Several athletic programs at Mississippi University for Women are in the building process, fitting for a school where sports returned a few short years ago.

Then there’s the softball team. The Owls have reached the USCAA Small College World Series three times in four seasons (there was no event in 2020), and they feel ready to make a splash when they join the NCAA Division III Saint Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in two years.

“We are extremely deep,” Owls coach Buddy Foster said before practice on a sunny Monday at Don Usher Field. “My roster size is 26, which is really large for softball. I’ll have some kids who will be on the bench who could start at a lot of schools.”

That’s not something you hear a lot around The W, but Foster is not exaggerating.

“In my seven years of coaching Division III, this is the most talented team we’ve had,” he said.

Foster has coached 28 years overall, including 21 at the Division I level, so he has plenty of other groups to compare to this year’s Owls. 

Foster spent four years coaching at Division III Greenville University, a future SLIAC rival for the Owls. He began his coaching career at his alma mater, Southeast Missouri State, taking a full-time role in 1997. Then came stops at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (239-103 as head coach), Bradley University, the University of Kansas, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and back to SIUC before “retiring” temporarily.

With Greenville struggling with enrollment, Foster looked at other options. A wife who is a nurse, and thus employable almost anywhere, helped, and this is second season coaching the Owls. He was named assistant athletic director in January.

While the team has been successful, playing at the D-III level is another thing entirely, and Foster knew he had to plan for that.

“The foundation for the program was set with junior college kids, and this is kind of a junior college hotbed for softball players,” Foster said of Mississippi. “Even though I will continue to recruit junior college kids, I brought in 12 newcomers this year who are freshmen, just because changing the culture and getting the culture into one of doing things the right way, being respectful of each other, being good teammates and all that kind of stuff, if I have them for four years it’s much easier to get that than in two years.”

One of those freshman is Carley Wooten, a third baseman out of Oak Hill Academy in West Point. Wooten said she chose The W because it’s close to home, and she wanted to go to its nursing school, which won’t make it easy to play softball.

“It probably will be difficult, but I know if I set my mind to it I can do both,” she said of mixing nursing classes with softball. Serving as motivation is the fact she is enjoying her first year with the Owls.

“I like everybody, especially the older ones,” Wooten said. “They encourage all of us to do our best every day.”

Macy Nordquist is one of those older players. The junior out of Heritage Academy came to The W to study nursing.

“But once I got here, I changed my mind, and they gave me the opportunity to play softball,” said the sports management major.

Nordquist was an infielder before arriving on campus, but is now an outfielder. “I just kind of got put out there,” she says.

Nordquist agrees with her coach about the forecast for this season.

“I think we’re all pretty optimistic,” she said. “We have a lot of older players who are helping out the freshmen coming in, and they have a bunch of talent.”

Wooten and Nordquist are not the only local softball players who chose The W. Caledonia High School graduate Maddy Suggs is a sophomore utility player for the Owls but also a libero for the volleyball team, with a season-high 26 digs against Pensacola Christian.

“I just wanted to stay close to home,” Suggs said of her college choice. “That was really important to me. They also offered me the ability to play both sports, which is something I wasn’t sure I was ready to give up yet. So being here, being able to play both sports close to home, was ideal.”

Count Suggs among the optimists in the Owls’ dugout.

“We have a bunch of seniors who are returning, some are taking their extra year, so we have a lot of good leadership on the team,” she said. “We also have a good freshman class that’s coming in, with a lot of new talent and new looks, so I’m excited to see what the combination of the two brings.”

The optimism might be justified, but the schedule is tougher as Foster looks ahead to the near future.

“It’s more challenging than it was last year,” he said of the slate. “This year I made a concerted effort to get a lot of D-III programs in the South on our schedule because I want to start building those relationships.

“We’re going to be challenged. My hope for this season – obviously everybody wants to win – but I tell them all the time, if we play well and lose, I’m OK with that. More often than not if you play well and do the things you’re supposed to do, good things will follow.”

A lot of coaches say they don’t mind losing if their teams play well, but Foster means it. It works in reverse, too: Playing poorly and getting away with it won’t fly with him.

“We had a situation last year where we played what I felt was an inferior opponent, and we beat them, but it was in extra innings,” Foster recalled. “We didn’t play well, and I wasn’t happy with them. I told them, that’s not the product I want representing our university.

“We go and play a Division II school, and we played extremely well and lost to them in extra innings, and I was happy as a lark. They thought I was going to be really upset, but I’m like, I am more proud of you guys today than any day this year, because you hung in there, you fought, and you scratched against a school that offers scholarships. I think the message got through when that happened.”