Kendrick joins softball coaching staff

Marc Kendrick is here, a new softball assistant coach at Montana, because after three seasons working at Tennessee Tech, the lure of moving to and coaching in a true college town was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

That's the trouble with coaching in Cookeville, with the Volunteers 100 miles to the east, the Commodores 80 miles to the west. The shadows loom large from both directions.

"We're the only thing in town, but since it's Tennessee, people are either a University of Tennessee fan or a Vanderbilt fan," Kendrick said. "We never had that true atmosphere. That's something I'm excited about, being where there is only one team that matters, where the expectation is to win.

"Stef said, once you get out here and visit, you'll understand. When I got out there, I was like, okay, I understand."

He's also here because of head coach Stef Ewing, who has a reputation as a program builder, who told Kendrick during the interview process: The defense? It would be yours, all yours. Make us great.

"I'm a defense-oriented person. Stef giving me the reins of the defense, that's my strong suit. Let me go at it," he said. "I'm constantly thinking, how do I defend this or how do I defend that? I'm always looking for that little edge."

He's been in this position before as an assistant coach, Tennessee Tech going 6-44 in his first season with the program in 2023, nearly mirroring Montana's record of 8-42 this past spring.

The Golden Eagles bettered their record to 23-24 in Kendrick's second year at the school, making Tennessee Tech the nation's most-improved program in 2024, going in the right direction by 18.5 additional wins, topping D1Softball.com's list of "Quick-Change Artists."

"I know a little bit about Stef's history, how she took (Cal State) San Marcos, which wasn't very good, and got them to the World Series and winning 40 games in a season," he said. "I know her track record is to take programs and turn them around in a short period of time.

"Overall, the environment, the vibe, the way Stef and (pitching coach Megan Casper) and I got together, it was, how do I not say yes to this?"

He's here, in the world of softball, this coach who was once a baseball-loving kid in Southern California, who dreamed of one day breaking Cal Ripken Jr.'s consecutive-games-played record, who played at Long Beach Polytechnic High, who spent weekends at his grandma's side, going to Angels games before settling into a 9-to-5 job in Orange County, because how could he say no to family?

"I got talked into it by my cousin, who asked me to come out and help coach softball. Um, no," he told her. But it was his god-daughter's team, she told him. You're really going to say no to that face? "She pulled that card on me."

That led to a rec championship, which led to a high school job – wait, I can get paid for this? – which led to getting his foot in the door of travel ball, with Batbusters. "Okay, this is something I'm passionate about and love doing. At first it was something I did, then it was God saying, go be a coach."

If the brass ring was the college game, he knew he needed to go back to school and get his degree to become marketable, an AA coming from Santiago Canyon College in 2018, a bachelor's degree in kinesiology from Cal State Fullerton in 2020, a master's degree from Cal Baptist in 2022, where he was a graduate assistant for the softball team.

Was it too much to pack into a single day, all he was trying to do? Not for this son of the military, born in San Diego, then coming of age in Long Beach, then San Pedro, the Navy keeping the family moving but never out of Southern California.

"I didn't move around a lot, but I definitely have those military aspects in my blood, if you will, that mentality of how to go about things a certain way," he said.

All that time in and around softball in Southern California, and he never did cross paths with Ewing, who was at San Marcos from 2019 to '24.

"We were probably three levels of separation," Ewing says. "When I saw the people on his list of references, I said, I know all these people. It was hard for me to believe we'd never met."

She read through his resume, his list of references, then started reading through his letters of recommendation, starting with the usual voices, the coaches with whom he'd worked, then getting into the unusual, written testaments from former players.

"It was one of the most impressive things I've seen from an assistant coach, these letters from previous players stating why they liked him so much, not just letters from professionals," Ewing said.

Done as a GA at Cal Baptist, he got on with first-year coach Danielle Penner at Tennessee Tech prior to the 2023 season, rode out the 6-44 first year before being part of the nation's best turnaround in 2024, doing the less-visible work of solidifying the team's defense, all aspects of the sport right in his wheelhouse.

"You can tell when someone has the softball sickness if it's all they talk about," Ewing said. "He has it. It's exciting for me to bring someone in to bounce ideas off of, not hire a yes-man. I want him to push me as a head coach and bring me his ideas.

"Let's brainstorm, let's get to the drawing board. Let's figure out what's best for the team, how we are going to make it better. He was looking for that in his next role, to have his voice heard and to be able to bring ideas."

Was he ever. "The fact she's very open-minded, okay, let's figure this out, I love that," Kendrick said. "One day when I'm a head coach, that's how I want to be. I want to have a bunch of coaches around me who go back and forth and figure out the best way. That's something that drew me to Stef."

Kendrick replaces Tyler Jeske on Ewing's staff, Jeske departing his position at season's end, right when Kendrick was beginning his own search in earnest. He never would have guessed Montana but he'll be in Missoula next month, coaching his new team shortly after the fall semester commences.

"When Stef brought me up for my interview, with everything the University of Montana has to offer, it was, how do I not say yes to this offer?" Kendrick said.

"I want to say thank you to Tennessee Tech University for the time I spent there over the last three seasons. I will miss the athletic administrators, staff members and mostly the players I had the privilege to work with and make everlasting memories."

Ewing will move to the offensive side of the ball full-time come the fall, with Kendrick taking over a defense that ranked 232nd nationally last season with a fielding percentage of .952. Casper will have an improved pitching staff to work with, and Makena Strong goes from player to graduate assistant coach.

"On the field, he'll be another source of energy for us," said Ewing of Kendrick. "With Makena, all of a sudden we're four people strong and will be able to do a lot more at practices.

"I loved a lot of the things he had to say. He's a worker. He can throw batting practice, he loves to do camps, he comes from a military family, so he's on top of things and very organized. He checks a lot of boxes. I think he's going to bring a lot to the program."

And he opens up a new recruiting area, with Montana looking to expand its reach beyond the West. "More and more young women reach out to us from the Midwest, Texas, the South," says Ewing. "He brings knowledge of a different region of the country. It allows us to cast a wider net.

"He's passionate about recruiting, which will be huge for us. That's the name of the game. It doesn't matter how good of a coach you are if you can't find good kids." Or good assistant coaches.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Makena Strong

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