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Mar. 18—Mark Dicus says there’s no better softball coach than Keith Coleman.
Coleman says Dicus is the best there is.
If both are in the ballpark, which their records would indicate it, then Muskogee’s hire of Dicus to lead their softball program gives hope to a program that has declined since Coleman left for Piedmont.
Dicus was reached out to by Muskogee officials on the advice of Coleman.
“Keith has moved on, but he still bleeds green and we appreciate the discussions and input he gave us,” said athletic director Jason Parker of the Rougher alum who led the program from 2005-2016.
“A lot of stuff we implemented over the last five years is to counteract what he does, ways to defend him because he puts you in bad spots, and his girls play hard,” said Coleman, who won a state fastpitch title at Piedmont in 2019.
Dicus has won one fastpitch title at Pryor and finished runner-up twice, but his resume is far deeper.
While head coach at Dewey from 1987 through 1999, he compiled 448 victories and was the national coach of the year in 1994. His teams reached the fastpitch state championship game eight consecutive seasons (1987-94), winning four titles. Dicus became an inaugural member of the Oklahoma Fastpitch Softball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2002.
He then went to Seminole State, where he was 445-140, with seven conference titles, including a third-place finish nationally in 2003, then went to Rogers State.
And at 63, he sees Muskogee as “the ultimate sports challenge.”
“I’m still drawn to a challenge. That in itself is appealing about it,” he said. “I’ve got enough in my engine to give it one last shot.”
Under Coleman, Muskogee had a combined 11 state tournament appearances and a 2009 slowpitch state championship. Eighteen of his fastpitch players went on to play college ball somewhere. But since then there’s been no state trip in either slowpitch or fastpitch.
Fastpitch has gone 45-101 since 2016 and slowpitch 48-57 in the four seasons in that span, including five games before the 2020 season was stopped due to the pandemic shutdown of sports.
This year’s slowpitch season has yet to get off the ground due to an insufficient roster hampered in part by academic issues.
Dicus is aware of that, and how he’ll approach things.
“It’s about relationships,” he said. “We’ll go into that first and work on softball next and we have to build up trust. Kids will have to trust me and our staff and we’re going to have to trust the kids. Hopefully winning is important to them. I’ve never met an athlete yet that winning wasn’t important to, never. If you buy in to the program, you’ll have to get to places on time, work hard in practice and play hard in games.
“That’s what we’ll sell. We’ll always go back to the point of if you really want to win, this is what you’re going to have to do. There’s no guarantee for results, but you have to follow the formula to have a chance at those results.”
He added this:
“If you don’t have kids willing to work hard, you’re not going to be very good.”
Dicus won’t take over until the fall. Interim coach Kodi Morrison, on board since early in fastpitch, will remain over the slowpitch season, which Parker said will continue despite the early issues.
Pryor is scheduled to play Muskogee on March 30 at Rougher Park. Dicus is assisting with slowpitch at Pryor.
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