Greg Van Zant looks on closely from inside the dugout and directs his outfield to play slightly deeper in an effort to best position themselves for a no-doubles defense.
It’s one of numerous situational aspects Van Zant, the head coach of Bridgeport High School softball, attempts to make his team aware of during a game at North Marion last Wednesday.
For the fourth-longest tenured and second-winningest head coach in the history of West Virginia University baseball, this is Van Zant’s new norm in his first season overseeing softball at Bridgeport.
“I love the softball world,” Van Zant says. “It’s amazing when you’re in the baseball world, you’re not even aware of softball. The girls are athletic. I really enjoy working with them and they’re eager to learn.”
His first Bridgeport team includes daughter Reese Van Zant, a sophomore shortstop/pitcher and leadoff hitter for a squad with no seniors.
Of 14 players, the Indians roster is comprised of two juniors, eight sophomores and four freshmen.
After a 3-0 start and wins in five of its first seven games, Bridgeport (6-11) has lost nine of 10, including a 4-3 setback to the Huskies that didn’t finish until Thursday after being suspended due to weather with BHS trailing 1-0 in the fourth.
“We just have a lot of inexperience. We have no seniors and we’re playing mainly sophomores,” Van Zant said. “The girls are really battling. I’m impressed with them. They have great attitudes and work hard.”
Bridgeport’s fourth head coach in the last four seasons, Van Zant is hopeful he can bring stability to the softball program.
“You’re not going to be state champs in one year. We have so much inexperience,” Van Zant said. “But I hope to coach for as long as I can. I really enjoy it.”
Van Zant is hardly new to softball, having coached the Marion County Wolfpack, a travel team, for five years at the 12-U, 14-U and 16-U levels prior to accepting the BHS job.
That followed a near-decade long run as an umpire, a position that kept Van Zant plenty busy after he was fired from his position at WVU in May 2012 following his 18th season as Mountaineer head coach.
“I was doing Division II, Division III, NAIA, JUCO, and on days I was off, I would do high school games,” Van Zant said. “I was umpiring all over the area. Ron Whiting assigned the games. He’s awesome and a great umpire. It was really educational to umpire, because up until that point, I’d only played and coached. It’s part of the game. I think every coach should have to umpire some, because it gives you a different perspective.
“I loved umpiring, but then COVID hit and Reese started playing softball. I thought instead of me running all over the place and doing 200 or 225 games a year … sometimes I was doing three and four games a day in the summer, I’m going to spend my time with my daughter and help her have a good experience with it.”
Van Zant expresses no ill will regarding his lengthy tenure at WVU, one that saw him first serve as an assistant coach from 1991-94 under previous head coach Dale Ramsburg.
Ramsburg died in November of 1994 at 53 from cancer and Van Zant became the next head coach.
The Mountaineers struggled to an 18-32 record in Van Zant’s first season, but went 33-25 and qualified for the NCAA Tournament the next year.
Although West Virginia won 36 and 37 games, respectively in 1997 and 1998, it didn’t qualify for the NCAA Tournament either occasion and ultimately failed to play into the postseason over the rest of Van Zant’s tenure as head coach.
Still, Van Zant, Big East Coach of the Year in 1997, garnered that honor again in 2003 when the Mountaineers finished 36-19, including 18-6 within the league.
WVU posted a winning record in 11 of of his 18 seasons as head coach, though following a 37-18 campaign in 2009, the Mountaineers went 78-89 over the next three seasons, including 23-32 in 2012 — what marked Van Zant’s final year manning the dugout in Morgantown.
“Ed Pastilong was the best athletic director ever. He was awesome to work for,” Van Zant said. “In those days, the athletic department didn’t have the money. Now they have funny money from the Big 12. We did the best we could with what we had and we still had some really good teams and a lot of professional players. We didn’t even have a dressing room. It’s hard to recruit a top kid when you’re dressing in the back of your car. Our dugouts were just like this [the ones at North Marion]. I wanted to put a clubhouse behind the dugout at Hawley Field, but we just never got the funding and never got a chance to get it done.”
A Williamson native and third baseman at WVU from 1980-83, Van Zant had a final record of 528-451-1 with the Mountaineers before he was replaced by Randy Mazey.
Three years into Mazey’s tenure as head coach, the Mountaineers began playing at Monongalia County Ballpark (what is now Kendrick Family Ballpark).
Investment in the program and available scholarships are at an all-time high at West Virginia, which qualified for the NCAA Tournament four times in Mazey’s 12 seasons as head coach and again in 2025 in Steve Sabins’ first year after he replaced Mazey.
The Mountaineers had one losing season under Mazey — a 25-27 campaign in 2021. They’ve been in the NCAA Tournament each of the last three years, advanced to the Super Regional round in the last two and were Big 12 Conference champions in 2023 and 2025.
“I follow it like everybody else, but I’m so busy,” Van Zant said. “I’m pretty much focused on our team. But baseball has really done a great job. When I was coaching, what you needed was a nice facility. When we were joining the Big 12, I told [former WVU Director of Athletics] Oliver Luck if we’re going to compete in the Big 12, we have to either upgrade Hawley Field and make it awesome, which it could’ve been, or build a facility.”
The stadium has undoubtedly provided a major boost to the Mountaineer baseball program, which now also benefits from the use of a state-of-the-art Biomechanics and Performance Center.
Though Van Zant never got to see the program through those upgrades, he is content with what’s transpired since.
“Things happen for a reason,” he said. “One thing about it, if I was still coaching, I would’ve missed my daughter growing up. There’s always a silver lining. I’m happy with the way things turned out.”