Southern Miss is expected to hire Natalie Poole as the program’s new head coach, sources confirmed to Extra Inning Softball on Friday.
Poole spent the last eleven seasons as the head coach at Memphis, collecting a 241-340 overall record during her tenure. Memphis also posted a 58-146 record in conference play across the same period.
As the Memphis head coach, Poole’s finest hour came in 2018, when she led the Tigers to 37 wins and a berth in the AAC tournament semifinals.
In addition to her tenure as Memphis head coach, Poole spent seven years as the head coach at Georgia Southern and three years leading the McNeese State program. She boasts a career record of 553-639 in more than two decades as a head coach.
She was named the conference Coach of the Year in two different leagues, the SoCon in 2002 while at Georgia Southern and the Southland in 2009 while at McNeese.
Simultaneous with coaching, Poole is also a member of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Board of Directors, part of the organization’s All-American committee, and recently completed the first year of a term on the NCAA Division 1 Softball Committee, the group that selects the NCAA tournament field and organizes the Women’s College World Series.
