Arizona State’s first-year pitching coach Mike Cather recently met freshman pitcher Boyd Vander Kooi.
“Do you trust me?” Cather said.
A hesitant Vander Kooi responded: “Yes.”
What seemed like a rhetorical question was anything but. Cather was intent on making a point.
“Trust is something that has to be built, and that’s what I tell him.” Cather said. “I said, ‘I don’t trust you and you don’t trust me. Let’s learn how to trust each other,’”
Vander Kooi admitted Cather was right. He didn’t trust his new pitching coach in the beginning.
Since then, Cather hasn’t messed with Vander Kooi’s mechanics or tried to add another pitch to the freshman’s arsenal.