PATH TO PARK

Derry Guides Park Softball Program

By Seth Herrold
R-T Sports Editor
Trenton native Lindsey Derry returned to her office after giving the best pitch she possibly could to a potential recruit from Blue Eye who had made a nearly four-hour trek to tour the Park University campus. It was early August in 2016 and Derry had only just been named the interim head softball coach at Park after Missouri Sports Hall of Famer Steve Tingler retired from the post.
Derry, who was an assistant coach under Tingler the year before, had been on campus tours with potential recruits before. But this one was different, being her first as the head of the program. There were nerves. Derry was anxious.
What happened next was a turning point for a coach that only two years earlier had been on the Park roster as a player herself.
Not two hours after the prospect left campus Derry’s phone rang. “I want to attend Park,” the voice on the other end said. Just like that, Derry had her first committment as the head coach of the program.
“That was maybe one of the coolest moments,” Derry, who is now entering the fourth year as the head coach at Park, said. “Just a kid saying ‘I trust this coach, I trust what is going to happen at Park’ and so forth. To know within two hours of having a conversation that it felt right. That was kind of a turning moment. I was like, ‘okay, this is a good feeling.’ I had an opportunity and I was able to forward that to another kid to have an opportunity. That was rewarding in itself.”

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Coaching was not something Derry had considered as a career path. Sure, the sport of softball had consumed her from a young age and, after a banner four-year career at Trenton High School, where she graduated from in 2011, she knew she was not ready to stop playing the game.
But when she enrolled at North Central Missouri College, she was looking at a potential career in graphic arts and design. That goal lasted through her two years in Trenton. But at Park, with the realization her softball playing career was coming to a close, Derry began to realize more and more that she wasn’t ready to leave sports behind.
“It came later, I think,” Derry said of her desire to be a softball coach. “When I transfered to Park I kind of got to thinking maybe I really don’t want to sit behind a desk and be in front of a computer. Maybe that could kind of be a side hobby. I think I started to realize I wanted to be in the sports field somehow.”
Derry looked into the nutrition and physical education fields as a way to stay close to sports. During her senior season, however, at a point when she was essentially graduated, Derry was asked about her interest in potentially staying around the program beyond her playing days as an assistant. One thing led to another and Derry found herself staying in Parkville after graduation to serve in an assistant role with Tingler, who was coming in to replace Amy Rief, Derry’s head coach while she was playing at Park.

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Fate would have it that Tingler would retire after one year as the head coach of a program he assisted with for years. Park labeled Derry the interim head coach, charging her with guiding the program while the school decided what to do with the position. Ultimately, the school lifted the interim title and made Derry the head coach on an official basis.
It was a meteoric rise for Derry, becoming the head coach of the program she was catching for only two years earlier. The first season under Derry yielded 22 wins, but Derry describes that season as a learning process.
Derry’s job encompasses so much more than just putting together a lineup and deciding if it is time to change pitchers or not. She learned on the fly: building a schedule for the varsity as well as the school’s junior varsity squad, recruiting players, arranging travel for the team’s annual trip to Arizona, setting up practices and fundraising. Then there was the paperwork. Stacks and stacks of paperwork.
It was overwhelming at times, but it also forced Derry to turn to some of the biggest influences in her life for help.
“That was a huge challenge,” Derry said. “There were a lot of conversations, a lot of tears. It was very challenging to try to figure out how to juggle the office stuff and also figure out how to get the team where you want them to be and where they want to be. I leaned a lot on mentors and I still do, but that was a big learning year. It was a year of reaching out to people and that is beyond my comfort zone. I’m a pretty introverted individual.”
Derry had no shortage of people to lean on, however, Her coach at Park, Rief, had guided the program for 10 seasons and was still in the Kansas City area and happy to lend advice when Derry called. Tingler, who made his Hall of Fame career coaching at Smithville while also assisting with the Park program, was also more than helpful. Derry also had several conversations with her father, Paul Derry, and grandfather, Jack Derry, both longtime softball coaches in the Trenton area.
The support system was broad and Derry leaned on it heavily that first year. Derry might not still be here, entering her fourth season as head coach, had it not been for those mentors early on.

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Derry is hopeful her fourth season will be her best. Her career record through her first three seasons is 51-62. The Park Pirates stumbled out of the gates to start this season, going 1-5 in their first six games, but the team is in Arizona this week and that’s where Derry likes to get her lineups figured out. The warmth and dry climate allow the team to get in nine games in just three days without the threat of rainouts or cancellations. Derry is hoping once the team has its best lineup figured out, it can really get rolling.
“We were able to pick up a couple of great transfers, so we are really excited for them,” Derry said. “Then our freshman class is really talented just across the board. It’s making a lot of intrasquad competition, so that is good to have. I also think this year we have stronger pitching than what we have had in the previous years that I have been coaching.
“We’ve got off to a bit of a shaky start this season, but a lot of that comes with just repetition and getting outside and playing games.”
During her one season as an assistant coach under Tingler, Park ran a record of 37-17-1. The Pirates won the American Midwest Conference regular season championship and qualified for the NAIA National Tournament. That experience still drives Derry.
“Every year you are shooting to get to the national tournament,” Derry said. “We were able to do that four or five years ago and that was an awesome experience. You are always trying to get back to that point.”
Derry also puts an emphasis on classroom excellence and that paid off last year with 15 AMC Academic All-Conference honorees. Park also won the NAIA Conference Commissioners Association Champions of Character Team Award. That honor was bestowed on Derry’s program for showing exemplary character on the field, on campus and in the community.

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Derry’s future isn’t set in stone. She is enjoying the ride, but she is very young for a collegiate coach. She could be at Park for years, but when success comes she will no doubt have options if she wants to move up the coaching ranks. She has a lot she wants to accomplish here, though, and that would precede any movements, whether it be to a bigger school or to an administrative role, something that also piques her interest.
That interest is “years, years down the road,” though, she says. For now, she is happy in her role and place in Parkville.
“I’m happy where I am at,” Derry said. “Park is a great place and it’s not too far from home. It’s a diamond in the rough back here along the river. That’s what we like to say.”