Grayson County High School has named Jeff Rak as the next head coach of the Lady Cougar softball team.
Rak replaces Penny Reece who resigned in June to take the same position at Bowling Green.
He previously served as an assistant coach under Reece for a period at the beginning of her tenure.
“There’s a lot of young talent and it just needs to be fine-tuned and built up,” Rak told K105. “They’re a good bunch of kids. They really are, but I believe that they want to win. But that’s not everything. There’s still a lot of teaching to do (and) hopefully I can provide that for them.”
The Lady Cougars return a strong young core with most of their starting lineup from last season being underclassmen.
“I think there’s a good future group for the team moving forward,” he added. “The majority of them are freshmen and sophomores. (When you) look at the next three years, what could be possible? It’s there.”
Like in any sport, winning is important, but so is building up the enjoyment of playing the game.
“The kids just need to loosen up and have fun,” the new head coach said. “If they’re having fun, I don’t care if they win or lose. If they’re having fun, they’re going to want to play. They’re going to want to practice, they’re going to want to work. They’re going to want to put in extra work.”
Rak will be the fifth head coach in the last decade for the Lady Cougars who haven’t had a group have the same coach for at least four years since John Skaggs; who led the team from 1999-2006.
“That’s a lot of coaches in 10 years and you got a lot of young girls coming up through travel teams, the city teams, that can help the program moving forward,” he said. “We’ll see where that all falls out, honestly.”
The Lady Cougars will begin conditioning work in October with the 2025 season set to begin in the middle of March.
By Sam Gormley, Play-By-Play Announcer/Local Sports
Reach Sam at sam@k105.com
