For the past few years, Memphis Softball has had a string of seasons they would really like to improve upon. Since the shortened 2020 season, the Tigers have a record of 39-166, which includes the lowest single season win total in program history at only six wins just last year.
This prompted Athletic Director Ed Scott to make the choice to hire Trena Prater as the new head coach on August 12, 2024. She comes in after the former coach, Stephanie VanBrackle Protho, resigned after two seasons.
Prater has an absolute treasure trove of experience as a player and a coach. During her playing days, she played for LSU from 1999-2002. While there, she made three All-SEC teams and was an instrumental piece of the 2001 squad that went all the way to the College World Series and placed third.
She learned a lot from her time in Baton Rouge, but the experience that Prater values most was being a part of LSU's growth as a program: "LSU wasn't LSU then; I was a part of building that, I guess," she said in an interview with the Daily Helmsman. "So when I take over programs that haven't been successful or that have never [completed a rebuild], I know that it's possible. I've done it as a player..."
Her time as a player continued on to the National Pro Fastptch (NPF), which was one of the only professional softball leagues in the country at the time. She played for four different NPF teams from 2004-2009 and finished tenth in league history in stolen bases with 53.
After her playing days were over, Prater took various staff positions at different schools until she was named head coach at Hampton in 2011. In her three seasons at the helm, the Pirates made consistent improvements on the field, which culminated in 2013 where they finished with a 34-26 record, a MEAC Championship, and an appearence in the 2013 Gainsville Regional.
The next season, she was hired to Buffalo and she immediately found success. Led by a squad of 11 juniors and seniors, Prater turned a 16-32 team into a 30 win monster in the MAC, going all the way to the conference title game.
"That was one of my funnest teams," she said. "That team is really special and I'm still connected to a lot of those girls on that team."
Her most recent stop before Memphis was for two years at Campbell and led them to a regular season title in both the Big South and the CAA, a Big South Tournament Championship, and a berth to the Durham Regional in 2023. The Camel's campaign two years ago is extremely impressive when considering they had all of those accolades with only two pitchers on the roster. That isn't to discount last year's Campbell team, whose season was highlighted by a 3-2 road upset of No. 3 North Carolina.
To recap Prater's head coaching résumé, she rebuilt Hampton in three years, completely turned Buffalo around in one season, and showed consistency in performance through conference realignment. That sounds like a perfect fit for Memphis.
As Tigers prepare for this upcoming season, they are not going to just sweep Memphis' last season under the rug. The team through the team's record book with the players during the preseason and they saw that the last four years of Memphis softball were the worst in team history. Their response was to use it as fuel for 2025.
As the team looked through the record books, they saw all of the highlights of the program including the 2011 season where Memphis made the NCAA Tournament for the only time in the program's 17 year history and the 37 win 2018 team. "37 wins is the most wins any [Memphis] program has ever had, so our goal is 38. This year, our goal is to be the best team ever to play at Memphis."
The AAC picked Memphis to finish last in their preseason poll and Prater's response to that was very simple: "I love that. Don't respect us early and respect us later." She wants the Tigers to earn the respect of the conference and surprise everyone when they show out on the field.
This type of energy embodies the city of Memphis perfectly and it's exactly what Memphis Softball needed. After a rough few years after the pandemic, it seems like Coach Prater is ready to get the Tigers roaring once again.
They open their season at home against Rust College on Feb. 7 at the Tiger Softball Complex.
