Commencing dream job in 3 ... 2 ...

Melanie Meuchel isn't sure when it will truly set in. That's how surreal her life has been in the days after being named Montana's new softball coach early last week.

She doesn't know if it will hit her the day she moves into Jamie Pinkerton's old office, across the hallway from the one she shares with assistant coach Brittany Gomez. Or if it will be when she hires an assistant coach to fill her former position.

Or maybe it won't be until the first trip of the regular season in February, to Grand Canyon's tournament. Or maybe when she brings her first lineup card to the umpires in her first game as head coach.

All Meuchel knows is that it still doesn't seem real, that a dream she conjured up years and years ago, before Montana even had a program, and dared fantasize about more recently actually came true.

She isn't just a head coach. She isn't just a college head coach. She isn't just a head coach at the Division I level. She's the head softball coach at the University of Montana. She's coaching in her hometown, for the Grizzlies, both of which hold oversized spots in her heart.

The steps it took to get there -- from assistant to head coach -- weren't as easy as they might appear to an outsider. It wasn't an open-and-shut process, an assistant automatically moving up to fill a vacancy.

It was a true national search to find Pinkerton's replacement, open to all. Meuchel had no advantages over anyone else, outside of her years spent in the program. She still needed to apply, interview over the phone, then present herself and her vision during a day-long on-campus interview process.

And while she was doing that, wondering like all the other candidates where the search committee was in the process and if she had a chance, she also had to lead a team through its fall season. After all, she was the interim head coach.

That the search process was happening under the roof where she worked made it all the more difficult, because she was treated like every other candidate, never in the loop.

"It was a tough time. It was a time when I had to set my own personal feelings aside for the betterment of the program," she says. "The unknown was hard, but I needed to make sure the girls were taken care of and the program continued moving forward.

"I had to step into my new role and focus on what I did know and could control and work with that and not the what-ifs and what-if-nots. What if it doesn't work out? What if I'm not here next year? I couldn't think that way. I needed to keep my focus on the program and the players."

Part of the reason it hasn't sunk in yet is that nothing appears to have changed. She isn't packing up and moving somewhere. She isn't taking over a new program and she doesn't need to have individual meetings to get to know the players on the team.

It's all pretty familiar, and it should be. She helped build it.

If she wanted drastic, that came last summer, when Pinkerton shocked everyone with the news that he was headed back to Iowa State, soon to be named the Cyclones' next head coach.

That's the news that turned Meuchel's world upside down. One minute she had what she thought was a perfect situation. The next she was left wondering what would become of her. What if the new coach had his or her own people? What if Meuchel and the new coach didn't see eye to eye?

She was given the interim title, merely to be a placeholder until the Next Big Thing arrived in town later in the fall. But she also did some soul-searching. And she kept coming back to the same place: maybe I can be the Next Big Thing.

She certainly had the experience. McNeese State, Oklahoma, Nevada and finally Montana. Maybe not from Day 1 of the program but certainly since Month 1, hired shortly after Pinkerton was brought on to build something from nothing.

Meuchel is mostly the antithesis of Pinkerton, he of the booming voice, loquacious speaking habits and big personality, a magnet of other's attention. There are more coaches like Pinkerton than Meuchel out there, but she knew she couldn't pretend to be someone she wasn't.

She had a new title, if only temporarily, but the team knew her to be a certain way, act a certain way, treat them a certain way. She knew if she tried to be someone she wasn't, the players would see through it, and everything she'd built with them would be lost.

"Once Jamie left, someone had to lead them and hold them accountable. I think I stuck true to who I am. I wasn't going to change just because there was a title change," says Meuchel.

"I know my responsibilities changed, but I didn't want it to change who I am. I wanted to have the same high expectations of them that I had as an assistant. I tried to stay pretty true to the things I expect."

As the search process moved along, so did Montana's fall season. Wins over MSU Billings and North Idaho, a split with Carroll, a sweep of the Community Colleges of Spokane.

Behind the scenes: Seven phone interviews were conducted, three of whom made the cut to visit campus. One withdrew, leaving only two.

"I almost felt unprepared when they announced the interview schedule, because I was so caught up in the team aspect of what we needed instead of what I needed," says Meuchel.

"Everything was mostly out of my control, outside of just presenting myself and what I believe I can do. I just tried to be present in the moment I was in and be my best, whether that was as a candidate or for the program."

You know the old saw, the one about the tree falling in the woods? What if Meuchel was the only one to hear it and nobody else? Would it still be huge news if she was told she had the job but was forbidden to tell anyone?

What is it like to have a dream realized but only be able to raise a solo glass in celebration of yourself? When all you want to do is tell pretty much everybody on the extensive contacts list in your phone?

That was the case on Tuesday evening, Oct. 10. Meuchel was hanging out at Montana's indoor hitting facility after practice when she saw she had a message from Senior Associate AD Jean Gee, who Meuchel knew was the chair of the search committee.

Meuchel returned the call, only to get Gee's voice mail. Everyone knew something was going to break. And soon. There was a sense that the search was coming to an end, but was Gee calling to let Meuchel know that she had been selected or that they'd gone with someone else?

"It was a long time to have to wait," says Meuchel, but finally Gee called back. With a job offer.

"I was overwhelmed. I was in awe that this could be true, that this is it and actually happening," says Meuchel. Then Gee asked a question that had only one possible answer. "She asked, 'Would you like to let me know at a later time, so you can think it over?' I told her, 'Nope, I'm here.' "

It was a time to rejoice, to gather with family and friends and celebrate, to burn through those phone contacts and let them know the good news. To finally inform the players, who wanted to know daily if Meuchel had heard anything, that the search was finally over. The program had a new leader.

To give Meuchel her moment in the sun and in the news cycle, it was decided to wait until the following Monday to make the official announcement, what with Homecoming and the grand opening of the $14 million Champions Center that week.

Give Meuchel credit. She held out for two days before finally revealing to her mom that she was Montana's head coach. Then she told her dad. And on Friday her brother, an assistant coach at Arkansas. All with threats of their ends if they told anyone else.

The week ended with a home sweep of Great Falls, doubleheader wins by a combined score of 31-2. On Monday it was announced that Meuchel had been hired. The team gathered in her office to celebrate that afternoon, the one she was still sharing with Gomez.

It's why the news has yet to truly set in. Even after the announcement, she finds herself doing the same thing she'd been doing all fall, in the same office, with the same trusted assistant. Recruiting trips need to be finalized. The spring schedule isn't done.

She's just doing what she's been doing since August: leading the program.

"When they put me in the interim position, I felt like I needed to take on that role," says Meuchel. "I needed to have that identity with the team. Then I'd backtrack if we got into a situation that I wasn't the candidate who got chosen."

That wasn't necessary. She was chosen, but there still hasn't been time to move into Pinkerton's old office. Maybe that will start the process, when she starts to see herself as everyone else now sees her, as Montana's head softball coach.

University of Montana Athletics

Related News

Related Videos