The former Gamecock is returning home. The new softball coach at USC will be Ashley Chastain.
The University of South Carolina board of trustees, which will convene Tuesday afternoon to examine and approve many athletic contracts, must yet approve her hiring. The move was initially reported Monday night by The Big Spur.
Chastain has guided the 49ers to NCAA Tournament participation in each of the last two seasons after beginning her head coaching career during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 campaign. She has won over 60% of her games in that time.
Chastain is going to join a Gamecocks team that has been successful for nearly 40 years. Legendary coach Joyce Compton guided the South Carolina softball program for 24 seasons (1987–2010), a span that featured two visits in the Women’s College World Series and 13 trips to the NCAA Tournament.
Next came the 14-year tenure of Beverly Smith, who amassed over 350 victories, nine trips to the NCAA Tournament, but no appearances in the WCWS.
Smith was let go on Saturday, which was an odd choice given that it happened precisely three weeks after South Carolina’s season ended in an NCAA regional loss to Duke.
Ray Tanner, the director of athletics, might have thought Chastain was the one candidate he couldn’t allow to slip away. She was a player for the Gamecocks as well as Compton and Smith, absorbing elements of both teams and learning what it takes to be a coach in Columbia.
Chastain said in the Circle Softball in 2021, “That experience from Coach Compton to Coach Smith, it’s molded so much of the way I operate and the way I think.” “I learned so much from them both.”
She went on to discuss how Smith had transformed the atmosphere in her first season, saying, “I mirrored a lot of how she came in and took over that program when I came here and took over (Charlotte).”
Before accepting positions as an assistant with the German National Team, the College of Charleston, Michigan State, and Ole Miss, the former Gamecocks pitcher actually worked as Smith’s graduate assistant for the 2012 campaign.
In her final season at Oxford, Chastain—a pitching specialist—aided Ole Miss in posting the fifth-best ERA in the SEC. Furthermore, her Charlotte team finished the season with the second-lowest ERA (2.79) in the American Athletic Conference.
The team she will take over in 2024 finished 36-24 (8-16 SEC). Even with Smith’s success at Columbia, her Gamecock teams only managed a 32% conference record in the already competitive SEC, which will see the addition of Texas and Oklahoma for the upcoming season—two teams that just faced off in the Women’s College World Series championship.