With snow on the ground in Missouri this week, the Tigers were once again forced to practice inside between tournaments in Florida and California. Two of the only places where softball and baseball can regularly be played early in the season, along with Texas.
And Tiger coach Larissa Anderson is fed up with it.
“My No. 1 focus is to shout from the rooftops that they need to move the softball season back,” Anderson said of the time between tournaments. “Every single time we come home from a trip, and this has been happening since I started coaching in 1999, softball should not be played in February. Period.”
After spending her playing career at Gannon University in Pennsylvania, Anderson coached at Hofstra in New York, two places famous for cold winters that run well into the start of college softball season.
“Even as a college player in the 90s, and I’m dating myself, that I was blowing snowflakes off my eyelashes,” Anderson said. “Our game should not be played in snow … We need to make a change here.”
The Tigers kicked off their season in Florida with two tournaments before going to another in California, meaning Missouri won’t play a home game until just slightly less than a month into the season and won’t play a second until more than a month in. After starting the season on Feb. 7, the Tigers’ first home game isn’t until March 4 and their second isn’t until March 13.
And Missouri will play more than half of its games this season away from Columbia, because scheduling in the state is impossible through February and nearly as tough in March.
“If we move the season back and start in March, now you’re having the safety and the welfare of the student athletes at the forefront to play in an environment, in an atmosphere that’s conducive for our sport,” Anderson said. “There’s a reason why Major League Baseball spring training hasn’t even started yet and that they don’t start playing games until April.”
In fact, before the Tigers’ first tournament in Florida, they couldn’t even get outside to practice on actual dirt. They were forced to practice inside on artificial surfaces.
“It’d be like a hockey team never practicing on ice,” Anderson said. “Like, that’s unheard of. Or our basketball team never bouncing a ball on a court and then expecting them to go play the No. 5 team in the country.”
Anderson said she has been calling for this change consistently throughout her life, but hopes being the head coach of a major college program and helping lead it to consistent successful seasons will raise her platform to a point the NCAA will finally listen.
“I’ve been feeling that way forever,” Anderson said. “But now I just have a platform that I can speak a little bit louder.”
Luckily for Anderson and the Tigers, they’ll get to head out of snowy Columbia to the west coast where they’ll get to enjoy the sunshine, but have to once again face top teams without having been able to practice outside for a week.
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