(04-01-2018 09:31 PM)JMUNation Wrote: JMUSteeler’s opinion on all things softball is one that I put a lot of weight on.
All I saw while MD was at JMU was him winning with two fabulous pitchers. Steeler told me once that college softball is all about pitching and MD always had great pitching.
JMU is lacking great pitching this year. When they hit, they win. When they don’t, sometimes the pitching isn’t enough to carry them through so losing a coach that seemed to be able to obtain great pitching is a loss. This being said, there seemed to be an undercurrent of negativity that suggested the treatment of student athletes was not in line with JMUs mission of being the national model for the student athlete experience. I feel like this is what Steeler is alluding to but maybe he can elloborate? There were quite a few players with eligibility that left after last year. I thought that was strange for a program that has had the success JMU has had.
I'm coming from the unique perspective of having dealt with Mickey as both a travel coach and high school coach, and what I'll tell you is the dichotomy of Mickey Dean is very difficult to explain. I won't play amateur psychologist, so I'll simply tell you that I watched him alienate more young players from the sport than I saw him develop. No question he's one of the best pitching coaches in the country, his development of Megan Good might be unparalleled (though she certainly deserves a lot of credit).
As a travel coach, I made the mistake of taking my 2nd year 14U team to his camp several summers ago. We were the youngest team there, though only by a year or so. What I wasn't told was that Mickey had made the decision that summer to "show these kids what college softball was all about." It was the most miserable experience of my young players' softball lives, 12 hour days in July that included vomiting and blisters from hot turf. We had a national tournament to play the following week, and had the worst performance we ever had. Most of those players no longer wanted to play the sport, most quit within 12 months and when asked specifically said D1 softball no longer was of interest after experiencing that camp. The other coaches there (CNU, Radford, Georgetown, Liberty, Norfolk St, Longwood) recognized it was a problem, but couldn't really do much about it.
However it was the experience of one former player that I've known since she was 7 year old that permanently changed my opinion. This is a kid who had D1 athletics on her radar from a very early age, that I coached in Little League, travel and won 3 state championships with in high school. I won't share her story, it's not my place. I'm just glad she got out of a terrible situation relatively unscathed, and has turned that experience into a shot at another D1 school. Her experience also cost JMU a shot at several other D1 players, I can name 3 that are STARTERS AS FRESHMEN at other schools that wouldn't give JMU a shot.
A lot of successful coaches leave detritus and hard feelings in their wake. W's are valuable, but not at all costs. I made my thoughts known to the Duke Club at the time, but he was gone a few months later so it didn't really matter. I'm a big fan of our current staff, and that's all that matters now. But I carry a lot of guilt for playing a role in convincing the player I mentioned above into playing at JMU, though on some levels I think she understood what she was signing up for.
Game 2 underway.
