{"id":45740,"date":"2022-06-11T02:34:03","date_gmt":"2022-06-11T02:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/sharonda-mcdonald-kelley-named-head-softball-coach-at-michigan-state\/"},"modified":"2022-06-11T02:34:03","modified_gmt":"2022-06-11T02:34:03","slug":"sharonda-mcdonald-kelley-named-head-softball-coach-at-michigan-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/sharonda-mcdonald-kelley-named-head-softball-coach-at-michigan-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharonda McDonald-Kelley Named Head Softball Coach at Michigan State"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<aside class=\"sidearm-story-template-links hide-on-large\" aria-label=\"Story Links\">&#13;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"hide\">Story Links<\/h3>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n                    &#13;<br \/>\n                    &#13;<br \/>\n                <\/aside>\n<p>                 Bringing Women&#8217;s College World Series experience to East Lansing, Sharonda McDonald-Kelley has been named head softball coach at Michigan State.  Vice President and Director of Athletics <dfn>Alan Haller<\/dfn> made the announcement on June 10.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m excited to welcome Sharonda McDonald-Kelley to our Spartan family,&#8221; Haller said.  &#8220;She&#8217;s experienced great success as both a coach and a student-athlete, and has a plan to help Spartan softball achieve similar results. She is a teacher of the game, with a proven track record of skill development, helping student-athletes maximize their potential as she did during her record-breaking college career. She has a wealth of experience at several successful major Division 1 programs. And with her demonstrated success of back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances as head coach at Campbell, she&#8217;s proven she has the ability to successfully implement her approach in a short period of time. &#8220;<\/p>\n<p>McDonald-Kelley guided the Campbell program to a 101-81 record over the last four seasons, winning Big South tournament titles with the Camels in 2021 and 2022. McDonald-Kelley&#8217;s teams went 50-19 in Big South play and advanced to NCAA Regionals in each of the last two seasons, marking two of the five times a Campbell team has reached the NCAA Tournament since 1986. In 2021, McDonald-Kelley was named Big South Coach of the Year after her team won both the Big South regular season and tournament titles.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to thank God for this incredible opportunity,&#8221; McDonald-Kelley said.  &#8220;I would also like to thank Vice President and Director of Athletics <dfn>Alan Haller<\/dfn> for the opportunity to lead the Michigan State softball program.  The vision for the softball program and the investment into that vision was clear to me from the beginning.  I could feel the pride ingrained in the culture of Michigan State athletics and know I will have the full support of the administration.  Core values \u200b\u200band family are very important to me.  My family and I are excited to embrace the Spartan culture and become part of the community. &#8220;<\/p>\n<p>McDonald-Kelley steps into the head coaching role following the retirement of long-time Michigan State head coach <dfn>Jacquie Joseph<\/dfn>who guided the team for 29 seasons.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have a lot of respect for <dfn>Jacquie Joseph<\/dfn>, for the foundation she&#8217;s built at Michigan State and for the ambassador she&#8217;s been for softball, the Big Ten and the Michigan State program, &#8220;McDonald-Kelley said.&#8221; I am looking forward to building upon the foundation she laid and will continue to push the program forward.  I am truly honored and excited for this opportunity.  We can build something really special here and I fully expect this team to be competing for conference championships.  I am ready to get to work and put a great product on the field. &#8220;<\/p>\n<p>In four seasons at the helm of the Campbell program, McDonald-Kelley coached 15 All-Big South honorees, including seven on the All-Big South First Team, six on the All-Big South Second Team and two honorable mentions.  In 2021, outfielder Destini England earned Big South Player of the Year and Third Team All-Southeast Region honors under McDonald-Kelley&#8217;s watch.<\/p>\n<p>Campbell placed eight players on the All-Big South Tournament team during McDonald-Kelley&#8217;s tenure, including back-to-back tournament MVP&#8217;s in 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to Campbell, McDonald-Kelley spent the first 10 years of her coaching career as an assistant coach at Ohio State, Florida, Texas Tech, LSU, Ohio and Texas Southern.  McDonald-Kelley also served as head coach of the Chicago Bandits in the National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) League in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>During her lone season at Ohio State in 2018, McDonald-Kelley helped the Top 25-ranked Buckeyes to a 36-16 record along with a trip to NCAA Regionals.  Ohio State&#8217;s 36 wins were the most for the program since 2010. McDonald-Kelley spent two seasons at Florida as assistant coach and recruiting coordinator in 2016 and 2017, bringing in a pair of Top-10 recruiting classes while the Gators went 114-17 and made an appearance in the 2017 Women&#8217;s College World Series.<\/p>\n<p>The Houston, Texas native spent one year as associate head coach at Texas Tech in 2015 following a two-year stint as a volunteer assistant at LSU.  At LSU, the Tigers made consecutive NCAA Regional appearances in 2013 and 2014 with McDonald-Kelley coaching the outfield.  McDonald-Kelley&#8217;s guidance helped develop AJ Andrews into an All-American in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>From 2010-12, McDonald-Kelley served as assistant coach at Ohio after getting her coaching career started at Texas Southern in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald-Kelley was a four-time All-Big 12 selection as a player at Texas A&#038;M from 2004-07, capping off her intercollegiate career with Texas A &#038; M&#8217;s first trip to the Women&#8217;s College World Series in 20 years.  A terror on the basepaths, McDonald-Kelley is the Aggie career record holder with 153 stolen bases, while ranking second all-time in hits (249) and runs scored (195).  McDonald-Kelley is the Texas A&#038;M single-season record holder for runs (60) and her 73 consecutive stolen bases during her time in College Station tied an NCAA record.  With 48 steals in 2005, McDonald-Kelley led the NCAA and earned the Golden Shoe Award.  She compiled a .338 batting average throughout her four-year collegiate career.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sidearm-story-image-align-center\" style=\"text-align:center\"><\/div>\n<p>Following her career at Texas A&#038;M, McDonald-Kelley played professionally for seven years, spending time with the Philadelphia Force, the Akron Racers and the USSA Pride of the NPF League.  McDonald-Kelley played for Fiorini Softball Club of the Italian Professional League in 2009. A three-time All-NPF selection during her professional career, lei McDonald garnered the prestigious Diamond Spikes Award in 2012 after hitting .303 with 13 stolen bases for the Racers .<\/p>\n<p>She earned her Bachelor of Arts in kinesiology from Texas A&#038;M in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald-Kelley is married to Mike Kelley and the couple has one daughter, Kyler.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#13; Story Links &#13; &#13; &#13; Bringing Women&#8217;s College World Series experience to East Lansing, Sharonda McDonald-Kelley has been named head softball coach at Michigan State. Vice President and Director of Athletics Alan Haller made the announcement on June 10. &#8220;I&#8217;m excited to welcome Sharonda McDonald-Kelley to our Spartan family,&#8221; Haller said. &#8220;She&#8217;s experienced great &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/sharonda-mcdonald-kelley-named-head-softball-coach-at-michigan-state\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sharonda McDonald-Kelley Named Head Softball Coach at Michigan State<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/df5u1lzgdv707.cloudfront.net\/images\/2022\/6\/9\/SOF_NEW_COACH_McDONALD_KELLEY.jpg?preset=large.socialmediaimage","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}