Couch: Inside Sharonda McDonald-Kelley's attempt to remake Michigan State softball

EAST LANSING – Sharonda McDonald-Kelley wasn’t interested in the Michigan State softball head coaching job.

She saw MSU as a struggling program and in the North, where college softball’s first battle every year is with Mother Nature. She had a good gig coaching at Campbell University in North Carolina. Her program there was on the rise, as was her career. Her husband had a great job. Their daughter had been born there. She didn’t need to leave for the banks of the Red Cedar, which sometimes overflows onto MSU’s softball field.

“I’m from the South, so cold is not my favorite,” McDonald-Kelley said last week. “Also, historically, the program has not done well. And usually when that is happening, there's a reason for it. So that in itself would make a person nervous.”

Except that everyone else seemed to disagree — her friends in the coaching profession, including established head coaches at LSU and Illinois, her predecessor at MSU, Jacquie Joseph, whom she had long admired for her contributions to the sport, and her husband, who, after her interview in East Lansing, told her “This is something you can’t really pass up.”

It was Joseph’s phone call that first got McDonald-Kelley to reconsider and visit MSU’s campus. Once there — on one of those late spring Michigan days that can make you forget about February — the promise of investment in softball by athletic director Alan Haller and the supportive vibes from administrators gave McDonald-Kelley a feeling that MSU might actually be the place for her.

And then she saw a cardinal at MSU’s Secchia Stadium. McDonald-Kelley is woman of faith, a big fan of red cardinals and the granddaughter of “the best human,” the late Bettye Walker, who passed away in February of 2020, just before McDonald-Kelley learned she was pregnant with her now 2 1/2-year-old daughter. Since then, every time she’s sees a red cardinal, it’s as if her grandmother is saying hello or sending a message.

The MSU administrators with her at the stadium that day told her they never see cardinals there. She took it as a sign.

Ten months later, in her office at Jenison Field House, McDonald-Kelley found herself immersed in a challenge some might say is for the birds, in the earliest stages of building a program, trying to change a mindset while simultaneously taking lumps. The Spartans are 12-28 this season, 2-15 in the Big Ten heading into this weekend’s final home series against Purdue — moved to 3 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday, in an attempt to dodge the forecasted rain.

“It's been a tough transition,” McDonald-Kelley said. “The players that are here were awesome. I think they were excited and ready to jump on board with what we had as a staff for them. I was like, ‘Yes, let’s ride that wave.’ But then it gets hard. … You lose a game here. And then you lose the game there. And then it's the feeling of wanting to kind of fall back into what's comfortable. But what's comfortable doesn't work in this program. It never has.

“It doesn't show in the wins-loss column, but I think we're making some ground, I really feel good about it. Even if you go out and you watch our games, we're in the third inning down by three or four (runs), but the language is still, ‘Let's fight, let's do this.’ The language is changing, whereas we didn't have that in the beginning of the season.”

Part of the message to her team is that that they can set a tone and mindset that’ll live beyond their time at MSU, even if they don’t get to enjoy the results this season.

“We’re really trying to build something that’s going to last,” said senior outfielder Jessica Mabrey. “We’re working for this year obviously, but it’s more long-term than that. We’re trying to build a culture here and we’re trying to change the program.

“... Like, all of us are wanting to be here, wanting to change. And so it's really been up to us to buy in and truly believe what (the coaches) are saying and believe that we can do this.”

What’s helped the players endure is a camaraderie they say is different this season, among 11 returning players and a dozen new ones. They like each other’s company. Sometimes a little too much.

“I had to get on them (recently) on the bus ride home because they were laughing it up,” McDonald-Kelley said. “I’m like, ‘We just got hammered. You might reset faster than me, but I’m not over it.’ ”

A pioneer in a sport behind the times

On the schedule, MSU’s trip to Illinois last weekend will simply be recorded as three more losses — 4-3, 12-8 and 4-2. But it was a significant weekend in college softball history, the first time two Black head coaches at power five conference programs had ever faced each other, McDonald-Kelley against friend and mentor Tyra Perry. Duke’s Marissa Young is the only other Black head coach at a power five school.

McDonald-Kelley didn’t have Black teammates growing up in Houston. She never had one as a player at Texas A&M in the mid-2000s. Nor did Perry when she was coming up, other than sometimes her younger sister. When Perry played at LSU in the late 1990s, her being there contributed to other Black players coming.

“Even within this week (since the MSU-Illinois game), I've had a couple of recruits reach out,” Perry said, “saying ‘Hey, what we saw this past weekend was significant. It's great to see people that look like us in the sport.’ These are young, aspiring collegiate players.”

McDonald-Kelley was reminded how important her place in the sport is during MSU’s trip to play Texas A&M in February.

“They have three or four or five Black players on their team, and they stopped me and they're like, ‘This is so cool,’ ” McDonald-Kelley said. “Obviously, I’m an alumni from there. But it was just fun to sit and talk with them, because they thought it was so awesome that I'm where I'm at. And I think it's so awesome that they are where they're at. And that they have teammates that look like them.”

In college softball, in 2023, McDonald-Kelley is still a pioneer. She doesn’t think about that often anymore. But she did when it was first pointed out to her after she got the job at Campbell, her first head coaching position.

“I felt very weighty right away,” she said. “And I think through those years (at Campbell), I was able to kind of grow in that. And now I'm able to just be me. And I know that's enough.”

If you didn't see 'Sho' play, you missed out

What MSU’s softball program needs is a few McDonald-Kelleys — the player, that is. At Texas A&M, she was, well …

“The fastest, quickest, most explosive baserunner I've ever coached,” said Jo Evans, who coached Texas A&M from 1997 to 2022 and is now the head coach at UC-Santa Barbara.

McDonald-Kelley, then just McDonald, tied an NCAA record with 73 consecutive stolen bases during her time with the Aggies and hit .338 for her career, which included helping Texas A&M to the 2007 College World Series.

Evans gave her the nickname “Sho,” a name that’s stuck (she’s known as Coach Sho to her players), in part because she was the show.

“As a player, I've never seen anyone like her in terms of running bases and her ability to start and stop on a dime, like literally eyes in the back of her head. She never took her eye off the ball and always created,” Evans continued. “I remember the first time she scored from second on a sac bunt.”

McDonald-Kelley went on to play seven seasons of professional softball (and coached one season), including a stint in Italy in 2009. She kept playing stateside in the National Pro Fastpitch League while beginning her college coaching career — as an assistant at Texas Southern, followed by Ohio, LSU, Texas Tech, Florida and Ohio State, before taking over at Campbell, where she made NCAA regionals in both 2021 and '22, something MSU hasn't done since 2004.

“It shaped me as a coach,” McDonald-Kelley said of playing in the summers while working as an assistant. “Because it’s impossible to have both perspective as a player and a coach at the same time, even if you are a coach. You can't have it when you're in it. And it helps me understand that with coaching our players, because I’m sometimes like, ‘Why don't they get it?’ They literally can't. And then going back to coaching, I know exactly what it felt like. … I know it works because I just did it.”

McDonald-Kelley isn’t the only recent pro on MSU’s staff. Hitting coach Nadia Taylor plans to play her 10th professional season this summer. McDonald-Kelley’s other two assistants came with her from Campbell — pitching coach Danielle Stenger and volunteer assistant Destini England, who starred as a player there.

Evans didn’t know that “Sho” would become a coach. Her game was loud, but she wasn’t. Evans sees it now — the kid who was willing to go from a right-handed slugging shortstop as a prospect, to lefty slapper centerfielder, which helped make her a star. The kid who was a sponge as a player.

“If you met her mom, Rhonda, you would know this is where this kid came from,” Evans said. “This is how she became such a phenomenal person. Her mom is that person. … I’m really proud of Sho and her willingness to make sacrifices to get where she is. She didn't go in and say, ‘Oh, I was a great player. So just let me start in the SEC.’ She’s someone who's been willing to make moves. She's made calculated moves, well thought out, about how this can enhance and grow her career.”

A life beyond softball

When McDonald-Kelley took the MSU job, for the first time, she was also moving a family.

She had met Mike at Campbell. They were hired at the same time in 2018. He was her team’s strength and conditioning coach for a year. They were both looking for a church and, in the process, found each other.

By the time they left, he was a strength and conditioning specialist training special forces in the military.

“It was a really cool job and really cool to tell people what I did,” said Mike, who’s working as a building substitute teacher in East Lansing schools. “But I was OK with leaving because I just knew, if not now, when?”

He knew softball was his wife's calling. "She puts all of herself into this," he said.

Mike didn’t mind the change in climate. He grew up in Pittsburgh. This felt like home in that sense.

“I remember her telling me that she just thought winter was in December and I started laughing,” Mike said. “And I said, ‘Oh, no. That's when we like winter. It's Christmas. It’s pretty. I said, ‘February and early March, that's when winter is awful.’ ”

You know, college softball season.

Conversations with Mike and LSU softball coach and close friend Beth Torina are a good way to get to know McDonald-Kelley.

“I mean, she eats brownies every single day,” Torina said. “She cannot go a day without. She kind of eats like a small child. You know, just like pizza, hamburgers, ground beef tacos.”

Torina added McDonald-Kelley to her LSU staff in 2012 after Torina’s husband started chatting with McDonald-Kelley at an NCAA softball regional and told his wife, “Well, I hired your new volunteer coach.”

“Other than marrying me, it’s one of the best things he’s done,” Torina said.

“She is just really good support system. She's a shoulder to lean on. She's also a hype man. She'll pump you up, she'll listen to you. And she'll tell you the truth, too.”

Torina has watched as McDonald-Kelley has gone from a softball coach to a softball coach who is also a mother, to 2-year-old Kyler.

“I think it changes all of us,” Torina said. “Just different fears and joys and all things. I just think it makes you view the players a little differently too. They've always been someone's daughter. But now you understand what someone's daughter actually means.”

Motherhood has disrupted another of McDonald-Kelley’s passions — home remodeling.

McDonald-Kelley, who was nearly on HGTV’s “House Hunters” when she lived in Florida, is renovating her sixth house, their current home, built in 1993.

“When I met Mike, he’s like, ‘Wait, what is this you do?’ He does not like it. He’d take a brand-new house and be good,” said McDonald-Kelley, who renovated their home in North Carolina, built in 1908.

“I have all the saws — miter saw, jig saws,” McDonald-Kelley said. “I have a work station in our garage. … I just like fixing things.”

Mike bought her a new work bench for their anniversary. The head softball coach at Pittsburgh, Jodi Hermanek, who was her old boss at Ohio, got her a table saw for her baby shower.

“It's her escape. It's her getaway. It's her happy place,” Mike said. “If they have a bad weekend or a bad game or something like that, she'll come home and pick up the hammer and start doing stuff.

“This season, specifically, she hasn't been able to do as much. But I fully anticipate once the season is over — because it's been rough — she's going all in.”

There's a lot to do, on multiple fronts.

“She's relentless as a person and I don't think she's ever let anything stand in her way,” Torina said. “And I don't think she will ever. Whatever lies in front of her, she will problem solve, she will rebuild. I think she will persevere through whatever it is."

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Inside Sharonda McDonald-Kelley's attempt to remake MSU softball