SEASIDE – When Thomas Main told his wife his softball coaching plans moving forward, he didn’t exactly get the stamp of approval.
Coaching softball – the last 19 at Stevenson – has been in his blood for more than three decades. It still is. Yet, Main felt a change was needed.
“My wife feels I have a lot more to give,” said Main, who stepped down recently as the Pirates’ coach. “My door is always open.”
Between spending time in Italy watching his daughter Jensen pitch professionally, and dropping his other daughter Tomi off at Texas Christian University, where she will play tennis this fall, Main hasn’t had much time to reflect.
Sandwiched in between that, Main – who also provides hitting lessons — was in Colorado Springs, coaching the Salinas Storm 14-under softball team.
“I’m still very much involved in the sport,” said Main, a former pitcher at Seaside High. “It was just time. This has never been about wins or titles. It’s always been about teaching the game.”
Success, however, was prominent upon Main’s arrival as an assistant, helping the Pirates claim five straight league titles, with a pair of Central Coast Section Division III final appearances.
“I never wanted to be the head coach at Stevenson,” Main said. “I enjoyed being Sam’s (Garcia) assistant. But he wanted to go back to school and get his degree. So five years into it, we switched places.”
The pinnacle in Main’s coaching career came in 2022 when Stevenson captured the program’s first ever CCS Division V softball title.
Having won the Mission Division crown in 2023, Stevenson was placed in the CCS Division I playoffs — a year after winning the Division V title — where it was humbled in the first round by perennial power Carlmont of Belmont.
“I never understood the rationale of how that happened,” Main said. “We won our league, but we did not blow people out. We just hung around and figured out how to win a game.”
Despite losing four starters to graduation, the Pirates were bumped to the Gabilan Division this past spring, where they stumbled to a 2-12 record.
“When I told (athletic director) Justin (Clymo) I was stepping down, he said ‘you are going out with that record?’” Main said. “I told him I felt it was one of the best jobs I had done.”
That’s because Stevenson didn’t play its first game until most schools were a month into their seasons. As a result, Main counted 10 full practices throughout the spring.
Yet, the Pirates were competitive, beating two-time CCS Division II champion Monterey, and falling to Division I champion Salinas by one run in their second meeting.
All four of their overall wins came against playoff-bound teams, including a season-ending 4-3 win over King City.
“If you look at our results, we were in a lot of games,” Main said. “Claren (Wong) kept games close for us in the circle. I think we had six games decided by one run.”
A highlight for Main was coaching all three of his daughters, with two of them earning Division I softball scholarships, and the other garnering a Division I tennis scholarship.
“There is such a big disparity of athletes from when my daughter Caroline pitched (2008) to when Jensen pitched (2016),” Main said. “Just a different mentality. But you can do a lot with a good pitcher.”
Over the past two years, Main cut Friday practices as a means of keeping his players’ minds sharp and interested over the course of the season.
“I remember people were asking ‘you’re not practicing the day before the section title game in 2022?” Main laughed. “Why change a routine that’s worked all year. It was a big hit with the girls.”
Arriving as an assistant coach just as his oldest daughter Caroline was evolving into one of the top pitchers in the section, the start of his tenure at Stevenson was a bit awkward.
“I remember showing up on Feb. 1 and Sam looks at me and says ‘what are you doing here?’” Main said. “I said ‘didn’t you ask me to help’? He said but your daughter isn’t here (still playing basketball). I told him I’m not here just to coach my daughter.”
Of all the milestones achieved at Stevenson during Main’s tenure, one moment that sticks out came in 2009 when the Pirates took part in the Tracy Tournament.
Stevenson went 2-2 in the tournament, beating an opponent whose pitcher had a scholarship in place to Washington. That, however, was not what everyone was talking about. Instead, it was their jerseys, which said Stevenson across the front.
“All these people couldn’t understand how we were that competitive,” Main said. “They thought we were from the town of Stevenson, which I believe has a population of 38. We all had a good laugh.”
The one thing that Main won’t forget is the bonds he built with a lot of his players, the passion that was exhibited – even if a majority of his players were seasonal.
“The camaraderie with the girls is something I’ll never forget,” Main said. “And I had a good time coaching my daughter Tomi. She wasn’t a softball player. But she battled, played shortstop and earned every bit of it.”
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