Softball coach brings positive attitude to field

Liz Nicol/Photo Editor EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATOR: Purdue softball coach Carol Bruggeman talks to a few of her players during a game against Iowa on April 7.

By Greg Doddridge
Senior Writer

The face of the only varsity softball coach Purdue has ever known lies beneath a visor.

Carol Bruggeman often strolls along the third-base sideline during home games. She gives instructions to her players as they come to the plate. The visor hides the face of one of the most personable coaches around.

She coaches in the John Wooden manner, preferring to focus on game-specific goals. For example, the team tries to get every leadoff batter out every inning on defense. She likes to focus on those goals because she considers winning to be too abstract of a concept.

"If you just talk about winning the Big Ten, what does that mean?" said Bruggeman.

She’s a coach, a fitness aficionado, a doctoral student, an author, a speaker and a business entrepreneur. She speaks at national coaching clinics a few times a year. And with two more years of night classes, she will have her doctorate in higher education administration.

"I think education is something that is valued because no one can ever take it away from you," said Bruggeman.

She has such a diverse range of interests, but her personality and coaching have led the team to a 29-16 record this season.

The team is on pace to finish this season along the lines of the 1996 season when the team had 36 wins or the 1997 season when the team had 41 wins.

Bruggeman has a career record of 276-218-2 and part of the program’s success has been because of her defense-first philosophy.

But the other part of the program’s success has been her ability to effectively communicate with her players.

Senior shortstop Katie Crabtree said she noticed Bruggeman’s personality when she was watching a game in the stands as a junior in high school.

"We get along really well," said Crabtree. "She’s fun to talk to. And I think that her having that positive attitude and just her easy-going, have-fun attitude makes us more comfortable with her."

Bruggeman’s positive attitude was evident while she was an assistant coach at Michigan the five years before she came to Purdue in June of 1993.

Carol Hutchins, who has been the coach at Michigan for the past 18 years, said Bruggeman has an ability to draw players to her.

"Her strength is in her warmth as the minute you meet her; she has a warmth about her," said Hutchins. "She genuinely seems to care and be interested."

Michigan, a conference powerhouse, won the first of its seven Big Ten regular-season championships in 1992 and followed that with another championship in 1993.

"(Bruggeman) was very much the reason we were able to do that," said Hutchins.

Bruggeman learned a lot about defensive control while an assistant to Hutchins, a person she calls a mentor.

"Offensively, sometimes, you don’t have as much control as you do defensively," said Bruggeman. "Defense is about doing a few skills in our sport over and over and over.

"You can sneak a run out a variety of ways if you shut the other team down."

She picked up that coaching strategy while a graduate assistant at Iowa and later refined that strategy at Michigan.

But as a player at Iowa, she had thought about going into the business world. Her bachelor’s degree was in business and she received several nice offers from accounting companies. But softball was a bigger draw to her than business.

"I just couldn’t see myself in a cubicle for 12 hours a day," said Bruggeman.

So she took the assistant coaching job at Michigan and worked on her graduate degree. She received her master’s degree in athletic administration and coaching in 1990 from Iowa.

In June of 1993, Purdue was starting a softball program. Joni Comstock, now the athletics director at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, was an associate athletics director at Purdue in 1993. She was the one who hired Bruggeman.

"It was, to me, very much a professional challenge to be able to start something in as competitive a league as the Big Ten and to hopefully to have some success with it," said Bruggeman.

There were problems that first year. But Bruggeman had known success before and wanted it again, this time at Purdue.

"Definitely the thing I think that got me through the first year was vision, seeing where the program could go and a sense of humor because a lot of things were just funny," said Bruggeman.

She had just two scholarship players during the first season in 1994. Thirteen players were walk-ons.

Stephanie Young/Senior Photographer IN CHARGE: Purdue softball coach Carol Bruggeman gives instructions to her runners during a game against Butler on April 3.

Some of the first softball players at Purdue had no idea what NCAA Division I softball was about.

One day in 1994, before one of the first road trips, there was a junior on the team who was sitting up front with Bruggeman. The player was a junior, but just a first-year Division I player. She was not used to riding on the luxurious charter buses that Purdue uses.

The team was ready to leave for its game.

"Coach, we’re all here," said the player.

"Great. We’re early. We’re on time. We’re leaving in about five minutes. Great," said Bruggeman.

"Yeah, well, aren’t you going to drive?" said the player.

"Oh no, no, no. You do not want me to drive this," said Bruggeman.

Despite funny moments, the players were eager to learn. 1994’s team recorded 21 wins. To this day that stands as the record for the most wins by a first-year program in the Big Ten.

The program has progressed from the first season. Purdue reached the Big Ten Tournament for the first time in 1997. The program has had 11 players with 16 All-Big Ten selections.

"We’ve certainly put our program on the map nationally," said Bruggeman.

Purdue athletics director Morgan Burke has noticed how the program has progressed.

"I think she continues year in, year in, to elevate the level of recruiting and talent coming in," said Burke. "She’s getting good kids out of not only the Midwest, but she’s been able to really recruit on a national basis."

But she still wants to win the Big Ten title and reach the Women’s College World Series.

As recruiting continues and the program picks up more wins, Bruggeman will be closer to attaining those goals. Some day she may find herself as a college professor, getting the chance to stay within the college atmosphere. But right now she’s content to stay on the sidelines, underneath her visor, calmly coaching her teams to victory.

"I just feel like the luckiest woman in the world because I love what I do," said Bruggeman.

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