The 2020 season was Megan Rhodes Smith’s inaugural campaign as the head coach at Belmont. The Bruins started the season slowly, but had just begun to hit their stride when the COVID-19 pandemic prematurely ended the 2020 season. Left dissatisfied with their 5-14 record on the year, Smith’s team would have some unfinished business to take care of the next time that softball happened.
In late May, Smith got a phone call. On the other end of the line was Tennessee co-head coach Karen Weekly; she was calling to offer Smith the position of Lady Vols’ pitching coach.
From the moment that the UT assistant’s job initially opened, there was one name that seemed to be the overwhelming favorite to fill the role: Smith. A program alum and veteran coach, she had developed her coaching “chops” at a number of schools before taking the helm at Belmont. A pitching coach through-and-through, she had even retained control of the Belmont pitching staff when she took over as the program’s head coach.
Asked to describe her initial feeling after receiving Weekly’s call, Smith paused for a moment before she came up with a simple, yet understandable, response: “It was an absolute, immediate honor to be offered the chance to play this role for the program,” she said.
Despite her initial excitement over the prospect of returning to her alma mater, Smith took an intentionally-methodical approach to the issue at hand: “Because I know that I could get excited about something and just say “Let’s do it!” without thinking, I’ve taught myself to be methodical, so that when I make that decision, I feel like it’s truly a good decision and can be all-in, and know what that means.”
For Smith, that methodology meant sitting down with her husband and considering both sides of the potential job change. “We made a list of pros and cons, and just had to weigh what it meant for each person in the family and what that looked like,” she said. “Lots of discussion, lots of making sure that we looked at everything and didn’t just make a snap decision of ‘I’m so excited that Tennessee called; let’s do it!’ but making sure we did it right. After that, it was a lot of prayer and listening for the guidance of whether or not this was what God had for us. And, ultimately, we felt like the pros and God were leading us to go for it.”
A few days after receiving the initial offer, Smith called back: She was in.
In accepting the offer to return to her alma mater, there were also some not-so-fun conversations that lay ahead for Smith, as she had to inform her Belmont players of her departure. “I spoke with my AD and another person who mentors me; I wanted it to be personable, but honestly, I hate Zoom. I feel like it creates awkwardness,” Smith noted. “So I felt like the best thing was to send a text, and then call them personally afterwards. That way, nobody was the first to hear or the last to hear, and I could give it some time to marinate so that I didn’t just spring it on them and they didn’t know what to do. And when I did call them a few hours later, we were able to actually have a conversation about how much I care about them and want them to have great careers, and how I’m still here for them.”
Now, as she prepares to return to Rocky Top, Smith will be tasked with leading the Lady Vols’ pitching staff in a resurgence. Despite being one of the program’s greats in the circle, Smith said that she doesn’t feel any added pressure in her new role.
“I think there’s always been pressure to me, because I have those high expectations for myself,” Smith said. “If anything, though, I think it’s the electricity in the air more than anything else. When you’re in Sherri Parker Lee Stadium with all of those fans and all of the excitement of an SEC series or a regional or Super regional game, to me, it’s not pressure; it’s just being able to continue to monitor that excitement level and not let a moment get too big.”
Mere days into her new role, and with an as-yet unknown period of time still to go before she performs any official duties in that role, Smith was both effusive and steady in describing the emotions of “going home.”
“Truly, I’d say it was my dream job,” she stated. “I feel a lot of pride for the program, and a lot of pride for being able to represent the program, as well as a lot of excitement for how I want that representation to look like and what I know the pitching staff at Tennessee can be in years to come… Tennessee football used to be known as ‘Wide Receiver U’; we want to see the Tennessee pitching staff turn it into ‘Pitchers U’. That’s the goal.”
