55 Steps to Outrageous Service » (Unabridged)

Greg Hatcher has and always will be a coach. Although not employed by a high school or college currently, upon graduating from Alma College in 1983 Hatcher coached a year of baseball at Notre Dame University in 1984. Because he enjoyed the challenge of the business world and coaching he decided to do both.

During business hours, he is the owner of The Hatcher Agency, the states largest insurance agency in Little Rock, Arkansas. He started the agency from scratch when he was 28 years old with the idea of providing Outrageous Service to customers. Hatcher is the author of 55 Steps to Outrageous Service, which was published in 1999. In addition, The Hatcher Agency has been named Arkansas Business' Business of the Year and was recently voted Best of Business by readers of Arkansas Business. The Hatcher Agency has been the top producing health insurance agency in Arkansas for the past fifteen years.

However, Greg's greatest passion is the Mighty Bluebird Organization that he developed over the years from coaching youth sports. The Mighty Bluebirds program is a non profit 501C9 where Hatcher built state-of-the-art soccer fields and a gym that give the kids the very best facilities for practice and for games. He has been coaching youth soccer, basketball, baseball, and football since 1984.

Every team he has ever coached since 1984 has won their conference championship with the exception of one football team which finished second with a record of 8-1. His soccer teams have won 12 State Championships and are the most dominant team in Arkansas history. At the time of this publication, the 12 and under team is ranked #1 in the nation out of over 1,000 selectteams.

Hatcher has played virtually every sport at the competitive level with the exception of golf and played three sports in college (soccer, wrestling, and baseball) at Alma College in Alma, Michigan. He was, in fact, the last athlete from Alma to compete in three different sports for all four years of college. Hatcher played on a record six championship teams (three in wrestling and three in baseball) and four of these teams were recently inducted into Alma College's Hall of Fame. This makes Hatcher a member of more championship teams and Hall of Fame teams than any other athlete in Alma College's 100 plus year history.

His sports interests and sense of adventure continued well after college with him participating in marathons, triathlons, bungee jumping, sky diving, and barefoot skiing, just to name a few of his extracurricular activities. Hatcher was the Chairperson for the Inaugural Little Rock Marathon, started in 2003 and continues to Chair the event each year today. He is also the chairman for the Bruin 7 on 7 Football Tournament (the state's largest 7 on 7 tournament) and is the chairman of The Broyles Award, which recognizes the top Assistant Football Coach in the country.

He was a coach well before he ever had kids for 10 years and said he would never coach his own kids, but when his kids got old enough to play he couldn't help but coach them as it gave him a chance to spend more time with them and teach them some of the most important lessons in life that are best taught on the sports field. His 5 kids at the time this book was written are: Kelsey age 16, Haley age 12, Larkin age 12, Layne age 6, and Mattie age 4.

Greg Hatcher is the coach that you always wish you had. He is honest, sincere, straight to the point, a no pulled punches sort of a coach, who tells it like it is and leaves you knowing in no uncertain terms what you have to do to achieve greatness.

Greg Hatcher has been coaching sports since the day he graduated from college in 1983. In his new book Between the Ears: How to Think Like a Champion, Greg shares 110 hard earned lessons learned from nearly 25 years of coaching.

Between the Ears is designed to teach coaches, parents and children (and even adults) to think like champions. His book focuses on the crucial mental elements of sports and competition that can help kids and their parents have a more successful sporting experience.

Hatcher explains simply in a heart to heart best friend and ally style that makes it easy for people of all ages young and old to understand the issue, see the right thing and want to do the right thing. He combines the best of what he learned from his decades of coaching experience in soccer, football, basketball, baseball, cross country, track and wrestling. Hatcher has a gift for storytelling, gives his all and packs everything he's learned from working with kids in all these sports so that they can help themselves become the best that they can be.

Children's Literature

Author Greg Hatcher is a successful athlete and businessman. At twenty-eight he founded his own insurance company, The Hatcher Agency. In this book he works to pass on his formulas for success to younger athletes and their coaches. He introduces approaches from many different coaches and their styles and makes the book manageable by having different sections such as "Philosophy," "Organization and Preparation," "Practice," and many more. Each of these sections is then broken into chapters. Each section is full of ideas and strategies for players to become better both physically and mentally. At the end of each chapter are questions the athletes can ask themselves. Another strength of this book is Mr. Hatcher's reality-based take on coaching youth sports. While he acknowledges the need for participation, he also acknowledges that even kids want to win. The author effectively creates a balance between the win-at-all-costs mentality and just having fun. In addition to the coaching and athletic information, the author includes information for parents and how young athletes can work with their parents. The end of the book has inspirational passages. A decent read, but somewhat dry. Not something many young readers would pick up to read. A good book for coaches and people involved in youth sports.