Chelsea Butler Leads Wofford into Inaugural Season

Chelsea Butler had little interest in leaving the University of Maryland.

She had just completed her third season in College Park, Md., and the Terps program was trending upward. Maryland finished the 2022 season with a 29-23 overall record and a 14-8 record in the Big 10. It marked the most wins for the Terps since 2013 and the fifth-place finish was the highest since joining the conference.

But then the head coaching position at Wofford College was posted and something tugged at Butler.

Family ties and a familiarity with the area, having previously served as the associate head coach at nearby Presbyterian College, sparked her interest.

Ultimately she found more than a softball team, she found a home and Butler was selected as the Wofford head coach on May 25, 2022.

“Wofford College, from our President to our entire athletic department, this entire thing has been done right. I was happy, I wasn’t necessarily looking to leave to become a head coach right then. But the way that everyone handled the entire process, it’s so exciting to be part of.”

Butler was hired in the spring of 2022, but the first game in school history would not be played until the 2024 season which allowed Butler to hire a staff and recruit players to the program.

“Last year when we were practicing in the spring and all my colleagues and friends were playing games, I was a little jealous. But I’m so glad now looking back that we had the year to lay the foundation of what we want and establish our expectations.”

Year One

Chelsea Butler experienced what very few softball coaches ever have, which is a blank canvas on which to operate.

“It’s all been surreal. I was an assistant for 13 years at the Division I level before becoming a head coach, and so not only am I a first-time head coach, but I’m a first-time head coach starting a Division I softball program. When I was hired it was just all excitement and joy, but when you sit behind the desk you realize this is real and we have got a lot to do.”

Her top priority was to hire a coaching staff to join her in Spartanburg, S.C., and she hired Kara Shutt and retained Mark Line as her first assistant coaches.

Line had been named the inaugural head coach of the Wofford softball program in 2021 and recruited the first class to Wofford, but contemplated retirement before Butler coaxed him into staying on staff.

“Mark has been a great mentor for me and the team. I’m really excited to see if I can convince him to stay for one more year. And then I hired Kara last year. She was an All-American at Elon, was a graduate assistant for South Carolina and then was a volunteer assistant at Ole Miss for two years before coming here. Phenomenal hitting coach, phenomenal person, relates well to the girls and always has my back.”

With a staff in place, the coaches hit the recruiting trail in search of future Terriers.

Line had recruited nine players – Kaytlin Greenwood, AJ Felices, Ansleigh Epps, Gracie Parker, Bayley Betsill, Lilly Compton, Cadan Brinkman, Ally Bigham and Kate Platte – to form the first-ever Wofford recruiting class.

When Butler began conversations with potential student-athletes she was invigorated by the reception she received.

“It was incredible. We are a private, liberal arts college, so it’s expensive and we cannot stack athletic and academic scholarships. So, either you’re on athletic money or you’re on academic money and originally, I didn’t know how I was going to sell this.

“I learned quickly, especially in our region, the Wofford education sells itself. We feel like we fish in a pretty specific pond when it comes to academics, and we are able to attract student-athletes who value education and softball.”

Butler, and her staff, spent the spring of 2023 coaching a team that knew it would be another year before they would take the field.

The focus was on improvement, but time was also spent building the culture of the program.

“I think having become a head coach for the first time in my career, I stepped into the right situation for me personally because most times when you become a head coach, you’re taking over somebody else’s work. And a lot of times culture wise there are some differences from who you are as a coach.

“I personally would have really struggled with that, trying to flip something, and having those hard conversations, which I mean I still have them here but just in a different context. So, for me getting to start from the ground up and not having to kind of break something down to rebuild it has allowed me to be my best self as well.”

Year Two

Plenty of changes resonated within the program when Wofford began fall ball in 2023 as 15 new players arrived on campus, the Terriers home stadium was ready for play and Butler added Taylor Liguori as an assistant coach.

Kaytlin Greenwood (Columbia, S.C.), Sydney Baker (Acworth, Ga.), AJ Felices (San Antonio, Texas), Gracie Parker (Concord, N.C.), Bayley Betsill (Greenville, S.C.), Desirae Devine (Cape Coral, Fla.), Havalynn Abernathy (Marietta, Ga.), Hannah Maddox (Inman, S.C.), Abby Greenwood (King George, Va.), Lilly Compton (Haymarket, Va.), Kalli Petty (Union, S.C.), Abbi Campbell (Piedmont, S.C.), Megan Towery (Dallas, N.C.), Bergan Needles (Ashburn, Va.), Cadan Brinkman (Bloomington, Ill.), Ally Bigham (Waxhaw, N.C.), Abby Gossett (Inman, S.C.), Margaret Axelson (Chamblee, Ga.), Kate Platte (Aiken, S.C.), Hope Ingle (Soddy-Daisy, Tenn.), Tayven Stephenson (Winfield, W.Va.), Kendall Wylie (Cape Coral, Fla.), Olivia Lenzen (Winter Garden, Fla.) are the historic first team that will take the field this spring for Wofford.

Wofford played eight games in total during the fall season, six of which came at their new home. Wofford also ventured to Columbia, S.C., to face South Carolina of the Southeastern Conference in a doubleheader.

Butler believes the strength of the team in the fall was found in the pitching staff.

“Our pitching, honestly, has probably been the strongest aspect of our game. We have four freshmen and a sophomore transfer from Birmingham Southern. And they all have their different strengths. I’m big on changing speeds, so as we recruited them, it was important that we have good off-speed stuff. And truly, they all complement each other. They’ve accepted that they’re going to be a staff. Nobody has put on the crown and said, hey, it’s mine. They pass the ball very well to the next person and we outperformed my expectation.”

From an offensive standpoint, Butler saw her team improve as the fall progressed.

“We got more confident as we went on. You have to get some experience in different scenarios, and I felt we were tested in a few different ways. It was all growth, and I would say we got better week to week and game to game.”

Defensively, Butler feels she has all the components to put a top-flight team on the field.

“I would say that defensively when we first started, it was kind of like yikes. It wasn’t a yikes from a talent standpoint, it was a yikes because nobody wanted to be the person to be loud. Nobody wanted to be the person to own it and they didn’t want to step on each other’s toes.

“As the fall went on, we got so much stronger defensively. But as far as talent is concerned, we are extremely talented. And now we have got to make sure that we’re confident, that we’re calling out the right bases and people are in the right place at the right time.”

Butler’s focus will be instilling confidence in her team ahead of the season opener when Wofford resumes practice.

“When it comes to on the field, I would say as far as they’re concerned to let them feel free to make mistakes going 100 percent. I think they had to learn that this fall, all of them, that I am never going to be upset with you going all out for something that doesn’t work in our favor, because the only way we can be sure that you have the confidence to do it in a game is to be willing to do it in practice. Making sure that that’s kind of put right back to the forefront of their minds is important to me.

“Making sure that we feel confident, and we feel prepared. So, making sure that they feel confident in any, and all, moments as we get ready to get this thing started. And softball specifically, if we can pitch it a little bit and we can field it a little bit, I feel like we have a shot.”

Feb. 8, 2024, is the date that is circled on the calendar for Butler, the Wofford softball program and the Terrier athletic program as the Terriers will face Eastern Kentucky in the first game in program history in the Terrier Invitational.

When the players resume practice in January, Wofford will be a month away from its first game and Butler can sense the anticipation within her team.

“I’m going to kind of let them lead and I want them to be excited. I want them to have all the butterflies. I want them to have all those feelings that we always talk about. It’s okay to be excited and it’s okay to be joyous. I don’t want to put a cap on them as people when it comes to their personalities. I want them to have fun and be crazy. I want them to feel free to be willing to go all out and we live with the outcome.”

With family, former teammates, friends and her former coach in the opposite dugout, Feb. 8 will be a special day for Butler.

“As we get closer, I think those feelings are starting to creep in and it becomes more real and special. There are so many people who have helped me get here that I don’t even think I’ve thought about all of them in the way that I will on that day. I don’t think I really will understand the magnitude of it all until I look in the stands. But yes, there will be that selfish moment of joy.”

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