FGCU softball coach David Deiros to retire after 2025 season

Florida Gulf Coast softball head coach David Deiros preaches to his team to always be in the present. That message has become a promise Deiros made to his team as he prepares for his final season as head coach.

“I would be a hypocrite if I was looking ahead,” Deiros said. “I would be a hypocrite to my players when I’m telling them forget about the bad rep they just had and focus on the very next one. And that’s not the way, if I’m going to preach it, I better be able to do it. So every day is going to be preparing them for what they have to do right here, right now.”

Deiros is retiring as the school’s softball head coach at the end of the 2025 season after 24 years. He isn’t going far as he’ll transition to a leadership role within the athletic administration. Deiros told his team Jan. 16 about his decision.

“I thought I was going to be a big tough guy,” Deiros recalled. “And I held it together for most of it. And what did it for me was looking at their faces. It was a mix. A mix of poker faces, a mix of smiles, a mix of some sadness of along the way. And I was trying to process it. It when I told them the only reason I would leave coaching them was because it was too big of an opportunity to pass up.”

Deiros said his exact title and job within the administration still has to be defined. He did say that he’s there to help guide the athletic department through the changing world of college athletics.

Deiros is the one and only coach this program has had. He was hired in 2001 from Gulf Coast High School, tasked with building the program from scratch. Now, FGCU softball has won over 750 games and is fresh of its second ASUN Tournament title and NCAA Softball Tournament appearance.

Deiros said, “I was a high school coach. I thought this was the next step in the progression. I didn’t know how steep the progression would be. I didn’t know how far we would be able to come. And I don’t think you can try to find it but I don’t think anyone in the country in the span of five years went from NAIA to Division II to Division I, to winning as well as we’ve won just over the last 24 years.”

In his first interview since announcing his decision, Deiros told WINK News he was going to miss two things the most from coaching: the players and competing.

“That’s what I’m going to enjoy most about this last season is just competing with them,” Deiros said. “Because you don’t get those opportunities in administration. You don’t get to compete with a scoreboard. Its a different competition. That’s how I’m going to have to play it.”