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In between his initial stint at Oklahoma under Bob Stoops and his return to lead the Sooners’ football program in 2021, Brent Venables found himself part of a tight-knit Clemson athletics family and pondering a particular question.
“From the moment we got to Clemson I was asking, ‘why don't we have softball here?’” Venables explained in a conversation with the Tulsa World this week. “I’ve always been a softball fan. Love the juice. The energy. The passion for the sport.”
In 2017, Venables got something of an answer. Nearly five years after he exited Norman to gamble on a new chapter on the campus in South Carolina, Clemson established a Division I softball program and placed former Stanford coach John Rittman in charge.
The Tigers embarked on their inaugural campaign three years later in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. The next spring, they tallied a record of 44-8, finished first in the ACC standings and reached the NCAA Tournament. Now four seasons into the fledgling program’s rapid rise, Clemson comes to Marita Hynes Field for the NCAA Norman Super Regional this weekend two wins from its first-ever trip to the Women’s College World Series.
And once among the program’s earliest supporters was one Brent Venables, the defensive coordinator who collected six ACC titles, two national championships and a Broyles Award across a decade with the Tigers before returning to OU.
“This program is a great story,” Venables said. “I love an underdog story. I love a feel-good story. Who doesn't? And so I think that's what you have an appreciation for.”
From its infancy, it’s taken Clemson fewer than five seasons of Division I competition to arrive on the national stage. Reaching the NCAA postseason in every completed campaign since 2020, the No. 16 seed Tigers come to Norman carrying an all-time record of 154-43 (.782).
Leading the roster is two-way All-American star Valerie Cagle, a finalist for NFCA National Player of the Year honors and Clemson’s likely Game 1 starter Friday afternoon (1 p.m., ESPN2). And making its second consecutive Super Regional appearance, Clemson visits top-seeded OU (54-1) with a chance to smash yet another ceiling.
“It's huge,” Rittman, who previously led Stanford from 1997-2014, told the Tulsa World. “This is a great opportunity for our young program.”
The connections between Rittman and Clemson's Super Regional foe this weekend are many.
Rittman’s wife, Lorie Fausett Rittman, was recruited by former OU coaches Marita Hynes and Michelle Thomas and played third base for the Sooners from 1985-89. Today, the Rittmans remain close with Sandy Ochoa, another former Sooner.
Years spent competing on the field and the recruiting trail with OU coach Patty Gasso — and two separate stints with USA Softball headquartered in Oklahoma City — have left Rittman plenty familiar with the area and its dominant softball programs.
And before Rittman even landed at Clemson, he and Venables were already linked. While Rittman worked with the softball program at Kansas in the mid-2010s, one of Venables’ nephews became friends with one of Rittman’s sons.
In 2023, about 18 months after Venables returned to OU, the coaches still share an active relationship.
“Brent and I will text back and forth after big wins or at the end of the year,” Rittman said. “He’s just been a huge support to us and our program ever since he was here.”
For Rittman and a staff of assistants that remains unchanged since 2017, the opportunity to build a program from scratch was among the primary appeals at Clemson. The same element stoked a fascination in Venables, who ultimately overlapped on campus with Rittman and his staff for four years.
At Clemson, the respective coaching staffs are tight. For instance, Rittman now considers Tigers defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin — a Venables protegee — a close friend.
Before Venables became the 23rd head coach in OU’s football history, he observed Rittman and Co. launch a program from the ground up with relative proximity, watching on as the Tigers assembled a staff and built a roster without games to play and constructed a stadium that sold out before Clemson ever took the field.
To hear Venables explain it now, it’s easy to forget whether he’s talking about Clemson softball or returning to familiar musings on the program he’s molding in Norman.
“The depth of the foundation determines the trajectory and the height of the actual building itself,” he said. “They obviously did it the right way, rooted in the right things. Hard work and development and belief. Relationships and trust. So really, there was an innocence about that whole process.”
As Rittman's program took hold on campus, Venables’ daughters took part in the program’s youth camps and the support continued when the $13 million McWhorter Stadium opened in 2020.
Venables would often attend games alongside head football coach Dabo Swinney; the football duo there to watch Swinney’s goddaughter MK Bonamy play first base and to flex the weight of their collective support as two of the most powerful figures on campus.
“It lent credibility to what they were doing just to be another somebody that had a good platform to show support for the softball team,” Venables said. “I think that's a responsibility when you're on a college campus. It’s a small campus community and it’s a small town. Everything rallies around that university. You had a feeling that softball would be supported the same way and that was before we knew if they’d be any good.”
Good, and often better than good, the Tigers have been. It’s what has Rittman and Clemson back within two wins of the WCWS for a second straight spring.
As OU and Clemson prepare to meet on campus for the first time since Venables made the jump back to Norman, one question remains: will Venables be in attendance at Marita Hynes Field this weekend?
“We’re going to be gone,” he said. “I hate that — we’re going to be at the lake, but we’ll be at the nearest TV. I can promise you that.”
Brent Venables and Clemson softball: OU’s coach was an early supporter of the Sooners’ foe
By: Eli Lederman - Tulsa WorldIn between his initial stint at Oklahoma under Bob Stoops and his return to lead the Sooners’ football program in 2021, Brent Venables found himself part of a tight-knit Clemson athletics family and pondering a particular question.
“From the moment we got to Clemson I was asking, ‘why don't we have softball here?’” Venables explained in a conversation with the Tulsa World this week. “I’ve always been a softball fan. Love the juice. The energy. The passion for the sport.”
In 2017, Venables got something of an answer. Nearly five years after he exited Norman to gamble on a new chapter on the campus in South Carolina, Clemson established a Division I softball program and placed former Stanford coach John Rittman in charge.
The Tigers embarked on their inaugural campaign three years later in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. The next spring, they tallied a record of 44-8, finished first in the ACC standings and reached the NCAA Tournament. Now four seasons into the fledgling program’s rapid rise, Clemson comes to Marita Hynes Field for the NCAA Norman Super Regional this weekend two wins from its first-ever trip to the Women’s College World Series.
And once among the program’s earliest supporters was one Brent Venables, the defensive coordinator who collected six ACC titles, two national championships and a Broyles Award across a decade with the Tigers before returning to OU.
“This program is a great story,” Venables said. “I love an underdog story. I love a feel-good story. Who doesn't? And so I think that's what you have an appreciation for.”
From its infancy, it’s taken Clemson fewer than five seasons of Division I competition to arrive on the national stage. Reaching the NCAA postseason in every completed campaign since 2020, the No. 16 seed Tigers come to Norman carrying an all-time record of 154-43 (.782).
Leading the roster is two-way All-American star Valerie Cagle, a finalist for NFCA National Player of the Year honors and Clemson’s likely Game 1 starter Friday afternoon (1 p.m., ESPN2). And making its second consecutive Super Regional appearance, Clemson visits top-seeded OU (54-1) with a chance to smash yet another ceiling.
“It's huge,” Rittman, who previously led Stanford from 1997-2014, told the Tulsa World. “This is a great opportunity for our young program.”
The connections between Rittman and Clemson's Super Regional foe this weekend are many.
Rittman’s wife, Lorie Fausett Rittman, was recruited by former OU coaches Marita Hynes and Michelle Thomas and played third base for the Sooners from 1985-89. Today, the Rittmans remain close with Sandy Ochoa, another former Sooner.
Years spent competing on the field and the recruiting trail with OU coach Patty Gasso — and two separate stints with USA Softball headquartered in Oklahoma City — have left Rittman plenty familiar with the area and its dominant softball programs.
And before Rittman even landed at Clemson, he and Venables were already linked. While Rittman worked with the softball program at Kansas in the mid-2010s, one of Venables’ nephews became friends with one of Rittman’s sons.
In 2023, about 18 months after Venables returned to OU, the coaches still share an active relationship.
“Brent and I will text back and forth after big wins or at the end of the year,” Rittman said. “He’s just been a huge support to us and our program ever since he was here.”
For Rittman and a staff of assistants that remains unchanged since 2017, the opportunity to build a program from scratch was among the primary appeals at Clemson. The same element stoked a fascination in Venables, who ultimately overlapped on campus with Rittman and his staff for four years.
At Clemson, the respective coaching staffs are tight. For instance, Rittman now considers Tigers defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin — a Venables protegee — a close friend.
Before Venables became the 23rd head coach in OU’s football history, he observed Rittman and Co. launch a program from the ground up with relative proximity, watching on as the Tigers assembled a staff and built a roster without games to play and constructed a stadium that sold out before Clemson ever took the field.
To hear Venables explain it now, it’s easy to forget whether he’s talking about Clemson softball or returning to familiar musings on the program he’s molding in Norman.
“The depth of the foundation determines the trajectory and the height of the actual building itself,” he said. “They obviously did it the right way, rooted in the right things. Hard work and development and belief. Relationships and trust. So really, there was an innocence about that whole process.”
As Rittman's program took hold on campus, Venables’ daughters took part in the program’s youth camps and the support continued when the $13 million McWhorter Stadium opened in 2020.
Venables would often attend games alongside head football coach Dabo Swinney; the football duo there to watch Swinney’s goddaughter MK Bonamy play first base and to flex the weight of their collective support as two of the most powerful figures on campus.
“It lent credibility to what they were doing just to be another somebody that had a good platform to show support for the softball team,” Venables said. “I think that's a responsibility when you're on a college campus. It’s a small campus community and it’s a small town. Everything rallies around that university. You had a feeling that softball would be supported the same way and that was before we knew if they’d be any good.”
Good, and often better than good, the Tigers have been. It’s what has Rittman and Clemson back within two wins of the WCWS for a second straight spring.
As OU and Clemson prepare to meet on campus for the first time since Venables made the jump back to Norman, one question remains: will Venables be in attendance at Marita Hynes Field this weekend?
“We’re going to be gone,” he said. “I hate that — we’re going to be at the lake, but we’ll be at the nearest TV. I can promise you that.”
