AUBURN, Ala. – Commuting in Chicago traffic for the nearly four decades he coached softball at DePaul, Eugene Lenti honked his car horn as often as a Manhattan taxi driver.
On the Plains? Not so much.
"I've yet to beep my horn, which is something I'm really proud of," said Lenti, in his first season as an Auburn assistant coach. "When you go back in Chicago, you're right on that horn, right away. Here, it's a slower pace and that's fine with me. I've enjoyed the South tremendously."
To avoid Windy City traffic jams, Lenti would bike the six miles to work when weather permitted. When it didn't, he found another way to minimize rush hour.
"I'm always getting to work before traffic," he said. "I would leave early just to avoid traffic. That's a big difference."
A quieter commute is not the only difference Lenti has observed.
"People are different, too," he said. "Chicago's a great city and people are very polite, and people are very polite down here. The younger people, I noticed, when we worked camp. People say, 'Yes ma'am, no ma'am. Yes sir, no sir.' That's not happening in the Midwest. There's please and thank you everywhere, but it's not yes ma'am, no ma'am, as well.
"The facilities are a huge difference. You're landlocked when you're in the city. Here, the facility is phenomenal, the weather is phenomenal. The resources are greater.
"At DePaul, the motto was, 'Do more with less.' Here, it's, 'What do you need to do more?' The resources are a big difference."
DePaul's all-time winningest coach, Lenti won 1,327 games with the Blue Demons over 37 seasons, from 1980-87 and 1990-2018, including four trips to the Women's College World Series.
One season in retirement was enough to lure Lenti back to the diamond, especially when it included working with Auburn head coach Mickey Dean, his former professional softball coaching colleague with the Chicago Bandits.
"The opportunity to get back to the World Series, to work with Mickey again, those opportunities are too good for me to pass up," he said. "We have a great rapport, great respect for each other. That's really what was attractive to me."
Working primarily with Auburn's hitters and outfielders, Lenti avoids a one-size-fits-all approach.
"You have to work within the framework of what the student-athletes bring to the table," he said. "I would never want to change anybody's style as a hitter. I think you're trying to educate them, make them a little bit more sophisticated. Then having a sound, solid approach when you get to the plate.
"This is something Ted Williams said 70 years ago. The key to being a good hitter is getting a good pitch to hit."
"I want to work with them within the framework of what the player already knows as an outfielder, as a baserunner, as a hitter, and then enhance that to the best of their abilities."
For Eugene Lenti, much has changed in the past year. He's traded the Midwest for the South, and a head coach's broad responsibilities for an assistant's more focused role. One thing hasn't changed: his desire to help student-athletes grow, on and off the softball field.
"The most enjoyable thing is the development of young people," he said. "When I see now that we have doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, teachers, coaches, physician assistants, nurses, physical therapists all over the United States, and people who are contributing back, not only to their community and society but also to their alma mater, that's always been the most enjoyable thing to me.
"From a coaching point of view, any time you get a person or a group to excel beyond their potential, that's so rewarding. That's what we're trying to have happen here.
"I'm having a great time and I love every minute of being here. I really do. I'm looking forward to bringing some championships to Auburn, too, and going back to the World Series."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer