Put Me In, Coach
Coaching baseball has taught Terry Fitzsimmons about a lot more than balls and strikes
Terry Fitzsimmons loves baseball. And why not? Fitzsimmons, who is vice president of equipment sales of Holt Dental Supply in Waukesha, Wis., was born and spent the first couple of years of his life in the shadow of old County Stadium in Milwaukee, in a neighborhood of the city called Pigsville. But as much as he loves playing baseball, even more, he loves teaching others how to play it.
For Fitzsimmons, coaching is about more than baseball. It’s about helping people understand and reach their full potential and learn some valuable life lessons. "When I take on the responsibility of being a coach, I become that boy’s father for the time I’m with him," he says. "I become his mentor and role model, and must act accordingly."
In the process, coaching gives him the opportunity to learn more about himself. Further, it has taught him some valuable management lessons too, such as, everyone learns at his or her own pace and in his or her own way.
Ten cents an hour more
Fitzsimmons was just a couple of years old when his family moved from Pigsville to what was then the country - Menomonee Falls. "My dad was a grading contractor and needed a place to park his bulldozer and truck and trailer," he says. Located just west of Downtown Milwaukee on the banks of the Menomonee River, Pigsville - whose name either refers to pigs, pig iron or a mythical dentist named Dr. Pigg (no one knows which) - was no place to park a bulldozer.
It was for an extra 10 cents an hour that Fitzsimmons entered the dental distribution business. He was working at a tool-and-die shop - working a plastic press that made knobs for Chevy car radios - at $2 an hour when his uncle, who managed the equipment department for dental supply company D.L. Saslow, offered him 10 cents an hour more to help box up supplies and send them out. Young Fitzsimmons would also drive a panel truck down to Chicago every two weeks to pick up products from the main store and bring them back to Milwaukee for shipping.
The allure of the dental business was intoxicating to young Fitzsimmons. "I remember meeting Dan Saslow on one of my trips," he recalls. "I was asked to visit him in his office. He sat behind a big desk and smoked a cigar. During our conversation, he tried to impress on me the possibility of a career in the dental business. He told me that I could be anything I wanted to be in his industry, even own my own company some day. I was 18 and thought it might be cool to sit behind a big desk and smoke a big cigar. So I stuck around."
Because the Milwaukee branch was new and had only one service tech, Fitzsimmons was asked to help replace turbines on broken high-speed hand pieces that had been sent in. He also went on installations of new equipment sold by his uncle, Wayne Holt. Fitzsimmons did well, and he became a service tech at the Milwaukee branch, a position he held until 1976.
Foray into merchandise selling
That year, seeking a higher salary, he took on a merchandise territory. "I knew nothing of the supply side of the business and received no formal training," he says. His buddies in the service department bet him he wouldn’t last long. But he used his experience and knowledge on the equipment side to sell merchandise. In short, he would fix his customers’ equipment; in turn, they would buy merchandise from him.
But his buddies in the service department were right. Merchandise sales and Fitzsimmons were not a good match. So just one year after taking over the territory, he took a new position as a rep for the students at Marquette University Dental School. That was a good gig, as Saslow was setting up to as many as 20 to 30 new offices a year.
By 1983, Saslow had sold his company to British Tire and Rubber Co., and Bob Sullivan (who had managed Saslow’s Milwaukee branch) and Wayne Holt had left to start a new dental supply company, Sullivan Dental Products. In May 1985, disenchanted with the direction the company was taking, Fitzsimmons joined Sullivan Dental as an equipment specialist. "I was fortunate to be part of the explosion of our industry and be at one of the fastest growing dental supply companies during those years," he says. Indeed, Sullivan grew from less than $10 million in sales in 1985 to more than $300 million 12 years later.
In 1997, Bob Sullivan - in failing health - sold his company to Henry Schein. Again, Fitzsimmons grew disenchanted with the direction of the company. He sought to form an equipment company, but ultimately joined forces with Paul Holt (Wayne’s son) to form Holt Dental Supply. The company celebrated its 10th anniversary last August.
Community calling
It was back in 1981, while attending a seminar, that Fitzsimmons decided he could do more with his life in terms of community service. "The beginning of the course lent itself to self-reflection," he recalls. "It called attention to my spiritual, social, family, business and community time." But it wasn’t until his older son joined Little League in 1992 that he got really involved.
Fitzsimmon’s love of baseball began while playing Little League for a year when he was 9 or 10. "My dad was extremely busy working construction in the summer, and my mom did not drive. So I rode my bike to the field a couple of times a week. I don’t remember much, other than I wasn’t very good at hitting or fielding, and the kids whose dads were coaches were pretty good."
At age 12, he started playing recreation softball, and he joined the church softball league at age 16. Later, he started managing a team in the local adult recreation league, something he continued to do until he was 35. "I had to hang up the spikes due to the many commitments with work, wife and kids," he says.
As his boys - Tim (now 24) and Tyler (now 20) - grew and got involved in different sports, Fitzsimmons became more involved in their activities. The three sports he knew a lot about - simply because he participated in them - were baseball, bowling and karate.
He calls karate "not just a sport, but a life experience." He started taking lessons in his 20s, and is a third degree black belt in the style of Jukato. "What karate has taught me is that ‘I learn by teaching’ how to be quiet and make my mind strong, and that when taking on physical exercise, it must include strength, agility and endurance." These are lessons that were to come in handy when he turned to coaching baseball.
Opportunity for all
"I coach kids to give each one the same opportunity to learn the game of baseball," he says. "Not every dad has the time or knowledge to teach their kids. I make sure it’s a level playing field as far as knowledge goes. Then it’s up to the individual boy and the talents God gave him whether he makes a select team or high school team. He may decide to play the game for a more social experience."
Fitzsimmons coached his son Tim in Little League, then Ty. When Ty was 10, he made the local select baseball team, called the Falcons. Ty wanted to be a catcher, so his father sought someone who could help him out. "Luckily, a young catcher was released by the Chicago White Sox organization and moved into our town," recalls Fitzsimmons. "He was able to teach me current catching techniques and drills." He told Fitzsimmons that if Ty were diligent about doing the drills, he could very well make the high school team when he was older.
Simply being exposed to the drills made Fitzsimmons pretty good at teaching them to others. And he did. "I immediately started teaching these ideas to the other catcher on the team," he says. His son wasn’t thrilled that his dad was helping a potential competitor excel behind the plate. "I had to teach him that all he can do is be the best he can, and keep working at getting better," says Fitzsimmons. So he kept coaching the other catcher. In fact, he coached that Falcons team (for boys ages 9 to 14) until his boys headed to high school.
Self-knowledge
As Fitzsimmons gained experience coaching, he discovered valuable things about himself. For example, he learned that he is more a teaching coach than a game-day coach. "I teach the kids so they can perform on game day." To this day, as he watches professional players play ball, he can tell which ones still follow the fundamental lessons they learned when they were 9 or 10. Generally, they play better than the ones who have forgotten or disregarded them.
Fitzsimmons also learned that everyone has a different way of learning. "Some can read about something and implement it, some can look at a picture and duplicate it. But all need to practice the basics to improve the muscle memory."
Today, his sons are past the select and high school level. His younger son, Ty, is a catcher at Chicago’s North Park University, where he is a sophomore. "Selfishly, I marvel at how good he has became," says his father. Fitzsimmons attends most of Ty’s games, but gets a full dose of baseball during North Park’s off-season too. For example, he is scorekeeper for the local high school.
He also is the first president of the newly organized Junior Indian Baseball league of Menomonee Falls, which actually consists of two select teams - the Falcons and the Braves. The season extends from mid-May to the end of July. Then, at the end of summer, he runs a fall league for boys who want to play more baseball. He also gives catching, hitting or pitching lessons to any boy who wants to try out for either of the Junior Indian Baseball teams.
Even though it is Wisconsin, training for the select team, as well as the high school junior-varsity and varsity players, begins soon after Christmas. Since league rules prohibit the high school coaches from coaching their kids prior to May, the kids’ dads and other interested people oversee the workouts.
One of Fitzsimmons’ duties is to secure a warehouse or other indoor venue in which the kids can practice during the cold, snowy Wisconsin winters. For several years, the boys worked out in an empty movie theater. (It was good practice for the kids to field ground balls on the floor sloping down toward them, he says.) From there, they used an 1800s-era hardware warehouse. This year, Fitzsimmons was able to draw on his dental products contacts for a winter training venue. While working on setting up a 22-chair dental clinic, he noted that the dentists were going to leave 5,000 square feet of the facility undeveloped, at least for awhile. He asked if they would be willing to let the boys practice there, and they said yes.
In his role as sales manager, Fitzsimmons frequently draws on the lessons he has learned while coaching. "Today, because of the time I spend coaching the kids, I am better at looking for the proper motivation of each of the players on my sales and service teams," he says. "I have also stayed with sales or service techs way too long, unable to let them go. But my time with the kids has taught me that not everyone has the talent to make the team. At some point I must evaluate a person’s progress and let them know that maybe a more social team might be in their best interest and not play at the select level or high school team." And so it is in sales as well.
Sidebar:
Management lessons
Lessons learned while coaching kids’ baseball can be applied to managing dental salespeople, according to Terry Fitzsimmons, vice president of equipment sales, Holt Dental Supply, Waukesha, Wis. Here are just a few examples:
- There are such things as "basics," which must be taught and practiced every day.
- Not everyone processes information the same way.
- It takes a group of professionals to make up a team.
- Each team has its hard workers, its playmakers and stars. It also has its goofs and goof-offs, and it is the manager’s role to get the most out of all of them.
- Becoming impatient with those who fail to live up to the manager’s suggestions, expectations and goals is pointless. Not everyone is capable of implementing suggestions at the same pace.
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