Morgan Softball: New Assistant Coach
After assistant coach Paul Hamilton received a better coaching opportunity, Head Coach of the Morgan softball team, Dan Marsh, and new assistant coach Lavelle are reunited after starting their coaching careers together 15 years ago.
In Coach Marsh’s second year coaching the Huskies, he had to face the challenge of finding a new assistant coach after last year’s assistant coach, Paul Hamilton, got presented the opportunity to be the assistant softball coach at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, Connecticut. The team had been a few weeks into the season before Mims came into the picture.
Coach Marsh ran into Coach Mims in the grocery store at the beginning of the season. “He ran into me literally with the shopping cart.” Coach Marsh presented him with the opportunity to be the assistant coach, and he took it due to his love of coaching and helping players improve.
Their coaching duo was created when they decided to start coaching their daughters, Kaley and Nikki, together in Salem, Connecticut, at the Little League level. When their daughters were eligible to play travel ball, they continued to the Connecticut Bombers organization, where both coaches also coached their daughters together. Mim’s daughter was a catcher and an outfielder, and when she got to the high school level, she played at Griswold High School. After graduating from high school, she furthered her career at the collegiate level, playing at Nichols College, where she was a catcher her freshman year but moved to the outfield for her sophomore, junior, and senior years at college.
When Mims isn’t on the field with the Huskies, he is at his other job, where he is a Residential Director for a non-profit that operates group homes. He has been a part of this organization for 24 years now. Originally, he got involved with the group homes when he discovered his wife’s brother has Cerebral palsy, which is a group of neurological disorders that affect movement and posture caused by brain damage that occurs during, after, or before birth. “Playing around with him and doing things like that got me interested,” Mims explained.
Mims often refers to the guys who are in the group homes as family to him. ¨I kinda grew up with some of the guys who are in the group homes, so they are like family to me. I’ve been there for 24 years, so I’ve seen them grow up. He also explained how his work has helped him become accepting of everybody, ¨you see people with disabilities in the community and you see people just turn away, walk around, things like that, and they’re just normal regular people.¨
Even though Mims is currently in more of an overhead position, where he takes care of paperwork, He explains his connection with a former patient of his. ¨When I first got the job, he was the first individual who ever spoke to me, and he ended up moving out a couple of years ago then he ended up passing away two years ago, which really upset me. We were close. He would remember everything we did, we would joke around.¨
Mims is excited to start at Morgan: “I’m just looking to help out, see some improvement, and help girls learn how to play softball.”
The Morgan Huskies softball team has had a rough season so far, with a total of ten losses and zero wins in the books. The team graduated their catcher, Samantha Way, and third baseman, Gianna Santo, who the team has had a hard time adjusting to. Mims also explains what he thinks the team struggles are. “A lot of inexperience on the team, there’s a mix of some experience but not a lot of experience playing at this level,” Mims said. He also explains some team strengths. “I think [the team] gets along, you [guys] never quit, and you’re not afraid to work hard, and you take constructive criticism very well.” With the multiple years of playing experience and 15 years of coaching experience from Coach Mim’s mixed with Coach Marsh’s experience, he feels that the team can improve with lots of hard work and dedication.
With all of this experience coaching, he explained what pushed him to be the coach he is today. “I like to give back, my coaches were very good to me when I was growing up, I learned a lot from them.” Because Mims grew up playing baseball and football in New London, he has learned coaching skills from those who pushed him when he was younger.
To have a successful season with the softball team, he plans to use his experiences coaching, making a point of utilizing the things that he knows to share with the team to improve a variety of skills. “With Whitney as a catcher, working with the outfielders from my experiences playing.¨ Showing how much he truly cares about everyone on the team, even though he has only been a part for less than a month. He describes the girls as “an interesting group, I enjoy the team, they are always laughing and having a good time.”