Thirty-three years.
That’s how long Lisa Costello coached Towson softball, two years as an assistant coach and the last 31 years at the helm.
Costello has been the head coach for more than 60 percent of Towson softball’s entire existence, which dates back to 1976. Her three-plus decades of excellence in Baltimore County came to a close when the coach officially retired in early May. She has been enjoying time off since then.
“It’s hard to put into words,” Costello said. “Throughout the past three decades, I’ve always just gone year to year thinking, ‘What’s next?’ and ‘How do we get better?’ and all of that. All year, I knew that this was the last year, so I had the chance to change my mindset and just worry about coaching. I was able to just be in the moment all year.
“There wasn’t that this-is-it moment. … This just felt right and that’s how I’ve known all along that this was just the right time.”
Costello was the youngest head softball coach at any college program in the nation at just 26 years of age when she was hired in 1996. She was several years removed from a successful playing career at then-Trenton State College, now known as The College of New Jersey. She graduated from the school in 1990.
Born and raised in Vineland, N.J., 75 miles or so from TCNJ’s campus, Costello began her college career at Iowa in the Big Ten before heading back to the Garden State to play for the Lions, helping them win two NCAA Division III national championships in 1987 and 1989.
She then served as an assistant at Rider for three years before getting started at Towson. She worked as an assistant under Tigers head coach Elayne “Otts” Lucas for two seasons.
Lucas was at the helm of the Tigers’ program for seven seasons, recording four 20-win seasons, including a then-program-record 28 wins in 1995, which would be broken in Costello’s fourth season as head coach in 1999.
However, Lucas also worked with the volleyball program. That allowed Costello to take the reins of the softball team more, knowing she had trust from her head coach.
“She was a legend,” Costello said. “Everyone knew about Otts. I had the opportunity to come down and be her assistant coach for all of $2,000 and she taught me a ton. … I had to learn on the fly too. I had the opportunity to run things the way she wanted me to run them on my own, so it gave me a good safety net and a lot of trial and error.”
Costello’s coaching tenure in both the America East Conference and most recently the Coastal Athletic Association took Towson to new heights as a program. The Tigers won a program-best 42 games in 2018 and had 10 30-win seasons and an additional 16 20-win seasons under Costello. Towson won 30 or more games in each season from 1999-2006.
Overall, Costello posted an 857-773-3 record, breaking the 850-win mark in late March.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is that I stayed at Towson,” Costello said. “I didn’t jump program to program. I committed here. Once I got here, I really dug in and I wanted to make this program something special. With the support that I got, I was able to do that. All of those 850-plus wins were at Towson. That’s one of the things I look back on that I’m really proud of.”
“I got here just to get experience,” the coach added. “I was only going to stay for a few years because it was part-time, but the program just kept elevating.”
The Tigers, a perennial contender in the CAA in recent years, finished second in the regular-season standings seven times under Costello and reached the conference tournament championship game three times.
Costello guided Towson to the 2018 National Invitational Softball Championship (NISC), the program’s first-ever postseason appearance. The Tigers fell in a best-of-three series to Eastern Kentucky in Region 3 action.
“Lisa has been a staple of Tiger athletics for parts of four decades, an unrivaled showing of dedication and commitment to this program,” Towson athletic director Steve Eigenbrot said in a statement.
Costello searched for undervalued, undiscovered talent, especially around Maryland, to help the Tigers go on unprecedented stretches of success compared to their modest beginnings.
All-conference selections were scattered throughout, but what never changed was Costello’s individual approach to the game, one that helped mold some of the best players in program history.
“We kept putting out great kids and great young women,” Costello said. “We’ve been fortunate to bring in great kids. We’ve been fortunate to have a great staff.”
Towson’s next coach will have big shoes to fill. Whoever is brought in to take the reins of the program, expectations for the Tigers will undoubtedly be high.
“She’s watched this campus, our department and her program evolve tremendously in her tenure and done so with unwavering Towson pride,” Eigenbrot said. “It’s hard to put her impact on this program into words, but this department and I are extremely grateful for all that she has done and she will be missed.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Towson Athletics
Originally published June 24, 2026