Cory Edwards and the rest of the Paseo Verde team flew home from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Monday.
By Tuesday, the kids were back at school and Edwards was back at work. Almost as if the last two weeks never happened.
Edwards returned from managing 12-year-old kids in the Little League World Series to managing employees as a district manager for Starbucks. He didn’t anticipate using three weeks of vacation time in the summer to coach baseball, but it’s the cost for a memorable summer.
It’s a similar mindset for the 38-year-old manager when it comes to managing employees or a baseball team. There needs to be the right mix of people to make things go.
The chemistry between Edwards and coaches Lynn Cowley and Bill Senne made for a formula that pushed Paseo Verde to as far as it could go in the Little League World Series.
Not bad for a group who hadn’t worked together prior to the start of the District 2 championships.
More than baseball
Edwards takes things one day at a time, whether it be in work or baseball. A book he references a lot is from former Starbucks president Howard Behar titled, “It’s Not About the Coffee: Lessons on Putting People First from a Life at Starbucks”
The title is self-explanatory. Behar writes that if a manager thinks of his employees as people and not because of their labor, the results will come.
Edwards applies the same philosophy to his coaching staff. Watching film and going through drills are obviously important and each coach has his own task that they need to get done to the best of their abilities.
“But I think about it in the sense of, it’s not about the baseball. It’s really about the people, and it’s about the kids and coaching them individually — understanding what their triggers are.
“And even when they’re put in positions where they don’t like to hit eighth and they want to hit this or they want to play that position, it’s about connecting with them as a person to build that trust, so that they actually understand.”
Quite the mix
The Friday before the U.S. championship game against Ohio showed how different they are, but they mesh together.
Edwards is the on-looker. He discusses the plan with Cowley and Senne, then methodically watches the action down the third-base line.
Senne works the first-base line behind the fence. He’ll field the foul balls that land in the parking lot, but the primary job is to encourage the kids during batting drills when they get to first base.
Cowley is the vocal one, preaching effort and needing to give 100 percent. Trying to get kids to field ground balls before 10 a.m. can seem like an impossible task.
“Bill’s the positivity. Lynn’s the action guy,” Edwards said. “Lynn and I do a lot of the practice planning and going through the dynamics of what we need. He says the things that I’m thinking and then we kind of come back around.”
The key is they all knew how to get the best out of everyone.
“I think it was just the perfect dynamic,” Cowley said. “The league did a good job selecting the coaching staff to start with, and I thought Cory did a really good job managing and delegating when needed.”
Senne said he received compliments that Paseo Verde was the best-coached team in the tournament because of how well they worked together.
“All three of us are on the same page,” Senne said one day before the U.S. championship game. “We know how to prepare kids.”
Dad and coach
Edwards and Cowley had the tough task of not just balancing baseball players, but their own sons. Special treatment was never given to Logan Edwards or Hudson Cowley. They had to earn their right to be on the field.
Senne’s decision to retire this year came down to not wanting to take a coaching opportunity from a dad whose son would be on the team.
That was tested against Ohio with Logan Edwards trying to preserve a dominant shutout. He gave up four runs in one-third of an inning on two hits. It was the first runs he allowed all summer.
“There’s certainly moments where you want your kid to do well, but also you want them to come through for the team,” Cory Edwards said on Aug. 27. “From a dad standpoint, you just want to hug him.
“But from a coaching standpoint, there’s a life lesson there and we need to make sure that comes across.”
More attention
Edwards isn’t one to like the sound of his own voice, so there were some reserved feelings when his speech during the sixth inning of the world championship against Curacao went viral.
Down 11-2, Edwards spoke to his team.
“Hey, listen, no matter what happens, you have to hold your head up. You have to not get on each other. You have to have good body language,” he said. “Those things are important. You have to stay mentally tough. When it gets tough, you get tougher. You understand?”
Little League coach talking to his team down 11-2 😤
A teaching moment ❤️ pic.twitter.com/XvZ57LeWdy
— ESPN (@espn) August 30, 2026
Edwards didn’t want to, but he saw the comments. That it was a soft approach to coaching, and that he should’ve been harder on the kids.
He, nor Cowley or Senne, have thought that way. It got them that far.
“I was talking to a friend of mine. He was talking about a video that played at Little League of, ‘What do you want the kids to know after this experience?’ It was from a coach’s perspective,” Edwards said. “This was Day 2, being tired. I wanted them to know that I tried my best, that I did everything I could for them.
“When he reminded me that that’s what I said, I really did do that.”
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
