The sand might be whiter and the water bluer in Jacksonville, Fla., but the grass wasn’t greener for Jen Bagley.

The Missouri Western softball coach turned down the head coaching position with Division I North Florida last month to remain in St. Joseph. Bagley interviewed with the Ospreys — who jumped to the D-I ranks in 2005 — May 30, and North Florida offered her the position in early June.

Bagley, whose former assistant was friends with North Alabama’s outgoing coach, Sonya Wilmoth, had 12 days to consider the Ospreys’ offer while she coached for American International Sports Tours in Italy. And the further along Bagley got in the process, the more hesitant she felt about it.

“They didn’t have things in place that we had here,” Bagley said. “They are going through growing pains much the same as Missouri Western is, getting facilities built and keeping up with the Joneses. Western has the money and plans. They were behind where we were.”

While Florida offers a deeper pool of recruiting talent and climate much more fitting to winter practices, Bagley felt the Ospreys lagged behind other programs in the Atlantic Sun Conference, meaning she might have to go out of state to find players anyway. And with North Florida’s stringent admissions standards and scholarships based on in-state tuition, Bagley didn’t see herself competing in Jacksonville for five or six years.

“In some areas (we) don’t have all the shiny things that other programs have (here at Western), but I am given the chance to compete. That’s all a coach can ask for,” Bagley said. “It just came down to the fact that (the Ospreys) weren’t quite there yet, and I am not in a position where I am dying to leave Western by any means. It just want the right job at the right time.”

North Florida offered Bagley a similar salary to the $47,939 she made last year for Western — second in the MIAA to Central Missouri’s Susan Anderson. The Ospreys also told Bagley she could make up to an additional $30,000 a year in softball camps. Plus, she would work on a campus that is five minutes from the beach and expanding with four new buildings going up this summer, including a dormitory with a inner-tube river around it.

But athletic director Richard Gropper is stepping down as soon as the university names his replacement, which created further questions for Bagley as far as facilities and funding for the softball program went. So the coach from Minnesota chose to stay in the Midwest and continue to endure the chilly start to softball season every year in return for stability and competitiveness.

“Being asked to go on an interview is a way to see how other people do it,” Bagley said. “When you get a chance to do that, I you realize it’s more of an affirmation for where you work.”

Sports reporter R.J. Cooper can be

reached at rjcooper@npgco.com