In a recent interview with Baseball Coaches Insider, University of Texas head coach revealed his methods for motivating players, on and off the field. Pierce said that his approach is built around the belief that players want to be challenged because they want to improve.

We are teaching a different player these days,” said Pierce. They’re really smart but they’re very motivated. They want to be great.”

Pierce continued, “We’ve been doing strength and conditioning and we’ve been doing offseason [work]… and kind of the same drill for years. For me, it’s much more about getting it a little more organized, for the players, and more structure, because that’s the environment that they’ve grown up in. Instead of just telling our players, ‘Hey, we’ve got strength and conditioning today,’ now we’re in this phase of ‘build’ – what are we building?”

Pierce, who began his coaching career at St. Piux X High School in Houston, Texas, will likely reach 300 wins as a college head coach during the 2019 season. He won both the Big 12 and Baseball American Coach of the Year honors in 2018.

Pierce concluded the interview by explaining how he takes his building methods onto the field to motivate players to execute and improve. “It’s also about educating, engaging. It’s literally in our hall, in and out of the clubhouse, every single day, ‘Did you execute in this area?’ And if it is their area and they did, they build off of it. If they didn’t [execute], we take a step back, and go, “‘Alright, we have to improve.'”