All in the family

Whether it's appealing to the city, the tradition or style of play, every collegiate program has a different style of recruiting high school athletes for every sport. For the Miners' softball program, family comes first, because being a part of the roster is like being part of a family of 20 siblings, parented by co-head coaches and spouses James and Kathleen Rodriguez.

Since the program's inception in 2003, the Rodriguez' have been at the helm as co-head coaches and the approach to their team is that of a family environment, such that players refer to them as Papa (James) and Mama (Kathleen) coach.

In the spring of 2004, they announced the Miners' first-ever recruiting class, which was made up of seven freshmen and four junior college transfers. Since then, the message has remained the same: the softball team is a family.

"It's kind of what it is, we're a husband and wife coaching team," James Rodriguez said. "When these girls out of high school are getting ready to go to college and their parents are having to drop them off, sometimes states and thousands of miles away, they want to feel like their kids are going to be taken care of. It's family oriented."

The atmosphere created by both coaches has helped them in recruiting players to come to El Paso whether or not they have ever heard of UTEP. Their approach has also helped them keep parents at ease about their child's time as a student-athlete with the Miners.

"We're going to look after them, but they have to be mature and responsible enough to take care of their business as well. They're here to get an education and play softball at the same time," James said. "We try and look after them as much as we can, we make sure they're going to class and we have curfew time in the fall and in the spring."

For players, the family environment has left an impression and even some of their veteran players still remember how it felt to be recruited by the Rodriguez'.

"I took two official trips. When I looked back at the trips that I was taking and the schools that I was looking at online, this was the school that stood out the most," senior outfielder Courtney Ware said. "Every good memory I had was of El Paso. I really liked the family atmosphere that they have here."

Senior catcher Chelsea Troupe was one player who wasn't aware where UTEP or El Paso was located, but after visiting several schools, she simply felt like she belonged as a Miner.

"Papa coach was the first to call me when we started the recruiting process and I just came out for a visit and fell in love with the family environment," Troupe said. "I think I was just meant to be here, I just knew that this was the place for me."

With 18 of the 20 players on the roster being from outside of the El Paso region, stressing a family environment is an important aspect that both coaches and players seem to respond well to.

"In reality, they spend more time with each other than they do with their families back at home. That's where the family aspect all comes into play," James Rodriguez said. "We stress family that they need to be there for one another and take care of each other. We're just kind of leading them in that way."

With a program that is less than a decade old, getting players to come to El Paso could be a tough task.

"In the beginning, starting the program nine years ago, (it was hard) having people know that there is a softball program here in El Paso. If they had heard of UTEP, they hadn't heard of UTEP softball," James Rodriguez said. "So that took a few years to convince people. Since then, it's just a matter of getting them to El Paso. Once we get them here and see how wonderful it is here it makes it a little bit easier."

Daniel Ornelas may be reached at prospector@utep.edu.