Five new head coaches hired to improve
Derick Lawrence enters his third year at Trinity as the head coach of cross country. Photo by James Shultz.
Five Tiger teams are under new leadership with the welcoming of new head coaches this year; however none are foreign to the athletic department. Four were assistants last year while one returns to his alma mater. Already hard at work, the coaches took a timeout to share their game plans for the year.
Brandi Crnkovic, Softball
Coach Crnkovic’s career began as a graduate assistant at Sam Houston State University for two seasons after completing a successful playing career at the university from 2006-2009 – which includes becoming the all-time leader in strikeouts in SHSU history. She came to Trinity in 2010 as the assistant for two seasons before getting promoted to the head coaching position.
Crnkovic on getting the head coaching position:
“I’m really excited about the opportunity to be the head coach at Trinity. I’d like to thank our athletic director, Bob King, for believing in me and choosing me for this position, and I’m excited to have this group of girls here for my first year as head coach.”
What are your goals and expectations for this season?
“My expectations for the season are to win conference and to win the conference tournament. We’ve been there the past two years, and I think it’s time we hold ourselves accountable and work harder to win it. I expect the girls to come out hard every day and give me their best efforts. My goals are to win regionals and go to the Division III World Series and to have at least one player on our team recognized as an All-American.”
What is your coaching philosophy?
“I want the girls to learn life lessons through the sport of softball — to learn how to pick themselves up when they’ve lost. I want them to understand how to learn from their failures and to become better people — not only in the sport of softball, but life.”
Marcus Whitehead, Track and Field
Coach Whitehead finished his track and field career at Eastern Washington University, where he graduated in 2007. He then coached for three years at the high school level in Nevada before moving to San Antonio to assist with the track and field team. He initially helped the program as a part-time coach for the 2011 season and then a full-time assistant last season before moving up as the head coach for this year.
What are you planning on changing or implementing in the program, and how do think those changes will be received by your team?
“A lot of what we are changing is just kind of rebranding the image of the track team here a little bit. I think the team’s going to receive that well; we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from the athletes and they share a lot of visions that we think we can take this program to. It’s really just increasing accountability and things like that. We want people to see the track team here as a real competitive group.”
What is your coaching philosophy?
“I’m always trying to preach the process rather than the ‘Game Day’ approach. I‘m always preaching process over anything; process and preparation are the most important things. If you do all the right things in this sport and you do it every day, then you will excel and there’s really no way around it.”
What are your goals and expectations for this season?
“Our first goal is always to win conference. That’s kind of the first step we take. The second is to get as many people to the national meet as we can; we’d like to have a consistent presence at the national meet. Every year we want to have a group there representing Trinity.”
Derick Lawrence, Cross Country
After graduating in 2007 from DePauw University, a former SCAC member institution, Coach Lawrence got his first coaching experience as a volunteer at Indiana State University for a year before returning to DePauw as a graduate assistant for cross country and track for two years. Lawrence then took the opportunity to assist cross country and track and field at Trinity for two years. He now enters his third year at Trinity as the head coach of cross country.
Lawrence on getting the head coaching position:
“I am definitely excited about this opportunity and definitely have to thank our athletic director, Bob King, and our search committee for giving me this dream. It’s always been my dream to be a head coach, and being able to have it at a school like Trinity is definitely something special. Having worked with a lot of the athletes already as an assistant and seeing how they’ve improved really helps. It’s fun to see how we’ve been able to grow together, and that’s something special. To obtain the knowledge I have and to implement those things into a head coach is a cool thing.”
Why Trinity? As a Division III university, it is more difficult to recruit players here.
“A big thing is Trinity was in the same conference as DePauw, so I’ve always known about Trinity, raced against it and coached against it in the same conference. I always knew of the success Trinity had in the past, competing as a Division III athlete, I enjoy coaching it because I was one myself. So in terms of the ideal student-athlete, Division III has the best balance in my opinion. At the same time with Trinity, .I felt as though the school had the best balance in terms of being in a great location in San Antonio. Being in a great setting, there’s lots of opportunities there, and being a Division III, liberal arts school — and getting that in a big-city atmosphere — it’s a big draw in terms of recruiting that’s really helped my message in my years of recruiting first years. So seeing and knowing all those aspects of things, I knew this was a place where I could help build a program to a new level.”
What is your coaching philosophy?
A big thing is our mission statement: to be successful and work hard each day toward team and individual goals that will ultimately lead us to our goal of competing to the best of our ability during each championship season. The changes we are making this year are really putting our philosophy, our foundation of what we’re going to do on a daily basis, at the center. With cross country, we’re training all year around for both seasons, so development is the key for us — where we are building upon each season. We are laying down our foundation with our philosophy and our exercises, developing a lifestyle. Individual sessions that we have are about educating everybody on what they can do outside of practice because that all factors into your training and how you race.”
Jacob McMindes, Women’s Tennis
Coach McMindes began coaching at tennis academies and clinics throughout high school and college before becoming the graduate assistant at the University of the Incarnate Word, his alma mater (’09). He then coached alongside his brother, Russell McMindes (men’s head coach), as the men’s assistant for three years — the last of which he coached both men and women — before getting the women’s head coaching position for this year.
McMindes on getting the head coaching position:
“Just about getting the job in general, I am very lucky and very blessed to have been given the chance. I was very fortunate; I know not everybody gets the chance to do what they love for a living. I’m just excited for this year to start, and the girls coming in matched with the core nucleus that we had last year. I think the girls should expect to do great things this year.”
What are you planning on changing or implementing in the program, and how do think those changes will be received by your team?
“Even though being in my first year as head coach, I had a pretty good hand on the women’s team last year as the assistant, and I really liked where the program was heading with Russ and I coaching together, so I don’t think there’s too much to change, and you can always build on what you have.”
What is your coaching philosophy?
“Every time you go into a match, you obviously always want to win, but for me it starts with your attitude and practice. To me, I will be disappointed for them because I know it always hurts to lose, but never disappointed in them as long as they give their best effort. So I think if you look in the mirror and know that you prepared well and did the little things right and you gave 100 percent, then we’re not going to be mad if you lose.”
Cameron Hill, Women’s Basketball
Coach Hill graduated from Trinity in 1999, playing for the Tiger men’s basketball team all four years. His first coaching job was at Fordham University as an assistant for three seasons before moving to the University of Kentucky for an additional three seasons. Then after spending a year at the United States Basketball Academy, Hill got his most recent coaching job at Ursuline Academy of Dallas for women’s basketball before he made the switch to Trinity.
Why Trinity? As a Division III university, it is more difficult to recruit players here.
“Well I’m alumni, which is a really good first start to me. Bob King was the athletic director when I was here, and it’s just interesting coming back and seeing so many familiar faces. For me, coming back to Trinity, a small school that holds higher standards and has no athletic scholarships, none of those are negatives, they are all influential positives. How you attack the league and this level of basketball — what I’ve learned is that the more talent, the higher level of other things. The athletes are picking Trinity for more than just the sport, and to me that will yield a more rounded result on the court.”
What are you planning on changing or implementing in the program, and how do think those changes will be received by your team?
“Any time you’re the new coach with the kind of roster that we have here, I think you have a tremendous opportunity, because we have a lot of talented players and returning players. For me it’s going to be much about gaining the trust and communicating in a lot of different ways that I’m here to help them, and it’s about how can I reach the girls and make sure we are on the same page. If we can start from there I think we will be really, really good.”
What is your coaching philosophy?
“For me, I think the biggest thing is to continue to be a student of the game, always learning and evolving and making sure you’re current and not lose sight of the fundamentals. I think when it comes to becoming head coach, I think it’s important to identify the strengths you have. I will always try to play the smartest way according to the players we have. With the team we have this year, I think that’s playing aggressively and using our depth. We have a lot of good players and have a lot of kids we can play, which is an advantage for us.”
