Monica Kirschner is happy to be coming home. Again.

“I come back to BD sporting events a lot mainly because of my father (Mike Kirschner) being the head football coach, but also just enjoying supporting my high school,” said 2006 graduate Monica Kirschner, who was named the new softball coach this week. “I also see it as an opportunity to give back to the community and to the people that helped me become who I am today. I know I had great coaches at Ben Davis in all of my sports who were major influences for me and I hope to do the same for these young ladies.”

Monica was a standout volleyball, basketball and softball played while at Ben Davis. She currently is a fulltime professor in exercise science at Marian University, having received her undergraduate degree from the University of Indianapolis and her masters from Ball State.

“ ​I always enjoyed playing softball and it is a sport that I do miss being apart of and I saw the opportunity to be apart of the game again so I jumped at the chance,” Kirschner said. “And what’s even better is it is at my alma mater.”

Monica replaces math teacher Dee Dowler, who took over the baseball program last month.

As ghe daughter of ssuccessful high school football coach, Monica knows what it takes to lead a program.

“​I have learned quite a bit from my father in regards to coaching, maybe too much,” she said. “I have been told by many I am quite like my father when it comes to coaching and I always smile when someone tells me that because I am never quite sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Some personality traits that we share would be our level of intensity that we coach with and our work ethic.”

Monica’s immediate goals include

 “​Get the girls to “buy in” to the coaching philosophy set forth by my staff.
  “Hit the ground running come January with open gym/conditioning so that we are ready to go come March 9.”

Her long-range goals are:

“​I would like to see this program compete for the Sectional title year in and year out as well as compete for the Marion County Title.

“Any athlete I have interested in continuing their softball career at the collegiate level I want to help them get there.  I want to see these girls succeed.

“We have quite a few girls who play travel ball and I would like to see more girls get involved with travel ball to help build a stronger program.

“ I want to reach out to our youth league programs and start building from the ground up so to speak.”