Sargent, Bradley take charge of softball team
New team, same dream. That is the slogan being used by the softball team, because next spring marks the 25th anniversary of the first championship year for Utah State softball.
But this year the team has two new coaches, newly appointed head coach, Lonny Sargent and assistant coach Todd Bradley.
Sargent assumed the position of head coach at the end of last season when Deb Bilboa resigned. He then named Todd Bradley as the assistant coach, Sargent’s former position.
“It was an easy transition to head coach,” Sargent said. “Obviously I still have things to learn but it’s easier than the assistant.”
Sargent entered the world of softball and coaching while still in college and playing baseball. His friend was coaching a softball team and asked Sargent to help him coach the team.
Sargent ended up coaching for five years. For three of those, he was a co-coach. He then went to coach high school softball for three years.
“I like [coaching] college better,” he said. “It’s not as political with the parents and you get to recruit kids.”
Along with recruiting, he enjoys talking to both the parents and kids and likes watching them play. He said he likes being on the road and having a big influence about who comes to his program.
“It makes a huge difference on whether you are successful or not,” he said.
Sargent ended up in Utah after former head coach Bilboa got his name from someone in Alabama, where Sargent was coaching at the time for Troy State. Besides the job being a step up from his current position, Sargent also concluded it would allow him to be closer to his family in Portland. He saw the opportunity to help build the program up to where it had been before.
“Those types of things are very exciting as coaches,” he said about helping re-build the program.
Not everything was fun and games as Sargent experienced something new, a losing season.
In the prior 13 years experience in coaching, Sargent had only dealt with losing seasons in high school softball.
Sargent said that losing was the hard part to handle because everything else, the players and Bilboa, was great.
“On the field was rough,” he said. “We are hoping to change that this year.”
Sargent said among the new changes to the program there will be the new structure and a new higher expectation for the girls both as players and as people.
He said he expects them to work hard on and off the field and never complain.
He said a lot of times women athletes are treated differently. Sargent said he wants to treat female athletes equally with male athletes.
“We want softball to be one of those programs that other teams fear but respect at the same time,” Sargent said. “We want the players to finally see that it’s okay to be aggressive and competitive.”
Sargent also knows he has Bradley to help him out. Sargent believes Bradley is a good person who will bring an added spark to the team that they really need.
The two coaches played against each other at the community college level. In fact after they met, they considered the possibility of coaching together and agreed that if either of the two got a Division 1 head coach job, the other would be their assistant
Bradley has been coaching softball for five years.
He also played baseball in college and started coaching club softball with a friend.
He liked it so much that he later applied for a job at a community college.
“I enjoy it more than baseball because there is more strategy, more runs and pitcher dominating,” he said. “It was exciting and more fastpace.”
For Bradley, softball was a smaller faster version of the baseball that he enjoyed.
As the assistant coach, Bradley’s duties include making travel arrangements, setting up recruitment meetings and being the hitting and outfield coach.
And as far as coaching with Sargent, Bradley said they are a good fit.
“Our philosophies are similar so there is no worrying about undermining each other,” he said.
The team will be playing BYU, Utah and UVSC this weekend and their coaches believe that the team will be able to compete against them.
Both coaches said they would like to see a better turnout at the team’s games in the spring.
-vramirez@cc.usu.edu