CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — The University of Charleston is having great athletic success this academic year, so it celebrated those achievements with "A Night at the Nest."

Winning is not easy to do, especially in today's college athletics with the transfer portal and NIL, but UC athletics has had great success and wanted to recognize it.

"It's just been an incredible year for us," University of Charleston Athletic Director Dr. Bren Stevens said. "It's a busy week, so this week alone we are hosting the softball Atlantic regional. We are also hosting men's and women's tennis regionals and our men's baseball team will be playing in the Mountain East Conference Baseball Tournament."

When there is success that sometimes means coaches take the next step, so Stevens has also been busy the last few weeks looking to hire a new men's volleyball coach, and new men's and women's basketball coaches.

"I used to worry about so much about what were the records, where they're coming from or how much -- did they have Division I experience?" Stevens said. "Now I just really look at the emotional intelligence aspect. Is this going to be someone we want to work with? Is this going to be someone that's going to treat our student athletes correctly with respect and dignity?"

While it may be tiresome to continuously be searching for new coaches, it is a mark of a successful program when bigger school or opportunities come calling.

"But it is nice to look out now and just see, we have former coaches working with the Red Sox. We have coaches at University of Buffalo at now the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga," Stevens said. "Coach Dwaine Osborne will be at Youngstown State.

So excited that we have so many people that will be out in Division I coaching, and of course Chris Grassie with Marshall University [won] the national championship and Dan Stratford with WVU making it into the Final Four last year. I think we represented pretty well in Division I."

Among the celebrations Monday night were the naming of some new head coaches. James Long was introduced as the men's basketball coach.

Long is from the area, walked on at WVU, was a video coordinator under Bob Huggins, a former head coach at West Virginia Tech and most recently at Davidson Day School in Charlotte. He brings a lot of enthusiasm to the job.

"I can't explain how excited I am," Long said. "Grew up here, worked out here in high school, came to all the camps. I still remember Jonathan White from back in the day looking up to him like he was Superman. And to be here, it doesn't even feel real. It's my dream job, it's home. To be back with my family, but most importantly, it's just a great program that Dwaine built. And to get to build on top of it in my hometown, there's no feeling like it man."

Long said he can't wait to coach in the Mountain East Conference and in the UC-WVSU rivalry.

"Man, I've been coming to UC-State games since I was a kid. I remember Mo Gaines, the games back in the day," he said. "It means everything."

Bubby Johnson Is another young coach with drive and high energy. He was named the head women's basketball coach.

If the name is familiar, he's a former UC assistant. Johnson was most recently an assistant at Presbyterian College, a team that lost to eventual national champion South Carolina in this year's NCAA Tournament. Johnson can't wait to get started at the helm of UC - his first head coaching job.

"For my career, I've served as an assistant coach, and I think I've helped a lot of coaches have success, and now I'm kind of just betting on myself and excited to give an opportunity to another assistant coach one day to live up to the head coaches that I've worked for so, super excited, super excited,"Johnson said.

The University of Charleston softball program was also celebrated after going 45-4 in the regular season. The team will host a regional postseason game.

"Our kids are really excited," UC Softball Head CoachMichelle Frew said. "They picked their practice gear and today the cert that they picked on the back it says more to prove. I mean they're really excited. They're believing in themselves, and we think we can make a good run at this. We feel like this could be our year."