Tennessee softball assistant coaches Craig Snider and Stephanie Sanders will not be retained on Karen Weekly’s staff after the season, ending a brief run together that began when Weekly hired them to replace the Malveuxes after 2024. The move was described as mutual, even as Tennessee again reached the Women’s College World Series semifinals.
The change lands on June 8, when readers are looking for what comes next after a 49-12 season and a 16-8 SEC mark that tied for fourth place. It also comes with a familiar backdrop: Tennessee’s offense has been its downfall in the Women’s College World Series the last two seasons, and the staff shakeup points straight at that problem.
Snider arrived from Texas Tech, where he went 60-43 in two seasons and 13-29 in Big 12 play after three years as a hitting coach at Texas A&M. His résumé also includes eight years at Florida State, where he was part of the 2018 national championship staff, along with stops at Stephen F. Austin, Oklahoma as a graduate assistant, Centenary and Lindsey Wilson College. Sanders was not an active college coach when Tennessee hired her. She had previously worked at Penn State, Miami (Ohio) and Villanova after playing at Michigan State, and spent the 2021-22 seasons at Penn State as recruiting coordinator while coaching the outfielders and catchers.
Weekly brought both in after Chris and Kate Malveaux left for Auburn, and the pair came with another note that set them apart from most coaching hires: they were engaged when Tennessee hired them and got married shortly afterward. Snider’s base salary was $170,000 and Sanders’ was $70,000, underscoring how much of the staff structure Weekly had built around them.
Even with Tennessee’s power numbers — 76 home runs, the third-highest total in the SEC, and a.496 slugging percentage — the offense still ranked outside the top half of the league in batting average at.281, runs scored at 322 and on-base percentage at.385. The Vols also struck out 249 times, and those cracks mattered most when the season tightened in June. Tennessee has not said who will take those jobs next, and that decision will tell the clearest story about whether Weekly is looking for a tweak or a wider reset.
