Following the Binghamton softball team’s sweep of Stony Brook in the America East Softball Championship on Saturday, Demi Laney — the program’s all-time strikeout leading pitcher — finally got a chance to raise a championship banner with the Bearcats.
Well, after only a slight position change, from pitcher to volunteer assistant coach.
“It was an absolute privilege,” Laney said of her role with the team this season. “I’m so lucky that they allowed me to volunteer to be a part of something like that.”
Graduating in 2014 with a degree in environmental studies, Laney hopped on board as a volunteer assistant coach after finishing her playing career with 460 strikeouts and two all-AE mentions. And while she no longer leads by example on the mound, the standout was still able to help lead her former teammates to victory in the new, exciting role.
“It was a little tough in the beginning, transitioning from being friends to being their coach, but they all were really happy I was there,” Laney said. “I was happy that I was able to give my knowledge to them and everything I’ve figured out the four years that I was there.”
For assistant men’s lacrosse coach Michael Antinozzi, the switch from inspiring on the field to instructing on the sideline was much the same. The former captain, a main voice in the locker room for BU’s men’s lacrosse team in 2014, found coaching to be a natural next step.
“I was kind of in a voice role even when I was a player; I’m very loud,” Antinozzi said. “I like to talk loud before the game and that didn’t really change much this year as a coach.”
Along with 89 goals and 126 total points, Antinozzi finished his first four years at BU with a degree in accounting in 2014 before enrolling in the University’s graduate program. Graduating as part of a 12-player senior class, the former midfielder oversaw Binghamton’s offense and midfield this season as the team brought up 16 freshmen to the roster. For Antinozzi, this meant bridging the gap between those on the team who knew him as Mike, and those who only know him as coach Antinozzi.
“Probably the most difficult part about that was understanding where the line is between the kids that were your teammates and are your players now,” Antinozzi said.
“It took some time for them to know that if I was telling them to do something in practice, that they had to listen,” Antinozzi added. “It’s not just like one of their buddies telling them to go do something.”
While the men’s lacrosse team missed the postseason in 2015 after a 4-1 AE campaign in 2014, Antinozzi’s goals for the program, as well as his approach to the game, remain intact even after trading his helmet for a coach’s cap.
“I think the main goal for anyone in the program is, first off, to win as many games as possible,” Antinozzi explained. “Second off, win an America East Championship and then obviously the National Championship, which seems a little out of grasp now, but that could change in the future.”
For Laney, the future is already upon her team, now currently awaiting the notification of just who its first round opponent will be this week in the NCAA Tournament. But now, on college softball’s biggest stage for the first time, the new position still may take some getting used to for the volunteer assistant.
“[Being a coach] is definitely more nerve-wracking, because you can’t be in their bodies,” Laney concluded. “But they’re fully prepared and that’s what you have to count on.”