Kleist transfers

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racerx5908
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by racerx5908 »

Hi all, Longhorn visitor to your site. I found this forum because of the hiring of Mike White and the flurry of transfers I've been learning about on twitter. So, excuse the longwinded introduction and background to follow.

After our new AD took over, I wrote him an email telling him that UT Softball had to undergo a "re-evaluation" as Connie Clark had essentially run out of coaching "steam". Also, as a long time season ticket holder, I was
fed up and giving up my tickets for the next year. The AD (email lackey) responded back that "all aspects of the program are being evaluated". Connie was in the last year of her contract and he essentially told her
that he was not renewing her contract and that was when she stepped down.

I was shocked to find that Mike White, who just finished another WCWS, left Oregon for Texas. I mean, Oregon was loaded for next year. But as he mentioned, he has to take care of his family. Well, money does talk,
especially since he's close to the same age as me and has kids roughly the same age as mine. You have to consider that if his pay was doubled coming to Texas, then for every year he works in Austin, it's the equivalent
of working two years in Eugene.

As expected, when he arrived we started seeing some sudden "God has new plans for me" twitter announcements. Players that had committed to Connie Clark when they were sophmores were being told by White's
staff that they were "going in a new direction". In other words, sorry no scholarship for you (this affected 3 players). And on the flip side, we're suddenly got last minute signings from players we'd never heard of.
Okay, new coach. His job depends on the team's success and he should shop for his own groceries.

Then, the transfers from Oregon started happening and also the fact that OU is our main nemesis, we know A LOT about them and their coaching staff.

First, while it is kinda nice (?) to get these really good players from Oregon, ummmmm we have a pretty big team and the effect of getting Oregon transfers is that we're waiting for the other shoe to drop - the transfers
out of Texas. The fans and some high school coaches were looking at Connie's last few years when we had 4 and then 5 pitchers and shaking their heads. 5 pitchers on a staff? No consistent starter and
not enough playing time, which led to inconsistent play. Now with the transfers and the newly signed players, we are again at 5 pitchers. So, while I can't speak to if White was luring his ex-players to Texas,
I can tell you it's putting stress on the older players on the team. There was one outspoken player Dad who was no fan of Connie because she didn't play his daughter enough. With White coming he
was estatic because he thought Mike would give everyone a fresh slate. Now it's dawning on them that, well Mike might give preference to his former players. I'm surprised that with the new October portal
not one player has transferred - yet.

Second, your new coach. Wow. I thought it was an interesting hire. We don't know much about Lombardi, except she was Patti's assistant for forever. BTW, I thought that OU would be going downhill
because Patti's gone to a bit of nepotism when it comes to hiring. One of her assistant coaches is her son. I thought Lombardi would put in the OU model of coaching, which is pretty solid. Find fantastic
pitching from around the country, very solid hitting and fielding. The only weakness they have is base running. But to hear some of the rumored reasons for players leaving? That's.....odd. But maybe Lombardi's
been chomping on the bit wanting to implement things in a way that Patti would never implement. I mean OU's a conservative place, but I don't recall hearing anything about a dress code for players.

Anyway, good luck with your year. I'll be watching out of pure curiosity.
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greenyellow
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by greenyellow »

Welcome to our board.

I think that there are going to some big period of adjustments for both programs. Texas is likely going to see that White doesn't want to waste time rebuilding so will gladly accept his former Oregon players and recruits to speed that process up. With who he's accepted, I doubt he's going to get too concerned if a few holdovers end up transferring, even if he has made a bit of a personal connection with them in the short time he's been there (which is likely one of his strongest abilities as a coach.) Once he gets a roster of entirely his players, they tend to be loyal to him and the staff and you'll see relatively few transfers out. That loyalty to him is likely why he's gotten the Oregon players he has versus anything Lombardi really did.

As for Oregon and Lombardi, the rumors of her implementing strict religious and dress codes have not had a lot of confirmation. I tend to think those playing a big factor into the players transferring (especially the religious stuff) is bunk since Kleist said something about her transfer being in God's plans, Elish has a bunch of Christian bible verses and quotes throughout her Twitter feed, Burke went to a Catholic high school in Eugene, and Rhodes has posted some religious stuff in the past. I'm of the mind that what led to the transfers was a combination of ML not building a connection strong and soon enough with these players and the players not wanting to basically start over with a coaching staff that had a completely different and unfamiliar approach, which is why you see the players transferring to places with coaches they've known for years.

With all the defections and how far out softball recruiting needs to be done, it is going to be at least a couple years before they're possibly anywhere near ready to compete for a NCAA Tournament spot. You don't just lose 2 All-American pitchers, 2 All-Conference players, and 2 more expected to heavily contribute and expect to have enough talent to compete against a schedule like they have this season. I'm sure Lombardi is going to bring in some transfers just to provide a little depth this year but she'll likely try to pull in some more recruits she thinks are more representative of her style of play and have the mental toughness to weather change/difficulties better than what she's seen so far.
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racerx5908
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by racerx5908 »

Thanks for the feedback. Back to Kleist, I typed in my info before finding out she'd transferred to the Ragin' Cajuns. Well, that's a VERY interesting place. They have a rabid fanbase, and rabid
is both a compliment and a diss. The history of their softball program is very interesting and I'm not sure there's an accurate (honest) writeup about it on the internet. As Longhorns we know them
very well. When we were in our heyday, we hosted regionals where they were often "guests". The fans are a bit of assholes, but they love their team! So, she landed at a really great place when
it comes to skills and fan support.
oregontrack
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by oregontrack »

the religious angle seems so bizarre i can't even wrap my head around it. there's almost no chance that's true, unless lombardi think she's the one who has made a huge mistake and is trying to get fired.

while this has obviously been a supremely awful offseason, it is possible that the attrition doesn't mean oregon softball is in for an apocalyptic future. it's obvious that elish, burke, and rhodes were all committed to white, not oregon. after the mass exodus to austin, in addition to losing the 4 senior starters from last year's team to graduation, i can absolutely see why kleist, with only one year of eligibility left, would rather play for a familiar coach and a team with better odds of making the CWS, which lafayette certainly has.

2019 will be rough (god help us if balint decides she's rather play closer to home), no question.
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StevensTechU
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by StevensTechU »

I'd love more detail on the rules she's supposedly put in, especially the religious ones.
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greenyellow
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by greenyellow »

Found these tweets from Moseley that confirm what the previous poster on Duck Territory said Mullens told them at an Oregon Club meeting:
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Phenom
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by Phenom »

Rumor is that they can't just wear sweats an a ponytail to class. They have to dress up at all times. That's stupid rule if true.
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Duck07
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by Duck07 »

greenyellow wrote:Found these tweets from Moseley that confirm what the previous poster on Duck Territory said Mullens told them at an Oregon Club meeting:
I'm a little disappointed that Woideck didn't include some music with his tweet
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racerx5908
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by racerx5908 »

Hey, didn't know where to post some updates for y'all. I know there's some bad blood between Oregon fans towards the Texas program because of the changes.
Here is part of today's press conference with Mike talks about the recent Clearwater tournament. But the part I queued up was his version of the timeline on
how the Oregon players came to transfer to Texas.


Later in the video he talks about Elish's batting and pulling her after she gave up a homerun.

Now from the Texas perspective, as a fan I've been mentally listing the players who will be transferring out next year. To be honest, I'm surprised that
some didn't go into the portal upon the arrival of the Oregon-4. They've taken over the jobs some players were expecting to get some playing time in.

But, the "Mike White and Oregon-4" effect has been.....to be honest, stunning. I know it doesn't sit well for y'all. We were a "C" team before our
old coach "retired" and now we're probably at this time a "B+" team. I did the stats for the first 8 games last year vs the 8 games this year.

Image

Image

(sorry I'm not familiar with this forum type so I hope the images post)
Merganzer
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by Merganzer »

Thanks a lot for the work you did on the post, racerx5908. Re the Oregon transfers, according to this is all just worked out great for Texas as White says he would have been thrilled to get the 4 players from anywhere. It was not the case, from this, that White and the players were all holding hands and heading for Texas together.
coastduck
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by coastduck »

racerx5908 wrote:Hey, didn't know where to post some updates for y'all. I know there's some bad blood between Oregon fans towards the Texas program because of the changes.
Here is part of today's press conference with Mike talks about the recent Clearwater tournament. But the part I queued up was his version of the timeline on
how the Oregon players came to transfer to Texas.


Later in the video he talks about Elish's batting and pulling her after she gave up a homerun.

Now from the Texas perspective, as a fan I've been mentally listing the players who will be transferring out next year. To be honest, I'm surprised that
some didn't go into the portal upon the arrival of the Oregon-4. They've taken over the jobs some players were expecting to get some playing time in.

But, the "Mike White and Oregon-4" effect has been.....to be honest, stunning. I know it doesn't sit well for y'all. We were a "C" team before our
old coach "retired" and now we're probably at this time a "B+" team. I did the stats for the first 8 games last year vs the 8 games this year.

Image

Image

(sorry I'm not familiar with this forum type so I hope the images post)
Thanks for the interesting stats component that you've posted. That's a great way to present the information. It looks like it really has been quite an impact thus far.

What tools did you use to put together those graphs? I'd love to see one comparing Oregon's year over year stats as well.
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Duck07
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by Duck07 »

White is so full of Shhh when he talks about the players going there. He acted like a Diva on the way out and used the players in the process to smear the school for laughing at his high priced offer from Texas on his way out in order to make himself out to be a victim. He got paid a lot of money while at Oregon and was given a load of resources in the process to improve the program. That he acts naive about being surprised that those players he jaded on his way out would transfer is just more BS, or whatever the equivalent is for stepping in a pile of kangaroo dung.

Although sowing discord among your enemy is Art of War level stuff and had White been capable of that, we would have won a NC already.
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racerx5908
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by racerx5908 »


Thanks for the interesting stats component that you've posted. That's a great way to present the information. It looks like it really has been quite an impact thus far.

What tools did you use to put together those graphs? I'd love to see one comparing Oregon's year over year stats as well.
Excel and tedious hand-entering of data. Gotta find a more efficient way.
duckfan96
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Re: Kleist transfers

Post by duckfan96 »

Welcome. Hope the hire of white works out for y’all. By all accounts he was turning into quite the diva. Didn’t get what he wanted and left. Seems a little childish on his part to continue talking about it. Ya got your raise and left Oregon pretty slimmed down...move on. I for one am excited to see what Lombardi can do at Oregon. Maybe win in the post season, when it counts.
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