My best friend just got the head baseball job at Georgia State

We call each others parents Auntie and Uncle, grew up together as family and knew each other since we were 2. I am beyond excited for him. He's been coaching in the NAIA level for the last 7 years and went to 3 or 4 world series for them, and won national coach of the year a couple times. Still, for all that, I don't think it's a common jump to go from NAIA to a D1 job, and doing it in the same city where he was settled in and his wife has a big time job is just awesome. His name is Brad Stromdahl

Another friend of mine, that I played little league and basketball with has the head job at Cal Berkley, after being a rule 5 guy that played all of 1 season with the A's as a rule 5 guy, and parts of a couple others with the Marlins. His name is Mike Neu

Now, neither of these guys, obviously, are household names, but they are doing pretty well in career with baseball. I worked as an assistant GM out of law school with my friend Brad for a summer on a north woods league team before deciding I didn't see any path from there to organized baseball either in a FO or as an agent, but it was fun as hell, and maybe I bailed on that dream a little easy (really it wasn't a dream for me where I'd be willing to put in the incredible hard work that they did to get to where they are at right now- massive props to them).

That's my story- what is yours? Who is the most famous or successful person you grew up with in the game? It's been fun to live vicariously through these guys. Both have just been incredibly humble about everything that's come their way which is pretty cool to see.

Looking forward to having a beer with my buddy after his opening game at a D1 school next February or so, like I got to do in Arlington (Astros were still an NL Central team) with my other buddy the first time he came through Texas as a big leaguer.