Coach Courtney Scott Deifel high-fives infielder Juli Strange as she rounds the bases during a Terps softball game.
On the Louisville campus about 150 miles from her hometown of Morganfield, Kentucky, Cardinals catcher Taner Fowler received word that her father, Dan, had been in a life-threatening car crash that morning.
Terrapins softball head coach Courtney Scott Deifel, an assistant coach with Louisville at the time, was with Fowler, who needed to get home to her family.
“She lived three hours away, so I was like, ‘OK, I’ll drive you. You shouldn’t drive yourself, I’ll drive you home,’” Scott Deifel said.
But before they arrived in Morganfield on Oct. 31, 2011, Fowler found out her dad hadn’t made it. From that moment, Scott Deifel and Fowler developed an unbreakable bond.
With Scott Deifel’s support, Fowler, an only child, was named to the All-Big East first team and All-America third team the next season after while leading her team with 12 home runs and 52 RBIs.
“Just to see how she progressed as an athlete,” Scott Deifel said, fighting back tears. “How she played that year and the rest of her career. … [I] know she’ll be in my life forever.”
“She helped Taner through the next few years when Taner obviously had moments struggling with the loss of her dad, who she was extremely close to, who basically was a softball person in her life,” Louisville head coach Sandy Pearsall said. “Courtney really helped to kind of keep her settled.”
After helping Fowler through a difficult stretch of her life, Scott Deifel moved to College Park last summer with the task of revitalizing a program that had gone 11-35 the past season.
In early April, Fowler and her family watched from the stands in Bloomington, Indiana, as Scott Deifel coached the Terps against the Hoosiers. After the teams split the first two contests, the Terps dominated Indiana, 21-8, in the rubber match to push the Terps’ record under their first-year coach to 23-16.
The Terps have credited Scott Defiel, who developed her own zeal for the sport as a player and a coach, for a 180-degree turnaround and for instituting a new culture on the team. The players say they have rediscovered their passion and love for the game.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Ron Scott watched as his eldest daughter, Amanda Scott, wound up in the circle. Behind the plate, Scott Deifel was squatting, ready to receive the pitch.
Despite being three years younger than her sister, Scott Deifel was able to catch for her.
“I remember watching her, with soft hands, catch [Amanda],” Scott said. “I just said, ‘Boy, she really has a feel back there.’”
Amanda Scott went on to become one of the most decorated players in the history of the sport. In her four years at Fresno State, she pitched six no-hitters, two perfect games, earned first team All-American status each year and helped the Bulldogs win their only NCAA title in program history. After college, she earned a spot on the U.S. national team and won gold at the 1998 World Championship.
When it was time for Scott Deifel to pick a school, though, she wanted to carve her own path at Stanford. Scott Deifel’s uncle had attended the school, and her father considered theirs a “Stanford family.”
“Even though my parents told me not to put all your eggs in one basket, I was so set on going to Stanford,” Scott Deifel said. “That’s where I wanted to go; I just kind of knew their program.”
Scott Deifel’s hopes of attending Stanford took one step closer to becoming a reality when she raised her SAT score and earned acceptance to the prestigious university.
Roughly 48 hours later, however, Stanford coach John Rittman called her father.
“Hey, I got really bad news,” Scott recalled Rittman saying. “We can’t get her in. I had to make a decision between Courtney and another girl, and I went with the other girl.”
Rittman wanted Scott to pass along the news to his daughter, but Scott told Rittman he needed to be the one to tell her.
“When I got that call, it was heartbreaking,” Scott Deifel said. “As much as you make plans, the plans that you make have nothing to do with what actually ends up happening.”
The next day, Scott called UCLA, Arizona and UC Berkeley, knowing they had shown interest in his daughter. The Golden Bears were the first to bite.
In her four years at UC Berkeley, Scott Deifel played in all but three of the team’s 275 games, in which she called pitches as the team’s catcher. She helped lead them to four Women’s College World Series appearances, including a national title her junior year.
“It was kind of a weird way that she ended up at Berkeley, but it was the best thing that could have happened for us and her,” Golden Bears coach Diane Ninemire said. “Sometimes when you think you’re in one direction, there’s always another door that opens of opportunity.”
‘WHAT I WANTED TO DO’
After spending three years playing professionally in Japan, Scott Deifel joined Oklahoma’s coaching staff as a graduate assistant. While she intended to use her time with the Sooners to further her education, she fell in love with coaching.
“I was helping [head coach Patty Gasso], I was getting school, so we’re both using each other,” Scott Deifel said. “We laugh about it.”
Gasso slowly shifted Scott Deifel’s intentions to pursue a career in social work toward becoming a full-time coach.
“She was just kind of like, ‘This is a level of that, you get to have a hand in their most influential time; there’s huge rewards for that,’” Scott Deifel said.
In Scott Deifel’s second season with the Sooners, the pitching coach had a baby in the middle of the season. For the remainder of the campaign, Scott Deifel handled the pitching staff and pitch-calling duties.
“I loved it,” Scott Deifel said. “From that point, I just kind of knew it was what I wanted to do.”
After multiple seasons as an assistant at this university and Louisville, Scott Deifel got a call from Terps Athletic Director Kevin Anderson, who had worked at UC Berkeley during the end of her playing career. He wanted to gauge her interest in taking over the head job with the Terps.
“She was thrilled,” said Joe Deifel, her husband. “She enjoyed her time at Maryland the first time around as an assistant tremendously and knew that if the opportunity ever came about for her to come back it would be something she’d be interested in.”
Scott Deifel, who credits her first stint in College Park as the stretch where she discovered who she was as a coach, accepted the job in late July. Then, about a week later, she got married.
While it was a whirlwind stretch, Scott Deifel said her husband’s support eased the transition into her new job.
“A new job for her, a new job for me, a new marriage, a move to a new state,” Joe Deifel said. “So we kid that it’s been 10 years of life-changing events that’s all happened for us in the last eight months.”
REVITALIZING THE PROGRAM
Scanning through a list of her roster for the upcoming season, Scott Deifel anxiously called every member of her roster to set up meetings to introduce herself.
“They’re excited,” Scott Deifel said. “But then making that call, just their happiness, it just kind of makes you happy.”
Senior Kaitlyn Schmeiser heard from Scott Deifel on the way home from work. Her new coach, who helped recruit as an assistant with the Terps, wanted to know what type of pitcher she was.
The Terps ace didn’t have a clear answer. But since Scott Deifel has taken over for former coach Laura Watten, she has had her best season in a Terps uniform.
After posting a 4.99 ERA and a 7-12 record last season, Schmeiser has posted a career best 3.37 ERA, struck out a career high 170 batters and appeared in all but six of the Terps’ games, starting in 28 of them.
“I know she’s changed me as a pitcher,” Schmeiser said. “She did all that within a fall, so I think that’s a huge testament.”
While Schmeiser has enjoyed success in the circle, her sister Lindsey Schmeiser has reaped the benefits of a new coach in the batter’s box, highlighted by a 23-game hitting streak.
“My kids went from not wanting to play the game to the best year they’ve ever had,” said Harold Schmeiser, Kaitlyn and Lindsey Schmeiser’s father. “That just says it all to me.”
Scott Deifel was also closely involved in the recent development of catcher Shannon Bustillos, another player she helped recruit.
Like Scott Deifel did at UC Berkeley, Bustillos has started nearly every game behind the plate for her team. Bustillos, though, didn’t start calling pitches until this season. Scott Deifel prefers when catchers call the game, so she started working on it with Bustillos in the fall. And Bustillos recently has taken over the in-game responsibility.
“I’m thankful that she trusts me with that,” Bustillos said. “She’s a strong enough coach to be able to give it to somebody else and last year I don’t think that would have happened.”
Last season’s 11-35 mark was the worst in program history. But Scott Deifel has helped her players bounce back.
“You really have to look at what these coaches have done,” Schmeiser said. “Coming in, changing the culture, changing how we approach practice, how we approach games. We had a very negative atmosphere last year, and they just brought in total positivity.”
The mentality paid dividends quickly for the Terps, who matched their previous season’s win total in the first 16 games. Then with Fowler looking on, Scott Deifel’s Terps doubled the win total.
Scott Deifel first realized the impact she could have on her players at Oklahoma and had a direct influence on Fowler after her father’s death.
“That’s kind of what you want to do as a coach, is touch lives,” Scott Deifel said. “You do it the right way. You’re gonna be closer to some, but you’re gonna have a big influence on their lives.”
In a bit more than eight months, Scott Deifel has helped the 23 players on the current roster get back to winning on a consistent basis.
“Even when we fail they still are coaches, they’re still there behind us, and I can’t really thank the coaches enough because they’ve really allowed us to love the game again,” Bustillos said. “They’ve allowed us to play free, and Coach Scott has definitely been a huge part of that.”