Go Beyond the Clipboard with Matt Redden.
S ince birth, baseball has always been a part of Matt Redden’s life.
The sport has played a much more significant role than just an extracurricular activity for the Southwest High head baseball coach.
“Baseball has just always been a part of my life. It’s something I love, I live and breathe,” stated Redden on his love for the sport.
After playing alongside his three brothers throughout his childhood, Redden then played and graduated from Southwest High in 2000.
He then accomplished his dream of playing the sport at the collegiate level, playing at Imperial Valley College for two years and at Paine College in Augusta, Georgia for two years on a baseball scholarship.
During his time at Paine, Redden began his first step in his coaching career by acting as the student assistant coach for the team for a year.
Afterwards, the head coach decided to come back to the Imperial Valley and was offered a position by Central Union High head baseball coach Gene Martin to coach Central’s freshman baseball team.
Craig Lyon, who was Southwest’s athletic director at the time, wasn’t happy with Redden coaching for Central and invited him to be the school’s junior varsity baseball coach.
Redden then took over the school’s baseball program in 2012 after former head coach Sergio Rubio retired.
Redden stated that, according to the late and former Southwest athletic director Mickey Carter, he is the first Southwest alumni to be a head coach for the school’s baseball program.
“To me, that was a huge honor. For coaching, I didn’t necessarily set my sights on it but as soon as the opportunity came I jumped on it,” commented the head coach on coaching at Southwest.
For Redden, becoming a coach didn’t derive from his love for the sport, but from his appreciation of his former coaches.
Along with his dad who coached him, Redden deeply admired his former high school coaches Lyon and Carter as well as his former IVC coaches Dave Drury and Jim Mecate for teaching him good morals and how to be a productive young man while growing up.
“Those are just things that really resonated with me. Seeing those examples made me want to be them. Not necessarily being a coach, but just being the people they were,” explained Redden.
Teaching life lessons and how to be good people through the sport is a daily priority to the head coach.
“When you put yourself in a position to succeed and you’re around people who are succeeding, good things are going to happen to you. If you’re hanging with guys getting in trouble, you’re setting yourself up to get in trouble,” advises Redden to his players every year.
The head coach holds this advice he gives to his players close to his heart, as reflecting on his time as player he recalls the game slapped him in the face when he wasn’t respectful and had a bad attitude.
Even as a coach, Redden explained that attitude his has been his greatest struggle and his greatest improvement he’s made throughout his five years at the helm of the Eagles.
“I’ve learned to talk to the guys when they’re making mistakes and not try to yell at them or scream at them. I’m not saying I’m perfect but I’ve calmed down since
first starting,” said the head coach on how he’s improved since he first began coaching.
“When I first started coaching, I wanted to run every play, I wanted to micromanage. I wanted to do everything because that was the player in me still trying to play. Then I realized they’re on the field and I have to just put them into position,” explained Redden, who has since realized the entire team benefits if he sets parameters instead of forcing all his players to look the same.
Becoming a head coach for a collegiate team is a dream for the head coach, although he is currently focused on coaching the Eagles to the best of his ability.
“I teach here, I coach here, I love this school. My wife probably wishes I was here less,” said Redden, who has no plans on coaching anywhere else in the near future and believes he would not be the head coach he is today without the support from his wife Melissa and his two children.