It feels like the perfect fit for Erica Hanrahan.
She wants to be close to her family in Chicago. Wants to be at an institution where athletes care about academics. Most importantly, she wanted to be in a college where she could use her passion for softball to make an impact in her players' lives like the sport did for her.
Hanrahan is DePauw's newest addition in the athletic department, assuming the softball head coaching position left vacant by Bonnie Skrenta. The Oak Park, Ill., native coached at Div. I Boston College last year as an assistant and fell in love with college coaching. After more than 10 years of coaching high school and travel softball in her home town, the assistant job at Boston left her longing for another head coaching position.
"I just needed to find the right fit for me," Hanrahan, 34, said. "I wanted to be a head coach again."
To understand why Hanrahan wanted to be at DePauw, one doesn't have to look hard. Her own athletic background nearly mirrors the image of DePauw athletes.
At age nine, she joined her father's travel softball team, the Oak Park Windmills. There, she developed a talent in the pitcher's circle and a love of playing on a team.
"Most of my teammates and I received scholarship to go to the Div. I level," she said. "We weren't playing for that. In terms of getting the scholarship, that was not the focal point."
She chose to go to St. Peter's College in New Jersey, even though she was accepted to her dream school, Vanderbilt University. There, Hanrahan was one of a few standout pitchers at St. Peter's from 1997-2000. In 67 career appearances, she holds the third lowest ERA in school history of 2.20, she's seventh in strikeouts with 180 and tossed 28 complete games including seven shutouts.
After graduating, she remained at St. Peter's for one more year with the team as a graduate assistant, and got her first taste of coaching. For some athletes, the switch from player-to-coach can sometimes be challenging.
Not for Hanrahan.
"As a player, I analyzed things to use my strengths to effectively plan out an opponent's weakness," she said. "You get to do that as a coach, and the transfer over was much easier than I thought."
She then moved back to Oak Park and taught at Elmwood Park High School starting in 2001. She taught English, and was the volleyball and softball head coach. While she enjoyed teaching English, the softball diamond was her true passion.
She founded her own travel softball team in 2005, ironically named the Lady Tigers.
"It was a large undertaking," Hanrahan said. "It was really to give the same opportunities that I had as a kid."
For more than five years, Hanrahan coached and taught while seeing opportunities to pursue college coaching. However, she never felt the time was right until last year.
One of her coaches with the Lady Tigers, Ashley Obrest, took the head coaching position at Boston and asked Hanrahan to be her assistant.
"I love being in the classroom, but softball is where I want to be," Hanrahan said. "To do that year-round is exciting. It was a wonderful experience."
In one year, Obrest and Hanrahan improved the team's record from 15-31 in 2011 to 23-29. While she enjoyed coaching with Obrest, Hanrahan said head coaching is what she really wanted. That's when she found DePauw.
The search for a replacement for Bonnie Skrenta began in July. Stevie Baker-Watson, DePauw's athletic director, said the time frame was quite small to find a new coach before the beginning of the school year.
She was looking for someone at an institution with high academic standards, and with some administration experience.
"Erica had some knowledge of DePauw, which made for a better conversation with her," Baker-Watson said.
Baker-Watson chose three from nine potentials to come to campus and meet with professors and faculty members. After phone conversations with current softball players, Hanrahan became the No. 1 choice.
"We had a very talented pool, but I think what really helped her was the tenure she had at the high school," Baker-Watson said. "Erica can take us further. The program is in motion, and I needed someone who was willing to stay in motion with the program and realize they can crank it up."
Hanrahan has plans to do just that.
"Because I have that knowledge base with pitching, I am going to have high expectations for the pitchers," Hanrahan said. "They are going to be able to do things that might seem a little bit intimidating at first, but nothing I'm going to ask any of the players to do is something I myself haven't been able to do."
The only concern she has is not knowing her players yet. However, she's confident in her abilities as a coach to improve the skills of anyone on the team.
"I have a lot of ideas because of the wonderful coaches I've worked with or played for," she said. "I'll be able to look at this team and have ideas of how to get that next level of softball."
