The softball team announced the newest addition to its staff on Tuesday with the hiring of assistant coach Jim Beitia. Bringing a wealth of experience to the Wolfpack, Beitia has been coaching softball for 24 years, even serving as a head coach for Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Beitia has spent the last three years as the director of operations for Arizona State, winning a national championship last season. His role with the Sun Devils was mostly administrative — similar to a general manager in major league baseball. He said he is looking forward to the chance to get back on the field and help coach a top program.

“It was an easy decision,” Beitia said. “I like to be involved with top-25 programs. I felt like this was a program that was a top-25 program.”

Beitia joins head coach Lisa Navas, who is entering her sixth season with the Wolfpack–a program which she built from the ground up. At Tennessee, Beitia faced a similar situation of starting a Division I program from scratch. He said he has great respect for how far Navas has taken the program.

“It actually takes a lot more work than anyone can comprehend,” Beitia said. “When you start a program from scratch, something as simple as when you bring recruits in [can be difficult]. You don’t have any players to be hosts and you don’t have players that can explain what the program’s like.”

As an assistant for State, Beitia will be the outfielders position coach and will help instruct hitting. Even after being head coach at big schools in the past, he said he prefers the role of assistant.

“My plan is to stay here and help get this program to a world series,” Beitia said. “I’ve been a head coach at a couple different places. It’s not like I’m going to come here and look for the next head coaching job. I’ve already been there. I’ve always liked my niche of just being on the staff.”