When longtime Durant softball coach Matt Carter announced his retirement, the school didn’t have to look far for his replacement.
Jessica Howton, an assistant coach with the team, was named Carter’s successor at the same time he announced his intention to call it a career. An assistant for the last four years, Howton will give the team a sense of continuity as she takes over.
“It's going to be nice to have a team I can mold myself,” Howton says. “I really want to start molding the program the way I want it to be.”
In her nine years of coaching the sport at the prep level, this is Howton’s first gig as a varsity head coach.
RECESSION AND RELOCATION
Before moving to Florida in 2011, Howton coached in Michigan for four years. She served as a junior varsity head coach and varsity assistant at various schools, never settling into a stable situation.
“There were a lot of layoffs,” Howton says. “It was hard to keep jobs there.”
To make matters worse, the Great Recession of 2008 hit her hard outside of school: her husband, a police officer, was laid off and unable to find police work in the area.
The Howtons relocated to Florida in 2011, after some friends in the area were able to get her husband a job at Gordon Food Services. He later attended the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Academy and found police work at the Falkenburg Road Jail.
Howton was able to join Durant’s faculty as a physical education instructor and girls swimming coach. She became a softball assistant in 2012.
“It's been awesome,” Howton says.
Odd as it may sound, one of Howton’s favorite things about her new job is that she can relax a little more.
That’s not to say that the new Durant softball head coach is going to take the job lightly. Rather, it means she won’t have to wear three hats at once anymore: Howton was the head coach for the boys’ and girls’ swim teams, as well as an assistant for softball — an experience that she considered rewarding, yet stressful, especially as a mother of two.
GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS
Howton says while much of the program’s culture will look like it did under Carter’s watch, there will be things to change in the coming months.
“Coach Carter did a great job,” Howton says. “He’s an amazing coach and an amazing person. We have different philosophies, so I'll change some things. Nothing earth-shattering.”
Most of Howton’s top priorities involve the mental aspect of the game. For example, getting the girls more acclimated to the prep game will be crucial to her program going forward.
“I had a very young team last year,” Howton says. “Seven freshmen. They've only done travel ball, and a lot of them didn't have that team mentality. We have to focus on shifting from travel ball to high school ball and making sure the girls understand that it's a different mindset.”
To create stronger chemistry, Howton hopes to take a leaf from baseball coach Butch Valdes’s book.
“I'm really big into having a sense of family,” Howton says. “I'm similar to coach Valdes in that respect. Playing for the person next to you on the bench — worrying about your teammates, not your stats.”
Howton says the past five years in Florida have been great for her, and she’s committed to Durant for the long haul.
“I love Durant High School,” Howton says. “I can see myself working here until I retire.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.