Aprile preaching heart to Pitt

The huddle is the one spot where a team can truly exist as a single entity. It’s where an… The huddle is the one spot where a team can truly exist as a single entity. It’s where an entire squad of players circles around a coach to get a final pep talk after the day’s proceedings. No matter what happened, win or lose, good practice or bad, a team enters and leaves the field as one.

It all culminates in the team’s final gesture, whether for routine or camaraderie, it’s a staple of any team; the collection of hands and the shouting of one word, a sort of label for the team.

The players pack in tight together, jut their arms into the center, hands on top of hands, and give a rousing shout.

‘HEART!’

While most teams fall back on, ‘win’ or ‘team,’ the Pitt softball team sometimes shouts, ‘heart.’ It’s not as if the Panthers do it regularly, or they trademarked it, but how many teams have you heard that yell, ‘Heart!’ while breaking a huddle?

Heart, determination and effort are all things Pitt softball head coach Holly Aprile expects of her team. Look at it this way, Aprile wouldn’t care if a base hit sliced through the hole, so long as the shortstop and third basemen are picking themselves off the ground after laying out to try snagging the ball.

‘I’ve told them, ‘I don’t care if you [caught] the ball, but I care if you dove. I care if you hustled. I care if you did everything you could to make the play,” said Aprile. ‘I never wanted to look back on something and say, ‘What if.’ I say just do it, put in the effort and you won’t have those regrets.’

Aprile cares about catching the ball, but effort and hustle were the fi rst things she talked about with the softball team when she was named interim head coach last August.

‘She is very passionate about everything she does,’ said assistant coach Jess Dignon. ‘She wants to do something and do it to the best of her abilities, whether doing work in the office or doing her taxes, she does everything with a purpose.’

Sometimes, it’s that passion that can, as she says, ‘get me into trouble.’

As a player, Aprile said she was a bit of a perfectionist.

If she wants to call it getting into trouble, it seems anyone would want her problem.

Aprile graduated after a highly-decorated career at the University of Massachusetts in 1993 with a degree in sports management. She’s still second on the school’s all-time wins list with 77 career victories.

She was a four-time Atlantic 10 all-conference performer, a three-time A-10 player of the year, and a third-team All-America selection in 1992.

Oh, and she could hit, too. During her senior year, Aprile batted .333 with two home runs and 19 RBIs to lead Massachusetts to its first NCAA College World Series trip in school history.

After college the USA Softball team called her and asked her to try out for the Olympic squad.

Aprile tried out as an outfi elder, giving up hernatural pitching position, for the team with hundreds of other girls. Only 20 were selected for the team, and Aprile wasn’t one of them.

She then turned professional and played for the U.S. National team for a few years before she earned her first assistant coaching job at the University of South Carolina. Not bad for a self-proclaimed perfectionist.

Nevertheless, she said her perfecting attitude has carried over into coaching.

‘I sometimes can’t let things go and I secondguess myself,’ said Aprile. ‘It’s not the best thing, it would be better if I could move on, but that’s what I do.’

That’s where her dad comes in. Aprile grew up in a small town in Afton, N.Y., where she graduated with 56 kids in her high school class.

Her father played a lot of softball, and Aprile said she was a ‘field rat’ kind of kid. By the age of 7 she was at the fi eld regularly, learning how to pitch and play just by watching the guys.

Her dad later became her coach and has always been there as a parent.

‘My parents have always been a huge, huge support system, and they’re reason why I am the way I am,’ said Aprile. ‘My dad has always been a huge help to me, playing and now coaching, I run everything through him. He helps me work through those strategy-type questions, like pinch running and bunting.

But, Aprile admits, most of the time he says, ‘Holly, you know what you’re doing, you don’t have to ask.’

Aprile is quick to say she’s the benefi ciary of great coaches — including her dad — in the past.

From being an assistant coach for nine years at South Carolina, to serving as an assistant coach at Pitt for the past five seasons, it’s this wealth of experience that adds to her coaching knowledge.

‘She has a lot of knowledge of the game,’ said Dignon, ‘She has played at a very high level for a long time. She’s very credible in the things she’s teaching.’

But Aprile says she doesn’t get the most satisfaction out of throwing batting practice, or tinkering with a player’s swing. It’s making her players realize that words like determination, focus and intensity aren’t merely call signs to label their hard work.

‘You can say those things, but to really get the group to understand those words is one of the biggest challenges of coaching,’ said Aprile. ‘To convey that, and get them to feel that same passion every day, consistently, is a huge challenge.’

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