The CT Softball Blog

WILLIMANTIC—Some career changes are easy.

Leaving the only professional home you’ve ever known isn’t one of them.

For Amber Maisonet, accepting the head coaching position at Eastern Connecticut State University meant walking away from 18 years at RPI, the only college where she has ever coached.

It was where she arrived as a young assistant fresh out of the University at Albany. It was where she became a head coach at just 24 years old. It was where she built one of the Liberty League’s most successful softball programs.

Which is exactly what made saying goodbye so difficult.

When Eastern announced Maisonet as the successor to longtime head coach Diana Pepin, the headlines naturally focused on one of Division III softball’s premier programs finding its next leader.

That’s certainly newsworthy.

But after spending about 30 minutes talking with Maisonet this week, the part of the story that stayed with me wasn’t why she was coming to Eastern.

It was what she was leaving behind.

“I think you can get comfortable somewhere a little bit,” Maisonet told me. “Sometimes it’s time to kind of see what you can do somewhere else.”

That wasn’t someone looking to escape.

It was someone who had built something she genuinely loved.

Eastern simply happened to present the rare opportunity that made leaving worthwhile.

“It really had to be something that I was passionate about,” she said. “Somewhere that I felt like we could really be successful.”

Eastern checked every box.

The tradition. The new softball facility. The administrative support. The chance to coach a roster she already believes is capable of competing for Little East Conference championships and making another NCAA Tournament run.

“The roster that Coach Pepin built is ready to win,” Maisonet said. “There’s not much I need to do right this minute. I think we have the people on the roster that we can certainly compete within the conference and hopefully build on top of that with a conference championship and do some damage in the NCAA Tournament.”

Of course, taking over for Pepin isn’t something Maisonet views lightly.

Pepin spent a quarter century building one of the country’s most respected Division III programs.

“I have a lot of respect for Coach Pepin and what she’s done there,” Maisonet said. “I don’t want to let her down. I want to make sure the program continues right where she left it.”

The confidence she brings to Eastern comes from experience.

After finishing her playing career at Albany, Maisonet landed an assistant coaching position at RPI while completing graduate school. Just two years later, she was handed the head coaching job on an interim basis.

She was just 24 years old.

She never left.

Until now.

Over those 18 years, RPI became much more than the place where she coached softball.

It became where she built her life.

“I’ve grown my family there,” she said. “I’ve gotten married while I was there. I’ve had two kids while I was there. It’s been a large part of my life, and it’s hard to leave it for sure.”

Now comes the challenge of building something new.

Fortunately, Connecticut has never been unfamiliar recruiting territory.

Maisonet has regularly recruited players from the Nutmeg State during her time at RPI, and she believes Eastern has one of Division III softball’s biggest advantages sitting right in its own backyard.

“You can build a very competitive roster at Eastern just through both the high school and travel programs coming out of Connecticut,” she said. “Then supplement that by going to a few states outside Connecticut.”

That’s welcome news for Connecticut players hoping to stay close to home while continuing to compete on the national stage.

As our conversation wrapped up, one moment stuck with me.

Talking about recruiting, the roster and everything she had built over nearly two decades, Maisonet referred to RPI as “we.”

Then she caught herself.

I laughed and pointed it out.

She laughed too.

That’s muscle memory at its best, after all, a term any softball player knows well.

After 18 years, old habits are hard to break.

So are the ties that make leaving one place for another so incredibly difficult.

This fall, though, there will be a new “we.”

And if Amber Maisonet’s track record is any indication, Eastern Connecticut softball fans are going to like where that story goes next.

(From The Dugout is a regular column written by CT Softball Blog Publisher John Nash)

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