UT softball pitcher Barnhill to transfer

I am sorry......but she wasn't that great of a pitcher. Too many walks, not many strikeouts......etc.

Batting was good, but if Baylor can recruit a freshmen pitcher like Cannon and ride her all the way to the super regionals......then TEXAS should be able to do the same......problem is..........our coach is Connie Clark.......welcome to another mediocre season next year.
 
Agreed - but she WAS the best we had.

It is WAY PAST TIME for clueless clark to go. She has proven herself to be a mediocre coach at best. She would have been long gone in any other sport.
 
Hopefully this disaster will help thing moving in the right direction now..........start the program from scratch as long as there is a new coach!!!!!!!! I don't care.

I think any other coach in America would have had at least 2 NCs had they had CAT on the mound........Connie really messed up and she kissed away the opportunity to give TEXAS national championships in softball. Most people in TEXAS don't care about softball, but MY GOD........YOU HAVE THE WORLD'S GREATEST SOFTBALL PITCHER ON YOUR TEAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How can you not have coach 2 or 3 batters to HIT while she was around!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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OK I AM DONE VENTING! This topic just makes me so mad and it makes me feel terrible for CAT.
 
So what would it take to get Cat as our coach?
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I'm sure we would only have to ask
 
The pitcher that is coming in is very good and has been compared to Cat for years now.

She has Cat's mentality and pitching strategy, which makes a WORLD of difference.

We completely dominated tournaments when she was on the hill once we got the offense to go with it.

Unfortunately, I do not know if there will EVER truly be a great offense while Clark is around.

Color me unimpressed with her going YEARS back.

She has chased off some very good assistant coaches and her belief that the only good softball players come from the Houston or possibly Dallas area is ridiculous.

We will see if she ruins Luna as well.

I hope not.
 
Lostman, okay I will play.

We originally played mostly local tournaments in and around Austin.
We got to the point where we pretty much won all of them most of the time and decided to try tournaments outside of central Texas.

We won what is now the USSA Nationals 16U.
We did not do a lot of traveling until our 16U time because the coaches did not know how important that was.

But once we started going to the Dallas/Plano/ Houston tournaments, we pretty much finished in the top 3 almost everytime.

We won the Ronald McDonald, which no team from the Austin area had ever done, and beat many "Gold" teams we played against from All over the country.

We lost in the AFA Nationals to the eventual National Champs, and we had injured players and a small roster.

Ms. Luna also played for Bowie high school which, once she and my daughter started playing Varsity their sophomore years (my daughter was transfer and could not play Varsity her freshman year) they finished 3rd in State (lost to 2 time State Champions), 2nd in State (lost to State Champs) and lost this past year in the Regional finals to....you guessed it...the State Champions.

I have personally been told by MANY umpires in Houston area that umpired Cat Osterman that Blaire reminds them of Cat quite a bit with her control and off speed pitches.

She was good enough that Cat Osterman offered her a full ride to go play for her at Depaul University.

That is more than what UT offered her.

I think I will take Cat Ostermans opinion over coach clark when it comes to how good a pitcher is any day of the week.

But Blaire's heart is at UT and I think she made the right choice.

Ever heard of Andy Cantu?

He was the pitching coach for UT when his daughter played there (and is Blaires pitching coach as well as many others right now).

He let me know a few inside things that I did not know about.

Oh, but what I learned was not just from him.

I learned quite a few things from current and former players of coach Clark.

I know that the coach that used to be the hitting coach for UT (I believe he is the one that at Missouri now) was run off.

I know for a FACT that coach Clark has said EXACTLY what I stated (as far as where all the talent in the State of Texas is at) and was told that by quite a few people who know her very well and have inside info.

Oh...and I was SPEAKING of recruiting IN TEXAS when I was talking about talent in our State.

I know we have players from other States, that was not the point...although you seem to want to make it one.

I also know pitching is done in a circle not a mound, surely you cannot be that anal.

I have been following this club since my daughter was 9-10 years old.

She is 18 now, do the math.

In fact, I remember how big a deal it was when they built McCombs field.

I think it is a top notch facility and I was hoping it would help in our recruiting of top notch players.

I don't follow it that closely as I used to, but I do still follow it.

I was definitely let down when some of my girls on a team I coached would go to UT's camps and came back with some of the things they were teaching that made no sense to me.

Especially their philosophy of hitting.

I have friends who are college coaches and I asked them to ask when they went to their National coaching conventions what other coaches thought of what was being taught at UT.

I was disappointed, but not shocked at what I heard.

I was told some of the top colleges from places like Arizona, California, and Michigan thought we were behind in the times with what was being taught and our philosophy of how the game should be played.

I remember going and watching them when UT played Michigan and just taken back how solid the girls from Michigan were in the hitting department, and I definitely could see a difference in they swings of both teams.

I started taping and studying teams like Arizona, Michigan, UCLA, and of course the College World Series and Olympics to see why they were able to hit the ball and Texas struggled.

The team that I thought my hitting philosophy was most like and that I agreed with was Arizona and coach Candrea.

He basically said what I was teaching, and that was hitting is hitting.

You should not have to teach a "baseball swing" and a "softball swing" any differently.

I love that and agree 100%.

I came to my own conclusion (and of course this was validated by what my friend found out at the Convention) that Texas players were not taught in the same manner and it was hurting the club.

It makes sense when you see that we had one of THE best softball pitchers in the World and we still struggled to give her run support.

Makes even more sense that when she took time off to go the Olympics, we struggled even more as a team and could not put runs on the board.

I am sure the current coach that is there is there because the other coach quit right?

Softball circles are sometimes very small and news travels fast about coaches and their philosphies about the game, their likes and dislikes, and coach Clark has made it no secret how she feels.

What excuses do you make on why we struggle so bad in softball while teams like Missouri...WITH OUR EX HITTING COACH..are tearing it up like they are.

Why the Aggies feel they OWN us at OUR OWN FIELD?

You can come on here and try to get in a pissing contest with me all you want, but look at what we have done WITHOUT Cat Osterman as our pitcher (and even WITH her at times) and why a top school like UT has such a hard time getting top talent to come here.

It sure isn't the facilities.

I never said Dallas and Houston don't have talent, what I said was connie clark HAS STATED she feels Central Texas does not have ANY talent, and unless you play in Houston or Dallas you are not worth a crap.....and that is bs.

Our team proved it.

Hell, Bowie high school proved it.

Smithson Valley proved it.

It's too bad coach Clark (and I guess you as well) can't see it.

My opinion is my opinion, but i can guarantee you it is shared by MANY other people and coaches from all over.

I think coach Conradt was a very talented coach, and I can guarantee you she had more than just a Dallas pipeline.

But the game passed her by and one point, and she struggled.

I felt bad because I did not want her legacy as a HOF coach to be tarnished by her inability to recruit the best players or just a stagnant coaching style that players did not respond to that well.

She stayed past her prime, and that saddened me.

She was too good for that.

I think coach Clark needs to step down and let someone else take the reigns.

Sometimes it just time to move on, and IMO, it's her time.
 
Well, there we have it. With that close of a contact to Cat, I think lefty wins.

sorry, I have to giggle. This is priceless.

I am stoked to have her coming here, stoked. And to aspire to be like Cat on a number of levels is a great thing. Hopefully she will put in all the work and extra things Ms. Osterman did. I am sure she will and if so many see the special talent, it has to be there.

But comparisons to athletes gets so over used nowadays. The next this, the next that. Just let them be themselves and say they remind somebody of another player. Let them create their own mold and shadow. Just my two cents, still giggling.
 
Lefty - you and I are in violent agreement here! I simply was asking for some qualification of some of your statements. I have been very aware of Blair and her recruiting for some time. She is good and has potential for even more. Kids come in so hyped up that they can not ever live up to that hype. (See Homer Bailey for a great example of that. Good kid, 97 mph fast ball, split finger too, but not living up to the "second coming" hype that preceeded him in Cincy. But he is only 23.) I am always skeptical with such hype.

Agreed also that the coaching staff is not what the university deserves. But it is the coaching staff they have and Connie's contract has been renewed. Am I happy with it, not really, the university can do better. I do try to look at both sides of the coin when talking about assistants, though, and why they left. I found that none were really "run off". Ty was not happy, we will disagree here. He did find a head position. Assistants are supposed to leave, though, IMHO. They are supposed to go on to head spots eventually. In fact, Ty is currently in his 3rd head position at New Mexico. I just find it to be counterproductive to be so publicly negative about a program, especially when someone close to you is associated with it. It never helps. Room for improvement - for sure! Time for new blood, maybe, but it won't happen this year.

Suffice it to say that I don't want to count my eggs before the chickens are even there. Post-Cat has been difficult for Texas Softball. Denny did well, but not what fans expected post-Cat. Barnhill did not work out as expected. She was also highly touted. When you wave someone's flag, expect to be asked about how they earned the stripes. No offense. Houston and Dallas do have highly competitve teams and tourneys simply because more girls there play softball. But talent can come from anywhere. However, you can not deny the fact that playing Ronald McDonald in Houston is far more challenging than playing a 6 team round robin in ----- (choose a small town or area). My nieces play in a small town in SW Wisconsin and they travel to Madison, Dubuque, and Chicago to play better teams. I know what obstacles they face. But that talent plays in the bigger venues 90% of the time.

I welcome Blair to the team, and look for her to be a sponge and learn, not to be the second coming of anyone. Just be herself. If she does that she will blossom no matter what coaching she receives.

l00p - are YOU close to Cat?
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Lefty - as I said before, I agree with you on many of your points. I was not questioning your qualifications. Rather I asked you to qualify your statements. Many were pretty general. I asked for facts and you obliged. Thanks.

The good news is that Texas returns 11 players from last year, after taking out the seniors and non-returners, and that includes two returning pitchers. So Blair will not have the weight all on her shoulders.

I hope we will see Blair in OKC for 18U Gold nationals.
 
It would be epic if Lostman was one of those guys who types everything in one continuous paragraph. No paragraph guy against endless paragraph guy.
 
Ausitnlefty,

Don't post information you don't know. I did not recruit Blair at DePaul University.

Cat Osterman
 
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