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ABOUT
Todd Mayfield, the head coach for the East Cobb Bullets team that competes at the 14U level, has coached youth sports for over 25 years covering football, basketball, baseball and softball.
He’s immersed in the stick-and-ball side on a daily basis as the owner of the Diamond Skills Academy hitting facility in Toccoa, Georgia.
He and wife Mechelle have two kids, Dionte’ and Raina, and he says that “outside of spending time with my family, I love giving back to other children and the community.”
“I live by the motto, ‘LTD, Coach Mayfield continues, “which means, ‘Living The Dream.’”
“‘LTD’ comes to my mind when I coach a softball game as the head coach of one of the best teams in the country. My goal for the ladies I coach is for them to play the game with the same passion I have for the game every time they touch the field.”
The current team is stacked with talent including one player, Raven Thompson, committed to Louisiana-Lafayette and two pitcher/athletes in McKaela Walker and Destin Howard who Mayfield says “makes my team really special.”
Here’s a closer look at the squad which finished in the Top 15 at PGF Nationals this past summer and is a loaded second-year 14U team with some of the top 2022’s and 2023’s in the country…
Coach Mayfield: when did the Bullets-Mayfield team start and what was the reason it was created?
We started this team in the fall of 2016 during the second year 12U. The backstory is that at the time I was coaching my daughter on an older EC Bullets team. After she accepted her offer to college, I had several people ask me to put together a power team. Without an official tryout period, I personally contacted parents of players that I knew could get the job done. And that’s how 12U EC Bullets-Mayfield story began.
Where is home base for you and the team and where do you get your players from?
I am based out of Toccoa, Georgia, a small town in Northeast Georgia. Our players are from all over the Southeast, but mostly are from the Atlanta area.
What was the driving factor in you creating your own team?
In 2013, after several years of coaching with my teams, GA Titans and Diamond Skills organization, I realized that my players were not getting seen by colleges. Thereafter, I made a phone call to Greg Schnute to set up a meeting with him to discuss an opportunity to work with the EC Bullets. After my wife Mechelle and I met with Greg for dinner, we agreed to partner together. I coached my daughter for three years under the Bullets team and witnessed her and several of our players like Raina Mayfield, Avian Craft, Karly Smith, Lauren King and others move on to play for other travel ball teams and to play on major college softball teams. I also had the pleasure of coaching ladies like Peyton Terrell and Madison Massey who chose not to play softball in college. In 2016, our purpose of creating another team was multi-fold: 1) build a team to win PGF Nationals, 2) develop the players’ softball skills on a D-1 level, and 3) help these young athletes to reach their dreams.
What have been some of the top achievements for your teams?
When softball was about weekend tournaments and winning the World Serie, my GA Titans and Diamond Skills teams won several World Series and tournaments. Moving to the 2016-2017 year, EC Bullets-Mayfield 12U finished 13th in Colorado, 3rd in California at PGF Nationals and finished the year ranked 7th overall in the nation. In 2018, we finished 13th at PGF Nationals and ended the year with a 58-16-1 record and a Top 10 national ranking.
What’s it been like playing in the Bullets organization?
The owner, Greg Schnute, has made the EC Bullets organization one of the best in the nation. I appreciate the opportunity he gave me in 2013 to be a part of this great organization which has been growing each and every year and now has 36 teams in the program.
Talk about how you got into softball after being involved in other sports like football, baseball and basketball…
I started coaching youth sports over 25 years ago, and my son’s baseball team 15 years ago and once he got to the point that I could turn him over to other coaches, I began coaching my daughter’s Little League softball team 12 years ago. From that point on, I have grown to love coaching and I have been hooked on softball. From Little League to starting my own organization to joining the EC Bullets, every step has had its rewards!