EHREN EARLEYWINE WAS a great high school baseball player for the Jefferson City Jays.
He was even better in college, as he broke seven school records at Westminster.
Baseball was in his blood. A one-year stint in 2000, however, as an assistant coach at Texas A&M Corpus-Christi took care of that.
"I decided I wasn't going back there," Earleywine said. "The head coach was a joke, he had no idea what he was doing.
"It was a terrible situation."
If you weren't sure, Earleywine speaks his mind. His candor is as refreshing as a cold drink on a hot day.
"I was going to apply for baseball coaching jobs and softball coaching jobs and whichever came up first, that's the one I was going to take," he said.
"But then I decided to focus all my energies on softball and for one reason --- softball, in my estimation, is a very poorly-coached sport. It's the most watered-down-coached sport of any college sport in the country.
"College baseball isn't that way. There are some great coaches and you're always running up against guys who have a lot of experience.
"But in softball, that's not the case. I said to myself: 'You know what? My road to the top might be a lot quicker if I do this in softball.'
"And that's kind of been the case."
Kind of? That's like saying Albert Pujols is kind of struggling.
Earleywine took an assistant coaching position with the Georgia Tech softball program. After two seasons, he became the team's head coach and led Georgia Tech to national prominence --- 184 wins and four straight NCAA Tournament appearances.
The 2006 campaign featured the top offensive season for any program in ACC history. The Rambling Wreck of Georgia Tech broke league single-season records for home runs (75), RBI (385), doubles (99), runs scored (428), slugging percentage (.495) and total bases (903).
Then, it was time to come home --- Missouri hired Earleywine in August, 2006.
You could call this a good hire.
"When I came to Mizzou, it was my goal, it was my job, for people not to be content with being in the middle of the pack in the Big 12 and in the Top 25," Earleywine said. "I wanted to have a program that had higher expectations than that."
Now in his sixth season with the Tigers, he's taken a mediocre program to the national stage. There's no secret to his success.
"We started getting good players," he said.
This ain't rocket science.
"The most important thing that happened that in our first year, we had about a month or two span when we were No. 1 in the Big 12," he said. "Nobody expected that. I told my coaches that we had a small window of opportunity and we need to hit the road right now.
"When this is over, we'll have a lot of down time. But while we had that window, we wanted to tell these kids: 'We know you're looking at Texas, we know you're looking at Oklahoma, but we're No. 1 in the Big 12. Those schools are below us. We're turning things around at Mizzou and we want you to be a part of it.'
"That kind of snowballed everything. Chelsea Thomas was one of the kids who committed in that time frame and when you get a kid like her, then everything can change."
Thomas, an outstanding redshirt junior pitcher, is in her fourth year with the program and is part of the class that's been to three straight College World Series.
Senior Ashley Fleming has also been a big part of this great ride.
"We're not where we want to be," Fleming said, "but to think that we have turned the program around like we have, it's pretty amazing."
You could say that.
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EARLEYWINE, 41, TOOK over a team that had a losing record in 2006 and led the Tigers to a 40-23 campaign and a berth in the NCAA Tournament the following year. It only got better.
* 2008, 47-17 and a trip to the Super Regionals, softball's version of the Sweet 16.
* 2009, a school-record 50 wins and a trip to the College World Series.
* 2010, a school-record 51 wins and a trip to the College World Series.
* 2011, a school-record 53 wins (sensing a pattern?) and a school-record third straight trip to the College World Series.
This season --- and after sweeping Oklahoma State last weekend --- the Tigers are 43-12, ranked ninth in the nation and, for the fourth straight year, will host an NCAA Regional.
Success comes with a price.
"The interesting thing about this year," Earleywine said, "is that we're 43-12, ranked ninth in the country and we ended up second in the Big 12, and the question I most commonly get asked is: 'What happened?'
"I guess that's a good thing, because we've raised the standards and expectations around here."
The bar has certainly been raised, but it has not been cleared.
"It would be a big failure if we didn't make the World Series and quite frankly, even if we make it, if we don't show well there again --- three straight years and we haven't done much damage --- we'll feel like that's a failure," Earleywine said.
The Tigers finished fifth last year and seventh the previous two years.
"We have one goal and that's to win a national championship," Earleywine said. "Until that happens, we won't be fully satisfied."
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IF YOU'VE BEEN out the country or in a coma, this just in --- Missouri is leaving the Big 12 for the SEC.
Earleywine is hardly shedding tears --- unless they're tears of joy.
"I'm not going to miss the Big 12 at all," he said. "Your opponents become enemies after continually battling and butting heads with them.
"I'm looking forward to a fresh start in the SEC and a fresh batch of coaches to gain some comradery with. I'm excited about it and everyone in our program is pumped up about it.
"There was a chance, for a while, that we could have ended up in the Mountain West, the WAC, or the Big 10 or the Big East, and nobody wanted any of those for the softball program.
"So when we heard about the SEC, it was awesome. It's one of the best softball conferences in the country, warm weather and they have the best facilities in the country."
The SEC is certainly the king of the hill in football, as Alabama is the defending national champion. The same goes for basketball (Kentucky). And baseball (South Carolina). Softball?
"It's the same," Earleywine said. "Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee ... you see those teams in the College World Series almost every year. And that's not to mention LSU, Arkansas and some other teams."
The SEC has no less than nine teams in this year's NCAA Tournament, the most in the 64-team field. If you add Missouri and Texas A&M (NOT the Corpus-Christi one), which is also making the move, the SEC would have 11 teams.
"It is," Earleywine said, "a nasty conference."
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THOMAS AND FLEMING have been nothing less than fabulous for Missouri.
Last season, the Tigers rode the arm of Thomas to the World Series, as she won 32 games and had a nation's-best ERA of 0.95.
This season, however, it's been a different story --- she's only 23-7 and her ERA has ballooned to 1.07.
"She's probably been down a little bit," Earleywine said.
No, really. For Thomas, this is considered a slump.
"No. 1, everybody's gunning for her now," Earleywine said. "They gear their hitters up and watch a lot of video on her.
"No. 2, I think Chelsea --- although she tries hard and everything --- I think there's a little bit of wisdom in her subconscious thinking right now that she didn't need to peak in February or March. She wants to peak at the end."
It seems to be working. Thomas had two wins and a save in the three-game sweep of Oklahoma State. In 19 1/3 innings, she allowed just five hits and struck out 30.
And oh, by the way, she had her 11th career no-hitter Friday night and Missouri's first conference no-hitter in 20 years.
For the fourth time this season and the 12th time in her career, those efforts earned Thomas the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week honor.
"I think she's saving some bullets that nobody really knows about," Earleywine said.
At the plate, the story is Fleming --- she's making this game look like slow-pitch softball, as she's hitting a tidy .372 with 15 home runs and 48 RBI.
To put her season in perspective, Missouri's team batting average is .269.
"I'm just trying to do everything I can to help the team," Fleming said. "It's just amazing that as you get the years under your belt, you just get so much more comfortable.
"There aren't that many freshmen who come in and have fantastic years. There's just so much to grasp, it's kind of overwhelming. It takes time and you've got to take the time and in the end, you'll get to where you want to be.
"I'm figuring things out and I've gotten into a nice routine."
Some routines are better than others.
"She is tearing it up," said Earleywine, who's team opens the regional against Illinois State (35-21) at 6:30 p.m. Friday. "The biggest surprise to me is that teams continue to throw her strikes.
"We haven't had a great protector behind her, but she's still just gone ballistic."
Fleming is a graduate of Silex High School. Can you find Silex on the map?
"She didn't get much interest from colleges," Earleywine said, "just because she wasn't on the big-time travel circuit."
To be sure, Earleywine found a hidden gem --- and nobody's happier about it than Fleming.
"He's taught me so much since I've been here," she said. "I've learned so much from him (both on and off the field) and I really respect him for that.
"He's an amazing coach ... there aren't many like him. He's really specific in what he wants and he's never satisfied. At times, it can be hard, but you have to look at the big picture because he never wants to settle for less than what he knows we're capable of.
"He knows, as well as we do, that we can win a national championship."
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