Yavapai Community College instituted “a mandate” a few years ago that “required 25% of all student athletes recruited to be from local high schools,” says McCasland, a mandate the coaches disagreed with
In August Yavapai Community College began looking for a new head baseball and head softball coach. The reason the coaches left, according to a commentary written by Yavapai Community College Governing Board Chair Deb McCasland in the September 7 Verde Independent newspaper, was their refusal to accept new recruiting and scholarship guidelines instituted by the Community College.
Governing Board Chair Deb McCasland
Various Community College Board members had over the years raised concerns about the County Community College not working harder to recruit outstanding County athletes for its programs. There was also concern with the County Community College providing generous County funded taxpayer scholarship assistance to out-state and out-of-the-United States athletes where athletic rosters had few or no local athletes on them. It appears that Community College president Dr. Lisa Rhine decided to do something about a lack of focus on local athletic talent.
According to Chair McCasland, the coaches were asked five years ago “to focus more attention on recruiting local student athletes (county/state).” A “mandate” was instituted “that required 25% of all student athletes recruited had to be from local high schools,” she said. Furthermore, the coaches were told “that the support for out-of-state and international students will decrease as we increased the scholarship support for local student-athletes.”
“Those three coaches who decided to leave the college ignored those mandates,” wrote McCasland.
The Blog believes the three coaches Ms. McCasland is referring to but not identified by name in her commentary are Ryan Cougill, Miles Kizer, and Doug Eastman.
In July the Yavapai College Athletics Department announced the resignation of Ryan Cougill as the Head Baseball Coach at Yavapai College. Assistant coach Miles Kizer also announced his resignation from Yavapai College at the same time. Then, in August, the Athletics Department announced the resignation of Doug Eastman as the Head Coach of the Yavapai College softball team.
A Roughrider for 14 years, Ryan Cougill served as an assistant coach for four seasons, before taking over the program for the 2013 season. In his 10 seasons as head baseball coach, Cougill had an overall record of 353-188-1 (.651) while guiding the Roughriders to the JUCO World Series in 2015 and 2016.
Cougill’s 2016 team captured the fourth national championship in program history with a 49-20 overall record. During the national championship season, Cougill was named NJCAA Tournament Coach of the Year, NJCAA National Coach of the Year, and NJCAA West District Coach of the Year.
During his tenure, Cougill had six student-athletes earn All-America honors, coached four ACCAC Players of the Year, and had 35-plus student-athletes earn All-Conference honors. After playing baseball at Yavapai Community College, 18-plus of Cougill’s players have been drafted into Major Legal Baseball in addition to 80-plus players heading to the NCAA Division I level. Three of those players (Kenny Giles (pitcher), JoJo Romero (pitcher), and Kole Calhoun (rightfielder)) are currently playing in the major leagues.
Softball coach Doug Eastman won 343 games, making him the winningest softball coach in program history. His 300th win at Yavapai Community College (also the 800th of his career) came during the 2022 season. He also led his team to a Region Championship and fourth-place finish in the nation in 2016. In 2017 and 2018, Eastman’s teams won back-to-back ACCAC Championships. In 2018, Eastman coached the first-ever National Player of the Year in Yavapai Community College Softball history in Jaydee Boursaw who owns the College’s home run record with 60 (21 ahead of second place).