Goodman joins the Highlanders for her first season as an assistant coach after her hiring being announced August 31, 2022. Goodman's role with the Highlanders will be as the primary pitching coach.
Goodman will bring to the New River Valley an impressive playing and coaching résumé. Goodman was competing as a professional athlete in Italy and the Netherlands. While there, she performed in competitive A1 leagues with Club Forli and the Amsterdam Pirates. She also helped instruct younger players on pitching fundamentals, observing cultural differences in pitching fundamentals along the way.
On the coaching side, Goodman most recently spent time at Southern Miss as a graduate assistant coach where she instructed and designed bullpens, called pitches in games, and created strength, preventative arm care and recovery plans for pitchers.
Goodman has also served as a fastpitch softball pitching coach with the Overdrive Club Team in Biloxi, Miss.. Working with the team, she scheduled and instructed private lessons in group and individual settings, teaching eight to 18-year-old youth pitching mechanics, leadership skills and physical fitness.
The Long Beach, Miss. Native also spent four years as a collegiate athlete. Her career began at the JuCo level with Chipola College, where she totaled a 51-4 record over two years with 438 strikeouts over 363.1 innings. Her performance at Chipola helped guide the team to a runner-up finish at the NJCAA Championship in 2018.
From there, Goodman joined one of the best softball teams in the country in Alabama and was excellent in three seasons with the Crimson Tide. In 2019, Goodman made 25 appearance going 11-1 with a 1.63 ERA across 94.1 innings pitched. In the shortened 2020 season, she made six appearances with wins over Liberty and Penn State. Goodman earned CoSIDA Academic All-District Honors and CoSIDA Second Team Academic All-American during the 2020 season.
During her final collegiate campaign in 2021, Goodman made 12 appearances including a win over 13th-ranked Louisiana and finishing a combined no-hitter against Alabama State in the NCAA Regionals.
