Courtney Deifel doesn’t often like to talk about her personal success as a coach; instead, the Arkansas head coach quickly steers the conversation to others’ accomplishments.
Reminded of how far the program has come under her leadership, Deifel’s response was simple and accompanied by almost a verbal shrug. “We’ve had some really good players come through here,” she said.
Deifel’s modesty aside, she is right; a lot of talent has entered and exited the Razorback program in the last six years. And while the talent on the field is the most visible and important part of a successful equation, it is still one of multiple parts of it. Indeed, the Hogs’ coaching room is one of the more unique places in the sport – and what happens in that room is also a significant part of both the program’s positive progression and their consistent growth and success.
Let’s go back a few years in Fayetteville, to the summer of 2015. The Arkansas softball team had won all of one game in conference play in 2015 and just sixteen games overall. Deifel was hired as the program’s new head coach after spending a single season as head coach at Maryland. Was she ready for an SEC head coaching position, even one at a floundering Arkansas program? That would turn out to be a far more stupid question than it even seemed at the time.
While there’s no actual “coaching room” where the Arkansas coaches get together to share their secrets, strategy and planning meetings are a frequent occurrence around the Razorback softball offices and among the Hogs’ coaching staff.
Since Deifel arrived in Fayetteville, the coaching staff has remained largely consistent. Yolanda McRae followed Deifel from the staff at Maryland and has been in Fayetteville for the entirety of the last seven years. The only change in the Hogs’ full-time coaching staff occurred in the fall of 2016, when former Nevada head coach Matt Meuchel came on board the Razorbacks’ staff as an assistant coach.
Not to be left out, Annie Smith is the Hogs’ volunteer assistant coach, now in her third year in the role. Smith has coached on staff at a number of SEC schools and was the head coach at Georgia Southern in the mid-2010s; she got to Arkansas in the summer of 2019 and is the veteran voice in the first-base coaching box for the Hogs.
McRae works with the Hogs’ hitters – yes, the same group that drop bombs on a daily basis and have been known to dent scoreboards, clear fences, and generally make opposing pitchers work hard to simply get outs. A Georgia alum, she has coached at Power Five schools for her entire career and her track record includes award winners and home run hitters left and right.
If you know Meuchel, even by reputation, then the one thing you probably know about him is his skill with numbers. To use Deifel’s words, “he’s brilliant with math.”
That’s not hyperbole either.
To hear Meuchel tell it, patterns and numbers – and math in general – have always been his strength. “Even as a young kid, patterns and math always spoke to me,” Meuchel said. “As a sports fanatic, one thing that drew me to baseball and softball is how much of the game can be summarized and explained through statistics.”
A lot of what Arkansas does can be traced back to Meuchel’s numbers. This isn’t Good Will Hunting; Meuchel simply knows how to use his abilities in perfect fashion to benefit positive results on the field.
By way of an example, look at Arkansas’ mid-March visit to Bowling Green, Kentucky. An SEC team playing a midweek game, on a Monday night, on barely one week’s notice, against a non-power 5 opponent might have looked a big strange on paper, but as per usual in Hogland, there was a numbers-based rationale behind it.
The Hogs’ non-conference schedule is always designed with certain things in mind. Meuchel’s grasp of the formulas used by the NCAA – including the RPI rankings – helps the Razorbacks when it comes to non-conference scheduling. Even as a team playing in the SEC, games against high-ranked teams outside the league are never a bad thing. Unfortunately, bad weather and some teams experiencing “down” years meant that Arkansas didn’t get the total expected benefit from their scheduled slate ahead of SEC play.
When the chance to play Western Kentucky arose, the math said the game would be beneficial so off went the Hogs; an 8-1 win over a quality WKU team and an RPI boost followed.
Meuchel, for his part, knows the value of the math, though he deflects anything even resembling high praise for his mental acuity. In a trait shared by virtually the entire staff, he turns the credit back around on his compatriots. “The secret of the sauce is Courtney,” Meuchel noted. “How she deals with people, handles people, how she communicates… anybody who has dealt with Courtney can see the magnetism she has.”
Not stopping with the program’s leader, Meuchel added, “The most selfless person on our staff is Yolanda; that hasn’t even been spoken about really. When you’re meshing everything in, it works really well… Everyone on this staff are genuinely great human beings that work well together and communicate well with each other. We fight like a family, but there’s not anything that would keep that wedge between us.”
A veteran coach who’s likely seen a little bit of everything during his time in the game, Meuchel noted, “Everybody on the staff feels like their input is valued and trusted and needed. All of that is there, then you get all of the personal pieces and it’s really a good group.”
Watch an Arkansas game, in person or even on TV, and you get a feel for the staff dynamics. Meuchel is never without his clipboard in the dugout; Deifel often appears understated, even reserved, in the third base coaches box, but can get fired up quickly after a big play or perfectly-timed strikeout. Smith can be both reserved and vigorous in the first-base box depending on what the situation calls for, while McRae has seemingly never-ending energy, whether that passion exhibits itself in mid-inning chats, post-out consolations, or pregame routines.
The talent on the field is at an all-time high for Arkansas at this point in time: hot bats, incredible arms, and a group of student-athletes who compliment one another extremely well and succeed at the highest of levels.
Interestingly enough, complimenting each other well and success at a high level is also the recipe that makes the Razorback coaching staff one of the most unique and best units in softball.
