Anna Holley and Brandi Brantley break into big grins when asked to relate their favorite “moments” with New Hope High School softball coach Tabitha Beard.
Already warned by Beard not to divulge anything too damaging, Holley doesn”t hesitate to relate the horror of her first encounter with Beard.
Holley can”t help laugh thinking back to the moment, which she thinks happened when she was a ninth-grader.
“I had a passed ball and I wasn”t giving the best of effort to get it,” said Holley, who was an eighth-grader on Beard”s first fast-pitch team at New Hope High. “I don”t know if there were runners on base or what was going on, but I remember her coming out of the dugout in the middle of the game — in the middle of the game — and running up to me and letting me have it right then and there.
“I think she knew what it would do to me, and I was always going to prove her wrong. That made me better.”
Beard has found ways to help players improve ever since her first season. Last October, she proved her mettle once again by leading the New Hope High slow-pitch softball team to its fourth state title in a row (second in Class 5A), and 13th overall.
The Mississippi Association of Coaches recently recognized that accomplishment by naming Beard its slow-pitch Coach of the Year. North Pontotoc”s Shane Montgomery was named the fast-pitch Coach of the Year.
Beard didn”t learn of the honor until another coach congratulated her for the award. She thought the coach was mistaken and wasn”t sure it was true until the next day when she checked the website.
“I am very thankful, but I have always said I work with the greatest group of girls in the state,” Beard said. “When you work with a group of girls like that it is easy to recognized as if I did something great when it is really them. They work. They show up day in and day out and they work hard and they do what they have to do, which makes my job easy.”
Beard, a former softball player at New Hope, takes pride in the honor because she feels it shows people throughout the state see the program as one of its best. She admits there have been times when she doubted if she would be able to maintain the standards set by her coach, Cary Shepherd, who built the programs. But she again credits the players, coaches, parents, family members, and everyone associated with the program who assists in making New Hope a championship program.
“These girls love the sport,” Beard said. “They play all year. When most girls are at home during the summer tanning and laying out by the pool, these girls are on the softball field. That is how much they love it, and that is what keeps our program where it is.”
As seniors, Holley and Brantley have played for Beard two seasons a year throughout their high school careers. Both have plenty of coach Beard moments to relate, but they stressed the message behind the moment is what has helped make them better players and has raised the bar for future classes of softball players.
“I think everybody respects her because she gives everybody an equal opportunity to prove that they need that starting position,” Holley said. “She kids around a little more in practice, and she is a little bit more laid back.”
Said Brantley, “Coach Beard is intense. She is a coach, so she is going to be hard on anybody because she know what you are capable of and she wants you to do your best. Like Anna said, she connects with each person and she can tell when something is wrong.”
Holley said Beard has learned how to motivate players with different personalities. She said she might not have realized why Beard was so tough on her when she was an eighth-grader thrust into a starting position. Looking back, though, she smiles because she knows that “moment” as a ninth-grader was setting the stage for her to do bigger and better things.
“I am always ready for it at any moment,” Holley said. “But she has relaxed over the years. .. I think she is able to have more fun with it because she knows we all want it as much as she does.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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