Under Brown’s leadership the Saints had a very successful season, winning the European B Cup in Ostrava, Czech Republic. The team went 8-1, with Rachel pitching every game and reclaiming a spot for the side in the 2013 European A Cup.

From that success, the team returned to Swedish League play where it had snuck into the playoffs as the four seed with a 7-9 record. Up against longtime rivals Sundsvall, the momentum from European competition easily saw Skövde through.

And so it ended up that the last competitive game Brown pitched was game four of the Swedish Softball League Championship Series  against Leksand. One final dominant performance gave Skövde the win and Brown something she never thought she would win growing up: a Swedish national softball championship.

“The competition level was not nearly as high [as during my collegiate career], and I got to work with some players who had just recently started playing the sport,” Brown says. “But it reminded me why I really love the sport, and I got to give back.”

ON THE SIDELINES

From there, Brown headed to Stony Brook to transition into the next phase of her softball career as a coach.

“What really interested me the most about Rachel was that she knows what it takes to excel academically, athletically, and personally in a challenging university environment,” says Stony Brook coach Megan Bryant. “We strive for excellence in all three of those components here at Stony Brook, and it is important that our coaches share that vision for the student-athletes in our program.”

According to Allard, Brown was the kind of player who would make a good coach. She had an attention to detail and a knack for amendment which suited her for life on the sidelines.

“Rachel and I spent a lot of time in the bullpen together. I was her pitching coach on the staff,” Allard says. “Rachel was a very crafty pitcher. She knew the motions. She knew when stuff was working, and when it wasn’t. If something wasn’t going well, she really could make adjustments very quickly to her motion and her technique, which is very difficult because the pitching motion is so complex.”

Over the past year, Brown has become a popular and integral member of the Stony Brook program, focusing her efforts on the three pitchers she works with primarily.

One time in the fall, when the other coaches were away on recruiting visits, Brown had the team to herself. In what she called one of the most fun experiences of her year as a coach, she organized a home-run derby between the pitchers and catchers and the rest of the squad. To everyone’s amazement and Rachel’s secret delight, it was to be the pitchers and catchers who came out on top.

“Rachel has been a terrific addition not only to our softball program, but also to the Stony Brook Athletic Department and the University community,” Bryant says. “She comes to work each day with a smile on her face and her sleeves rolled up.  It is a bit of ‘baptism by fire’ to go from college player to Division I coach in a matter of months, but Rachel is up to the task.”

SWITCH HITTING

The switch from player to coach does not happen overnight, and Brown’s experience was no exception.

“I am learning a lot this year because as a player, there are a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that you don’t see,” Brown says. “As a player, a coach tells you do certain things and you do them. But as a coach, you have to really think about practice plans or certain technical skills, and you also have to do a lot of problem solving. As a pitcher, I was very focused on what I was doing; but as a coach, I have to think of all three of the pitchers that I work with and really help them to improve.”