RTS’s Lee Dobbins sits down this week with Montana Head Coach Stef Ewing. The new head coach of the Griz comes to Missoula after spending the past six years at Cal State San Marcos where she led the program to new heights, including an appearance in the NCAA DII World Series. Ewing is no stranger to the Division I level however, having been a standout catcher at Oregon State on their 2006 Women’s College World Series team. She also had coaching stops on staff at Butler and New Mexico State.
Dobbins: Coach Ewing you have spent the past six years building a national powerhouse at Division II Cal State San Marcos. How has the transition been to try to do the same thing at Montana on the Division I level and what methods are you employing that might be the same or differ in such an undertaking?
Ewing: The transition has been 100 miles an hour from the day I got the job. From roster evaluation and development to scheduling and recruiting, there is never a break in the action. The biggest similarity is getting out and recruiting all day every day. I stayed in So Cal the entire month of July recruiting before I moved to Missoula in August. If you want good players, you must get out and watch them play in person. There are some major differences from San Marcos to Montana. We have had ton of official visits over the last 6 months and at San Marcos we only did unofficial visits. So, identifying players, getting them and their families to campus, and showing them all of what Missoula and the University of Montana has to offer has kept us remarkably busy. We have great facilities here in Missoula and our football game days are on another level. We need to show that and provide a great experience when we bring recruits on campus. At San Marcos we were successful in getting California kids that wanted to stay in state to come play for us. Here at Montana we are going to have a much bigger net to cast when looking for potential student athletes. The WUE is something we will use to our advantage, but at the end of the day we are looking for great ball players with Grit and we will turn over every rock to find them.
Dobbins: Today’s athlete seems to be vastly different in many aspects on and off the field from athletes of past generations. As a former collegiate athlete yourself and having worked on many different levels as a coach, how have you seen this change and what have you done as a coach to connect with this generation of athlete to better relate for the ultimate success of any program?
Ewing: One of the biggest things I try to do is listen and have a people first then softball second mentality. I believe in a holistic approach with all my players. Constantly checking in how they are doing, and that question is never about softball. How is your family, what is going on outside of the field, are you doing okay? We also talk about how hard it is to be a student athlete, and that life only gets harder as you get older and get more responsibility. I talk to them about my family and treat them like they are part of my family. We are all in this together, with one common goal to graduate confident young women who are ready to take on the world after graduation and win softball games.
Dobbins: Scheduling seems to always be at the heart of any program’s success on the conference level and eventually in the NCAA Postseason. Having coached at the different levels throughout collegiate softball, how are you approaching scheduling in the future and maneuvering being a possible player for an at-large NCAA bid that seems to be tougher and tougher to come by? What would the Big Sky need to do as a whole to be a two-bid league?
Ewing: Thats a great question and it starts with winning the games you schedule. You must find the right mix of teams in the top 100 in RPI. We have so few teams in the BIg Sky in softball that I do not see us being a two-bid league. The reality is the Power 4 will always get anyone above 500 in over a good 35 plus win mid major team. TV Money and the power conferences will always get the majority of the at large selections.
Dobbins: We are living in the era of the Transfer Portal, NIL, and soon revenue sharing in collegiate athletics. Most coaches see these topics as a major challenge and could even lead to athletic departments cutting sports like softball and from an institutional standpoint and possibly ceasing sports all-together. How are you maneuvering the new look of college athletics at Montana?
Ewing: At Montana we have great fan, donor, university and department support. We are in a good spot and will continue to be as college athletics continue to change. The house settlement and roster limits will impact each university differently depending on if schools opt in or opt out. We have a collective for NIL and it is continuing to grow. Montana Athletics and Montana Softball are not going anywhere.
Dobbins: Expanding on the Transfer Portal topic. It seems the recruitment of the portal is starting to trump recruiting athletes from the high school/club levels. What approach are you taking on recruiting? To a lot of frustrated young Prospective Student-Athletes, what advice would you give them?
Ewing: My advice would be to continue to work hard and do your homework about each program that you communicate with. Ask questions about the roster and what the coach plans to do. With the amount of players that go into the portal every year, rosters can look very different from the beginning of the summer to the end. The portal may slow down the process for some, but I think that is a good thing. Deciding where you go to school is a big decision, it is not something you should rush into. Specifically for Montana we heavily recruit high school players and I have not recruited out of the portal very much. While there are always talented players in the portal, you have little time to get to know them because the window is so short. I prefer working with kids at camps and getting to know them over a longer time. This has worked for me, and I plan to continue to do it that way. I think the best way to use the portal is to add to your roster if you have someone leave that was unexpected and have an immediate need.
Dobbins: The visibility and popularity of college softball is at an all-time high. Having seen where it came from to this point, what are some of things you see the sport as a whole needs to do to maintain this trajectory and build the sport even beyond what we are seeing now?
Ewing: Being on TV has helped this sport grow because young players can watch the game they play be played on the big screen. We need to continue this and interact with young fans that attend games. Keep games and camps affordable for families and put a quality product out on the field. A successful professional league that pays a livable wage and keeping softball in the Olympics will also help take softball above and beyond. College softball also needs to promote its stars like college basketball promoted Catlin Clark. If we can do that as a sport everyone will benefit from it.