pull your scholarship, good luck?” It will happen, just watch, it will be just like football where there will be a dozen or more kids who, on the day of signing, will switch schools. If you’re forcing these kids as eighth and ninth graders to have to decide, it will lead to more of this.

FCS.com: How about year-round playing softball… what are your thoughts?
GS: We have a couple kids who play multiple sports, softball in the fall and basketball in the winter, and I say do it. Playing basketball isn’t going to take away your softball skills, it’s going to enhance them. If a kid wants to do that, I’m fine with it. We have them from March 1 to August 2, the end of PGF Nationals, and that’s enough time. I also think there are burnout and injury issues in playing softball all year-round. Take Major League Baseball, the pros when they’re not in the playoffs get away from their sport for one to two months. Everybody needs down time, but when in softball do we have that down time? When do the girls get away from the sport? They answer is, they don’t. You may have Christmas break for two weeks and that’s about it. Yea, in January and February it’s lighter as we hit for three hours on Saturday, but the players are still around the sport and it’s go, go, go. It’s every week. We look to California where there is something going on all the time in developing the kids. Obviously the weather is different and kids can get better instruction and more reps, but what’s happened is there are probably 20 programs nationwide who are getting more and more intense in their player development and everyone copies them. We’re trying to catch them and I recently talked at a parent meeting and said our goal is to win the PGF Nationals and be the first team to win a championship from outside California—that’s our goal. I told the parents, “I want you to think about that all the time. We got to the final four and then we got beat back-to-back. Next year we’re going to win one of those games and move on.” That’s our goal and we won’t deviate. Our mindset is we’re not afraid of anyone and we can beat them.