It is time to move on.
The Colorado Mesa University softball team has been a prolific and successful team over the past couple of years. In 2018, the team went 48-5 for the entire season and won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) tournament and just lost in the NCAA tournament. The team has been building up to this peak with Head Coach Ben Garcia, and now, for the 2019 season, they will have to say goodbye to their head coach.
After achieving a 169-49 record since he became head coach in 2014, the departure of Garcia will be felt throughout the entire program. The former skipper resigned from his position last week to take a Division I job at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, CO.
“Assistant Coach Erik Kozel will assume the duties of head coach as interim for the remainder of the year,” Co-Athletic Director Kristin Mort said.
With the immediate assignment of Kozel as the interim head coach, the team is hoping to not miss a step despite the sudden shock from Garcia’s departure. By keeping to the game plan, the softball program hopes to pick up right where they left off from last year and continue the precedent the previous team set without the new energy of a different coach hindering their progress.
“As a team, we are trying to not let it trip us up,” pitcher McKenzie Surface said. “It’s nice that Kozel is our coach because he’s been with us for the past three years…so it isn’t a huge transition that would throw us for a loop.”
The news about Garcia resigning did come quickly and acted as a shock for the CMU softball team, however, it is not unknown knowledge that situations like this happen all the time in the sporting world.
“Coaches leaving and taking positions at other colleges or universities is part of the business,” Mort said. “I have worked in the athletic department for 25 years here at Mesa and Coach Chris Hanks is the only person still here from when I started.”
Head baseball coach, Chris Hanks, has had the longest tenure out of any of the CMU athletic coaches and just completed his 20th season as skipper for the Mavericks.
Moving forward, the goal of the team doesn’t revolve around the individual coach but also relies on the team members to pick up the slack. The whole team working on their own and having their own skill and leadership is just as important as having a good coach.
“We still have the knowledge and strategy that we needed and had with coach Garcia,” pitcher Kimbri Herring said. “It is going to be different, but I don’t think it will be negative. If we can keep our energy and intensity up, I think that we will be set pretty well for the season.”
There is a clear effect in the resignation of Garcia on the team, but rather than looking at it as a huge loss, they are taking the opportunity to look to the future.
