Last season left Kansas softball fans not knowing where the team was heading. The team’s future was questionable until coach Megan Smith showed up with answers.

Smith filled the head coaching position after Tracy Bunge, 13-year head coach for Kansas softball, left this summer. Smith was a coach at North Carolina and an assistant at LSU before she came to Kansas. She has played softball since she was seven years old, so softball has always been a part of her life. She said her goal was to coach at the highest level possible and when the job for Kansas came along she took it.

“Kansas really spoke to me because it’s the kind of school that really fits me,” Smith said. “It’s strong academically and athletically.”

But even Smith didn’t know when she was in school that coaching was what she would be doing as her career. Smith gave pitching lessons in high school and helped with softball clinics in college, which gave her the idea that coaching might be something she was good at. Although she was originally a nutrition major in college, she knew that coaching was where she belonged after watching her college coach.

Smith coached for “some of the best in the business” at LSU and she helped develop the softball programs at Western Carolina, Charlotte and her alma mater, North Carolina. Her winning résumé as a coach, including three NCAA tournament appearances at LSU, brings experience and knowledge to Kansas.

Smith also brought high expectations for her new players both on and off the field. Junior pitcher Allie Clark said that Smith’s coaching philosophy and style were working well with the team thus far. Clark described Smith as a hands-on coach who gets into drills and makes sure every player is doing them right. It’s a learning process right now for the team, but Clark said everyone is on the same page.

Clark said that Smith has raised the level of performance for Kansas ranging from where team members put their bags to making sure their shoes are cleaned on game day. Clark said the team has become more disciplined in every aspect of practice and they are ready to get out and play.

“We expect more from ourselves,” Clark said. “We believe we can win the Big 12 and possibly go further than that.”

Coach Smith’s high standards and discipline answered the softball team’s coaching dilemma but there are still questions about how they will do in an actual game. Smith and the coaching staff have stepped in to answer those questions. Assistant coach Christi Musser said that the coaching staff was looking for a theme to motivate the players during fall practice and that the questions everyone was asking were themselves the answer.

The Kansas dugout is filled with question marks, one for each player and the team as whole, that are waiting to be erased. Each player has the opportunity — through hard work during practice and pushing themselves — to earn the right to cover their question mark. Musser said that the coaching staff and returning players were not sure how Smith would run the team and how they would do this season so they used the question mark as a symbol of what they were working toward as a program.

“Bringing in someone new just gets your imagination going,” Musser said. “The team doesn’t know what to expect on a daily basis.”

With Smith at the helm, the players training hard and the rest of the coaching staff motivating and guiding the team, Kansas played in its first tournament last weekend. The Jayhawks answered the doubts that opponents and fans may have had by beating Central Missouri 7-6 and Washburn 7-0. Three players had home runs, including a grand slam from senior Amanda Jobe.

Kansas fell to Emporia State 6-5 over the weekend, but the team saw strong performances from freshmen such as Alex Jones, who pitched the first four innings in the victory over Central Missouri, and from returning players such as junior Liz Kocon, who had a solo home run against Emporia State. In a press release after the game, Smith said it was good to see the players get some live action against an opponent.

“We will get right back to work this week to get ready for another successful tournament this weekend,” Smith said.

Each day the softball team will have to work hard to answer the questions left after last season’s roller coaster performance. Smith has brought answers for the team, but she said the players would have to make it happen themselves if they want to get rid of the doubt from opponents.

Junior shortstop Kolby Fesmire summed up what the team is hoping for from their opponents and themselves.

“Every single time that Kansas softball is brought up it should be, ‘We need to watch out, they’re a really good team,’” Fesmire said.