When Kristie Fox departed UT-Arlington earlier this summer, the Mavericks athletic department only had to look a few hours south to find their new leader. Peejay Brun had been an assistant coach at Texas State – her second stint at the school – for a single season when the UTA position opened. “I wasn’t actually looking for a head coaching job at the time,” Brun said. “But once it opened, and I slowed myself down to think about it, I knew it was an opportunity that I just had to try.” The move minimized many of the usual complications of…
Author: jmcleod
While much controversy has surrounded Louisiana-Lafayette’s dismissal of Michael Lotief as head coach, lost amidst the fray is the fact that that Ragin Cajuns are without a head coach – and coaching staff – with just weeks to go before the 2018 season. Let’s take a look at some of the potential candidates to take the reins of the Cajuns in 2018. Kyla Holas, former head coach, Houston >>> Former longtime Houston head coach Holas has to be considered a frontrunner for the position. She is a Cajun alum, has championship experience as a head coach, and isn’t currently committed…
Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs announced this week that he plans to step down from his position on June 1, 2018. In his statement, Jacobs said that his departure could come even sooner if a successor is found and in place before next summer. Jacobs has led the Tigers’ athletic department since December of 2004 and has spent more than three decades in several capacities across the school’s athletics program. He presided over the program’s first-ever BCS national championship in 2010, among other program successes. On the softball side, Jacobs was responsible for firing former head coach Tina Deese in…
There’s no end to the softball connections in the game of Major League Baseball. The proverbial “brother” to the sport of softball, there are brother-sister relationships, father-daughter, and even husband-wife tie-ins that intertwine throughout the two sports. Need an example? Look no further than George Springer, the newly-minted World Series Most Valuable Player. The Houston Astros’ young star tied an all-time record with five home runs in his team’s seven-game ascent to the World Series trophy, but he is not the only member of the Springer family that has seen success on the diamond. Springer’s sister Nicole, a 2013 graduate…
James Madison interim head coach Loren LaPorte has filled out her coaching staff for the 2018 season with the hiring of Libby Morris as pitching coach. The second assistant’s position had been vacant since LaPorte’s promotion earlier this fall. That move followed the departure of former head coach Mickey Dean, who accepted the head coaching position at Auburn in September. Morris most recently had been on staff at Jacksonville University, where she spent the 2017 season as a graduate assistant manager. She was promoted to assistant coach after the season. The Dolphins have three games remaining on their fall slate.…
Former Stanford head coach John Rittman is expected to be named the new head coach at Clemson, according to sources close to the program. Rittman has most recently been the associate head coach at Kansas. After his inaugural season with the Jayhawks, Rittman joined the Florida coaching staff for less than a month in the summer of 2015 before ultimately returning to Lawrence, where he spent the 2017 season. The architect of some of Stanford’s finest seasons and the tutor of some all-time greats of the game, including Jessica Mendoza, Rittman spent eighteen seasons at the helm of the Cardinal…
Louisiana-Lafayette has terminated head coach Michael Lotief, according to a school release on Wednesday. The release, in full, as noted by KATC in Lafayette, is below: ~ Following complaints of students and a staff member of the Louisiana Athletics department, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette has terminated head softball coach Michael Lotief, effective immediately. Lotief violated University and UL System policies by subjecting student-athletes and coworkers to violent, vulgar language and verbal and physical assault, creating a hostile learning and working environment. “Behavior of this nature will not be tolerated,” University President Dr. Joseph Savoie said. “I want to…
When Jamie Pinkerton left Montana to accept the head coaching position at Iowa State, he wasn’t the only one to bow out of Missoula. Sydney Stites, the other now-former Grizzly to follow the path to Ames, Iowa, may have just as much of an impact at her new school as her coach. The hiring of Pinkerton was heralded across the board in softball circles, celebrating the team’s ability to bring in one of the game’s top coaches for the second season in a row (following the hiring in 2016 of Jamie Trachsel, now the head coach at Minnesota). Stites’…
Five former UT-Martin players and coaches were inducted into the Skyhawk athletics hall of fame earlier this month. Among that group was former Skyhawk softballer Megan Williams Martin, and she recently talked to JWOS about her induction. “My initial thoughts about being inducted this year’s hall of fame were, ‘who, me?’ said Martin. “I was surrounded by phenomenal athletes and I am beyond flattered to be recognized as one of the top.” Martin was named the Ohio Valley Conference’s player of the year in 2010, setting the program’s single-season records with seventy-two hits and 124 total bases that same year.…
Four top teams in the formerly pitching-heavy Ohio Valley Conference lost their ace pitchers after the 2017 season. Among that quartet of programs is Murray State, who said goodbye to Mason Robinson last season. “You love having players like [Robinson], who do the things she has done the last few years, but you need nine or ten people to play a game, and having all of those pieces is something we work really hard to do.” That was head coach Kara Amundson’s take on losing her ace in the circle, but the Racers lost more than just their top pitcher;…