"Best coach I’ve played for in my whole entire life. For the first time ever I felt like I belonged in the group with a common desire to be the best, starting from the culture built by him as a coach. Baseball is his whole life and I respect the heck out of that because I was the same way where it was almost obsessive. I was that way as a player and had been with coaches in the past who just kinda go through the motions. Even if the talent doesn’t jump out at you, he expects his team to play with the best of them. Believing in yourself is half the battle. Only negative I would say is sometimes shows a lot of negative emotion coaching 3rd if offense is quiet. And for myself being a pitcher, sometimes he didn’t read players well and maybe didn’t know their personality all the way. But most importantly you can tell he really cares and makes you want to run through a brick wall for him. From the first team meeting hearing his mindset and seeing the paper print outs with different philosophies, I knew I was playing for someone that’s a different breed. He even hands out articles and mind map things for the mental game to look at on long bus rides. I still have those and look at them sometimes because the principles can be applied to business, career, etc. I also liked how open he was to discuss things one on one just about life in general if you stop in his office. I remember he borrowed me a book on Mike Matheny when he was the Cardinals manager that I really liked. That was just who he was with many other baseball or leadership books to always improve and be dedicated to his craft. Will never forget the impact he had on my life. I sort of let him down and myself after juco and am upset I’m not involved in that baseball sphere anymore. Even if you weren’t the greatest player, he’d make you believe in yourself to go out and compete with the best of them. I’ll forever cherish the moments being apart of his program because I’ve never seen anything before or since that lives up to it. Wishing him the best in all future roles in baseball, whether it be coaching, managing, scouting, etc. I could see him being a Mike Schildt, who ironically was Matheny’s successor in St. Louis, working up to a good pro ball gig even though as a player they did not play pro ball or anything after college. Not easy to work your way up to that after not ever playing pro ball, but if anyone could be another one to do that, Coach Dave Pearson would be he guy. "