Omar Johnson
Coaches are usually something most athletes take for granted, but for the AHS Varsity Softball team last year, it was a privilege.
During the 2024-25 season, the longtime varsity softball coach was fired and replaced by the JV coach who then quit soon after, leaving another vacancy. The position was filled by the wrestling coach, Coach Griffin, but how did this affect the team and their season?
Senior Tehya Hancock never thought about the coaches until things began to change, saying, “I don’t think anyone cared about the coaching situation before, but after our old coach got fired it just like brought up a bunch of situations.”
The players had grown accustomed to their coach, who had been with them their entire time on the AHS team. When he was fired, everything changed. When asked about how the coaches were different, Hancock responded, “Our old coach was really high energy, but the JV coach when he came up he was always like prepared and just strict.” The contrast of coaches greatly affected the team and even made people want to quit. Hancock described the effect, saying, “It just made it really confusing and hard to want to play.”
While this was definitely a hardship that the season would have been better without, it did bring the team together in a way that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Senior Kalia Griffin described it as, “I think it made the team come together a little more because we all hated [the coaching situation].”
With all of these setbacks, the team was not able to perform their best, finishing the season with a 9-12 record. Griffin said, “I think we definitely could have done way better in like games and NCS [North Coast Section] in general.” This upcoming spring, the Cougars will look to improve from last year’s record and go far into the North Coast Section playoffs under a consistent coaching environment with the wrestling coach.
