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6-3-21 The Program opens the show talking about Chiefs OTA's and playing audio from Head Coach Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. The Program is also joined by former Royals pitche and World Series winner to talk about his time in Kansas City and the tenure of Dayton Moore and to give you the end of the hour of question for a chance to win great Cajun food from Jazz: A Louisiana Kitchen. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rick and Lauren are joined by former Kansas City Royals player Luke Hochevar, as he talks about his baseball career, what he's been up to the past several years, and how God and grace fit into all of his life.
Coach Hochevar talks about her high school program, the success shes had their, and how she lets the program speak for itself.
Our 5-Year Reunion continues with Royals reliever Luke Hochevar.
Locked On Dodgers – Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Dodgers
In 2005, the Dodgers drafted Luke Hochevar but were unable to sign him. Jeff is here to talk about what a blessing that was, because it directly resulted in their drafting of Clayton Kershaw the next year. Locked On Dodgers, the daily podcast about the Los Angeles Dodgers with hosts Jeff Snider and Vince Samperio, is part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Be sure to subscribe to Locked On Dodgers in the Himalaya podcast app or wherever you get your podcasts, and come back every weekday morning and spend your morning commute with two of the biggest Dodger fans you'll ever meet. Thanks for listening, and tell your friends! Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Postmates Download the Postmates app and use code LOCKEDON. For a limited time, Postmates is giving our listeners ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS of free restaurant delivery credit for your first SEVEN days. Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get $10 off your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter
Hector Guitierrez sat outside of his home in Fort Worth, Texas, a purple TCU sweatshirt protecting him from a cool breeze, and hat shading him from the sun. “You never know,” he said on SANDCAST: Beach volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, “what life can bring you, right?” Currently, everyone in the world, no matter location or industry or title, can empathize. This time of year is typically a critical period for Guitierrez at TCU, a burgeoning college beach program that was 11-4 and ranked No. 15 in the country when the season was cancelled due to Covid-19. Odd as these times are for the world, it is almost more confounding to Guitierrez that he is here at all, in Fort Worth, Texas, coaching a college beach volleyball team. A native of the Canary Islands, Guitierrez was raised primarily in Tenerife, Spain, which has become one of the most popular off-season training sites in the world for European beach volleyball teams. Guitierrez’s own professional journey was a precocious one. Debuting on the professional scene at the age of 17, Guitierrez competed for the C.V Orotava team that, in 2004, finished second in the FEV Spanish Volleyball League. He played indoors all over Europe, and in the summer, he’d return to the island and play beach. Fun as it was to be a professional athlete, getting paid to travel, compete, play volleyball all day long, Guitierrez knew his own limits. “When I was playing, around 27 or 28, it was an ‘I’m kind of done’ type of thing,” he said with a laugh. For some players, the transition to coaching is an arduous one. Jose Loiola, a member of the Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame and winner of 55 events in his career, struggled mightily, saying that “you have to kill the player inside.” Guitierrez chuckled at that notion. “I was a good player,” he said, “but I wasn’t at the level of Jose Loiola.” The coach in him was already more alive than the player. He volunteered to help a few indoor players competing in Switzerland transition to the beach, building from there. He coached indoor in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Germany, which led to an up-and-coming German beach team, Karla Borger and Britta Buthe, taking him on as their coach. In 2012, they’d take a silver medal at the World Championships, finishing the season ranked No. 11 in the world. National teams took note. Slovakia hired Guitierrez, who helped Dominika Nestracova and Natalia Dubovcova to a bronze at the Stavanger Grand Slam. The U.S., too, brought Guitierrez on board, where he oversaw Brittany Hochevar and Heather McGuire and Hochevar and Jen Fopma. By then, the college game had begun building momentum, and Guitierrez accepted an offer to assist Florida State, a rising power in the southeast. But the Seminoles had already proven themselves. While Guitierrez certainly helped a great deal as they took second at the 2016 NCAA Championships, “it was already an established program,” Guitierrez said. “You’re going to Nationals all the time. You’re trying to win a National Championship.” TCU was not Florida State. Not yet, anyway. When Guitierrez received word, on Nov. 9, 2016, that he had been hired as the head coach of the beach volleyball program, it had only been in existence for one year. The Frogs hadn’t won a single match. “It’s a challenge but there’s a side of it that it belongs to me and my staff: We built this,” Guitierrez said. “We’re moving this train in the right direction.” There is no arguing that. The next season, Guitierrez’s first, the Frogs finished 18-7. In two of the next three, TCU produced 18 wins. Midway through the 2020 season, TCU, with quality wins over South Carolina and Arizona, was making a case – still an outside case, but a case nonetheless – for an East Region bid to the NCAA Championships, which would have been the first in school history. “We’re in a good situation but we need to catch up soon because we don’t want to be at the back of the train,” he said. “You need to be realistic with what we have and what we can build. I’m a really competitive coach and I want to build up quick. We’re accomplishing that right now.” Guitierrez will get two of his seniors back for one more year. He’ll also return 11 others from the 2020 team, including freshman Daniela Alvarez, who had made an immediate presence on court one partnered with LSU transfer Olivia Beyer. The Frogs have come a long way from 0-11 five years ago, just as Guitierrez has come a long way from the Canary Islands and much of Europe. “There’s a special moment in coaching where they players begin to trust what I see,” he said. “That’s the ultimate goal as a coach: If I can get you to trust me, we’re going to do great things.”
Today’s episode sees another incredible guest: Professional sand volleyball player Brittany Hochevar. She sat down with Charlie to discuss world travel and what it’s like living a professiona life 24/7.
A resurrected episode! We almost lost the audio, but Papa Hoch himself settled into the office at the Woodgym a few weeks back to chat with Charles about his children and the Hochevar athletic journey. We knew we couldn’t toss this one! Charles delves into their journeys with Jesus and, as always, what makes Brian, Luke, Brittany, and Dylan different. Plus, there’s no one better to talk pitching with! PSA: you don’t have to love baseball or the Royals to enjoy this one.
Luke Anthony Hochevar played college baseball at the University of Tennessee, and Major League Baseball for the Kansas City Royals. Now we finally have this Woodgym native on the podcast!
SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter
Carly Wopat acknowledges that there are a number of skills that need to be refined, so be smoothed over, to be fully beached from their indoor counterparts. But she’s been an athlete all her life, a state champ in high school, an All-American at Stanford, a professional overseas. It’s simply a matter of time for most, and anyway, the majority of the fundamental skills are already there. There’s just one that gives her pause: setting, and hand setting. “Initially I just wasn’t squaring up,” she said on SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter. “It took a long time for me to just square up every time. I kept trying to angle the sets. I’m starting to get good at squaring up but I want to get better at hand setting and that’s the most difficult thing for me right now: hand setting. “The indoor hands are so different from the beach hands. I’ve gotten to the point where I know how to set a good ball, what it feels like, I just need to be able to do it consistently.” Anyone who might doubt Wopat’s ability to do so likely just doesn’t know much about Carly Wopat. This is a 26-year-old who, as a senior in high school, led Dos Pueblos to a CIF title and followed it up by setting a school record in the discus. This is a girl who, while majoring in human biology and dabbling with a minor in art at the most prestigious university in the country, led the Pac-12 in blocks per set (1.43) and hit .392 for her career, good for second all-time at Stanford. This is a girl who taught herself to play guitar, who speaks French and can also drop the occasional Turkish – “I don’t know why, but it just stuck with me,” she said – and Japanese. This is the daughter of a man who nearly qualified for the 1980 Olympics in track and field and a mother who competed as a gymnast in college. And hand setting could potentially be an issue? No way. In fact, it is the very difficulty of the sport, the fact that one couldn’t simply be a decent athlete and succeed, that drew her to volleyball in the first place. It is the need for these reps, the proverbial 10,000 hours, that she loves the most. “I like the speed of it,” she said of volleyball. “It’s an interesting sport. It takes a lot of skill. There are some sports where you can be really athletic and just go out and be really good at, like you can run and go be a track athlete or something like that. But with volleyball, there’s so much skill involved that it takes years and years to cultivate just hand-eye coordination and the feel for the ball. Just things that only come with experience I guess, perspective of the court and so I really liked that part of the game, that I could work on these skills and be really athletic and go out and play this game.” And in limited experience on the beach, she has already excelled, making two main draws – in San Jose and Huntington Beach – to end the 2018 season, taking fifth at p1440 Huntington Beach alongside Corinne Quiggle. With those resume points, despite zero FIVB points to her name but the desire to play overseas, she got a call from one of the most experienced United States defenders, Brittany Hochevar. “Hochevar messaged me while I was still playing in the p1440s and asked if I wanted to meet up,” Wopat recalled. “I think she had done her research and watched me a little bit and maybe talked to some people, so we met up and discussed playing together, and she just kinda has this dream to go to the Olympics for 2020 and we talked a lot about timing, and our partnership – I don’t know, just the timing of it all just works out really well. “The more I’ve gotten to know her spirit and energy – she’s just an amazing person. I just think we’re going to make an amazing partnership.”
Live on the Just Go Tour, Luke Hochevar joins us in Kansas City to talk life after baseball. Sharing some of his best memories from 9 years in the big leagues to his obsession with hunting ducks.
SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter
Forget daggers. The look that Brittany Hochevar gave on SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter could bore a hole straight through a human soul. The discussion had turned to partnership dynamics, and how it was with Hochevar and her partner, Emily Day. Day, it turns out, is the more organized one – there is always a more organized one – and I said something along the lines of Hochevar just sort of following along from there. No no. Brittany Hochevar? Just sort of following along? Brittany Hochevar doesn't simply follow along. She gets after it. You can look at her workouts on Instagram or her website. They have a ballistic focus and can be slightly terrifying, though Hochevar also blends this with a focus on mindfulness and equanimity. Stillness. It's a unique approach, one she labels as “all in but also all out,” and it's also inarguably working. In 2017, at the age of 36, Hochevar won three AVPs and took third in another two. Her 14th year on Tour was, crazy as this might sound, her breakout. “I feel like I'm in my prime,” she said. “It's wild. I can do stuff – wisdom, timing, that's another piece. There's a different timing to things. It's fun to see that slowdown. When you arrive you just know it and sometimes that's at 36.” Who would have guessed she would have arrived here, at 36, in her 14th season, at the top of the game? Of all people, Hochevar wouldn't have been one of them. Prior to 2016, Hochevar's career had been a Sisyphean one, rolling that boulder all the way to the top – only to see it tumble back down. “I was that 13th player on a 12-man roster type of kid,” she said. “It's my blessing and my curse.” At Long Beach State, she replaced Misty May as the setter, took the 49ers to a pair of Final Fours and a national title game – and lost in the final. In a three-year stint with the United States National Team from 2002-2004, she worked her way onto the roster – only to be the first alternate in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. In 2009, her 51st event on the AVP Tour, she made a final with Jen Fopma, losing in three sets to Dianne DeNecochea and Carrie Dodd. It would be seven years until she took one home. But what a platform on which to do it: the 2016 Manhattan Beach Open. Hochevar's first career victory came on the sport's biggest stage, with a plaque on the Manhattan Beach Pier to prove it. “Bout time,” May texted her. “Sometimes,” Hochevar said, “timing is funny.” Somehow, she had done something exceptionally few athletes across any sport have ever been able to do. Hochevar had begun to reach her athletic peak at age 35. She opened the 2017 season with a win in Huntington Beach and then won back-to-back championships in Hermosa Beach and Manhattan again. By season's end, only one team had won multiple events on the AVP Tour: Hochevar and Day. Together, they had flipped the script, broken the narrative. Had Hollywood been writing the 2017 season, with Kerri Walsh-Jennings forgoing the AVP and April Ross in partner limbo, it would have been time for the youngsters to take over. Oh no. Not yet. Hochevar had fallen in love with the game again, “fallen in love with passing again,” she said. All those years of coming so close to the peak, of being the 13th on the 12 man roster, of rolling that boulder so high, only for it to tumble back down, had paid off. All those years in Puerto Rico and Spain and Turkey and Siberia had paid off. All of those ballistic workouts and pilates and meditating and taking care of her body had paid off. She has a pair of tattoos on her arms, “Here” written on the left, “I am” written on the right. At 36 years young, here Hochevar is. Sometimes, you arrive, and you just know it.
Getting your name on the Pier is special. Getting it on there twice is priceless. Brittany Hochevar joins us in studio to talk about the greatest stretch of volleyball in career over the past 18 months. Longevity secrets shall be yours. Plus, AVP post season awards, News on Nat. Team athletes overseas and CVW continues the run toward the post season. The Selection Committee gave us their first rankings this week. FInd out where your favorite teams landed and how the field of 64 is shaping up. All that plus the usual delightful mess that is TNL.
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Luke Hochevar has been with the Kansas City organization since becoming the #1 overall pick in the 2006 June Amateur Draft out of the University of Tennessee. From 2007-2012,“Hoch” served as a starting pitcher in KC, before moving to the … Continue reading → The post Luke Hochevar appeared first on Clubhouse Conversation.
We had a lot to cover this week and jumped right into talking about the first cuts of camp, including sending John Lamb, Chris Dwyer, Kyle Zimmer, and others to minor league camp. None of the cuts were that surprising, but some - like Dwyer and perhaps Zimmer - may end up in the majors sooner than later.That led us to dreaming a bit on the pitching prospects in this wave. Buoyed by impressive scouting reports on Sean Manaea, and a strong start for Yordano Ventura, we tried to project a Royals rotation for next year and beyond. Then Troy talked about his trip to Surprise and what he saw from Lane Adams, Jason Adam, and Lorenzo Cain. We shifted gears to talk about Luke Hochevar's UCL tear and resulting decision to undergo Tommy John surgery. As a result of losing Hochevar, Wade Davis shifts to the bullpen, and we talked about his viability there. Speaking of the bullpen, we talked about the strange hate for Kelvin Herrera by a chunk of Royals fans, Kansas City fandom, and David Glass - all the good KC topics.
The Royals were busy trimming the roster and the latest Kansas City Baseball Vault discussed any surprises or disappointments in the cuts as well as what it means for the roster and any position battles going on. Along with that, we talked about the demotion of Luke Hochevar to the bullpen and its impact on the fifth starter race. Eric Hosmer came up and inspired a discussion about concern, worry, and panic. His early spring numbers were strong, but his World Baseball Classic performance was not. He's still the biggest question mark for the 2013 season. Also, look for a friendly wager should Donnie Joseph make the opening day roster. While both Michael and Troy like his potential, Troy likes it a bit more. Don't be a surprised to see a Kelvin Herrera vs. Donnie Joseph board bet...
This week on the Kansas City Baseball Vault, we covered a little bit of everything. There were a few bright spots about the Royals play this year, though how much matters and how much is just spin was a question we tried to answer. There are still big holes to fill, especially starting pitching, and that led us to discuss the future rotation and who may be a part of it. Of course, that led us to the question of Luke Hochevar. Comments in the Royals post-season press conference suggest that they'll bring Hochevar back. That same conference also unleashed a whole other set of questions about the organization and how it's looking to fix the problems. On a brighter note, we got to talk with an Orioles fan - Neal Moorhouse - who you know as Carne Cabeza or the LuchadOriole from the final episode of the Royalman Report. He talked about Baltimore's response to their playoff win against Texas and the feelings within the city going into the next series. Finally, we talked with Brad Cook from Out of the Park Baseball. The new version of the game simulator is out and all the different things you can do with it. Vote for us! Podcastawards.com and http://stitcher.promotw.com!
As the title suggests, we had to talk about the Royals latest approach to fixing Luke Hochevar and his spot in the organization. We considered the price to keep him, what he might have left in the tank and what the alternatives might be. We also talked about Lorenzo Cain's injury, Omaha's quest (in vain) to repeat as PCL champs and which players might get dropped from the 40 man roster this winter. Salvador Perez was also a key figure in our discussion, as he had just matched Darrell Porter's team-record hitting streak for a catcher. To finish up, we tossed out all the cliches and phrases we always hear as Kansas City sports fans. I think we've really turned a corner with this one...
In the latest episode of the Kansas City Baseball Vault, we tried to settle on the value of Jeremy Guthrie, the fate of Luke Hochevar and discussed why Wil Myers isn't going to be called up this September. That led to discussion about service time, the Rule 5 draft and Super Two status as well as what to look for this offseason as the Royals figure out their 40 man roster and who to offer arbitration. We also checked in on the playoff status of the Omaha Storm Chasers, Wilmington Blue Rocks and Burlington Royals. Check us out on Youtube. Youtube.com/RoyalmanReport