FAYETTEVILLE -- If 2018 indeed proves the Year of the Woman, then the Arkansas Razorbacks operate ahead of the curve.
For as an all-sports entity, the University of Arkansas women's athletic program seems never to have appeared all-around stronger with more potential than this year punctuated today by its softball program going where it has never gone before.
The softball Razorbacks of coach Courtney Deifel, four years ago 1-23 in the SEC under former Coach Mike Larabee and 1-23 in the SEC in Deifel's debut campaign of 2016, play Game Two today of their first-ever super regional against the defending national champion Oklahoma Sooners in Norman, Okla. Last weekend they packed Bogle Park winning a regional for the first time coinciding with the first regional they ever hosted from an impressive 39-15 regular season.
Meanwhile the golf program of coach Shauna Taylor, led by SEC Player of the Year Maria Fassi, won the woman's program's first SEC team championship in any sport other than the 32 SEC Cross Country, Indoor Track and Outdoor Track titles amassed by Lance Harter, the Hall of Famer and still going strong 2-time NCAA national champion coach.
Freshman diver Brooke Schultz of Fayetteville, the daughter of UA diving coach Dale Schultz, won the NCAA 3-meter board then won the USA Senior 3-meter board and is deemed a strong candidate for the 2020 U.S. Olympic team.
Gymnastics coach Mark Cook was named SEC Coach of the Year piloting the Gym'Backs to a national top-ten finish.
Soccer coach Colby Hale has posted consecutive solid seasons.
Volleyball coach Jason Watson continues rebuilding what senior associate athletic director Julie Cromer Peoples predicts "will be the next breakthrough sport."
Creating national recruiting waves in just one Arkansas year, Greenwood native and former University of Washington Final Four coach Mike Neighbors provides the women's basketball program its most long term hope since the UA foolishly let get away former Arkansas Final Four coach Gary Blair become Texas A&M national champion coach
Cromer Peoples, the most involved administrator in women's athletics since former women's athletic director Bev Lewis retired, says Harter's first national championship in 2015 "started the wave" cresting this renaissance year.
"Since then it feels like it's been kind of contagious," Cromer Peoples said. "It begins with the coaches we bring to the program. Each one has a strong vision for their particular sport, team and program."
Taylor, second only to Harter in established UA success, said, "Everybody is doing such an awesome job of getting the right kids in here that want to be Razorbacks and want to win. I think we have the right people driving the ship."
Morale throughout UA athletics boosted perceptibly since the December hiring of Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek.
"I feel people are confident we have great leadership," Amber Shirey, longtime basketball administrator and former Lady'Backs great, said. "Word is getting out about the University Arkansas. Kids are wanting to come here."
Especially it seems, in this Year of the Woman.
Sports on 05/26/2018