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curbstone coaches YSU softball looking up
BOARDMAN
The winningest softball coach in Tiffin University history came to Youngstown State in 2009 and guided the Penguins to their worst season in nine years.
Soon, that would be an afterthought.
Brian Campbell has been coaching softball for 16 years and has an overall career record of 329-231-1. He also won five league championships and two regional championships while at Division-II Tiffin.
After going 22-24 last year, Campbell has nearly tripled the YSU win total in just three full seasons at the helm.
“As a program, in any sport, the big thing is trying to find a way to bring 18 or 19 young ladies together to have a common cause,” Campbell told the Curbstone Coaches Monday while speaking at the Blue Wolf Tavern Banquet room. “They need to start working with each other because it gets right into the swing of things quickly.”
To accomplish this goal, he started quickly himself.
Campbell didn’t begin this teaching on the field, in the dugout or in the locker room. Rather, he started to take his newly inherited Penguins to Camp Frederick in Rogers to compete and bond over challenge courses.
“We get the freshman girls in here late in the summer for a week or two, next thing you know, you’re heading out to the wilderness where cell phones don’t work — thank goodness,” he said laughing. “It’s gotten the team to come together over the past few years.”
It’s all been part of Campbell’s goal to change the atmosphere of the program — and it’s working. Along the way, he’s gotten help, especially here in the winter months. The team has been practicing extensively in the WATTS training facility.
“You can drop a softball field right in the middle of it,” Campbell said. “We get so much done in the WATTS with drills and the batting cages.”
Changes have abounded within the sport on a national level, too.
“Sixteen years ago you could find one or two good players and you had a pretty good team,” Campbell said. “Nowadays with summer ball and tournaments going on, you can walk into a park and look onto a field and see so many ladies that are great with sound fundamentals. There’s a lot more talent out there.”
What drew the biggest reaction from the crowd was how fast a softball pitcher can actually throw the ball. Still, the evolvement of a quality, all-around solid arm at the No. 1 position is ongoing.
“It’s nice to throw 66-67 miles per hour, but it’s nothing if it’s flat coming in at the plate,” Campbell said. “A lot of pitching coaches now are working on movement with a variety of pitches because hitters are getting better and better.”
With Campbell, who graduated from Tiffin in 1994 and played football for the Dragons, at the helm, YSU has set a school record for RBIs in a season (198) and highest team batting average (.296). The Penguins have scored two of the top three single-season run totals in school history with 217 for second in 2010 and 216 for third in 2011.