{"id":23243,"date":"2026-03-11T14:25:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/patty-gasso-creating-leaders-on-and-off-the-field\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:15:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:15:53","slug":"patty-gasso-creating-leaders-on-and-off-the-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/positive-living\/patty-gasso-creating-leaders-on-and-off-the-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Patty Gasso: Creating Leaders On and Off the Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

I slid into a booth at IHOP across from a backup freshman pitcher for the Oklahoma Sooners. I leaned across the table. \u201cTell me what\u2019s going on in your life outside of softball<\/a>,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

The player seemed startled. \u201cAm I in trouble, Coach?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGosh, no.\u201d I got why she was nervous, though. A Division I college head coach<\/a> taking a freshman athlete out for breakfast?<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to get to know you as a person, not just a player,\u201d I said. Then I sat back and told her about my dogs<\/a>\u2014\u201cOne\u2019s named Una and the other Dos\u201d\u2014 and their many antics. Dogs are always a good icebreaker.<\/p>\n

The young woman re\u00adlaxed. \u201cHonestly, I\u2019m a lit\u00adtle lonely,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m shy<\/a>, so I\u2019m not comfort\u00adable around new people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what that\u2019s like,\u201d I said. \u201cI grew up in California with a single mom<\/a> who scraped to\u00adgether money to send us to Catholic school. Some of my classmates had big houses on the beach. We lived literally on the other side of the tracks. I didn\u2019t have what the rich kids did, and I always felt as if I had something to prove.\u201d I took a sip of cof\u00adfee. \u201cThat got in my way sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

I told my player a little more about my mom, who still lived in Southern California, and how difficult it was being away from her, especially now that she has Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/a>. That\u2019s another thing I wouldn\u2019t have done years ago\u2014shared my vulner\u00adabilities. The rest of breakfast, I let the athlete talk and I listened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks,\u201d she said, as the server brought the check. \u201cThis was great. Was there something you wanted to tell me about my pitching?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll get to that later,\u201d I said. \u201cFor now, just focus on having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walking to my car, I thought about how different things had been\u2014how different I had been\u2014when I became the University of Oklahoma\u2019s head softball coach. That was a while ago, in 1995. We played our games in a public park back then. At OU, football was king, with six national cham\u00adpionships. I was determined to cre\u00adate a competitive softball program. I dreamed of one day coaching in the Women\u2019s College World Series.<\/p>\n

My love of the game and my blue-collar work ethic came from my mom, Janet Froehlich. I was the middle of three latchkey kids. Mom was a secre\u00adtary and gave us strict orders to play in the park next door until she got home. Mom would join in, not even changing out of her miniskirt, panty hose and go-go boots (this was the sixties), as into the game as we were, whether it was flag football, basketball<\/a>, softball or just catch. Mom was a great athlete, but most of all, she loved being in the moment with us kids. She showed me what it was like to play a sport for the sheer joy of it.<\/p>\n

When I was seven or eight, Mom was asked to coach a softball team<\/a> at the park for 10- and 11-year-olds. She pulled some strings so I could join the team too. I was smaller than my team\u00admates, and I had to go 100 percent, all out on every play. Mom told me that she\u2019d always dreamed of playing on an organized team, but there just weren\u2019t the same opportunities for girls when she was young. That\u2019s what planted the seed for my dream of having a ca\u00adreer in sports.<\/p>\n

I was a shortstop in college. That\u2019s where I met my husband, Jim, who also wanted to become a coach. Jim was a spiritual person who prayed about everything<\/a>. He taught me to seek the Lord and be more open to God\u2019s leading.<\/p>\n

I landed a job as the head softball coach at Long Beach City College. There I built a team that had success. The college\u2019s athletic director had ties to Oklahoma<\/a>. One day, she told me the Sooners had an opening for a soft\u00adball coach.<\/p>\n

It would mean a jump to Division I, the highest level of college sports, the teams that compete to play in the Women\u2019s College World Series. But Oklahoma was so far down the peck\u00ading order, I would have to take a pay cut. Our older son, JT, was six. I was five months pregnant with our young\u00ader son, DJ. All of our family and friends lived in California. It seemed like the worst time to move. Yet, when Jim and I prayed on it, it felt right. I called it a lateral step up.<\/p>\n

I thought the transition would be easy. I knew how to motivate athletes. I knew how to win. I was so naive!<\/p>\n

One of our very first games, I met with the opposing coach and the um\u00adpire before we took the field. Both were men. They talked to each other as if I weren\u2019t even there. As we turned to walk to our dugouts, the other coach finally met my gaze. \u201cGood luck, Paula,\u201d he said. He couldn\u2019t even get my name right.<\/p>\n

That disrespect fired me up. I want\u00aded to build a team that was not only competitive but also fearless and re\u00adlentless<\/a>. My ultimate goal was to get to the Women\u2019s College World Series, or WCWS.<\/p>\n

It took five tough years. We made it to the WCWS as underdogs in 2000, then took down UCLA, a perennial contender, to win the title. My dream had come to fruition<\/a> sooner than I\u2019d expected.<\/p>\n

But that one championship wasn\u2019t enough. Playing in the WCWS the next year consumed me. Win\u00adning became everything. Every night, I was on the phone with recruits, try\u00ading to sell them on Okla\u00adhoma and our program. Between calls, I\u2019d read a bedtime book to my younger son, so exhausted that I would nod off mid-story. Hearing DJ say, \u201cFinish, Mom! Finish!\u201d I would jolt awake. Then I\u2019d be back on the phone or studying game film.<\/p>\n

That year and then several more went by without us winning another national championship. I worried that the WCWS might never happen again for our team. I drove our players\u2014and myself\u2014harder and harder. More drills, more film, more recruiting calls and trips. \u201cYou\u2019re killing your\u00adself,\u201d Jim told me.<\/p>\n

After a frustrating practice during the 2010 season, I went home and threw myself on my bed. I\u2019m not the type to cry, but I broke down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t working, Lord,\u201d I said. \u201cI thought this was what you wanted for me.\u201d Yet I wasn\u2019t succeeding as a coach or as a mom. I wasn\u2019t winning. I was ready to walk away from my dream career<\/a> and the game I loved.<\/p>\n

But I couldn\u2019t manage to get out the words \u201cI\u2019m quitting.\u201d Instead, my breath turned shallow, and every\u00adthing quieted.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re doing this wrong. <\/em>God wasn\u2019t speaking out loud but in my mind. I didn\u2019t bring you here to win ball games. Focus on your players. Let them see you living out your faith<\/a>. You open the door, and I\u2019ll do the rest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Slowly I exhaled, and it felt as if a weight had been lifted, a weight that had been there all my life.<\/p>\n

Since I was a kid, I\u2019d been intent on proving myself. But God knew my true worth. He loved me for me<\/a>, not my win-loss record. Had I been send\u00ading our athletes the wrong message? That winning was the only thing that mattered? That their worth was deter\u00admined by their batting average, field\u00ading percentage or ERA?<\/p>\n

I thought about how my mom had coached me. She showed me I mat\u00adtered<\/a> by sharing the joy of the game with me. By being present, giving me her full attention<\/a> even when she must have been worried about having to feed us hot dog and bean casserole at the end of the month, when her pay\u00adcheck ran out.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I could do for our play\u00aders. Share joy. Be present. Talk less, listen more<\/a>. Show them I valued them beyond what they did on the field. I might never win a championship again. But each young woman would leave this program knowing I cared about them and, more important, that God cared about them too.<\/p>\n

I started making a point of taking each of our 20 players out to eat, to get to know them one-on-one. I tried to show our athletes that they were more than softball players and that I was more than just their coach. I promised them that I would be there for them<\/a> if they were ever facing a per\u00adsonal problem.<\/p>\n

In turn, our athletes shared chal\u00adlenges they once would have kept to themselves. If the moment presented itself, I opened up about my faith. Players led prayer groups and Bible studies. All of us became more rela\u00adtionship-oriented. We grew as a team. And I grew as a coach<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the years since God led me to change<\/a> the way I coach, I\u2019ve had a lot of breakfasts at IHOP with ath\u00adletes. Our team has won six more WCWS titles\u2014seven overall. I\u2019m most proud, though, of seeing softball play\u00aders grow into strong confident wom\u00aden, pursuing their dreams, balancing career and family<\/a>, sharing how God works in their lives. Knowing I\u2019ve played some small part in that brings me more joy<\/a> than any championship.<\/p>\n

I believe my attitude change has prepared me for other challenges, including my mom\u2019s Alzheimer\u2019s. She taught me the joy of playing the game\u2014and, yes, winning. But win\u00adning means so much more when it isn\u2019t everything<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more inspiring stories, subscribe to <\/em>Guideposts<\/strong><\/a> magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I slid into a booth at IHOP across from a backup freshman pitcher for the Oklahoma Sooners. I leaned across the table. \u201cTell me what\u2019s going on in your life outside of softball,\u201d I said. The player seemed startled. \u201cAm I in trouble, Coach?\u201d \u201cGosh, no.\u201d I got why she was nervous, though. A Division […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":30260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[267,136,349,238],"tags":[188,25,16,11,51,70,30],"ppma_author":[533],"class_list":["post-23243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-stories","category-positive-living","category-sports","category-cat-tell-us-your-story","tag-daughter","tag-family","tag-god","tag-helping-others","tag-inspirational-stories","tag-mother","tag-prayer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPatty Gasso: Creating Leaders On and Off the Field - Guideposts Articles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Patty Gasso: Creating Leaders On and Off the Field\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I slid into a booth at IHOP across from a backup freshman pitcher for the Oklahoma Sooners. 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