Wetumpka head softball coach Daryl Otwell added a big name to his coaching staff last week.
Otwell and the school announced that former Holtville and Auburn star KK Dismukes has taken a job as Wetumpka’s new pitching coach. Dismukes has spent the last four seasons at Auburn where she recorded a 9-7 overall record and a 2.45 earned run average before medically retiring in 2022.
At Holtville, she was a four-time All-State selection and Gatorade Player of the Year winner. During her senior season, she went 33-7 with a 1.23 ERA and 316 strikeouts and hit .587 with 23 home runs and 70 RBIs.
“Our coaching staff just got a whole lot better,” Otwell said. “When somebody of her caliber reaches out and wants to coach, of course you get excited. I’m excited to see what our pitching staff can do under her.”
Dismukes has always wanted to coach, whether that be at the high school level or as a graduate assistant at Auburn. And when she reached out to Otwell to see if he knew of anything, it was perfect timing.
Wetumpka just had its pitching coach position open up, Otwell is Dismukes’ former high school coach, her former principal Kyle Futral just became principal at Wetumpka, and her uncle, Michael Dismukes, is the head baseball coach at Wetumpka.
“I’ve always wanted to teach and I thought that Wetumpka was a good place for me to reach out,” Dismukes said. “It kind of all fell into place for me. It’s pretty cool how that worked, and I think it’ll be cool to see the other side of things with Otwell as a player and now as a coach.”
As a pitching coach, Dismukes couldn’t have landed with a better team. She will not have to start with scratch with anybody as Wetumpka has arguably the most talented pitching staff in the state of Alabama.
Wetumpka’s pitching staff has two college-bound pitchers on it. Troy commit Mya Holt, the 2023 Gatorade Player of the Year and two-time Elmore County Player of the Year, is a rising senior in this class.
She’s joined by teammate and fellow All-State member Ella Watson, a West Alabama commit.
Between the two of them, they had a 52-6 record and allowed only 47 earned runs in 333.2 innings while striking out 329 batters.
The two combined had lower than a 1.00 earned run average.
Dismukes knows her new pitchers already know the basics of pitching, so she will help in other ways. She wants to be a mentor, and help teach them how to prepare for the ins-and-outs of college pitching.
Pitching is as much mental as it is physical, and she knows what it takes mentally to be a college pitcher and excel in the circle.
“There’s always something to fix pitching,” Dismukes said. “You have to be focused and you have to take the time to perfect each pitch. I think taking time to help them with little things they may not know will help them. I can help them with the stress and the pressure side of things.”
Wetumpka isn’t just returning its two premier pitchers. The Indians, which won their second state championship in program history this year after winning a state-best 56 games, return eight of their nine starters for the 2024 season.
The only player not returning is shortstop Ashlynn Campbell, who graduated and is signed with Purdue.
The returning players for Wetumpka had a combined .355 batting average with 87 doubles, 14 triples, 49 home runs, and 372 RBIs.
With that much talent returning and Wetumpka being the clear-cut favorite to repeat in Class 6A next season, Dismukes is hoping to help any and every player anyway she can.
“I think I’ll just see where they need me,” Dismukes said. “Whether they’re wanting to go to college or they just need life advice. I want to be there for them and be someone those girls can come to for anything. Me being able to do that and impacting them in a positive way will mean the world to me.
