The Warren Central girls softball team is preparing and practicing for their upcoming season with the added surprise of newly appointed head coach Joanne Carroll.
As a new coach, her biggest goal for the upcoming season is to increase the awareness of softball here at Warren Central. She wants to put the softball team out in the public eye more.
“I want people to know who Warren Central softball is,” Carroll said.
Although this is a big change in coaches, sophomore Myla Butler said that it wasn't much of a big change since she was an assistant coach the previous year.
“I feel like Coach Carroll being the new head coach is cool and also because she was an assistant coach last year so most of the staff isn’t too much of a new change,” Butler said.
Compared to how they did last year, junior Samaya Joseph expects that they’ll do better than they had done with Coach Carroll now being in charge.
“I think we are gonna be a lot better,” Joseph said. “It helps when you have someone who’s coaching who’s actually played and has taught other people how to play.”
But Coach Carroll isn’t just a coach. She is also an eighth grade math teacher at Raymond Park and a mother to two daughters. Since she was young she always knew she wanted to become a teacher because she wanted to make a difference.
Carroll’s journey to becoming a teacher began in Franklin College, where she played basketball for four years, softball for three years and field hockey to get in shape for basketball.
Later on, she attended Marion University and earned her teaching license and certification, all before her daughter, who would later become her biggest inspiration, was born.
Her biggest inspiration for coaching softball in the first place is her daughter. She said she appreciates watching her daughter take the things she learns and grow from it, and she wants to have that same effect on her softball girls.
“I can see some of the things that she does and how she can take it to another level, and it’s pretty cool to sit back and watch,” Carroll said of her daughter. “I helped do that.”
Most of all, Carroll is looking forward to helping her athletes grow throughout the season.
“I want to give our kids the opportunity to be respected and play a game,” she said.