Familiar face takes over as new Madill fast-pitch coach

This fall the Madill Lady Wildcats fastpitch softball team have a new boss in the dugout as Brett Vann was named head coach last week.

Vann has spent the past three seasons as head coach of the Madill Middle School fastpitch team.

The new coach was introduced, and in some cases reintroduced, to players and parents in a pair of team meetings on June 11 at the MHS softball facility.

Vann started his coaching career with stops at Choctaw High School and Shawnee High School before taking a break in 2007 to focus on his oldest children, twins, Aron and Emilie. The pair graduated from Madill High School this spring.

Vann coached baseball at both CHS and SHS.

“I hadn’t been around softball a whole lot, but I’ve been around baseball just about my whole life,” he said. “I have a boy that just graduated. He played baseball; T-ball all the way through.”

Vann said beyond coaching softball at MMS, his interest in the sport is motivated by his daughter, Riquel’s love of the game.

“I’m interested in softball because I have a nine-year old girl,” he said. “She plays softball. She started playing so I wanna be interested in it. I wanna be part of her growing and development process.”

Vann said he is excited about the current crop of softball players in Madill.

“I like the girls we have playing softball,” he said. “They’re a lot of fun to be around. It makes my job easier when it’s fun, you know.”

Vann believes there is a lot going for the Lady Wildcat program ahead of the 2020 season.

“We’ve got good character, good leaders and good parents that support our program,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you wanna do it, you know? It’s got good administrative support. It’s a good time to be in the Madill Wildcat softball program.”

Vann believes his time coaching at the middle school level will help.

“It’ll give me a little bit of an advantage to the girls that I’ve coached before cause I know them,” he said. “I’ve invested some time in them and tried to develop them as softball players. At the same though, we have some girls that didn’t get to play for me. It’ll be interesting to see how it’s all gonna mesh together. I think it’ll be good. I think we’ll be able to plug those girls in and be able to run with it.”

The team is expected to be young with the same number of seniors and freshmen set to play.

“I’ve got two seniors, two freshmen and the rest are juniors and sophomores,” he said.

“Our junior class is our most skillful group,” he said. “My pitchers are sophomores and my catcher is a freshman. We’re really young.”

Vann said the team may face some tough games this season.

“I do know that from the junior class on down, I coached them before,” he said. “They have a lot of heart and a lot of pride, so we’ll see what happens there.”

Vann was blunt, but optimistic about his team’s prospects.

“We might take a few beatings this year, but I think we’ll be able to start turning that around,” he said. “It all depends on our pitchers. That’s a lot of pressure to put on our pitchers, but in fast-pitch softball you can win a lot of close games and beat some teams you shouldn’t beat. Our pitchers, I’m gonna challenge them. They’re right there on the verge, I feel like, of being great after watching them over the last few years.”

Building for the future

One way Vann is showing his passion for the sport is by helping start a youth softball league this summer in conjunction with the Kingston Youth Association.

“We had close to 50 girls who had never played softball before,” he said.

Vann feels that having a Little League for softball will start the pipeline of softball talent in Madill.

“It will help our middle school team and our high school program down the line,” he said.

Vann said the program has grown in time since he came on board.

“At the junior high level, we’ll have eight or nine eighth graders that will play high school next year,” he said. “I’ve got about seven or eight seventh graders and a lot of sixth graders. So as far as numbers go, the future looks really good.”

Both Vann and his wife, Michelle, teach at MMS.

Vann was quick to call his wife his rock and talk about his two younger children, Riquel and Wyatt.

“They didn’t hire one man to run this program,” he said. “They hired a family. My two youngest have already spent a lot of time around the program.”

Vann, who is leading efforts to rebuild the city’s three softball fields at Lions Park is also looking to bring the same energy to Tom Reynolds Field, home of the Lady Wildcats. Vann along with countless

Vann along with countless softball parents and a few city workers got those fields ready for a tournament within five days earlier this month.

At the end of our interview, Vann showed off some freshly poured concrete for a drainage ditch designed to prevent future flooding at the field.

After the concrete work is done next to the field, the awning above the field’s bleachers will be done done later this summer, he said.

“I’ve had a company donate their time, labor and equipment,” Vann said. “We’re just paying for the materials. Greg Grover of Flowrite Plumbing is organizing it for me. He’s one of my junior high dads.”

The goal is to make Tom Reynolds Field more enticing for home fans. Vann said while he loves the old style bricks around the dugouts, he knows the summer heat can make for a long afternoon.

“We’re gonna try and make it a little more appealing for our fans to come and visit our games,” he said. “It’s just really hot in August and September so we’re trying to do the best we can to make the experience for our fans a positive one. Trying to find some ways to cool it down for them.”