It can be difficult living up to a family legacy.

Mays Madsen makes it look easy.

The Madsen family legacy is baseball, and a lot of it. His father, Eric Madsen, coached at Utah Valley for 18 years (13 as the head coach) and took over the program at Lehi High School for the 2024 season. Coach Madsen’s other sons — Mick, Maddux, McGwire and Murphy — all played baseball. Mick and Maddux won the Daily Herald’s Valley Player of the Year award in 2016 and 2022, respectively, and McGwire, currently serving a church mission, was the team’s leading hitter in 2023. Murphy is a sophomore for the Pioneers.

Mays Madsen can now brag to his brothers about winning 2024 Player of the Year honors.

The Pioneers, as the No. 5 seed, went 7-1 in the 6A state tournament (defeating No. 1 American Fork along the way) and took two of three from Corner Canyon to claim the championship. Mays Madsen was a huge part of Lehi’s success, batting .443 and scoring 38 runs, bashing 47 hits and driving in 27 RBI on seven doubles, four triples and three home runs. He also added 17 stolen bases, won three games on the mound and made a difficult position switch from center field as a sophomore to shortstop as a junior.

“The biggest thing is that Mays is extremely competitive and holds himself to a high level of demands and expectations,” Coach Madsen said. “This year, at shortstop, he exceeded expectations.”

Mays Madsen exceeded expectations both as a Pioneer and as a Madsen being coached by his father.

“It’s funny, because people ask me about having my dad as my head coach,” Mays Madsen said. “I don’t ever call him ‘Coach,’ I call him ‘Dad.’ He gets on me more but that plays a big factor. My older brothers push me. I know that no one feels sorry for me. I have to work at it and get better so it’s awesome to be able to have brothers that play. I’m super privileged to have those people in my life.”

Coach Madsen said he never really got to coach his sons until Mick, who starred at American Fork, played for him at Utah Valley. When he resigned from the Wolverines job in 2021, he joined Jared Ingersoll’s staff at Lehi and has now coached Maddux, McGwire and Mays.

“Mays has had a lot of instruction from his brothers on how to handle being coached by me,” Coach Madsen said. “I figured out a lot of things when I had Mick at UVU so coaching Mays has been easy. He’s not one who likes to fight but he knows when I’m getting after him to pick everybody else up. I don’t think I beat him up too much and I don’t think he takes it that way. I can get on him pretty good but he just puts his head down and gets going.”

Mays Madsen took on a larger leadership role during Lehi’s championship run.

“It’s pretty easy when you have good people around you,” he said. “Everybody bought into it and no one was playing selfish ball. You trust your brother. In the state tournament it was kind of like everyone was passing the bat down because everyone was getting big hits and making timely plays.”

Mays Madsen said he’ll hit the links this summer — “Our family likes to say we’re good at golf” — and will travel to Boise this fall to watch Maddux, a redshirt sophomore quarterback, play football. Mays Madsen is a wide receiver on the Lehi football team, so he’ll split time between baseball with RA Baseball Academy and football conditioning.

“I’d definitely say I’m scrappy,” Mays Madsen said. “I’m not that person who had a beard when he was 13 years old and I’m not a 6-foot-5 guy. I play a different game and fast paced, then sometimes I can hit a deep ball out of nowhere. I’ve just played baseball my whole life.

“When my dad coached at UVU after every game we’d go into the outfield and play wiffle ball and keep playing well after the game was over. I watched my brothers grow, not just as baseball players but as leaders. Being able to find something my whole family did and grown up with, to go to the field every day with my brothers and my best friends, it’s been a super big part of my life. I always look forward to doing things that make me happy.”