Tabitha Beard has found the perfect phrase: As long as you’re doing something you love, it never will get old.
She smiles when asked if being coach of the New Hope High School softball program gets old, especially on the heels of the slow-pitch team’s fifth consecutive state title in October. The title pushed the program’s number of championships to 14.
Instead of getting lost in the glare of the titles, Beard prefers to lose herself in the game. She pounds groundballs into the ground to prepare her players, she cooks meals to foster a family atmosphere, and she says thank you every day she is able to coach her alma mater and to “live the dream.”
Through all of the titles, Beard credits the players, coaches, parents, and supporters of the program for making her job easier.
“A lot of that goes back to coach (Cary) Shepherd started this program and this is where people want to go to play softball and I just happened to be the coach,” Beard said. “I don’t think it is a whole lot of what I am doing. I think it is a whole lot of what I have to work with.”
For her accomplishments this season, Beard is The Dispatch’s Slow-Pitch Softball Coach of the Year.
The responsibility of following a coach like Shepherd is a challenge Beard has taken and raised the bar even higher. She has led the team from Class 4A to Class 5A in the Mississippi High School Activities Association and not allowed it to miss a beat by following a simple strategy.
“I expect to win, especially because I have the athletes I have,” Beard said. “I am going to push to get everything I can get out of them. You push the girls to be everything they can because they are a talented bunch.”
Beard doesn’t shy away from hard work, and she doesn’t allow her players to, either. She balances the demands of the program with a family atmosphere that includes sleepovers and dinner parties and has extended her family from two children to 102 children.
As any parent will admit, Beard said there have been tough times and personality clashes. But she doesn’t allow individuals to dictate where the program goes. It always has relied on a team approach, especially on defense, where players communicate and back each other up, and it will continue to do so as long as she is coach.
Beard said she has learned how to push players and which players she can push harder than others. She said it is difficult to yell at players like junior Lauren Holifield, who she knew as an infant, but she sees the potential in each player and that snaps her back into coach mode.
Minutes after beating Picayune for the state title, Beard admitted she turned to assistant coach Connie Sharpe and said she “stunk” today and gave herself a ‘C’ for her coaching performance. That mentality explains how New Hope softball has been able to remain a state power and has solidified a place as a title contender in fast-pitch softball, too.
“My husband is real big on, ‘You’ve got to learn to leave it,’ ” Beard said. “I can’t leave it. I take it way to personal, especially when we struggle as a group. I put a lot of that on myself because I think everything starts with me. I think, ‘Maybe I haven’t worked them hard enough in practice,’ or ‘Maybe I am not getting enough out of them in practice,’ or ‘Maybe I am letting them goof off a little too much.’ They are teenage girls, so you have to let them have a little fun and a little bit of carrying on, and then it is maybe I pushed a little too hard. I do second-guess a lot. I think that, in a sense, makes me a little better and a little worse.”
Beard feels she is “10 times harder” on herself than she is on her players. She hears her husband when he says, “It is just a game,” but she said when a sport is a part of her like softball is, she knows no other way to give her all and then some, even if it means plenty of sleepless nights in slow- and fast-pitch season.
“It is almost like winning state isn’t enough,” Beard said. “Coach Shepherd won six in a row, and now it is at five. Next year it is going to be, ‘We have to get six.’ Then it is going to be, ‘Are you going to get seven?’ or ‘When are you going to get that first one in fast pitch, coach?’
“It is always there. It makes you want more as a coach, but it also puts that more pressure on you. Thank God we have a group of girls who work year-round. (New Hope High Principal Matt) Smith tells me all of the time, ‘You’re so blessed. You make it look so easy.’ It is not. They do. I got really luck. Whatever they put in the water, let them keep putting it out there.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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