Mark Ryal has a plethora of playing experience from his days in Major Leauge Baseball. Ryal has used this experience to help improve the Auburn Tigers softball team in his four seasons as an assistant coach.
Ryal arrived at Auburn in 2009, and statistics have shown team-wide improvement since then.
Before Ryal arrived at Auburn, the Tigers were struggling offensively. In the 2008-09 season, opponents outscored the Tigers 138-84.
Ryal said he was hired by the Tigers after a job opening was posted online by Auburn softball coach Tina Deese. Ryal was coaching a junior college team in Okalhoma and came down for an interview.
During the 2010-11 season, Ryal helped the Tigers set Auburn program records, including a team batting average of .279--the programs fifth highest--the fifth-most runs scored with 272 and fifth-most RBIs with 235.
Ryal and Deese have meetings periodically to set up what they want completed each day.
"Basically, coach Deese puts a practice schedule together," Ryal said. "We sit down and look over it and decide if there is anything we need to work on for the weekend series. We just try to get in the desired plan as much as we can."
This season Ryal hopes the team can improve in certain categories.
"Offensively I would like for us to hit .300 ... as a team and maybe lead the SEC in doubles like last year, " Ryal said. "The bottom line is we want to win. We got to get into the SEC tournament and hopefully we can get into the regional and take it from there."
Baseball has been passed down to the younger generation in the Ryal family. Ryal's son, Rusty, is an infielder for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
"It's cool to have that connection, to have someone there to talk to and an ear to hear your complaints and your success stories," Ryal said.
Ryal, who spent 10 seasons in the majors with clubs like the Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates, tries to stay connected with his former teammate.
"I keep in touch with a lot of the guys," Ryal said. "I ran into a couple of them this weekend down in Orlando. Just seeing some them brings back good memories."
Ryal tries to impart as much knowledge from his professional experiences to his players.
"I try to cross some of that over into the softball world and try to teach them the mental part of the game," Ryal said. "Because at that level things happen differently. We have a great group of girls here and some of them are really good students of the game."
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