When it comes to strong college softball programs, the Texas State Bobcats come to mind. The program is led by head coach Ricci Woodard, who took the reins in 2001. She has compiled 917 wins in 26 seasons. Now going into year 27, Coach Woodard is ready to attack a year that is bringing change.
After being a member of the Sun Belt Conference since 2014, Texas State will begin their time in the Pac-12.
“Let me start by saying I’m going to miss the Sun Belt,” Woodard told me on Thursday. “I like those coaches. I thought we did a really good job of building that Sun Belt into a really good conference. It was fun to be around those competitive coaches day in and day out, because that was not an easy conference to win, and nor will it still be.”
Woodard’s program won four SBC championships during that time, two regular season championships in 2018 and 2025, and two conference tournament championships in 2018 and 2024. Now, they will carry that fire and grit into the Pac. They hope to build that conference into a well respected league as well.
If there is one thing that should make this move a little easier, it is that Woodard has done it before. Texas State jumped from the Southland Conference to the Western Athletic Conference for the 2013 season. Then they landed in the Sun Belt in 2014. The Pac-12 makes conference home number four under Woodard. Change is not something she is meeting for the first time.
Still, that run hasn’t really crossed Woodard’s mind yet. There is a lot of time between now and March when conference play starts.
What is on her mind is the group standing in front of her. There are a lot of new faces, and with that comes the chemistry build.
“Right now we’re just trying to get to know each other,” Woodard said. “I brought in 12 new players, six freshmen and six transfers, so that’s half your team. The message right now is let’s do first things first, and some of that’s getting back in shape.”
There is no rush to force it. Fall doesn’t start until the end of September, and Woodard plans to use that time to let this group gel before anybody worries about wins and losses.
I asked Woodard on the importance of players being themselves while also embracing the standard of the program.
“I told them the other day, my big thing right now is to make sure that they continue to let their light shine,” Woodard said. “Because I think sometimes you get into a program, you’re new, everybody’s kind of on edge a little bit. You start wondering, why’d they recruit me? They’re telling me how to throw, they’re telling me how to hit, they’re telling me how to field. But all of them were recruited here for a reason.”
The players aren’t the only new people around the program. For the first time in her career, Woodard is handing over the hitting.
She brought in Alisa Goler, one of the best hitters the game has seen, to run that side of things, along with Alyssa Denham on the mound. It is a change she had wanted for a while.
“I’ve never been able to have a hitting coach here. I’ve always had to do it myself, which is a full-time job in itself on top of being the head coach,” Woodard said. “So I just kept begging for the last two years to get another staff member on staff that I felt like could relate to the players a little bit better than I can at this point in life.”
Both of those hires trace back to something else Woodard took on this summer. She spent it as the head coach of the Texas Volts in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League.
“I think the best thing that came out of the Volts deal for me was two great assistant coaches,” Woodard said. “When you surround yourself with really good people, hopefully you benefit from that. I definitely have been able to do that here at Texas State, but I feel like this summer I really pulled two of the best in the game to be able to help the people in my organization become better.”
Not every change this year has been one Woodard went looking for. On top of everything else came a court ruling that, for now, lets seniors from the 2022 signing class pick up a fifth year. Woodard is taking it the same way she takes the rest.
“I’m one of those, and maybe it’s my age. I just kind of roll with it at this point in my career,” Woodard said. “I don’t look too far down the future of it, and I just go with where we’re at today.”
That is how you get to 917 wins and a 27th season. Not by fighting the change, or finding excuses, but by adjusting and moving with it.
More from my conversation with Coach Woodard is coming soon. Please SUBSCRIBE and stay tuned to Southeastern Softball Wire.
