Eddie Nunez’s Ambitious Makeover Of Women’s Sports at Houston Continues With New Softball Coach Chrissy Schoonmaker — Inside the Transformation Plan

Throughout a national coaching search that touched the highest levels of college softball. University of Houston athletic director Eddie Nuñez found himself returning to the coach who he felt really wanted to be at UH again and again. Chrissy Schoonmaker jumped out early, stayed in the mix throughout the search and ended up being the choice in the end.

“As the process went, she was always one of the top — top three I would say,” Nuñez tells PaperCity. “She had a lot of things that connected well with us. Her passion for wanting to be at UH was out of the roof. And we got closer to the end, I said, ‘OK, my gut’s telling me one thing. But I want to make sure that it is.’ ”

One more conversation with Schoonmaker convinced Houston’s AD and Nuñez’s ambitious makeover of women’s athletics at the university took another big step. In Schoonmaker, he brings on a proven head coach who went 113-92 in four seasons at George Washington and has experience recruiting Texas as an assistant at Texas Tech and Houston for one season (in 2014).

It is not the flashiest hire. Steve Singleton, the associate head coach at newly minted national champion University of Texas, was a candidate for the job, multiple college athletic sources tell PaperCity. But it is a hire that continues a trend that may be under the radar (women’s sports don’t get much publicity at UH currently) but still transformative.

Hired last August (with the news broken first by PaperCity), Nuñez quickly went about assessing University of Houston’s coaching roster and health of each program. He’s already brought in a high-profile new women’s basketball coach in Matthew Mitchell, an aggressive new women’s soccer coach in Ben Williams and is now revamping softball.

“Everything has to be done and done right,” Nuñez says of trying to transform the women’s sports landscape at UH. “If you look at schools that we’re playing in the (softball) championship game or were just playing up in Oklahoma City (at the Women’s College World Series), all those programs have been built. And they’ve done it right.

“Some faster than others. And I’ll say that right way. But Texas Tech is in there. There’s nothing to say that we can’t or we shouldn’t be able to do what they’ve done. Is it going to take an investment? Absolutely. Are we going to be able to do it tomorrow? I don’t know. That’s for the new coach to determine with what we’re putting in place.”

There is more attention — and eyeballs — on sports like softball than ever. The deciding game of the Women’s College World Series finals drew a record audience of 2.4 million viewers, the event’s highest ever, last Friday night. Of course, Texas Tech helped get itself there by making star pitcher NiJaree Canady the sport’s first $1 million player.

Chrissy Schoonmaker will have to make some heavily-pocketed booster really believe in what she’s doing for UH to ever get even close to that kind of salary level in softball.

That is talk for another likely far-off future day though. On this one, Schoonmaker met with the UH softball players on a Zoom with Nuñez, already selling her vision.

“They’re excited,” Nuñez says of the current Houston players. “They just want a chance to talk to this new coach and understand what kind of game plan they’re going to put together. How they fit in. How they’re going to go about recruiting.”

Chrissy Schoonmaker’s University of Houston Softball Challenge

University of Houston softball could use any type of winning plan. Recently jettisoned softball coach Kristin Vesely’s teams went 8-41 in two Big 12 conference seasons and softball has not had a winning season at all since the drastically shortened 2020 COVID season.

“Texas Tech is in there. There’s nothing to say that we can’t or we shouldn’t be able to do what they’ve done. Is it going to take an investment? Absolutely. — UH athletic director Eddie Nuñez

By doing what former athletic director Chris Pezman couldn’t or wouldn’t do in firing Vesely, Nuñez lived up to his put-the-student-athletes-first ethos in many ways.

Vesely, a former University of Oklahoma All-American, had been UH’s softball coach since the 2017 season. Her teams made the NCAA Tournament in her second and third season but generated little positive buzz since then.

Eddie Nuñez is used to having to make over a struggling softball program. At the University of New Mexico, his previous spot, Nuñez hired former Stephen F. Austin coach Nicole Dickson to take over the Lobos program and Dickson’s established an aggressive style of play with stolen bases galore, good defense and high achievements in the classroom.

Being the athletic director at the University of Houston allows him to think much bigger though and Nuñez has now snared himself a proven winning head coach to lead UH softball. Schoonmaker won Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year honors after leading George Washington to the league title in her first season at the school (2022).

All three of Nuñez’s women’s athletics coaching hires — Williams, Mitchell and now Schoonmaker — have already been college head coaches before they arrived at UH. That’s no coincidence.

“I think it always helps,” Nuñez tells PaperCity. “Especially with the dynamics we’re facing today. Having that experience is critical because you’re not talking about somebody who’s starting to learn how to be a head coach. From our perspective, I wasn’t against (hiring a current assistant). I looked at some very qualified associate head coaches that we’re really talented, really good.

“But the dynamics, I want somebody who knows what it means to look across the room, who’s dealt with the ins and outs of student athletes. When they have challenges. And has helped build a program.”

Nuñez is trying to build a winning athletic culture at the University of Houston that extends beyond just Kelvin Sampson’s supremely nationally elite basketball program. This women’s sports transformation will have a major say on whether that works or not.