The Arizona State softball team reigned supreme from 2006-13. The run included seven appearances at the Women’s College World Series and two national championships (2008, 2011).
That all came to a screeching halt in May 2013 when Clint Myers announced he was leaving the program for Auburn.
Arizona State softball struggled under Craig Nicholson, who abruptly resigned due to health reasons in October 2015. The 2015 Sun Devils finished 36-22, the most losses since 2005 and a program-worst earned run average. Robert Wagner and Letty Olivarez were named co-interim coaches for the 2016 season and finished 32-26.
Trisha Ford was named head coach on June 15, 2016. A hiring that makes her career feel like it’s coming full circle, a homecoming. She spent nine seasons at Stanford (2004-12), including four seasons as associate head coach.
“I feel like it’s always been my home,” said Ford about the Pac-12. “It’s where I started and it’s my comfort. It was my goal to get back to the Pac-12. You want to compete with the best, you want to every day go out and have to fight and kick and scratch for a win because that’s what gets you prepared for the postseason. The Pac-12 coaches have been phenomenal when I came back, there’s been a good, warm, fuzzy feel and also just for me to get back into the conference of champions.”
Ford was the head coach at Fresno State for the previous four seasons and led the Bulldogs to consecutive Mountain West Conference championships in the past two.
While in California, Ford experiences in-state rivalries but none of those compares to the ASU, Arizona rivalry. Especially when the Arizona coach is an ASU grad.
“It’s funny because Coach Candrea and I were laughing. He and I have a good relationship, he offered for me to come out and check out their facility because we are doing some upgrades at ours,” said Ford. “That is unheard of but I am looking forward to the rivalry.”
Having a coach like Ford brings stability to a program that has gone through multiple changes over the past few years.
“Whenever there is a transition, it’s hard for everybody. Not hard in a bad way, it’s just different. I think they really enjoyed the change of pace and I think they have really welcomed us in and enjoyed competing,” said Ford. “My biggest thing that we’ve been working on is for them to have good visualization and not to be so tough on themselves. This game is already built around failure and if you make a mistake or things don’t go your way and you dwell on it then it’s going to keep on falling that direction.”
The 2017 season will be a big one for Ford. She has taken over a program with more than 1,600 wins and four national championships. They are hungry for another WCWS appearance and according to preseason polls, picked second-to-last in the Pac-12.
“We can only control the things we can control. At the end of they day, I’ve given my program, my team, my coaches everything that I’ve got and we’ll just go from there,” said Ford. “I don’t coach for us to win national championships, I coach because I want to have an impact on young peoples lives in a positive way.”
