Softball hires Hall of Fame assistant coach

[slot canyon 1,332]

https://247sports.com/college/auburn/Article/Hall-of-Fame-coach-to-join-Auburn-softball-staff-132786860/

Sounds like Phillip Marshall doesn't know much more than what was reported here.  He does not specify "sources told Auburn Undercover" in his first paragraph.  Are those "sources"  Justin's World of Softball.  Could be that the contract has not been signed and so no official announcement is one possibility.

[AlaskanFAN 1,665]

This was on 247. Have not seen it any other sites. Anyone in the know........

Hall of Fame coach to join Auburn softball staff

ByPHILLIP MARSHALL 2 hours ago 

Share14 Comments

 

Eugene Lenti won more than 1,300 games in 37 years as DePaul head coach. (Photo: Courtesy of EugeneLentiSoftball.com)

AUBURN, Alabama – Eugene Lenti, who won more than 1,300 games in 37 seasons years as DePaul’s head coach, has agreed to join Auburn softball coach Mickey Dean’s staff, sources told Auburn Undercover

According to a report in Justin’s World of Softball, Lenti will replace Eddie Ketlehut, but Auburn Undercover has been unable to independently confirm that report.

Lenti led DePaul to the Women’s College World Series four times and into NCAA regionals 20 times. He  was inducted into the DePaul Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006. He announced his retirement last June after leading the Blue Demons to back-to-back Big East championships and NCAA regionals.

 

Lenti coached 14 All-Americans. Nine players he coached were named conference Player of the Year. He coached 104 first-team all=conference selections. He is a member of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

A beloved coach at DePaul, Lenti's announced his retirement last June.

 

“I am announcing at this time, that effective immediately, I am retiring and stepping down from my position as head softball coach at DePaul University,” Lenti said in a statement. “I would like to take this opportunity to thank the athletic department, administration, staff and all my fellow coaches for their support throughout the years.”

Lenti's sister, Jean Lenti Ponsetto, is the DePaul athletics director.

14COMMENTS

Dean, headed toward his third Auburn season, originally hired Annie Smith and Gerry Glasco as his assistants. Glasco left shortly before the start of preseason practice to be the head coach at Louisiana and was replaced by Ketlehut.

Auburn was 39-21 In Dean’s second season, advancing to the championship round of the Tucson Regional before falling to Arizona.

[ellitor 33,080]

16 minutes ago, AlaskanFAN said:

This was on 247. Have not seen it any other sites. Anyone in the know........

It was discussed in the below thread a few days ago but definitely deserved it's own thread now that an AU source is reporting it.

 

[ellitor 33,080]

38 minutes ago, slot canyon said:

Could be that the contract has not been signed and so no official announcement is one possibility.

Doesn't necessarily have to be the case. School's often make announcements without contracts being signed.

[AU64 10,122]

32 minutes ago, ellitor said:

Doesn't necessarily have to be the case. School's often make announcements without contracts being signed.

And if I recall some coaches coach while their contract is being negotiated.  Pretty easy to have a "letter of understanding" in place while the legal folks are getting the contract drafted to everyone's satisfaction. 

[around4ever 4,139]

Does he still have any interest in being a Head Coach?   Asking for a friend. 

[EagleEye67 1,939]

Let's pump the brakes, friends.  I want this to work.  But let's have patience and prudence.

[ellitor 33,080]

1 hour ago, around4ever said:

Does he still have any interest in being a Head Coach?   Asking for a friend. 

If the team doesn't improve he could be an unintended HCIW.

[AU64 10,122]

1 hour ago, EagleEye67 said:

Let's pump the brakes, friends.  I want this to work.  But let's have patience and prudence.

Guess this is probably on Alan Greene to work out....kind of a minor hire so lets see what he does....  pretty sure that CMD does not have absolute authority to just go out and hire whoever he wants without the AD /staff taking a good look. 

[Mikey 16,566]

12 hours ago, EagleEye67 said:

But let's have patience and prudence.

You can have Patience. I prefer Prudence.  While she's prudent, Prudence is ready from the get-go if she deems it prudent to proceed.  Patience on the other hand, well, let's just say Patience takes a while to get going and I run out of patience with Patience pretty quick.

Somebody stop me! The potential for mischief here is endless!

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

 

[slot canyon 1,332]

Notice they also sang gonna get along without you now  which might be appropriate if this supposed hire does not come to fruition.  I take it his wife has a very good job and I wonder about the feasibility of her pulling up stakes and coming to Alabama.  Just a thought.

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

Maybe Mikey has the inside scoop.....🤣

[SumterAubie 3,031]

Hell, the article reads like he should be the coach.

[ellitor 33,080]

On 6/11/2019 at 5:40 PM, slot canyon said:

Could be that the contract has not been signed and so no official announcement is one possibility.

My apologies @slot canyon. Looks like you were right...Again...

 

Quote

 

Softball shuffling coaching staff

 

 

 

Eugene Lenti won 1,100 games as head coach at DePaul. (KNWA-TV/KNWA.COM)

Nathan King • AuburnSports

@byNathanKing

After a pair of subpar offensive seasons, Auburn softball is making a change with its assistant coaching staff.

The Tigers will replace two-year hitting coach Eddy Ketelhut with former DePaul head coach Eugene Lenti.

Auburn made the hire during the first week of June but has been waiting for paperwork to be finalized to make an announcement.

Lenti coached 35 seasons at DePaul, compiling 1,300 wins at DePaul before his unexpected retirement in 2018. He led the Blue Demons to four Women's College World Series appearances and four 50-win seasons.

He produced 14 All-Americans and nine conference players of the year. Lenti's staffs were honored as conference staff of the year nine times.

Lenti's DePaul teams made 16 NCAA Championship appearances and captured 13 regular-season conference titles.

Lenti was inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2008 before being named the Conference-USA Coach of the Decade for 2000-10.

He replaces Ketelhut, who was hired to Mickey Dean's staff in January 2018.

Auburn hit .226 in league games this season, which ranked 11th among the 13 schools playing softball. That's 27 points below SEC average, though it's higher than the .211 conference batting average the Tigers posted during the 2018 season.

 

 

[ellitor 33,080]

Dean is making more changes.

 

[OlderWhiskey 953]

Thanks.  I actually saw this on a national site several days ago, but didn't know if it had substance.  What does the director of operations do, exactly?  I always thought it was more or less logistics.

[ellitor 33,080]

5 hours ago, OlderWhiskey said:

What does the director of operations do, exactly?  I always thought it was more or less logistics.

It's a lot more than that. This list includes openings at UK & Pitt & their job duties.

[bigbird 60,460]

I'm sure it's my skewed perspective, but I don't think a coach should be judged completely until he has his staff built the way he wants and the team built with his players. There is always a few years of transition with players and coaches coming and going to find the right mix. Dean may or may not be the right guy. As of now, I'm willing to see it through.

[ellitor 33,080]

32 minutes ago, bigbird said:

There is always a few years of transition with players and coaches coming and going to find the right mix.

And with softball that's even prolonged more because of girls committing to schools as early as 7th grade until the past year or so.

[auburnphan 6,050]

2 hours ago, ellitor said:

And with softball that's even prolonged more because of girls committing to schools as early as 7th grade until the past year or so.

How does that prolong it?   They are only verbally committed.

[ellitor 33,080]

15 minutes ago, auburnphan said:

How does that prolong it?   They are only verbally committed.

Because it's frowned upon just like any other college sports to pull offers from committed recruits barring behavioral or grade issues. Girls committed in their 7th, 8th, 9th, or even 10th grade years prolong the process to where recruits are truly his recruits instead of ones he inherited.

[mustache eagle 2,397]

Always been amazing to me that the culture of girls college athletics puts pressure on families to commit that early ... and its for partial scholarships.  I had the Auburn soccer coaches tell us they had my daughters signing class filled ... when she was half way through her sophomore year in high school.  I don't know how its come to be that way ... the scholarship money isn't worth it and its too much pressure on most kids.  If a kid can only pick one ... ACT score is waaaaaay more important for scholarship money than partial athletic scholarships.  

[auburnphan 6,050]

1 hour ago, ellitor said:

Because it's frowned upon just like any other college sports to pull offers from committed recruits barring behavioral or grade issues. Girls committed in their 7th, 8th, 9th, or even 10th grade years prolong the process to where recruits are truly his recruits instead of ones he inherited.

And as a recruiting junkie you know that Coaches have other means in which they go about it.  Most of the Myers commits are no longer committed.

First of all commitments in 7th and 8th grade were very rare.  Did the Myers even have any?  Dean got a commit from a 7th grader(Georgia) who's dad played football here and an 8th grader from the Bandits last year.

the ones the Myers had as Freshman are no longer committed or stayed committed and will sign this fall hopefully.

Any that were in the 10th grade just signed last fall.

If a new coach gave no love and did not stay in contact or show priority to any of these younger girls, they gone(most of the time).  Just like other sports.

Lines from Coaches to old commits they are not too keen on:

The will all start with we will honor the offer but:

you might wanna find a better fit.

we will be taking another in that position.

you might wanna look in another direction.

 

Dean did not have many recruits the last 2 years with the first year being totally understood.  There was attrition last year and we added one transfer.  We got 2 freshman catchers on the roster.   

The point here is prior commitments did nothing to slow him down in recruiting he had room to add players.

To be honest philosophy is what has slowed him down.   Clint Myers believed in a larger roster as he believed it spurred competition.  Dean wants a smaller roster.  It was his choice to lose as many players as we have and not replace with equal numbers.  We have lost 14 players since the end of last season I believe(I think 2 left between fall ball and the 2018 season as well) and we are adding 11(8 freshmen this yr).  Myers was rare in having that many on the roster, this is no fault of Dean's before somebody says it is bashing.

I'm all for Dean getting his players and see what happens, so is Greene or he wouldn't be allowing him to hire another coach you would think.  

[slot canyon 1,332]

As previously noted on this site, Dean, at JMU and now at AU,  had a smaller rooster than Myers in line with statements above.  I would presume with a smaller rooster you should be able to offer more scholarship money to individual players.  Don't know if dividing up 12 scholarships between that number of players would make a big difference.  I suspect a lot of players want to go to a high profile school and one with potential of making it to WCWS and would be willing to take less scholarship money to do so.  So many have been dedicating themselves and sacrificing for a lot of years and have probably dreamed about this stuff.