Tara Rodrick enters her 13th season as the associate head coach for the nationally renowned Salt Lake softball program.
The Bruins demonstrated their dominance by sweeping the Scenic West Athletic Conference regular season and Region 18 postseason tournaments. They concluded the year with a remarkable 47-9 overall record, including a 36-4 record in SWAC play.
In her tenure, SLCC has had 16 All-Americans, six SWAC Pitchers-of-the-Year, and six SWAC Players-of-the-Year.
Prior to coming to SLCC, Bendt served as an assistant coach at Utah Valley University, where she helped lead the Wolverines to a third-place finish in the Pacific Coast Softball Conference. UVU had the most wins in school history with a 35-20 overall record in 2013.
She worked as a volunteer assistant at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV) in the spring of 2012 and was a team manager for the University of Utah during the 2010-11 season. Bendt also played professionally for two seasons after graduating from UNLV for the PFX Tour.
Bendt began her collegiate playing career at SLCC, where she earned SWAC Player-of-the-Year honors as an outfielder and was named an NJCAA First Team All-American in 2008. She was also a distinguished Academic All-American at SLCC as well.
She then transferred to UNLV and led the Rebels in batting average in each of her two seasons, hitting .379 as a junior in 2009 and closing out her collegiate campaign by hitting .382. For her performance, Bendt was named a First Team All-Mountain West Conference player in 2010 and was a two-time all-conference scholar-athlete. She also played professionally for two years with the Pro Fastpitch Tour 2010-12.
Bendt worked under SLCC coach Cyndee Bennett as an assistant coach at Olympus High School from 2011-13. In addition to her duties on the Salt Lake coaching staff, she is heavily involved in athletics promotions, strength-and-conditioning training, and academic advising for SLCC.
Bendt was named the 2015 National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) NJCAA Assistant Coach of the Year.
She is a native of South Dakota and has two sisters, one of whom is her identical twin sister, who also played for SLCC.
She and her husband, GW Rodrick, currently reside in South Jordan, UT. The couple has one child, Will, who was born in 2023.
