In light of the whole Rene Lyst situation, ASU has finally hired a new head coach to replace her. Lyst was hired after the retirement of John Spini, coming over from a position at Arkansas. Ever since then, it has gone downhill from there, and there were so many injuries and transfers that they couldn't even fill up whole lineups for a time. While they had a freshman class coming in that seemed like it could turn around, the injuries continued, and, eventually, she was placed on administrative leave, and it was safe to say this meant she would not return as head coach next season. For the rest of the season, their assistant coach served as interim head coach, and just in that time period it was obvious that the girls seemed a lot happier when they were not being coached by Lyst.
I really wanted to believe in Lyst, but at some point you just have to realize that they are not being effective or doing a good job as coach (Penn State, you get the memo? Stop denying toxic situations, ok?). After the season was over, ASU announced that they were beginning their search for a new head coach. They found their duo.
In come Jay and Jessica Santos, each who have numerous coaching positions under their belt. Most recently, they served as coaches at Eastern Michigan, where for the past two years they have been changing the culture and Breaking Boundaries (#BreakingBoundaries). Yep, with their help, EMU burst onto the scene, breaking numerous school records (this year, they broke 196 for the first time and then some, it seemed like they set a new record every week), including qualifying a whole team to regionals for the first time in school history. They were even on the verge of qualifying to nationals. In that crazy Ann Arbor regional, they led halfway through and gave the other teams a run for their money, in a regional where Auburn and Stanford upset(?) Michigan in the regional that we all knew would be a fight to the end (until a Michigan beamplosion), and EMU impressively stuck with them.
What happened at EMU, now Jay and Jessica have a chance to do the same at ASU and transform another program, the chance to transform it out of the ruins of the Lyst era and at the minimum bring it back to where it once was, if not improve it greater than it ever has been. ASU definitely did a great job scouting them, and I can't wait to see what is in store for this program in years to come (though it comes with the sadness of them leaving EMU) as they try to (and hopefully, likely) rebuild the ASU program. Best of luck to them in their new endeavor!
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