CARBONDALE, Ill. — Southern Illinois University head softball coach Jen Sewell has announced that Saluki Hall of Famer Mary Jo Firnbach ’91 has been hired as SIU’s associate head coach.
“Mary Jo is first and foremost one of the most distinguished alums not just of our program but of SIU overall,” Sewell said. “There is something special about alums who come home to their alma maters. She can coach any part of our program but at the heart of our program is our culture. Everywhere she’s been she’s been a culture builder. That’s priority No. 1 in our program – our Saluki family comes first.”
Firnbach, who starred on SIU’s softball team from 1987-91 and was inducted into Southern’s Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility in 1996, has amassed an impressive coaching resume dotted with stops at several perennial powerhouses which include the likes of Michigan, Texas A&M and North Carolina. All told, Firnbach’s teams have made 15 NCAA Regional appearances and have been to three College World Series, including a National Runner-up finish while at Texas A&M in 2008.
“I am so fortunate and grateful to have the opportunity to go back and do what I love at a place I have so much passion and respect for,” Firnbach said. “The softball program is a priority at SIU and that is the direct result of some hardworking women. Kay Brechtelsbauer and Kerri Blaylock set the standards extremely high and now with Jen Sewell at the helm, I have no doubt that tremendous accomplishments are still to come. I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am as an alum of this program to work with student-athletes that love SIU as much as I do. SIU offered me the ability to fulfill my dreams as a student-athlete and now it is coming full circle for me to be able to do the same as a coach.”
Firnbach arrives in Carbondale after spending the last eight seasons as the associate head coach at North Carolina. The Tar Heels made four NCAA Regional appearances during her seven full seasons and set single-season program records in a litany of categories under her tutelage, including batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, runs scored and home runs. In 2017, Firnbach helped the Tar Heels reach both the ACC Championship game and the Regional Finals in the same season for the first time in program history.
Prior to her eight seasons at Chapel Hill, Firnbach spent eight seasons as the associate head coach at Texas A&M. During her tenure at College Station, the Aggies made eight NCAA Regional appearances, including two trips to the Women’s College World Series and four NCAA Super Regional appearances. In 2008, Texas A&M advanced to the national championship game. Firnbach’s major job functions while in Aggieland included working with hitters, infielders, team defense and team offense and the results were immediate. In her first season on staff, Texas A&M hit .284 as a team and, in 2013 and 2014, posted back-to-back seasons in which they hit over .300 for the first time in the program’s esteemed history.
“I want our players to ask her every day, “what does it take?”, Sewell said. “I want them to understand there are only inches between NCAA Regional, Super Regional and Women’s College World Series teams. She connects those dots for us. MJ is a winner and winners win. There isn’t anything MJ hasn’t touched. She has played and coached at every level. The message is clear now to recruits – Come here. Do the work and take an already successful mid-major to the next level.”
Firnbach arrived at Texas A&M after she built Syracuse’s softball program from the ground up from 1998-2006. In seven seasons, Firnbach compiled a 174-169-1 overall record, won a then-program record 36 games in 2006, made three appearances in the Big East Tournament and earned Coaching Staff of the Year honors in 2005.
As a student-athlete, Firnbach was a four-year standout at third base and was named team captain prior to the 1991 season, a season in which the Salukis went 42-7 and were the Gateway Conference regular season and tournament champions. She was a two-time GTE Academic All-American, a two-time All-League and All-Midwest region pick, as well as SIU’s Gateway Conference Athlete of the Decade. She started all 184 softball games in her career, hit .309, committed only 12 errors in 667 chances, and helped her teams to a 127-59 record.
“I have been very fortunate to have experienced so much both as a player and as a coach over the last 35 years,” Firnbach said. “The incredible blue collar, respectful, successful tradition that has already been established in the softball program at SIU is how I am wired. Success is more than about wins and losses, it is about relationships and connections that you have with the coaching staff, support staff, players, fans, community…anyone who has an investment in the program. Everyone should feel like they are in the trenches together working towards the same goal. If you have all of that, the rest tends to take care of itself.”
Following her stellar playing career at SIU, Firnbach played professionally for the Raybestos Brakettes in Stratford, Conn. The Brakettes won the national championship and the gold medal at the Olympic Sports Festival. She also played with the Michigan Cruise in Ann Arbor, Mich., which finished fifth at the national tournament in 1994.
Firnbach entered the coaching profession immediately following graduation, serving as a volunteer assistant coach for two seasons at Southern, while completing her master’s degree in sport psychology. She served as an assistant coach at the University of Michigan from 1993 to 1995 where she helped lead the Wolverines to a Big Ten Conference regular season and tournament championship, the National Invitational Tournament title and to an appearance in the College World Series. She then spent three seasons at Illinois State, where she helped the Redbirds win a pair of Missouri Valley Conference titles before taking the reins at Syracuse in 1998.
