David Nilsson: Australian baseball legend

Transcript - Gary McCoy with David Nilsson

Gary McCoy: [00:00:12] Today's podcast features an MLB player, an MLB All-Star, an Olympian, a national team coach, an Australian Sports Hall of Fame inductee, an Australian Institute of Sport assessment designer, and an Order of Australia Medal Honouree. No, this isn't a panel. Amazingly, this is one person, David Nilsson. You might remember Dave or Dingo as he is affectionately known as a catcher for the 1990s, Milwaukee Brewers. Crushing baseballs with regularity as one of only a handful of Australians to make it to the top rung of baseball's professional world. His play, earning him a coveted All-Star selection in 1999. What you are about to hear and gain insight to, is a man separated from the pack. You're also about to hear from a unicorn of sorts, a coach who understands the power of data driven physical systems modelling. One like us, super excited to see the unfolding process of the Human Kinesome Project. David leverages critical analysis in all he does. He has an ability to see around corners in both systems and team development while using the same skill set to tactically and strategically manage a rapidly emerging team on the world stage. How do I know this? Well, I'm not only the vice president of performance for Kinetyx, but I'm also David's chief mechanic as head of performance for the Australian men's national team. On the day this recording, David and I were scheduled to be in Pueblo, Mexico, with the Australian baseball team as the top seed for the final Tokyo Olympic qualification tournament. Two weeks prior, however, a decision was made to withdraw from the Tokyo Games due to player health and safety precautions and post event, functionally impossible, transit logistics. This decision to withdraw crushed the final Olympic dreams, for many of Australia's baseball athletes. We discussed the raw feelings of that decision and how a focus on moving forward is the only process now possible for the nation's sport and the multidimensional man at its helm. David, welcome to the Human Kinesome Project podcast.

David Nilsson: [00:02:42] My pleasure, mate. It's good to catch up. Our conversations always go in interesting places, so I'm looking forward to it.

Gary McCoy: [00:02:50] Mate a lot of people don't know that Australia pulled out of an Olympic Games qualification tournament with baseball. And right now, you and I shouldn't be on this podcast, we would more likely be in Mexico having a good dinner somewhere, with a couple of Dos Equis talking about how we're going to approach this tournament.

David Nilsson: [00:03:11] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, mate. I'm not sure about the good dinner, but we'd definitely be there, and we would be in game mode and we'd be preparing the athletes and trying to qualify for that last spot in Olympic Games, you know, we're currently ranked sixth in the world. So we're in a very good position. We would have been the highest ranked team at that tournament. So, far as the rankings go, we probably would be the favourites. I think for people in the world of sport and baseball, it's probably difficult for them to get their head around that. You know, Australia would be ahead of most teams from South America or Latin America. So, I understand that. But, yeah, it's it's been unfortunate. And just Covid's got the best of us.

Gary McCoy: [00:03:48] You had to make the announcement to the team, that we were withdrawing from Olympic qualification. So that crushes guys, some of our older players on our team. Their Olympic dreams get lost at that moment in time. How hard was that for you to deliver that information?

David Nilsson: [00:04:03] Oh, yeah. No, that was incredibly hard. Really the 4-to-6-week period leading up to that conversation was, was it wasn't what I signed up for when, you know, when I want to be national coach. And it definitely is a new experience and, in the background, trying to prepare the players for a world performance, but also knowing out to the side here that there's a real chance we won't be able to attend. You know, we had to work very hard to try and find ways to get to Taiwan. People around the world don't understand homeland security in Australia and all the restrictions we have and the the limited flights to the airlines shutting down and not coming here and, you know, limited people allowed back into the country and everything involved. So, at the same time, I'm trying to get athletes ready, but really seeing, you know, the tsunami of travel happening, and they shut down the Taiwan event, which was going to be difficult for us to get there. And then they they requested us to be in Mexico City, the other side of the world, you know, 2 weeks later, 2 or 3, whatever it was. And it was just a mountain too high for us, you know, logistically, but also risk to, risk to the athletes, which was, you know, the main reason. There's a lot of reasons which on that call you're aware of, but really you just some some insurmountable obstacles.

Gary McCoy: [00:05:23] One of the things I think I was most proud of as you were leading some of the decisions around that move with Glenn Williams, our pretty much brand-new chief executive officer in baseball, he used the term with the media, "it was gut wrenching". And while it was and I was on that call, one of the things that I was proud of was the fact that player health and safety was the lead decision making factor in everything that we did.

Gary McCoy: [00:05:50] On the note of Olympics, you made a decision, kind of at the peak of your playing career to leave Major League Baseball and go to an Olympic Games representing Australia mate unpack that decision for me. The difficulty of that or the ease of that decision, how tough was that one?

David Nilsson: [00:06:14] Yeah, look, I don't have enough time to really unpack it all. I'll try to keep to the to the main point after the after 1999 MLB season, I was a free agent. And, you know, years before Australia, Sydney had been announced as the home for the Olympics and baseball was in the Olympics. And so so I think at the time that was just I was an easy discussion point during the '99 season I made the All-Star game and I remember leading up to that just a lot of press. And again, we didn't have social media back then. It was it was press. So really if something was in the paper, it was really strong, there was no way to retort at all to have a different side to it. So, whatever was said on the TV or was in the papers, it was one way traffic as far as getting people to think. I was copping a lot of flak leading up to the All-Star Game. You know, there was a there was a cover story with me on Sports Illustrated and a big part of the story was "would I? Or wouldn't I?". And I can honestly say it wasn't my story. But I remember, you know, managers from other teams being vocal in the paper. "How could he do this?" "How can he do that?" And and I remember just answering questions and just really, you know, I kind of liken it to being in the eye of the storm.

David Nilsson: [00:07:29] It was very calm for me. I mean, there was there was just a very calm it wasn't an issue. But around me, there was just chaos everywhere.

Gary McCoy: [00:07:37] Yeah.

David Nilsson: [00:07:38] It was kind of, you know, it sort of took a life to its own and even even through the All-Star game, that that was unfortunately a bit of a focal point. You know a lot of questions, "how could you do this?" And really, you know, you know, maybe I'm slightly introverted, so, you know, I don't feel the need to defend defend myself all the time. So probably in a world with no social media and being the way I am, I just, you know, I just really didn't respond to my stuff. And and so I took a pretty big took a pretty big life of its own. You know, then we rolled through, we played an international event late '99, after the season, won a gold medal. That was exciting. And then through the free agent process of going back to Major League Baseball, which I was 100 percent, 100 percent tracking towards.

Gary McCoy: [00:08:21] Yeah.

David Nilsson: [00:08:21] Through the off season, it had become it became very clear to me that that through all the media, a lot of organizations had doubt about my commitment, had doubt about, you know, would we do this? And it really wasn't my story. So as that off-season went on, out of left field, so to speak, is an offer from Japan, that came about. And at the previous 2000 Olympics, Japan were disappointed they had... I don't think they had performed how they wanted to. And so, they had determined to send some major leaguers, maybe not their best ones. And now we're going to allow athletes to take time off for the Olympics. So they reached out to me and just a bit of a perfect storm happened. And it allowed me to continue to play professionally, allowed me to play in a different part of the world, which is which was a learning experience, which has really been foundational to the where this conversation is going to go today. And yeah, but also but also allowed me to to represent my country in a home Olympics. And, you know, growing up in Australia, it's very difficult for people to understand what that means and and what it means to be Olympian. You know, you kind of compare and I dunno if it's a good comparison, but it's like it's like a baseball player when he's older saying, "yeah, I played the World Series," you know, that's kind of the the the relevance of it. And to be an Olympian was really important to get my family, allowed my family to see me play there. So it lined up really quickly. And that was, you know, regardless of what was said in the media and how it was portrayed, that was went down. So once once I made that decision, I just went full steam ahead.

Gary McCoy: [00:10:01] One of the things you and I touched on early in one of our meetings was, I'd move to the US and learnt the business of sports and elite sports performance here in North America and learnt that through working with 21 NFL teams, 17 NBA teams, multiple major league teams, having spent seven years as the strength and conditioning coach in two organizations. One of the things that I always, in contrast, would compare back to Australia, I'd say, "one of the things that really irritates me is our almost, a fan-based approach to mediocrity." And I remember saying to you and talking about Australia's silver medal win in an Olympic Games, that moment of like, OK, celebrating silver versus knowing you lost gold. And it was that knowing you lost gold, where that pain was emanating from in that gold medal loss, I think was to Cuba. Correct. That gold medal loss, does that still permeate with you today? Are you still on that? Do you still have that mindset today or, you know, with the past few years of being the national team coach, has that waned any or is that still the thing that keeps you up at night?

David Nilsson: [00:11:12] No, no, it doesn't. It hasn't waned any. I think I just now have a vehicle where I can probably get some of the emotion out of a little bit. I have athletes I can work with and talk through and sort of recalibrate their thought processes around where we should finish and how we should perform and and what we're capable of. So that was a unique experience in my life, especially playing in the major leagues for as long as I did, where every day is about win, win, win, everything you do is win, win, win. And then I'm in this event, which I truly appreciate, you know, I mean, it was it was remarkable. And 25 minutes after the game, we'd just lost, one side of my brain. I knew I had to be really happy. I just won silver medal and I knew this is really unique. This is going to stick with me. But on the other side, the side that I've been trained in for so long was it was demoralizing. And I remember looking around the locker room and I wasn't, you know, in probably the best frame of mind and seeing the utter joy in the celebrations going on and then knocking on the door. And some one saying you guys need to get changed for the ceremony to get your medals. And it was, so I had to make this conscious decision that I'm not going to be the Grinch. I just need a smile and wear it. And, you know, and, you know once all at all the ceremony started. It was really easy to easy to understand what we'd achieved. But in that initial moment, yeah, it was really, really challenging.  And I think that’s helped me and it's worked for me.

Gary McCoy: [00:12:42] What people don't know about Australia, there was a point in time people would ask me, you know, what are the you know, when I was in the US, one of the biggest exports you've ever had is Australia, when people didn't understand what Australia was. And I'd go, "OK, there's two crocodile fellows. There's Crocodile Dundee, there's the Crocodile Hunter, there's two brilliant bands, ACDC and INXS, the next one on my list was David Nilsson. We've got an All-Star that's played in Major League Baseball. So, it was wonderful for me even when we won that silver medal or lost the gold, depending on the optics. But to watch that from afar, I mean, that was important. And it's been something like you mentioned, we are ranked sixth in the world in this sport with no resources and no player talent to really pull from. All our all our athletes go into these other sports, like Australian rules football, rugby to cricket, which is the big bat and ball sport there. How difficult has that been? In terms of player identification for a national team? You don't have a lot to choose from and you've got to get the best you can out of a very small pool and compete internationally. How hard is that?

David Nilsson: [00:13:52] You know, I like to look at it as it's a real strength of ours for the Premier12, or even for the Olympic qualifier I really only had about 60, if I'm to be extremely generous, 70 players to choose from. That's that are capable of at that level. So, I'm talking good single-A players, you know, double-A or triple-A. You know, we don't have many, if any ex-big leaguers. So you compare that to other nations we're up against who have tens of thousands of athletes to choose from. But what I've identified and what I what I really think is the case, Australia has good athletes, that's never been questioned in in all sports. We excel. Our government has an institute of sport. We're a sporting nation and we're basically raised to be good at sport. So, the athletes that we have in the game are good athletes and they're committed to it. But I think the one strength we have is with that really small playing group, we actually get to build a team, we get to build a process. We get to build an environment where, you know, and I use I use the Premier12 and other events I've been in is, is we weren't we were a group of athletes coming together for the first time trying to figure each other out.

David Nilsson: [00:15:07] I'd probably coach some of these guys 10 or 15 years ago. And this group had been playing against each other for anywhere from five to 10, some of them 20 years. So, us coming together and learning to be a team and being on the same page, that's just natural. That's one of our strengths. And that's one thing that that I think we tap into. And I've I've really tried to tap into so. And on the other hand, you have the other other big nations, you take Team USA, and it's taken them a while to really, you look at the WBC, the Major League Baseball took them four goes around 16 years to try to figure out how to build a team. And and Jim Leyland come in. And he didn't he just picked the right guys that he thought were good for the team. And I think I think that's our strength, is that we have the athletes for a long journey and, you know, have a chance coming on the world stage is difficult. And with our athletes, we have experience. We get to build up that database of of experience and information on what that's like. So that's our strength.

Gary McCoy: [00:16:09] No doubt, and the journey through Premier12 was amazing. And to be a part of that with you and the rest of the coaching staff, there were two moments that happened in our first round competition in Korea that I remember that were, not polarizing, but talk about different ends of the spectrum. We had a loss to Cuba. And we had a team meeting. And also, the first time I think I might have seen you toss a chair or toss some expletives out at the discussion and you could have heard a pin drop, and then 24 hours later, we beat Canada to go through to the second round. And I'll never forget that meeting, which was, we all had tears in our eyes because it was that moment where the men's Australian senior team had levelled up. Take me through that 24 hours. Was there much sleep?

David Nilsson: [00:17:05] Yeah, look, I always sleep pretty well away from the field, but, you know, it weighed on me. It really weighed on me and it wasn't it wasn't planned. That meeting after we lost it, it definitely wasn't planned. I, I went into the player's locker room with the intent to encourage them.

Gary McCoy: [00:17:25] Right.

David Nilsson: [00:17:26] And with the intent to point out a few attitudes that I'd heard earlier in the day that I thought weren't conducive to a successful team. And I think for those that know me and have been around me for an extended period of time, realize I'm pretty level keel guy regardless of what people think. But when I blow, I kind of blow. And when I go, I go. And and I popped the cork. And I felt it was necessary to reset the environment that we had been knocking on the door for a long time. And I just think to to have success on the world stage, you need to have everything working. Every part of the fabric of the team needs to be trying to achieve the same thing. And we just we had to play the next day to to, you know, stay alive. And and it was really risky, you know, and and we talk about Glen Williams, the CEO at the time. He was a general manager who'd been the general manager of Team Australia. And we rode in the car together after the game and we got back the hotel and I asked him to stay back. And I just said, Glenn, I need you to support me here.

David Nilsson: [00:18:42] And I just shared with him, "I had to do that. I had to reset the, you know, the temperature in the room," and he was totally supportive and that really give me strength and but also at the time I knew that as a new coach, that could have been, that could have gone either way. If we can win the next day, and if we didn't qualify. I mean, that could have been my job right there.

Gary McCoy: [00:19:04] Right.

David Nilsson: [00:19:05] Could have been. You could have you could have had a lot of people saying a lot of different things about my leadership. Just cause of that one moment, but as as it worked out. It was a good moment.

Gary McCoy: [00:19:17] yeah.

David Nilsson: [00:19:18] and it propelled us, and we moved forward and we had the big victory the next day against Canada, which put us into the top six, the second round of the tournament. And as you mentioned, the meeting after that was was radically different, to say the least. You know, after we won, there was a lot of emotion and a lot of tears, which which was just out of the blue. A lot of built-up energy over a long period time for a lot of different people and a lot of reward for athletes who for decades had been on the team and could never get to that second round or could never get that big victory. So the second meeting was more just about, you know, congratulating them and just enjoying your time and moving forward.

Gary McCoy: [00:20:04] It was transformative in many ways because at the coalface and you know, my role with them in prep, in recovery, and so I get the I get the offshoots of that in the recovery session. I get the next day coming in and getting those athletes ready to go. I can tell you it was a significant difference preparing for Team Canada and the energy that was in that dugout for Team Canada. And that kind of carried on to our second round and one of the. One of the most amazing moments for Australian baseball was to beat Team USA on this national stage, and it was a moment that as a dual citizen and being able to move around US baseball and MLB and and in around friends I have that with Team USA. You gave me bragging rights here for a good, the last 18 months I've had those bragging rights.

Gary McCoy: [00:20:56] All of a sudden, we were leading the sports section news on various newspapers in various states. So that was a moment that sudden the media's picking up on us. One of the best moments for me. And I don't want to sound arrogant, so I won't say who this conversation was with, but I ran into one of the members of Team USA and he's like very congratulatory, "God, you guys did so well against us today, but nothing for nothing. We didn't have any data on your athletes." And I turned around right away and said, "well, you talking about data like hitting charts and spray charts on the hitters, a pitching chart." "Yeah, we didn't," he goes, "it was probably our fault because we had a quick turnaround. We had the day game after the night game. But we should have been better at that." I said, "well, let me tell you something. So you probably had data on our second baseman and our centre fielder." Who were both for our listeners they were both in professional baseball in the United States, both playing A-ball. But they didn't have any data on any of the other players in that turnaround said, "yeah," I said, "I think he's an assistant like a replacement schoolteacher, is the pitcher threw against you today." I said, "the guy at third base who made some phenomenal plays, he's a street sweeper, I said our right fielder is a fireman." I said, "our guys that work up the middle, I think they work, one works for a towing company, the other one works in a warehouse."

Gary McCoy: [00:22:15] I said, "what data were you looking for?" And their faces just dropped, and they were like, "hang on a minute. We got nearly three hundred million dollars’ worth of contracts over there. And you're telling me that's what beat us?" And I just use that team, I said "yeah guys, nothing for nothing. I know with my history in sports, that a champion team will always beat a team of champions." And I said, "you know when". We just were coming together at that right point for a salient moment behind a game-ready pitcher in Tim Atherton that I'd never seen before. And I've still got film on my phone when I was out in the outfield with Jim Bennett, he's out throwing flat ground. I said, it's going to be a special day. We've done a lot of work preliminarily, and his eyes were just spinning. He had one of those moments. I just looked at Jim and said, it's going to be a special day. So, I remember that and remember it well, it certainly you know is something that I don't know, as an Australian, incredibly proud of that moment. And again. When we're missing opportunities like that with going into this with this Olympic tournament that’s kind of the sting and the contrast.

David Nilsson: [00:23:24] The strength that we have is why we only have, you know, one percent of maybe what other nations have to choose from. We get to have a journey. That had started as a group at the Australian Institute of Sport, you know, 12, 18 months earlier. So, that environment you're talking about is something that we can build and I can maintain as long as we get we get to get together constantly. It's been, you know, the breakdown of Covid has been the most challenging thing is that we built that environment. We built we built the team. We had the victory. You know, we had some success. We created some real direction. And then not to be able to 2 months later go to the Olympic qualifier and then eventually shut down for 12 or 16 months. And, you know, so so it's almost like from that experience, we've got to start from scratch again. We need to get a group in. You know, there was a lot of older guys in that group that put going to turn over. So. Yeah, but it really allows that that team honesty, I think is what it is.

Gary McCoy: [00:24:36] When we made the decision, I touched base with you. I just want to see how you're doing on that decision to withdraw from the Olympic qualifiers and, "Mate, I'm fine working on the next three years." And I knew that I knew that's what you were doing, just looking ahead and moving forward. But you bring us into a beautiful segue, into the Australian Institute of Sport. When you and I were setting that up in terms of, OK what are we going to do when we're a camp-based team in this facility, which we've got access to biomechanics labs, we've got access to all these different things. One of the things that stood out to me, is you turned around and looked at me and said, "Gary, I think baseball assessment is incorrect." You said to me, "I'm not sure how teams are still running" something." I was always arguing, "a 60-yard sprint for analysis on how that athlete will perform running home to second, or home to first," you know, everyone was trying to correlate against really weird stuff that it had a long history in baseball as a sport. And I remember sitting down with you and you said, "I want to change that." And without speaking to the proprietary nature of assessment in terms of what we did, which I think if Major League Baseball teams perform the same assessments we were performing, they would delineate athletes at a much different level. They would be able to see things totally differently. You had a very unique optic on that. Where did that come from?

David Nilsson: [00:26:12] Yeah, I think it was a long journey. Obviously I played in the major leagues. I grew up in Australia, so I wasn't bound in any way by the American way to do things, the ajor league way to do do things in baseball. I went over there and it's a wonderful experience being over there for for the 15, 20 years of my life. And then at the back end, which I mentioned earlier, I got to go to Japan.

Gary McCoy: [00:26:31] Yeah.

David Nilsson: [00:26:32] And I got to see I got to see smaller bodies with different work ethic still performing. And over the course of season, they would that would fade out. But I really, really admired the ability of the Japanese and the Asian players, given that they weren't these big strong athletes. And I always thought that there's no reason why, if the Japanese can be there, and we're better athletes than them in Australia, we should be better than them. And so, a few things stood out to me there about the the way they focused on. And some of it was just, you know, a military background. Some of it was just the way they viewed the sport. And I really I really enjoyed it. So, I sort of sort of had all mishmash together. And when I finished playing and started coaching coaching in Australia, I really had the freedom to to go on a different journey and really had the freedom to look at my frustrations of when I played. Obviously, I had a bit of success playing and really had had some good skill sets. And I looked at my how I grew up in Australia and how I developed them.

David Nilsson: [00:27:43] And they were, you know, totally different from a North American or Latin American baseball player. You know, I grew up with just different background, limited, limited at bats, limited game time, limited this what then I looked at Australia and I never questioned the athletes, and I never questioned our ability to perform on the world stage. I never, I never questioned our ability to win on the world stage. It's just it's just we have that ability. And then you look at tournament play, which is a different beast. It's you're playing a Friday night game, you know, Chiba, which is a suburb of a Tokyo, you're an hour and half from the hotel, you get back to 1:00 in the morning. But then you have a 12 o'clock game the next day against Mexico, followed by an afternoon game against, you know, Chinese Taipei, the challenges in an international tournament like a WBC or Premier12 or Olympics. The obstacles are different from professional baseball. You have the athletes, but it's a different journey. So, I wanted to make sure that that I prepared the athletes for that tournament. And to do that, I had to be very clear on what I was trying to identify. You can't just say we're going to be best in the world and give them nothing to to shoot for. You have to give on a clear pathway on how to develop on their performance. And you need to be able to use really objective, baselines, objective data, to give them feedback and also to give a sports scientist something to work with. And so I looked at all the key points that go into a tournament.

David Nilsson: [00:29:11] And that was that was where we come up with the players for Australia have the absolute ability to perform at a major league level. That there's no doubt about that. I don't know if they can do it for eight months, a year.

Gary McCoy: [00:29:21] Right.

David Nilsson: [00:29:22] That's that's a different they can do it for three weeks.

Gary McCoy: [00:29:24] Absolutely. Right.

David Nilsson: [00:29:25] And probably show that. So but and that's a  whole different conversation. That's a whole different challenge in itself. Why can't they do it? Fragments. And that's a different conversation. But so we went down to AIS and I mapped out the different testings and a different baseline using objective data, using the technology. And again, the clear focus. One was, was educating the players, giving them clear times, I want them to work, which were clear times that the opposition performed to. And then having them perform that drill, should I say, trying to perform that drill, consistently at that time and a couple of things happen is they showed they were capable, but just not consistently.

Gary McCoy: [00:30:10] Right.

David Nilsson: [00:30:10] They were very inconsistent at that speed. And physically, they pulled up very sore. Again, when you played professional baseball, that means you got to play every day. So, it exposed a level of conditioning that they didn't have. And it showed a practice that they didn't do on a daily basis and that just said sets everyone on a different journey. As a sports scientist that sent you on a completely different journey and set them on a completely different journey.

Gary McCoy: [00:30:35] Totally different.

David Nilsson: [00:30:36] And so that's what the intent of the AIS was.

Gary McCoy: [00:30:38] No, it was brilliant. And it navigated for me a process. And I said, OK, you know, given the data that we have, which you bring up a really good point here in terms of coupling data to movement skills for an athlete. Right. So I've always looked at this and said at the very top. Or I'll go from the bottom. It's the emotional construct of the athlete then, is it cognitive abilities of the athlete. Then it's the physical systems with the athlete. Then its technical skill set and then it's the strategy. And you're involved up here at the strategy, but at that level, you have to come down into the technical side of the equation to evaluate the athletes, to see if they can do what we need them to do strategically, technically every day in tournament. With that, I mean, it brings up a good discussion to one we had in Brisbane at lunch. I forget that Cafe we were at to. That's one of my things on this podcast. People are going to think all this guy does is eat because we went to a great cafe somewhere,

David Nilsson: [00:31:43] The Good Egg, The Good Egg Cafe James Street Market.

Gary McCoy: [00:31:48] Yep. And we had lunch there and I wasn't working for Brisbane then, it was actually the season before when I was coming over and that's when you exposed me to this, this concept of launch angle. And I was like, yeah, everyone's talking about launch angle right now in Major League Baseball and its importance in in scoring runs. And I'm looking at your presentation. I'm going. David, what version of PowerPoint did you use with this? "Yeah, whatever we had back in 2010," well, that was 2019, I think 17, 18. And the world was just starting to talk launch angle. You were that far ahead in that discussion. The data from launch angle, how did you originally see that, was it relative to just simple run production? Was it an aggregate kind of purview that said those athletes with the better launch angle are the longer sustainable athletes in Major League Baseball, or was it your own playing experience? Because we've talked about this before about how you would position yourself when you moved to the outfield, how you would position yourself in the outfield relative to a specific hitter, that three dimensional, now data driven purview on movement. Where did that come from?

David Nilsson: [00:33:10] Yeah, I think just a different experience growing up. Obviously, I didn't launch angle back then, that I use different terminology, you know, the trajectory of the ball of the bat, the phrase I used. And I still have the presentation.

Gary McCoy: [00:33:25] More scientific.

David Nilsson: [00:33:26] And I think it was just a long journey I had. So, I mapped it all out and and I was encouraged to do a presentation. And as I started as I started getting into the coaching realm, it was very clear I didn't fit in. It was very clear I had playing experience. And as I tried to teach in a way that actually made sense, it was very clear I didn't fit in. And there's a lot of there's a lot of resistance. So after trying to teach, OK, I'm going to go away and I was encouraged to it by another coach "hey, go to a presentation and show them what you're talking about." And I did that and had a lot of success. But the barriers were too big. The barriers were too big. I was you know, the presentation was about tee-work, which tee's weren't big at the time? It was about basically learning to walk before you can run and all the different, you know, the different parts of the swing.

David Nilsson: [00:34:22] But basically, if you're going to hit the ball, you know, why not hit a double versus hitting a ground ball. And basically I just blew up all of the major league teaching. And that was pretty much got me pushed out of the game. I was too eccentric for the game. And yeah, so that was it.

David Nilsson: [00:34:40] But as the game evolved and started changing, I think with my profile, you know, I've always I've always been born with the ability to be able to identify systems and patterns. And I think that's allowed me to, you know, may not be the best athlete, but has allowed me to play different positions. The big leagues, get to the big leagues at an early age. And probably from the American people, it was probably underachieving disappointment. But if they if they probably knew the background, I probably would understand what actually, you know, the fact that I could get to the big leagues as 21, 22-year-old catcher, play outfield, do this, do all different things. And so, I just I found myself just trying to teach the simplicity of what I do.

Gary McCoy: [00:35:24] How important is that? How important is it to simplify in in terms of the essence of something as scientific potentially trajectory from the bat which gets simplified down to launch angle for fan bases and even coaches in Major League Baseball?

David Nilsson: [00:35:42] So I love sport. I love every sport. And one thing, one thing I clearly have identified, the better the athletes, the better the sport, the higher the level of competition. Two things happen. One, the game is quick. It doesn't matter what sport is, the game is quicker. And 2 the athletes make it look slower.

Gary McCoy: [00:36:00] Right.

David Nilsson: [00:36:00] That's just what it's a real conundrum. So, when you watch the best athletes in the world, they make it look easy. They make it look effortless. And so, but actually what's happening is they're doing it at a quicker, quicker right than anyone else can do it. And they have a real understanding of time. So, as I look back through my career, I had a real understanding of time. And so, as I tried to simplify what I had to do on a baseball field, I kind of did through the funnel of time. OK, just don't worry about that. If I can do this, you know, I can execute this. It doesn't matter whether it's fifty thousand or whether it's Rickey Henderson or Kenny, it doesn't matter who it is. And that was kind of the way I ticked, was really trying to simplify process and stay within the constraints of time. And as have I transitioned into coaching, that's really been my coaching focus. And again, basically it drove me out of the game, I was sort of rejected out of the game. And I think I said, you know, now I'm a lot more comfortable in the game because there's a different attitude within the game.

Gary McCoy: [00:37:08] I've been around the block like you have and I’ve had enough opportunity to evaluate where people are at in their own ark and in their journey. And you were ahead of your time is the way I look at your coaching construct, was ahead of its time. Liken it to growing up surfing. Right. If you paddle out in front of the wave, you go another deep behind the wave. Guess what? You're going nowhere. It's the wave had to catch up to you, is my belief. And I think when now the pendulum has shifted so hard into the data side of the equation, especially in the sport of baseball, that it's governing a lot of the decisions and a lot of the art and humanization of the game is getting lost. A lot of the matchups are getting lost. For that reason. I want to take you back to your primary position of being a catcher. For those who don't know baseball but are listening to this, I mean, it is so unique that you are right on top of this action. Right? You're right there. You are millimetres away from getting your hand crushed by a guy swinging a bat. You have the ability to navigate and strategically operate the game from your set of eyeballs and communicate with a pitcher with this incredible artistic dance that's going on between where that ball is going to be and how that squares it up. Sitting in that position, how often did you key off a hitter's tendencies, like see a small thing, and communicate, this is our pitch, this is how we'll navigate this hitter. Having that, that moment to moment, potential pivot it and change in tactics, tell me about that a little bit. Was there ever a moment in a major league game that you saw a hitter and said, well, the out-pitch says this, but no we're going on this way?

David Nilsson: [00:39:03] Yeah, I think that's the whole, that's the whole point of catching, being a catcher. And that's something that is a learned skill. You can learn the concept of what it is to catch. But until you're in there with the best, the best athletes, and those smartest athletes in the world, it's difficult to understand at what level you have to operate. But it's about adjusting to the adjustment. And major league hitters have the ability. They've learnt the ability. They're not born with the ability, they've learned the ability, and they've trained themselves and the ability to adjust. And then they set pitchers up and they set catchers up. And so, you have this continuum of back and forth. Now, every hitter has tendencies, and the technology confirms that. So, I always say to people, now, look, we had we had data back then when I played too, but it was subjective. And so, it led to a lot of led to a lot of discussions and a lot of arguments, a lot of disagreements. But, you know, the thinking was the same in the sense of making adjustments. So now they use the technology to find holes and swings and different patterns.

David Nilsson: [00:40:10] And that's good. But you still have to have to have an individual who has the understanding of how to use all that technology and how to use all the other data points. But absolutely the role of the catchers, you go there with the play, and you have a clear plan. You have a clear depending on who's pitching, His skill set, the skill set of the hitter, it changes. And then you have the variation of the game situation where you might intentionally do something completely different than one other situation. But I think the real strength of any top level catcher is having that ability and the trust and the guts to make that call, because it is a it's a tough thing to do when you're a catcher, part of a major league organization, you know, with the best athletes on TV, packed house, and you have a game plan and then you're out there and you in the moment have to make a decision which is, no I'm actually going to go a different way. So that that's part of that that catcher makeup, which is unique.

Gary McCoy: [00:41:16] So in 2013 I'm in Taiwan, I had the pleasure of working with Manny Ramirez. Who I think could be considered one of the better right-handed hitters of his era? And he would tell me stories about letting a pitcher get him out in his first at bat or maybe his first two at bats, depending on the need for the game on a slider away, because he's like. I owned that pitch and I want him to throw that to me and my third at bat because that's when the game is going to be on the line. I mean, that confidence. Did you ever get to that stage as a hitter confidently?

David Nilsson: [00:41:53] Absolutely yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's we were just about catching well, that's the tough thing about you catching is that you have these great hitters. And one thing that's very clear from a catching point of view, is hitters have different approaches in different situations. There are times in the game where you can get them out a certain way, and they'll let you get them out a certain way, you know, but in key situations, you're not going to get him out that way. So, they're very difficult. I know that makes it sound really simple. It's not a simple process. But the toughest thing about the whole pitching, catching, getting hitters out, is that they adjust, they guess and you have to try to guess what they're thinking, you know, and, you know, so many times as a catcher, I've failed that. And it doesn't matter what you thinking you just played right into their trap.

Gary McCoy: [00:42:44] Mate it's a dance. And sometimes the music stops when you least expect it. Right, and you gotta find a chair. Mate put your put your scouting hat on for me. Tell us about your role with the Milwaukee Brewers in Australia as a scout and then what I want to unpack is how you perceive movement, the way an athlete moves in scouting.

David Nilsson: [00:43:08] I'm very fortunate, I have a real, it's a minimal role with the Brewers, I just really keep track of all the young players coming through and keep an eye out for them and keep them up to date with the athletes that are here. So, it's a minimal role. But the back to the question is, is athletes, depending on their position, you know, position players, they have to have good lateral movement. They have to have that ability to control the core. You're trying to project them to the top, where the game is really quick. They have to have a base athleticism about them and its crystal ball gazing. But you have to be on project them to be able to operate at that level. You have to be able to project that if they do this and if they do that, they can play the game at that level, whether it's hitting, whether it's defence or whatever it is. You know, from a pitching point of view, it's a little bit easier because you have the technology and they got velocities and spin rates, which is just objective data. You look for long limbs. You look for healthy bodies, healthy bodies that can be built upon to sustain the marathon of the Major League season, which is it's a marathon, but you're doing explosive rotational activities on a daily basis. No other sport. No other sport to experience that sort of output on a daily basis over an extended period of time with limited to no rest. You know, you look at their skill set, look at their ability to hit you, look at their ability to throw and all the different movements baseball movements. But you're really trying to find a body that can sustain itself over a long period of time.

Gary McCoy: [00:44:45] You said something a short time ago that was incredibly evident to me, and in like, I think my first week of working with you with the Brisbane Bandits, at the time, I think he was 8 years old. Your son Eli was running around playing with kids who were like under 15, 15-year-old kids and out-skilled them. So, I immediately was looking at him and he would like talk about 10000 hours mate, I think he gets that in a weekend of baseball activity. Right. This kid would never, never put the bat down love him to death he was our bat boy. But you know, between games of a double hitter, he's out there throwing the ball around. It's like, man does he ever stop? It was amazing. But watching him, you said something that I immediately went into this quantification point of trunk stiffness, or you say the ability to manage core. Right, I looked at that. That uniquely set him apart from me as an 8-year-old with kids who are of a higher level than that. And we were taking that knowledge and that learning and having that discussion and taking it forward into planning, even for our national team with older athletes who are elite, that center of axis, that axis of rotation. You nailed it. I mean, rotational performance in baseball is critical. This is akin to being able to slam the door consistently. If that middle hinge is broken on the door, mate you ain't slamming it too well, consistently, right? It's that middle hinge. Is that something you've looked at in players now and said, yeah, look, the way they manage their trunks specifically for this rotational sport, not only specific to the action, but can they do that repeatedly? Is that something you're focused on?

David Nilsson: [00:46:38] Again, going back to my journey, you know, I had very, very different athletic stages of my journey. I had a lot of injuries. And probably the core wasn't a consistent, strong point of my athleticism. Not that I didn't pay effort to it. Not that I didn't pay attention to it, but I had a day and night different outputs, depending on how my core was working. I can only speak to my own experiences that sometimes I felt like a world class athlete and sometimes my body just couldn't do it. And I attribute to my core for a lot of different reasons, a lot of doing the right exercise and or doing the wrong exercises. And again, so I often am looking back at my experiences, and I can see where I got it wrong. It wasn't through lack of effort, it wasn't through lack of desire, wasn't through lack of research. It was just I got it wrong. And I had a different output. So, you know, and it is probably the best way to summarize it is when I was working at or when I was doing exercises instead of activating muscles to stabilize the core, I would just counterbalance. Counterbalance and that would activate the wrong muscles. So I definitely think it's teachable. But it's all part of what you are talking about, so I couldn’t actually agree more with what you're saying. I think it's an untapped space and I look forward to following your journey because I think this, we're speaking the same language.

Gary McCoy: [00:48:20] No question.

David Nilsson: [00:48:21] Obviously, you're going to you're not going to see a tight core in me. It's not my natural position. You know, I umm, I just don't get that two hour a day in the gym.

Gary McCoy: [00:48:33] Sure. Some of the most respected sports performance people that I've had the opportunity to work with. One of them, Alex McKechnie, who is Scottish, works in Canada with the Toronto Raptors. Right, and has a facility in Vancouver as well. We hit it off when he started to talk to me about proximal to distal management of the human body. And I brought this cognitively across into this kinesomic development of science is what we're looking at, to know that if the core is central to the equation for human movement, managing that will give us greater force production at the foot, it'll give us greater distal velocity, at the hand, level of the hand. There's so many things it could potentially give us to that point I've used, it is probably the most predominant cue I'll give an athlete during the course of something going wrong kinematically where they can't find it, is recenter, draw the navel into the spine. If you just do that alone, let everything take care of itself.

David Nilsson: [00:49:33] And again, I couldn't agree more with you. You've probably heard me a lot time say to the athletes. You know, keep your core activated, keep it activated and a lot of times when they do the movements, they just disengage the core. Focus on keeping your core activated and then you get different output from all the different muscles around.

Gary McCoy: [00:49:49] I couldn't agree more. And look, we're in an era mate just in wrapping up, we're in an era of incredible amount of injury in athletes in Major League Baseball. And it stuns me to the point of you know, I'm getting calls from major league teams and media around what's the solution here? What do you see? Do you think firstly like that concept of bio analytics is the next Moneyball and reducing injury rates? Do you see that impacting the sport?

David Nilsson: [00:50:22] Well, yes, it's challenging. I mean, I can only comment from the outside looking in. You know, at one stage I was on the inside, so I have a little bit of an understanding of how things operate, and how athletes, they're all trying to be the best and they're all trying to do everything they can to mitigate injuries. So, it's not about the athlete’s effort. It's not about the athlete’s desire. I'm sure they're doing all they can. But, you know, from the outside looking in, there seems to be a bit of a gap somewhere.

Gary McCoy: [00:50:50] Yeah.

David Nilsson: [00:50:50] You know, with the injuries, I'm not sure, you know, Major League Baseball and the players union are doing all they can to have better rest for athletes. There's more rest than there used to be. The diets better than it used to be. The medical teams are better than they used to be. But there's still issues with injuries from the outside looking in. The gaps seem to be getting bigger. So obviously, when when you're in that space on the outside looking in and you always think you always think there's a solution, you know, you always think that, you know, and again, I can only speak through experience in AIS where, you know, our players were pulling up very sore, you know, very sore. And that clearly identified to the athlete. When you show an athlete, you know, shortfall in their athleticism or shortfall in their ability or their skill work, and then you shown them way to fix it. You know, the athletes we're talking about, that's their life. They'll pour everything into it. Yeah, I don't know. There seems to be a gap somewhere on the outside looking in.

Gary McCoy: [00:51:51] Identify the problem, provide solutions. But we don't, like, I'm no longer inside of Major League Baseball either. Sometimes it's not educational. Sometimes it is political roadblocks. Sometimes there are personnel roadblocks. And we understand that. And ironically, with Baseball Australia, you've got the model that I kind of want for everyone worldwide, and that is an athlete centric model, the best interest for that athlete. I think you've led this from coming from that domain, from being a player, leading the system development around an athlete centric model is the only way I think we'll see baseball evolution.

David Nilsson: [00:52:30] Yeah, look it's very challenging. I have a lot of freedom here, you know, to do what really, what I want. I have athletes that are motivated to get better and, you know, they want to play the national team. So there's a lot of freedom there. And I would imagine and from the outside looking in, I'd imagine that major league clubs, it's challenging because much like breaking through how they used to teach hitting and other parts of the game ten or fifteen years ago, that has to be a thought breakthrough. And then someone has to champion that cause and lead that cause and be willing to take criticism and be willing to be mocked and be willing to go on a journey that's going to take three to five years to turn around how things are done. So, you know, I guess until someone in leadership of the Major League team feels the need to do that and go on that journey, probably I don't know if there will be a change.

Gary McCoy: [00:53:24] Yeah, it's like it was like that one line in Moneyball, the first one through the walls is always the bloodiest. So I think it just sums it up. Alright mate, in wrapping up. I'm going to put you on the spot. I got two questions. Which pitcher did you own in Major League Baseball, you like you looked at the lineup card, said, OK, I'm going to have a day here. Who was it? Name him and tell me why.

David Nilsson: [00:53:49] I don't like that question, first of all, because

Gary McCoy: [00:53:52] I know you don't, that's why I asked you.

David Nilsson: [00:53:56] I don't like the question. But there are two guys that I had very high-level success against and I was really uncomfortable. They weren't comfortable at bats and I'd probably prefer not to face them. And they're extreme. One was Kevin Brown from Texas and the Dodgers.

Gary McCoy: [00:54:16] Yeah

David Nilsson: [00:54:17] and the Padres. Big high velocity, sinker, slider, cutter, split. Just a real beast on the mound. He was uncomfortable. And in the wash up. In the wash up. My numbers are really good against him. The second guy was polar opposite. Was a guy, Tim Wakefield, knuckleball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

Gary McCoy: [00:54:42] Yep.

David Nilsson: [00:54:44] I enjoyed a lot of success against those two. I'm sure. I'm sure there's more. I mean, I know there's more, but, you know, to answer your question, the numbers against those two athletes are pretty, pretty good. And I think I'll just leave it there. There was another time another pitcher had some success with the long ball against pretty consistently. But I just don't want to mention his name on most of these guys. I have too much respect.  I don't know. I didn't say I don't see the upside of saying anything.

Gary McCoy: [00:55:21] You I'll give you the easy one. Now, who owned your ass at the plate? Who owned it?

David Nilsson: [00:55:25] Clemens.

Gary McCoy: [00:55:25] It was my buddy Roger.

David Nilsson: [00:55:29] And again, I didn't know it, you know, before every game in the clubhouse, before a series at the end of the printout of all the stats and all the match ups and all that. And, you know, I think I one for twenty or one, I don't know. Him and I tell you, the other guy, closer for the New York Yankees and the closer for the Texas Rangers [John Wetteland]. And I tell you, I just I cannot believe I've forgotten his name, and the reason why I just could never I felt really comfortable, but he just owned me, I couldn't get him out. He was a closer and sure enough I make the All-Star Team in '99 and I sit around, I get my bat. Who do you think's pitching against me?

Gary McCoy: [00:56:12] Oh there he is.

David Nilsson: [00:56:13] And I have like a 14, 15 pitch at bat. Then he strikes me and out and I just. Yeah it was, it was surreal. I was just you know here I'm in my first All-Star game and I'm just kind of laughing and walking up to the plate, going you know, give me give me anyone else. Just give me anyone else, just don't give me that guy. So I would have preferred to face Pedro or Schilling, anyone like that. Just not this guy guy because I know he's going to get me out.

Gary McCoy: [00:56:39] Mate you've had some stunning moments in your athletic career, and I've been fortunate to enjoy some on your managerial side and your thought process certainly has impacted mine in terms of looking at key performance indicators and tying them, those technical aspects, into the physical systems and developing hopefully athletes for you that you can turn the key on. On a day-to-day basis and we can run them out there and we can have 100 percent availability as often as possible. So for that and the opportunity to learn from you to enjoy this journey, with my second time around with the Australian national team, it's been just eye opening. And like, I'm not trying to blow smoke here, mate, but I get to meet a lot of people and a lot of pretty powerful names in professional sports. And mate you're still at the top of my list. I still have your bobblehead on my shelf here. To that end, look, mate I just, thank you because it's been an enlightening journey for me. You've made me better as a performance coach through your accessibility to your mind. And I can't thank you enough for that. It's an honour to always work with you. And like us in Australia, we know, the country of Australia knows how important you are as an ambassador to who we are as not only a sport, but as a nation. Mate, your journey, as much as you might think, it's in the rear vision mirror, I think it's just as long in the in the in the front right now. So, thank you.

David Nilsson: [00:58:29] Thanks. Thanks, Gary. Appreciate your kind words. Obviously, I feel the same way every time we're together. There's a lot of energy between the two of us. And I enjoy where conversations go, which I never know where they're going to go. But I enjoy them you always have me, you know, searching for stuff and talking through stuff. So, it's a two way street. And again, hopefully, hopefully there is a lot before us. You know, there's a lot more to do out there. And I think, I think we're just scratching the surface. So, yeah, thanks again. I've really enjoyed this time and anything I can do in the future to help. You know, I'm always here.

Gary McCoy: [00:59:07] Mate you'll be one of my first calls. No worries. So, Dave, thank you. I mean, this this is a journey that we're on together. It's why we call this the kinesome project, right. It's a project. I mean, we don't know what we don't know. And our goal is to simply ask better questions. And thank you for listening to The Human Kinesome Project. I look forward to joining you in a live conversation at Discord.gg/Kinetyx. Our music, as always, is created by the infinitely talented Joanna Magik.

Gary McCoy: [00:59:43] OK team, the game is just beginning.