After four years of leading the Elmore County softball program, Mark Segrest is stepping down as head coach.
Segrest is stepping away from the high school softball ranks. His daughter, Anna Catherine Segrest, just graduated from Elmore County and as she moves on from the high school, so will he.
The Tallassee native has led Elmore County’s program since the 2019-2020 season and was in charge of the Edgewood Academy softball program for two and half seasons before.
During that time, he led the two schools to a cumulative 221-87-4 record, two state championships at Edgewood, and three-straight trips to the state tournament at Elmore County.
“The main reason for me stepping down is Anna Catherine graduating and moving on to the next level,” Segrest said. “That’s what ultimately led to my decision. Honestly, about four or five years at one place is probably enough, but I’m very proud of what we accomplished while I’ve been here.”
Segrest, much like he did at Edgewood Academy prior to taking the Elmore County job, completely turned around the Elmore County softball program. In the three years before Segrest took over, the Panthers had a combined 34 wins.
In his first season as head coach, Elmore County was ranked No. 1 in Class 4A with a 16-3 record before the season was shut down due to COVID-19.
Since then, his Panthers have won 43, 37, and 35 wins in each season and have played in the state tournament in Oxford each season. Overall at Elmore County, Segrest has accumulated a record of 131-52-4.
“In three years and one month we’ve had 131 wins,” Segrest said. “These players and seniors have done a phenomenal job turning this program around. I think we’ve certainly established ourselves as one of the most consistent 5A programs in the state.”
At Edgewood Academy, he took over the program midway through the 2017 season when the Wildcats had not won the state championship since 2014.
But in 2018 and 2019, his Edgewood teams went back-to-back and won the AISA state championship with a combined record of 90-35.
“Both of the high school programs that I was able to contribute to just needed a different culture,” Segrest said. “As a coach, that’s the toughest thing to do but we were able to do that at both programs. Sometimes if you have a certain coach, some kids buy in and some don’t but we had enough players and coaches buy in at both places to have a successful program. I've been lucky to have a lot of good players and equally as important, a lot of great assistant coaches."
Segrest loves to win, but he knows his No. 1 job as a coach is to help his players develop and help them get to the next level if they want to. He’s done that over and over again as he’s sent numerous players to play college softball, including three of his seniors from this Elmore County squad.
And while he loves to win, he’s shown that he can do so at a high level. Between his time as a player, assistant coach and now head coach, Segrest has won seven state championships. He helped lead Tallassee to three as a player and then two as an assistant coach with Tallassee before his two with Edgewood.
While his state championships will always hold a special place in his heart because of what it means to win it all, his favorite memories at the high school level will be spending time with his players.
“My best memories are just the relationships with my players,” “Just being on the field with my players and competing because we run a very tight ship. It’s a lot of discipline and it’s doing things differently than they’ve done in the past. For those players who stuck it out and took that approach, they made a lot of improvements and I couldn’t be prouder of what’s happened over the last six years total.”
Segrest is stepping away from the high school ranks, but he’s going to stay around softball.
He will coach one more season of travel ball before Anna Catherine joins the Faulkner program in the fall. When she does that, he looks forward to helping and contributing to Faulkner in any way or role he can.
“Honestly, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. I’ve been able to really be Anna Catherine’s only coach since she was five years old, and to be around and watch her contribute at Faulkner in some capacity over the next four years means everything to me. She’s always been a really good player, but more importantly she’s always played the game the right way and she will always be my favorite player.”
