You go to a USA Baseball national team identification event. You play your best. You get noticed. You get invited to the chance of a lifetime: An opportunity to represent your country as a player on the USA Baseball national team.
That's the common path for a player.
But what about the coaches for the USA Baseball national teams? A coach cannot go 8-for-19 with three home runs over the course of a weekend tournament. So, what do they do? What is their path? How do you become a coach for USA Baseball?
It is a question we get asked a lot.
The answer: Honestly, there is no "path" for the best coaches in the country to carefully weave through, marking off accomplishments from a cultivated list in order to get closer to their coaching dreams. The answer is more complex than that. There are any number of ways someone with the right heart, attitude and abilities can end up wearing U-S-A across their chest and, hopefully, a gold medal around their neck.
For proof of this, look no further than the 2018 15U World Cup champion coaching staff. Four men with wildly different paths to our coaching ranks found themselves all sharing a medal stand in Panama.
The Handshake: Manager Jason Maxwell
Jason Maxwell played professional baseball for 12 years, started a high school program from scratch in Tennessee, and went on to lead Team USA to their first-ever U-15 Baseball World Cup title. But how did Maxwell get his start with USA Baseball? From the way he tells it: A handshake.
"You never know what a handshake will mean down the road." This is a philosophy Jason lives by and instills in his two sons. And it is a philosophy that set Jason on a path to what he calls his 'number one without a doubt' personal achievement in the game of baseball.
The handshake in this instance was with Jan Weisberg. Jan is the head coach of a college program that was recruiting one of Jason's high school players back in 2013. That college program was Birmingham-Southern, which was also the alma mater of Brooks Webb, former Senior Director of Baseball Operations at USA Baseball.
One day, Brooks called his former college manager asking if he knew of any coaches that showed the heart and ability to join the newest crop of USA Baseball coaches.
Jan sent him to Jason Maxwell.
Jason started his USA Baseball coaching career where most coaches do, working as a member of the task force at the National Team Championships and the National Team Identification Series. Hundreds of kids packed into ballparks across the country, all with the same goal as each other, all with the same goal as Jason Maxwell: A chance to represent the United States of America.
His passion for the game and his drive to help these young athletes reach their potential was obvious to everyone around him. Jason was suddenly at any event USA Baseball needed an extra hand.
After three short years, he was named to his first national team staff, and traveled to Japan as an assistant coach with the 2016 15U National Team. The team placed third in the tournament. But Jason left wanting more.
In 2017 Jason was named the field manager for the 14U National Team Development Program (NTDP). A group of young players stacked with talent. Enough to have a chance at history, to be the first team in U.S. history to bring home the U-15 World Cup championship the following year.
Over the next two summers, Jason led that group of young athletes, helped them develop and earned their trust. And in 2018, history was made.
"When you are standing in another country with a gold medal around your neck, and the national anthem starts to play," Jason remembered. "There is nothing like it."
From a handshake, to a phone call, to a gold medal.
Now if this sounds like fate, and something impossible for an everyday coach, that is not the case. Yes, Jason played big league baseball, but Jason was the head coach of a team coming off a 13-16 record when he received that phone call. A moment in which his first instinct was 'Just let it ring. We aren't going to be in the National High School Invitational' when he saw that his caller ID read "USA Baseball." 
But the call was for him. Because his passion, drive and ability were obvious to anyone around him. Obvious to Jan Weisberg, then obvious to Brooks Webb and eventually obvious to new Senior Director of Baseball Operations at USA Baseball, Ashley Bratcher, who served as the program director for the world championship 15U National Team in 2018.
"Jason epitomizes the character, leadership and personal qualities we look for to be a USA Baseball national team coach," said Bratcher. "In every facet of his life, both personal and professional, he does everything the right way and is a perfect representation of our game, our organization and our country.
"Without a doubt, he was truly an obvious and deserving choice to lead a USA Baseball national team and it was an honor to witness his direct impact on our athletes and his fellow coaches on the 2018 squad. It surprised nobody whom has ever had the privilege of working with him that he led our 15U National Team to unprecedented heights, winning its first-ever world championship title."
Every coach makes connections every day. And you never know what a handshake will mean down the road. And you'll never know when the right impression on the right person might lead to glory.
Jason Maxwell's story is the first of a four-part series on "How to Become a USA Baseball Coach." The remaining three stories of the series will be released on USABaseball.com and @USABaseball on Facebook, Instgram and Twitter.