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Kwame Smith is the current girl’s softball coach at East St John High School in Laplace, St John the Baptist Parish. 

With 17 years of experience running the athletic department and coaching basketball and baseball teams in Michigan and Louisiana, Smith discusses the outstanding performance of the ESJ High Ladycats during the 2024-2025 season and their future aspirations. 

What is the key to your team’s success this season? Considering the team has registered unprecedented wins this season of 12 -7. Also, what adjustments have you made to improve the team’s performance this season?

The key to the team’s success this season is working on softball fundamentals, pitching, catching, throwing, hitting, and boxing off. Aside from concentrating on our defense, which has truly made a difference this season, it is focusing more on individual skills.

So we have worked a lot on technique, and I believe it’s just improved their skill development.

Ensuring that the girls understand the importance of these skills and how to execute a good ground ball with proper technique effectively. It’s crucial to concentrate on the small details. 

I’ve spent more time adjusting our style of play to match the player’s talent levels and working on developing it.

I’d like to know some players who have made stand-out performances this season.

We would have to start with our pitcher, Myla LaBranche. This is her first year playing softball, and she has surprised everyone with her ability to get the ball over the plate.

Another standout player is Amari Evans. She’s a graduating senior who received an offer from LeMoyne Orange College to play at the collegiate level next year. Her ability to consistently make contact with the ball during games has contributed significantly to our success.

Others are Destiny Walker, an enterprising player this season, and Addie Cooper, a freshman who has also been our best hitter this season.

What are your goals for the rest of the season, and how do you plan to sustain the momentum? 

Our biggest challenge this season was learning how to compete in District 8-5A, which has some of the best teams in the state, like Destrehan, Hahnville, and Thibodaux. These are very strong teams performing well across the state.

We haven’t been able to win this year in District 8, but the main challenge has been learning how to compete. If I had to say what we would like as a goal for the rest of the season, it would be to finish strong, win the games we should win on paper, and compete fiercely against the stronger teams. This would be an excellent way for us to measure our growth.

Early in the season, we weren’t competing with those better teams,  but as the season has progressed, we’ve learned how to compete.

What areas of improvement do you think your team needs to work on? 

Most teams, if not all, would agree that pitching is very important. We definitely need to develop additional players to throw the ball out of the circle. I think the other area would be knowledge of the game, understanding the game, thinking about the game, and knowing what’s going to happen before it happens.

If we can improve there, where we understand what’s supposed to happen, we can make better decisions when we’re making plays in games.

What has been the most challenging aspect of your job this season when working with the team and your recruiting process?

If I were to discuss the most challenging aspect, I would say it’s helping the girls understand what it truly means to be a softball player.

My players’ sportsmanship, camaraderie, routines, procedures, little rituals, and similar things are vital. There are certain aspects of baseball, softball, and any other sport that are germane to the sport. That’s the challenge to helping the team understand what it means to think and be a softball player. 

When you talk about the recruiting process, I think it’s important that I stress my involvement with what I consider local travel softball. I started a team called the Lady Eagles. It focuses on 10 to 14-year-old girls by introducing them early to the game, giving them a chance to have some fun and learn a new sport. I work with them in the off-season; we play in Livingston during the off-season.

What is your proudest accomplishment this season?

My proudest accomplishment so far is seeing the team enjoy learning how to compete and also see them go through the downs and adversity, bounce back, and be resilient. I’m super proud of their ability to go through some hard games, especially in our district, not give up, and continue to work and fight. 

Early in the season, we lost our first game to A.J. Ellender. We were winning 10-12, but we ended up losing 20-12 because we just kind of fell apart at the end. I’m super proud to see them go from not being able to finish to being able to compete throughout the entire game.

I was super proud when we played Destrahane. We gave up 17 runs in the first inning, but we held them to two scoreless innings afterward. To see them come in one game, and bounce back from a horrible first inning to finish the game strong, I’m super proud of them.