Interview with Logan Hronis, Founder of Instinct Sportswear

This week I conducted an interview with a former coach of mine, Logan Hronis, who has worked with a variety of athletes ranging from t-ball to the professional level. He has coached for a few different travel ball organizations in northeast Ohio. The Ohio Wesleyan University graduate played four years of college baseball and had a stellar career there. He currently is the owner of Instinct Sportswear, a company he founded in 2014 that provides high quality sports jerseys and gear to all different types of sports teams and fans, and he still gives baseball lessons on the side. He has been around just about every aspect of the game and today we’re gonna get a deeper look at his perspective on his success surrounding the game of baseball.

Q: When and how did you get into coaching?

A: After I graduated college, I was planning on playing independent ball and I had no money. So I worked out a deal where I would teach lessons for a former major leaguer, in exchange for hitting lessons with him. He ended up just paying me to take a chunk of his pitching lessons. I realized that I had a skill for teaching kids, so I ended up quitting my factory job without a backup plan. My first real gig was coaching JV baseball at a local high school, then that summer I coached one of the top 18u teams in the state. High school coaching jobs are a lot of work and not a lot of money, so that was a one-and-done for me, knowing I couldn’t support myself with just that. After that, I realized the only way to make money was doing lessons, so I leaned into that, while coaching local travel teams in the summer/winter.

Q: What is your most memorable moment from playing and from coaching?

A: Most memorable moment from playing, man that is almost impossible to answer. I had a blast on the field, like WAY too much fun. My most memorable moments have nothing to do with the games though, I’m almost 15 years removed from playing now, so I don’t remember most of the in-game stuff. The stuff I remember most is shenanigans, pre game stunts, practical jokes, etc. I was a total jerk when I played, but we had so much fun that I go back and forth whether or not I regret it. I bat flipped a home run into an opposing team’s dugout by accident one time, if I had to pick one thing, it’s probably that. They were first place in our conference, and our rival school. We swept them, took the conference, and their whole coaching staff got fired. That home run, at least in my head (almost caused a brawl) but it simultaneously ruined their season and turned ours around. Their coach almost came into our dugout yelling at me, I changed my facebook profile picture to his bio photo for like 3 months after he got fired. It was petty, childish, and I loved every second – didn’t care. Coaching memories are easy. I really value the baseball and life impact a coach can have on kids, I think the on-the-field stuff is largely secondary with middle/high school coaching. My job is to prepare kids for college – that’s the way I treat it. But it’s more to help prepare them for life. My favorite memories are all the “ah ha” moments where kids realize that I truly had their best interest in mind the entire time I knew them – baseball and otherwise. Usually, that’s after they’ve left me, and SO many of my players (you included) have kept in contact with me throughout the years, which means a lot.

Q: How did your views on coaching change from before you were a coach to after you became one?

A: To be honest, my views didn’t change much. I had a weird understanding of the game and of team constructs when I was young, which made the transition very easy for me. But I was an absolute nightmare to coach, and I rarely got along with my coaches when I played – so when I encountered “problem” kids, I felt like I deserved it, haha. But I was a problem kid myself and I had a weird mindset, so it was easy for me to deal with all types of kids from different perspectives/backgrounds/thought processes. As a player, I liked to play free and loose, and I saw the effects of coaches trying to implement strict regimented approaches on teams – the free and loose players don’t thrive. So I adopted a very unorthodox coaching approach, which I think fit my personality, and in turn, fit the teams I coached.

Q: What is the highest level you have coached/trained at? Was your approach different from coaching younger players?

A: I’ve coached kids from 8u to the professional level. As a player, probably the highest level I played was a Great Lakes league team, we had I think 9 or 10 guys drafted from, and 3 made it to the big leagues. I learned a lot about myself, and about the game that year. My approach changes drastically based on the level of dedication a player shows, not necessarily based on the level of play. I set the bar high for my guys who are serious about playing at the next level and beyond. If I have a 13 year old who is very serious about that, and shows me dedication and maturity, I’ll treat him/her the same as an 18 year old with the same mindset, and I expect the same from both of them. Output is not my concern in that regard, it’s mindset, dedication and attention to detail. Obviously, within reason. I can only do so much with 8 year olds, I want to make sure they have an understanding of fundamentals and have FUN mostly – so they keep playing. 8 year olds don’t really know if they want to play in college, but a 13 year old may, honestly. My approach then becomes one of habit, mindset, and accountability.

Q: Who are some of the higher-level athletes that you’ve trained or coached?

A: Not a whole lot of pro guys that I can honestly say I trained consistently. Mostly minor leaguers who came to me for shortstop specialist work. A couple of the pro guys I’ve worked with have actually been guys I played with or against, which is cool. When I was younger they always wanted to train with me because they knew we would have a good time – I would hit with them or do some defensive work. I have a couple kids still in the pipeline that I don’t want to jinx because I think they have the juice to make it somewhere in pro ball, haha!

Q: Coming out of high school I’m sure you were recruited by several schools. If you could go through the recruitment process again, what would you do differently, if anything? Is there any advice you would give to players going through that process?

A: I could honestly write a book on this question. I did EVERYTHING wrong, and that’s part of the reason I stuck with being a coach for as long as I did. I didn’t dress, walk, talk, or act the part of a baseball player in any way. I had a horrible temper, a horrible attitude, and I didn’t get along with my coaches. I was late for everything, showed up wearing chanclas and a wife beater, long hair (much less accepted back then, haha) and I would probably warm up with no cleats and no uniform on. I was a mess. I always tell my players, what I THOUGHT would happen: that if you hit .450 and you’re the best player on the team, and you play at a high level, that you just keep moving up levels. I thought the rest of it didn't matter. Well, it does matter. Your coaches have to stick their neck out for you and vouch for you. Mine couldn’t, because I acted like a psychopath and I looked like I didn’t take the game seriously. So my advice would be to treat each game like a job interview, because that’s essentially what it is. It doesn’t detract from your game to show up on time, looking like a baseball player, and preparing like a baseball player. That’s what you’re trying to be – a baseball player. Be nice to your coaches. Be a good teammate. Those things are also a part of the gig. I was too eccentric and selfish when I was young. Don’t be like me!

Q: What qualities separate a good player from a great one?

A: I think there are two pieces to this, one of them people don’t want to talk about, but I’ll say it. Some players are just freaks by nature. If you’re that much of a freak physically, you can get away with a lot. You can get away with practicing less, guessing less, getting more out of your abilities. That’s the honest truth. A freak with a decent work ethic/mindset can be a great player. A freak with an exceptional ethic/mindset becomes an MLB All Star, haha. That’s kinda how it works. If you’re not a freak, however, then you MUST have an extraordinary work ethic/mindset. I’ve never seen in all my years of playing and coaching, a player who was pretty good physically and pretty good mentally, and that turns into a GREAT player. A physically average player needs a 12 out of 10 approach and a 12 out of 10 will to succeed, in order to become great. No question about that. But you can always compete somehow.

Q: What were your biggest concerns when you first started Instinct Sportswear?

A: Capital and business knowledge. We had no runway, we saved up a couple grand and just absolutely grinded for years. We made so many mistakes but we learned from them and were able to turn a profit after a lot of incredible support from our early customers.

Q: A big concern about the current era of jerseys is that they are too simplistic. How do you feel about where we are heading with jersey designs?

A: I think the designs of the jerseys will always reflect mainstream fashion to an extent. The more global sports become, I think that may change. But right now the fashion trend is simple/bold/plain in a lot of areas. Some NBA basketball jerseys are going away from that trend in a few markets, but who knows. Baseball and football are much more rooted in “tradition,” I think. Baseball is adding some flavor with the city jerseys (some are louder but not necessarily better, haha) which I think gives people an outlet to see/wear something different. Hockey jerseys are actually really cool/fun.

Q: Instinct Sportswear has begun to take off quickly. What does the ideal future look like for your company? Are there certain areas you’d like to focus on or branch off to?

A: It’s been an insane ride and in some ways, we’re just getting started! My main goal is to keep the future sustainable. I want to make sure we can give customers the individual care and personalized feel that has allowed us our success to this point. It’s easy to say that we want to do more marketing and reach more national outlets, but the truth is that comes with a large customer service burden. As a small business, we have to sustain the same personal touch and quality control and also be able to reach more people – that can be difficult to balance in a full custom jersey setting, where every item is personalized. For that reason, we’ve branched off with our corporate and wholesale divisions in the last couple years, and I think that’s where we will have our most scalable success. We can offer other businesses/clothing lines/retailers full custom items with designer options, while maintaining a manageable price point and lead time. We were surprised at the success we had at first, but we are, in a lot of cases, one of the only companies offering higher end options at reasonable prices. So it’s actually been an easier road than just doing full custom team stuff.

Q: Generally speaking, what do you think could be done to grow the game of baseball?

A: These traditionalist geezers have to relax and let people play the game how they want to. The global brand of baseball is the most marketable brand. The game is played with emotion and heart. In the US, everyone is butthurt if a batter looks at the ball too long on a homer, or if a pitcher looks the wrong way after a strikeout. People don’t want to watch robots play. As a former player, I believe there are certain “unwritten rules” that have a place in the game. But a lot of them are dumb. Oh, and the umpires have to go, sorry. Nobody should be allowed to be that bad at their job and keep it. It’s pathetic to watch, they’re awful and then throw people out of the game for saying something in the moment. It’s unacceptable in all sports, and has been bad across the board, but baseball is the worst, I think.