Softball Adds Volunteer Assistant Coach to Staff
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 | Softball
The University of Florida softball team, which has earned the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Southeast Coaching Staff of the Year award for three straight years, added a new volunteer assistant coach to the coaching ranks to help the Gators for the 2009-2010 season.
Coy Adkins, the founder and coach of the North Florida club softball team, will join head coach Tim Walton for the upcoming year. Adkins led Team North Florida to a fifth-place finish at the 2009 Amateur Softball Association of America's (ASA) Under-18 Gold National Championship and to a first-place finish at the 2009 Champions Cup in Irvine, Calif.
“We are excited about adding Coach Adkins to our staff,” Walton said. “He comes from championship-caliber high school and club programs. He is a first-class person and a family man and he will fit in well at Florida”
During Adkins' tenure at Wewahitchka (Fla.) High School, the softball team won the district and regional championships five straight times, advancing to the state final four each year and captured the Class 2A state championship in 2007 and 2008. He served as an assistant coach from 2004 to 2006 before being promoted to assistant head coach in 2007 and the head coach in 2008. In his five years with the program, Adkins helped the Wewahitchka Gators to a 153-19 (.890) record.
“I am very excited about the opportunity to work with Coach Walton, Coach Rocha, Coach Gladding and UF softball team,” Adkins said. “I think the future is very bright here. The Gators are proven winners and it is going to be a lot of fun and a great learning experience to work in that atmosphere.”
Prior to Wewahitchka, Adkins was the head coach for a two-year stint at Chipley (Fla.) High School, where he helped the softball team to a 47-14-1 (.766) record and district and regional championships in 2003.
Adkins founded Team North Florida in 2003 and made his first appearance in the ASA National Championship Tournament in 2006, finishing 33rd out of 128. The team went on to place in the top 10 the following year and coached his 2008 team in their first Gold National Tournament.
The new UF volunteer coach earned the Tallahassee Democrat's 2008 Coach of the Year title, as well as the 2008 ASA Co-Coach of the Year award. He was named Florida's 2A Coach of the Year and Dairy Farmers' Coach of the Year accolades in the same season.
Adkins was a math teacher at Wewahitchka High School for six years. He also served as the varsity head coach of the cross country and boys' and girls' basketball teams. The coach attended St. Johns River Community College on a basketball scholarship and earned his bachelor's degree for mathematical education at Florida State University of 2001. He is married to wife Sonya and has two daughters, Kenna and Anniston.
