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We continue our list of the Top 15 Softball Stories of 2018, which will run through December 31st when we’ll present our No. 1 story of the year.
We’ve surveyed the softball community and talked internally as well to come up with what were the most impactful and relevant stories in 2018 pertaining to the world of fastpitch softball.
Here are the previous stories:
- #15… Alexia Carrasquillo: The Shot Heard Round the Recruiting World (Dec. 17, 2018)
- #14… Ashley Rogers Overcomes Tragedy to Become National Player of the Year
- #13… High School Senior Sydney Supple Approaching $100K To Build Hometown Field of Dreams
- #12… NFCA’s StrikeOut Cancer Initiative Provides Unity & Half Million-Plus For Research
- #11… There’s Rage in Them Cajuns…. Michael Lotief Firing at ULL Sparks Pushback from Coach & Players
- #10… Controversy at TC/USA Nationals As Championship Team Disqualified
- #9… Mike Stith Wins Club Title & Pro Championship In Same Season
- #8… Team USA Looks Unstoppable Heading Towards 2020 Olympics
- #7… The South Shall Rise Again (Is The West No Longer The Dominant Region?)
- #6… On-Campus Shootings; The Softball World Also Affected
- #5… MSU’s Alex Wilcox Cancer Death Sparks Movement of Support
- #4… Jesse Warren-Led Florida State Makes National Splash
- #3… DI Transfer Mania–Even All-Americans on The Move
Today is #2 and involves a year with five dozen head coaching changes in the college ranks including major programs like Texas and Oregon as well as some very high profile assistant coaches changing locations…
To provide comments, insights or thoughts, email: [email protected].
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This summer was a crazy one-perhaps a record-setting one–when it came to college coaching changes.
If you look at the 2018 Coaching Tracker on Justin’s World of Softball, there were 60 head coaching changes this year alone (click HERE to see the list).
We wondered if that was a new mark and asked the compiler of the list, Justin McLeod, if he could remember a year that had such movement.
“It was more than any year that I could find,” Justin says.
“I think it seemed so impactful because of the sheer magnitude of moves, but also no one was ‘safe’ because of some of the high-profile jobs that opened. No one was untouchable, either, to leave by choice or otherwise.”
There was a huge ripple effect that impacted many high visibility schools when Connie Clark of Texas retired.
Her stepping down led to Mike White, the former head coach at Oregon, taking the Longhorn job and the Ducks’ opening being filled by long-time Sooner assistant Melyssa Anderson.
The Sooner position was filled by Oklahoma alum Jennifer Rocha, who had great success at Florida, leaving Tim Walton to fill that spot which was done so by Syracuse head man Mike Bosch.
And so on and so on.
So why five dozen changes? Karen Weekly, the Co-Head Coach at Tennessee, President of the NFCA and newly inducted NFCA Hall of Fame member, feels it’s because of the positive growth of the sport.
“One reason for the high number of coaching moves is because the salaries are going up and good coaches are getting hired away to fill those openings,” explains Coach Weekly. “Not only are the dollars more, but the contracts are multi-year and it’s good for the coaches because those that are successful are being rewarded, leading to the movement we’re seeing today.”
Justin McLeod believes the success of the sport is making it so there are more expectations on the coaches, just like there are in other successful collegiate sports.
“This was the year that you saw a lot of program architects dismissed from the programs that they built, some from the ground up,” Justin explains. “This year a number of schools decided the status quo wasn’t good enough anymore ‘because it’s just softball.’”
In other words, as softball grows in popularity, more resources are dedicated to it providing more income for coaches and more incentive to move.
In the “cream rises to the top” scenario, that’s a good thing for all coaches as the revenues are increased and the winners are rewarded.
Now, it remains to be seen if 2018 was just a spike in the number of changes or if it will be an on-going, growing pattern.
— Brentt Eads, Extra Inning Softball
*** Below are some of the major articles done this year on Extra Inning Softball involving some of the high-profile coaching moves…
