Stillman will retain baseball and softball – Tuscaloosa News (subscription)

“We looked at softball and baseball as two of the traditional sports that have always been here at Stillman College, and two of the traditional sports that we’ve had a lot of success with,” Jackson said. “So in our efforts to boost enrollment, it was a good to retain softball and baseball.”

In December, Stillman announced the move from the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in NCAA division II to the Gulf South Athletic Conference in the NAIA. Stillman made the move to drop all of its athletic programs except men’s and women’s basketball following the 2015-2016 school year. With the new addition of junior varsity teams for both the softball and baseball teams, Stillman will have the financial capabilities to keep both varsity teams.

Rumblings of both the baseball and softball programs being retained began in the late spring, especially after both finished well in the SIAC conference with limited rosters. The softball team finished 14-10 in the conference, while the baseball team finished with 16-5 conference record and made it to the conference championship game.

“It was kind of the team joke, every day we would ask Coach Mac (Julius McDougal), ‘Hey is the program coming back next year?’ He’d just laugh because no one knew. It was all up in the air,” Stillman first baseman, Kevin Usselman said. “Just to hear the news that it came back, it was just a relief for all of us to play baseball again.”

Jackson also announced who will serve the coaching positions of both varsity teams. McDougal will remain at his position as baseball coach. McDougal took Stillman to the SIAC championship game in his first season in 2016. Stillman Softball will be making a change at the position though, as longtime coach Pam Phillips announced she is moving on.

“For softball, unfortunately we lost coach Pam Phillips, who was a basically a stalwart here at Stillman college,” Jackson said. “Coach Phillips did a great job with the program, but what we are going to do with our softball team program is promote from within. We are going to promote Joel Worthington to the softball coach.”

Stillman was granted a four-year grace period to add back four sports to reach the six-team NAIA minimum. The remaining two programs have not been announced and do not have to come back until the four-year period is complete.