Commodore Caravan in Chicago

[Lynchsr]

First I would like to say, the Vanderbilt marketing team nailed this event.

Kevin Ingram was the event MC. There is no podcast or recording of this stop.

Carter Hawkins, the Cubs GM, is a former Vandyboy ('07) and that was the connection for the event being held at 1914 Club inside Wrigley. Carter spoke briefly about his time at Vandy and experience recruiting Dansby to the Cubs this past offseason.

Coach Lea and Ralph spoke together. Both are very well spoken. CCL gave a great analogy of an expecting parent having all high expectations and wanting to see their child be successful and have all the resources/opportunities they need/want. Then the child is born and while none of that changes for the parent once the child is born, the immediate focus is very different (changing diapers, feeding, resting, bathing, etc) so you aren't as focused on lifetime goals but rather day to day goals. He compared this to becoming the coach at Vandy. He has all the desire in the world to be vandy's coach and for Vandy to win, but when he arrived and met the team, he realized the team was apathetic and emotionally broken. The first year and even the second were extremely difficult because the coaches had to rebuild the team psychologically. He said it was very similar to the first years of being a parenting in that every detail had to be taught and a lot of teaching of "How to". He ended the story by saying he can finally recognize "his" team. Also for those fans of Poach, he mentioned that after year 1, Poach came and tried to hire Coach Lustig. It seemed a very serious effort and CCL was very proud the coach Lustig remained loyal to Vandy.

Coach Lustig and Barton Simmons were in attendance. Talked briefly with Barton on the anticipation for several verbal commitments over the next 2 months. And some high quality commitments. Of course no names were mention and no recruiting violations.

Lastly afterwards, my son (11 years old) got a chance to talk with Coach. His ability to engage my son with meaningful questions and listened to the response before asking the next questions was impressive high level executive functioning from Coach. He is a leader, not just a coach. It was very clear that he could manage people outside of sports.

[charlestonalum]

Great reporting.

[Seadog73]

Thanks Lynchsr! Appreciate the report.