Part 4
ArkansasRazorbacks.com has developed a multi-part series featuring new softball head coach Courtney Deifel which will be posted in individual parts over the coming weeks. The series continues with the beginning of her career through various spots as a graduate assistant and assistant coach.
There’s something special about performing on the biggest stage that can be addicting. After a standout career at Cal that included four trips to the Women’s College World Series and a successful pro career in New York and Japan, Razorback head coach Courtney Deifel picked up right where she left off. Only this time, she was guiding her own student-athletes and helping them forge their own postseason experiences.
As a graduate assistant at Oklahoma and assistant coach at Maryland and Louisville, Deifel helped lead her teams to seven NCAA Tournament appearances in eight years. For those keeping count, that makes 11 NCAA Tournaments for Deifel between her playing and coaching careers.
Deifel began her coaching career at Oklahoma where she spent the 2007 and 2008 seasons, both of which featured runs to the NCAA Super Regionals. Collectively, Deifel was part of 102 Sooner victories, including a 2007 Big 12 Tournament title. Despite experiencing a plethora of success in her new professional endeavor, Deifel was still not completely sure coaching would be her calling. It took a big opportunity to help her along in that decision-making process.
“While one of the assistants was out having her son, I took over the pitching duties,” Deifel said. “It was big because Patty has her system, and the fact that she trusted me with that was huge. In that time, I loved it. The strategy piece and having that influence is what I’ve always loved most about the game. Around that time is when I told myself I could actually see myself doing this.”
Oklahoma softball head coach Patty Gasso said feelings of uneasiness and uncertainty often arise when a member of the coaching staff takes a long time off from the team. But Gasso said those feelings never came up when she tasked Deifel with handling the team’s pitching duties, citing her experience calling games for some of the best pitchers in the country.
Oklahoma Sooners softball coach Patty Gasso on Coach Deifel: "She's very committed and very passionate ... she's got an infectious personality that would make recruits very comfortable and players feel very good that they're going to be taken care of." (Photo: Oklahoma Sooners Athletics)
“[Deifel was] fantastic,” Gasso said. “[She was] very prepared, very professional, very organized, and our pitchers responded to her. She had good rapport with them, and she paid attention to detail and put in a lot of hard work. She did a phenomenal job.”
In working with the talented Sooner roster, Deifel helped coach seven players to NFCA All-American accolades in two years, including pitchers Lauren Eckermann and D.J. Mathis, who she worked with directly on the pitching staff. She also developed 14 All-Big 12 selections, including Norrelle Dickson, the league’s 2007 Player of the Year.
Gasso said Deifel’s ability to relate to pitchers comes from preparation and possessing complete control over the delicate relationship between catchers and pitchers.
“I think as an athlete, [having pitchers trust you] grows you up quickly. You don't have the chance to slack [off] or take a break,” Gasso said. “You have to be on your mark and pay attention to everything. How that relates to coaching is the same way. I think any catcher who had that responsibility in college allows them to leapfrog over others who haven’t because they have a different mentality when they're back there.”
“It's not just, 'Here's the pitch, do what I'm telling you to do,'” Gasso said. “Instead, it’s like, ‘OK, I have to use my mind, my strategy, what my pitchers are throwing’ ... you have to think like a coach. And that's something that obviously impressed me about Courtney and I knew she'd be really good.”
Following her time in Norman with the Sooners, Deifel accepted her first job as an assistant coach at the University of Maryland. In two years with the Terrapins, she helped the program to 63 wins and coached a trio of All-ACC selections. It was the 2010 season that, behind a Deifel-led pitching staff, Maryland broke a 10-year postseason drought and earned its first NCAA Tournament bid since the 1999 season.
“I was talking to Patty Gasso when I was making the hire [for an assistant in 2011],” Louisville head coach Sandy Pearsall said of her first interactions with Deifel. “She told me, ‘when you meet her, you’re going to like her instantly because she draws you in.’ And she does. She has that warmth about her. That’s huge in coaching because they want to know that you actually care about them. That’s just Courtney’s personality.”
Under Deifel’s guidance, the Maryland pitching staff took its place among the nation’s best, finishing ninth in the NCAA, and first overall in the ACC, with a 1.71 earned-run average (ERA). During the 2010 campaign, she saw her staff combine for 471 strikeouts, 32 complete games, 10 shutouts, and holding opponents to a .192 batting average.
“I learned a lot about myself as a coach at Louisville, but it’s probably Maryland where I figured out who I was as a coach,” Deifel said of her two-year assistant stint in College Park. “In the first couple of years of a full-time position, you’re feeling everything out and seeing what difference you can make in an assistant role. That’s when you figure out how much of a difference you can make. That’s when I realized it in changing the culture of a pitching staff.”
Others were taking notice of what Deifel was doing with the Terrapin pitchers, including Pearsall, who was looking for an assistant coach at Louisville ahead of the 2011 season.
“I was talking to a lot of people about who they would recommend and her name came up numerous times,” Pearsall said. “That’s a good sign when a lot of coaches are talking about her and her work with the pitching staff at Maryland. That was one of the things that interested me. And once she came in for an interview, she was very organized, had it all worked out and ready to present to me. It was clear that she had the ability to connect. I think the ability for any coach to connect to their players is huge in getting them to produce.”
The final stop for Deifel as an assistant coach was a four-year stay under Pearsall’s guidance at Louisville. To call the job a success would be an understatement. In four years with the Cardinals, she helped the program to 176 wins, four NCAA Regional appearances, and the 2012 Big East regular season and tournament titles. Individually, Deifel coached four NFCA All-America selections and 29 all-conference performers between the Big East and American Athletic Conference.
(Photo: Louisville Sports Information)
In addition to the regular-season and tournament triumphs, Louisville’s 2012 team set a program-record with 55 wins and earned a national seed in the NCAA Tournament. In recognition of their role in the team’s success that year, Deifel, Pearsall and associate head coach Carol Bruggeman was named the 2012 NFCA Great Lakes Region Coaching Staff of the Year. For Deifel, the Cardinals reminded her of another team close to her heart.
“There was a similar mentality [at Louisville] to what we had at Cal,” Deifel said. “We were the underdog but Louisville has always been known for being really gritty and hardworking. People knew we were going to play hard and put up a fight. I think that became the definition of that team. There was no opponent that was bigger than us.”
Ultimately, the time came for Deifel to take the next step in her career, and that involved returning to Maryland as a head coach in 2015.
“I was someone that felt like I could be an assistant for a very long time,” Deifel said. “But there’s a point where you have a lot of ideas. You got through all of those (coaching) stops and you get to put those ideas together. I don’t know exactly when it was, but at some point, you want to go and make something of your own.”
As one of her biggest supporters, Pearsall champions the efforts Deifel made throughout her time as a player and assistant coach to position herself for success.
“Along the way, she’s learned how to work with people and how to teach,” Pearsall said. “The act of teaching is a difficult thing for some people to pick up. They know how to do it but they can’t teach it. She’s able to do that. She’s always learning. [She] never stops learning. She’s always asking questions. Those are the qualities, along with her personality, that have helped her become a good coach.”