Coach Spotlight: Dan Marsh

As the new season begins, Coach Dan Marsh is getting excited to lead the Huskies’ softball team on and off the field. A successful coach, who is looking forward to helping a young team grow.

Marsh didn’t start his career off in the coaching world. He was a player for a number of years before he started to coach. He started out as a baseball player, then he started playing in a Spanish fast pitch league. The Spanish fast pitch league out of Wilimantic made up of all spanish teams, ¨Umpires spoke spanish all the time¨ He explained, “I like the game of fast pitch softball more than I like baseball.”

Marsh is not new to the softball coaching world, either. He has been coaching for about 22 years, starting by coaching his daughters, Nikki and Alex, on their Little League teams in Salem. He explained a policy, in order to keep peace on the team ¨I instituted a policy that coaches don’t coach their kids. Another coach will be the one to give feedback to that player, not her dad. This helps keep the peace in their family and the dad coach can still relay advice / feedback / coaching tips to their daughter through the other coach.¨

From there, he then went on to coach for the Connecticut Bombers travel organization for a number of years as well as the Shoreline Sting organization where he still coaches a 18u team for the organization. He also coached at Polson middle school in Madison for two years and now is a part of the coaching as the head coach for the girls’ softball team. All of these different coaching opportunities have helped Coach Marsh see the field from different angles to help him become the best coach to his ability. With also playing the game for a number of years he will be able to extensively help the girls reach their full potential.

Coach explained that for him, and the old assistant coach, Paul Hamilton, that after their daughters had gone on to play softball at the collegiate level they didn’t want to stop coaching. They still had the passion to help girls continue their softball careers to become the best of their abilities.

Throughout his 22 years of coaching, he has won multiple tournaments/medals and was named the “Bob Brown” coach of the year for Salem. The Bob Brown award is given to a coach who does the most for the league throughout the years. Though he has won many awards, Coach Marsh explains, “My greatest accomplishments are the girls that I helped get to a point where they were able to play in college.” He has helped over 30 players go on to play in college, including his two daughters who went onto play in college as well.

Marsh explained how he got offered different coaching opportunities for this upcoming spring season, but he declined. “We may lack experienced travel ball players and such, but we make up for it by being nice people.” Marsh explained that the team is built up of kind and welcoming girls, who made his transition to the first year super enjoyable.

Junior, Whittney Treubig explains how Coach Marsh made the environment comfortable,¨He introduced himself, and he just had a positive attitude when we first met him and he was excited to teach all of us how to play the game.¨ Treubig also elaborates that when the team is having a hard game Coach is able to keep a positive attitude which makes the team keep a positive attitude through those hard moments.
Even though the team lost three important seniors last season, Coach Marsh elaborates on the teams’ strengths. Stating “We have returning shortstop, second basemen, center fielder, first basemen, and we have a couple more promising players.” The coach also stated how he thinks the team has a strong “Nucleus.”

With the team’s strengths comes weaknesses, as the team doesn’t have a returning pitcher or catcher, as they both left. Marsh elaborates on how he will improve the team for the fut

ure,“If we get 1% better every day, after 50 days we will be 50% better,” the coach said. He also explained how the team was “ going to work hard, work on fundamentals, and I’m not going to pull any punches.” He said he will be honest with the team in hopes of improving the team for the future.

As the team lacks experienced travel ball players they will face challenges on the field that Marsh plans on helping them overcome. Coach Marsh is going to have a hard time trying to grow a pitcher and catcher but will continue to help the players as he is very passionate about helping the players become the best of their abilities.

Coach says he is going to try and help the team have a positive attitude and keep the players coming back. Marsh states, “That’s another way of judging success is how many people come back.”