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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 27, ISSUE 4 83 led a pitching staff that had the third-best ERA in the conference (3.04). So De Oliveira and her staff are charged with re- building, to an extent, by reloading the talent in the program. De Oliveira seems to be the right person for that charge. In her first stint as an assistant coach at Purdue from 2007-2010, she helped Purdue land some of the best players in the program's history. Andie Varsho is the school's all-time leader in average and hits and second in runs and steals; Burkhardt ranks fifth in ca- reer average and RBI; Danielle Fletcher is fourth all- time in RBI and home runs, and Molly Garst holds the record for stolen bases and is third all-time in average. A key piece is evaluating talent, certainly, but per- sonality plays a factor, too. And De Oliveira said her outgoing, genuine personality makes her a good re- cruiter. It also helps day-to-day, too, in how she approaches her current team and coaching staff. De Oliveira has high expectations and standards but isn't a task-master about achieving them. She is good at what Rivera-Eberhart called sandwiching — book-ending necessary instruction and criticism with compliments. It's an approach De Oliveira recom- mends to her players, too, especially the catchers she works with — she coaches both pitchers and catchers, actually, a good fit because she's played both spots — when she'll have them offer a tip with "great spot, bad spin," for example. "She's got good vibes all the time," said Johnson, a pitcher. "I would say she's straight up and honest. She's very good at giving a balance, giving correction but at the same time giving the positive side of things, too. "I think she really cares about us as individuals, too. One thing that she likes to do is say, 'What's your high and low of the day?' Our core value is family. So she really cares about us as individuals." There's family, core values again. They're peppered in seemingly every conversation. That's intentional, too. Over the course of De Oliveira's playing and coach- ing career, the bulk of which has been as an assistant with stops at Arkansas, Arizona State, North Carolina and Purdue, she'd learned the importance of team, of focusing on intangibles, of (being intentional) about behind-the-scenes areas that can speak volumes about success. "She's very big on people, on culture," Rivera-Eber- hart said. "We work just as much on softball skill as on our team culture and our people skill. … When you ask any coach, any sport, list three things that will help them win or three things that are not going to help you, I'd bet you it's not even a skill. It's selfishness. It's team drama. It's not working hard. "We're a true believer of those little tiny things are going to help us in the end. Once that stuff starts working, I think we can go anywhere we want. "We live it. Where I think a lot of other programs they say it, but do they really live it?" j