Razorback coach Courtney Deifel Does the Impossible

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Need to know the way good Arkansas softball coach Courtney Deifel is? Razorback followers truly know who she is. 

Though she now has back-to-back SEC championships, took her crew to the SEC event finals for the primary time this century, and received it for the primary time ever, there could be no increased praise to the newly named SEC Coach of the 12 months than followers understanding who she is. 

Someplace on the market needs to be a meme of Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yuracheck’s head changing Robert Downey Jr. within the Iron Man gear whereas Dr. Unusual let’s him know he is checked out 14,000,605 outcomes, indicating there’s just one means the place the Razorbacks win the SEC championship and the SEC tournment – rent Deifel.

Let’s lay out the chances Deifel was up in opposition to traditionally. I graduated in 1996 at a 4A college in Arkansas that was nuts about athletics and had great softball gamers in its constructing, but there was no softball crew. There have been few softball groups within the state in any respect on the time, and most of the groups that did exist performed gradual pitch.

It wasn’t till I occurred upon a softball sport on the College of Central Arkansas that I knew quick pitch softball was a factor. Watching ladies whip the ball in so quick was as mesmerizing as the primary time I walked previous a bottle of Pepsi Clear subsequent to a bottle of 7-Up Gold on the Piggly Wiggly. 

Unbeknownst to me and far of the state, Arkansas began a softball crew in 1997. I coated the Razorbacks on and off from 2000 till now and can’t recall being conscious there was a crew till a few years after Deifel arrived.

It is not like there was a lot motive to note the crew. Earlier than Deifel, no coach had produced an general successful report, received an SEC title, received an SEC Event, nor advance to Tremendous Regionals. The Razorbacks generated one All-American when Miranda Dixon made the third crew as a utility participant in 2010 and one SEC award winner with Devon Wallace’s Freshman of the 12 months Award in 2012. 

Simply this yr alone, Arkansas had the SEC’s Pitcher of the 12 months, Coach of the 12 months, and Participant of the 12 months. Had Chenise Delce not received Pitcher of the 12 months, it is potential Mary Haff would have claimed the award for a second yr in a row. Had Okay.B. Sides not received Participant of the 12 months, 4 different Razorbacks have been in line to assert the dignity.

It looks like a no brainer that Deifel can inventory her roster with expertise from coast to coast, together with from the “Large 3” of California, Texas and Florida. However that is the attitude for followers who simply joined the celebration these final couple of years.

The truth is Deifel inherited a program with no custom and never loads to work with. She went 1-23 within the SEC her first season. 

So she hit the street with a philosophy that has been repeated again and again in interviews with gamers about why they got here to Arkansas. Make gamers really feel like they matter, make them really feel beloved, and make them really feel like household.

The tradition modified virtually instantly and phrase bought out amongst recruits. There was one thing particular about Arkansas. 

In 2017, Arkansas made the NCAA Event within the first of what’s now six consecutive seasons. The next yr, the Razorbacks made the Tremendous Regional. 

As transfers like Sides and Delce made their approach to Fayetteville, they not solely have been taken in as household, they have been inspired to share drills and strategies that had labored at their earlier packages, offering rapid buy-in and connections so they’d not really feel or be seen as “outsiders.”

What it has culminated in is a roster that has the makings of “that darn crew.” That one crew that will get scorching, feels magical, and by no means seems to be again as a result of it is their future. 

This crew can win in each means potential and confirmed it over the course of the SEC event. 

Delce and Haff are stoic on the mound and downright terrifying for hitters. Simply think about doing the not possible and knocking one Pitcher of the 12 months out of the sport solely to have a second Pitcher of the 12 months take the mound with a totally completely different set of go-to pitches.

Arkansas can crush you with the lengthy ball. They lead the SEC with 102 homers and have hitters all by the line-up who both have or are proper at 20 house runs. 

If it has to show right into a sport of small-ball, Deifel can flip to a number of burners on the bottom pads whereas counting on a roster that hits .342 as an entire. 

And down considerably within the neighborhood of the place the third base coach’s field is positioned is Deifel transferring forwards and backwards along with her frenetic vitality ready for the possibility to run to house plate to be the primary to greet her gamers once they rating, matching her crew’s emotion in celebration.

Some could describe it as Deifel capturing lightning in a bottle, however it’s extra like she has gathered an enormous storm that slowly constructed up on the horizon and is now sending coaches throughout the nation scrambling to warn their groups to take cowl.

Due to this, Razorback followers see you Courtney. They see you. 

And that is an enormous accomplishment.

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