Alumna Michelle Frew coached the University of Charleston softball team to two NCAA Tournament appearances and was named their athletic conference’s Women’s Sports Coach of the Year.
One of the most successful softball coaches in NCAA Division II history, with 1,002 career victories, Michelle Frew ’91 came to Eckerd College as a first-year student in 1987.
To play basketball.
“I grew up in Indianapolis, and basketball is huge in Indiana,” Frew explains. “A basketball scholarship and my dad’s encouragement got me to Eckerd. I had some offers from schools in Indiana, but it was a good time for me to get away and spread my wings. My dad put me on a plane, and I’d never flown before.
“I met with [then–Eckerd basketball] coach Celia Bloodworth, and I still remember that day. It was pouring down rain. But I knew I wanted to come here. My childhood was kind of rough at times, and I remember being homesick that first semester. But I don’t think I went back home after my first year. I felt like Eckerd was my new family.”
No. 10 Michelle Frew with the 1990-91 Eckerd College women’s basketball team
Now, 33 years and a packed trophy case later, the family is reunited. Frew, who starred in basketball and softball during her time at Eckerd before embarking on a dazzling coaching career, was offered the opportunity recently to return to her alma mater to coach the Tritons softball team.
“I didn’t hesitate,” she says. “This is what I’m supposed to do.”
A guard in women’s basketball, Michelle Lemons (her maiden name) was a three-time all-conference selection for Eckerd and currently ranks in several career records, including second in field goals made (528) and third in points (1,370). A catcher in softball, she was a three-time all-conference selection as well, and she currently ranks fourth in career stolen bases (48) and fifth in career batting average (.326).
As a senior, she earned the Triton Award as the top female athlete at the College. After her last plate appearance in May 1991, she graduated from the College with a degree in human development. She later earned her master’s degree in guidance counseling from Nova Southeastern University. The late Molly Ransbury, Ph.D., one of the first female faculty members at Eckerd, was Frew’s mentor. “She looked after me,” Frew says, “and really made me feel at home.”
A hint of what was to come occurred right after she graduated when she was named the head softball coach for then–Edison Community College in Fort Myers. After inheriting a program that had never posted a winning season, her teams compiled a three-year record of 118–83, and in her final season, she led the Buccaneers to a 39–13 overall record and a 16–2 conference mark, earning herself Southern Conference Coach of the Year honors.
Coach Frew huddles up with University of Charleston softball players
And then one of Eckerd’s fiercest rivals—Rollins College—came calling. Frew was hired in 1995 and immediately resurrected a program that had finished in last place the previous 13 seasons. She built the program into a nationally recognized power that was an NCAA Tournament participant 11 times. In 2016, she led her squad to its first-ever NCAA Regional Championship. She also was a four-time Sunshine State Conference Coach of the Year. In addition to head softball coach, Frew served as the Rollins assistant women’s basketball coach from 1995–1998 and helped the Tars post two 20-victory seasons.
Michelle Frew played softball as well as basketball during her time at Eckerd.
What was it like coaching against Eckerd for 25 years while she was at Rollins? “In the beginning, it was pretty hard,” she answers. “My heart is with Eckerd, but being the competitor I am, it was a fun challenge. Rollins was really bad the year before I got there. They got rid of the program in the middle of the season. But they had to keep it to stay in the conference. I’m really proud of what we accomplished there. Now I’ve already got the Eckerd-Rollins game circled on the calendar.”
Her last stop before Eckerd was at the University of Charleston in West Virginia, where she led the team to two NCAA Tournament appearances, including the Women’s College World Series this year following a program-record 51–8 season. For her efforts, she was named the 2023–2024 Mountain East Conference Women’s Sports Coach of the Year.
About 850 miles away in St. Petersburg, Eckerd College Director of Athletics Tom Ryan ’87 noticed what Frew had done. “Tom Ryan sent me an email congratulating us on the World Series,” she says. “A few days later, he called me and said [softball coach] Katie Profitt was leaving. I said, ‘Tom, I’m there.’ I actually got goosebumps. It was hard leaving those kids who worked their tails off in Charleston, and I’m so grateful to everyone at the university.
“But you dream of things happening, and they don’t always come true. This time, it did. Everything has just fallen into place. It’s so surreal how all this happened.”
Ryan says he’s excited to have Frew back in Triton gear. “I knew her as a student-athlete, when she was an accomplished two-sport athlete,” he says. “I followed her coaching career from her initial years at the junior college level to her time at Rollins and Charleston, where she’s had remarkable success developing her players, building programs to new heights, and winning championships at every stop.
“When Coach Profitt decided to step away, Michelle was the first name I thought of. We are very excited to see what the future holds for our softball program with her at the helm.”
“I love the friendships I made at Eckerd,” Frew adds. “When my team in Charleston played in the World Series in Orlando, my husband [Stephen Frew ’88] and six of his friends from Eckerd came to watch.” Stephen, who played baseball at Eckerd and serves as Michelle’s pitching coach, works as an engineer with Riptide Software, a technology development company. The couple has a daughter, Erin, who works for Charleston’s Sports Information Department, and a son, Dylan, who will be a first-year student at Florida State this fall.
Frew says she’ll be a little nervous when she takes the field at Eckerd for the first time after all those years. But that will quickly pass, she says, as her newest family comes together.
“I want to build positive relationships with my kids,” she says about her players. “I want them to be there for each other, to become a family—and to know that we’re going to outwork you, but we’ll have fun doing it.”
