Jim Frost, knife magnate, travel ball organization founder, and longtime benefactor of the sport of softball in the state of Tennessee, passed away on Thursday. Frost had recently endured a lengthy hospital stay, and passed away due to complications of COVID-19. The home ballpark of the Chattanooga Mocs softball program bears Frost’s name, thanks to his support in the construction of the facility in the late 1990s. Chattanooga’s team website includes this note about Frost himself: “Frost has been involved with softball and baseball since his children began playing the sports and has coached in over 1,500 youth sporting events…
Author: jmcleod
In 1982, the NCAA hosted its inaugural Women’s College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. Among the eight participating teams were the hometown Creighton Blue Jays, and at the helm of the Creighton program was a woman named Mary Higgins. Higgins pulled double-duty that summer, combining her Blue Jay coaching responsibilities with new duties as the tournament director for the WCWS. She helmed the tournament every year until 1987, and again pulled double duty as coach/tournament director in 1986 when she led the Blue Jays back to the WCWS and their highest-ever finish, a tie for 5th place nationally. During the…
Charleston Southern head coach Venus Taylor has resigned her position, the school announced late Tuesday night. Taylor’s resignation is effective on January 15th and she “has accepted another head coaching opportunity,” according to the university release. Information on Taylor’s new position was not immediately available. During her two seasons as the Buccaneers’ head coach, Taylor assembled a 28-46 overall record and led the program to the 2019 conference tournament. The squad finished the abbreviated 2020 season with a 10-9 record. In a statement, Charleston Southern athletic director Jeff Barber said, “”We are very grateful to Venus for all she did…
(Editor’s Note: This article is presented in full for all readers to enjoy. Some of our remaining Forecasts, however, will be accessible only to JWOS subscribers. Make sure you don’t miss any of our preseason content and subscribe now!) I. Conference Breakdown The Patriot League has seven member schools that sponsor the sport of softball. Boston University is the reigning conference champion, having won the conference’s regular-season and tournament championships in 2019. When the 2020 season ended, conference play had not yet begun for Patriot League teams. In non-conference play during the shortened year, only Boston U (14-8); Army (14-9); and…
Maggie Hawkins has been promoted to assistant coach on staff at East Carolina. Hawkins spent the last two years as the program’s Director of Operations, and now fills the coaching role vacated by the departure of Ellie Cooper earlier in the fall. Immediately prior to joining the ECU staff in 2018, Hawkins was the Director of Softball at The Performance Academy, a facility in Apex, North Carolina. She helmed both teams and events affiliated with the organization. She also previously served as the graduate assistant coach at North Carolina State, her alma mater. During her playing days, Hawkins began her…
This was an offseason like no other; coaches were unable to recruit and programs saw budgets slashed and money belts tightened. Only a handful of head coaching moves took place this summer – including just five from Power Five schools. The assistant coaching carousel was similarly quiet, though some high-profile moves still happened during the course of the offseason. Expanding off of my appearance on the In the Circle podcast shortly before New Year’s Day, here are our rankings of the Top 10 Assistant Coaching Hires of the 2020 Offseason.
The 2016 season was the last time that the Delaware Blue Hens finished a full season with a win-loss record above .500. When Jen Steele arrived in Newark as head coach prior to the 2019 campaign, she set out to revitalize and rejuvenate the program. During the early goings of the 2020 season, Steele’s club truly broke out; their 19-4 record was the best showing of any team in the Colonial Athletic Association during the abbreviated year. The Blue Hens were riding a 7-game winning streak when the season ended in mid-March, and owned wins over Boston College and Loyola…
Casey Stangel has become one of the first hires to the staff of new Vanderbilt head football coach Clark Lea, joining the program as the Director of Football Operations. Stangel spent the past four years on staff with the Vanderbilt baseball program, including the last two with the dual titles of Internal Operations Coordinator and Assistant to the Head Coach. In 2019, she was part of the staff when the Commodores won the College World Series national title. An article by 247Sports noted that Stangel is the first official hire for Lea’s staff with the Commodores, and his first addition…
In memory of those we lost in 2020… Tim Ellis, umpire Ellis umpired collegiately and internationally for several years, including at the World Cup of Softball, among other events. He succumbed to cancer in January after a battle with the disease. Gary Torgeson, former Cal State Northridge coach Torgeson led the CSUN program for thirteen years in the 1980s and 90s, and led the Matadors to four Division II national championships. The team also finished as national runners-up three times. Kim Schultze, South Carolina alum Schultze was part of the 1997 Gamecocks squad that…
Megan Smith, a former UAB softball player, passed away on Saturday. She was 24. Smith worked as a nurse since her graduation from UAB in 2018, and was recently working in South Dakota. Social media posts from earlier this year showed Smith bravely working on the front lines amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. During her softball career at UAB, Smith earned inclusion on the Conference USA All-Freshman Team in 2015 after recording 14 wins and 81 strikeouts in her rookie year. Her fourteen wins as a freshman tied for 9th-most in that category in a single season in UAB program history,…