40 years of fun
When you drive by the softball complex at East Valley High School on a summer’s evening, it’s hard to imagine a time when there wasn’t a sea of young girls all playing softball.
The Spokane Valley Girls Softball Association fields teams in six age groups, from a 6-and-under tee-ball division, where there are four teams having fun, to a five-team 16-and-under division that is, in reality, more of a combined U16/U18 division.
“It just does my heart good to drive by East Valley Middle School and see all those cars parked there and to see all those people out there for the girls,” said Sally Jackson, who got the league started 40 years ago.
In 1967 the physical education teacher, married to former Spokane Indians player Ron Jackson, coached her sons’ baseball teams.
“I was supposedly the first woman to coach boys baseball,” she laughs. “But there were always girls who would come by to watch the boys play, and they would ask me why there wasn’t anything for the girls.”
This, remember, was in the dark days before the advent of Title IX and equality in athletic opportunity.
Never one to shy away from a challenge, Jackson set about to rectify the situation and took her case to one of the primary sponsors of the Valley’s Babe Ruth baseball program.
“He told me that he didn’t think there’d be much interest in a girls league – he doubted we could get four teams together,” she recalled. “I basically told him to put his money where his mouth was. He ended up giving us either $250 or $500, I don’t remember exactly which, and arranging for another $250 from another source.”
A group of interested adults came together as a result of a newspaper ad Jackson ran and drew up a set of by-laws. Insurance was arranged for and softballs were provided by the Spokane County Parks Department.
“I ran another ad looking for players, and we ended up with 16 teams that first year,” Jackson said. “We had a late start or I’m sure we could have had even more.”
Equipment came through as a result of faith.
“I asked my husband if he thought it might be okay if we charged $1,500 worth of equipment at Kimmel and Hatch under our name,” Jackson said. “We didn’t have much money, so it was taking a chance, but he said to go do whatever we needed to do to help the girls.
“We ended up charging $3 a head to play and we lined up a few sponsors and were able to pay back the $1,500.”
Today the league is strong and healthy.
“It is a fun league,” said Ray Riggin, who coaches his three daughters on the U16 Home Run Construction team. “Fastpitch softball can be a pitcher-dominated sport. You get a really dominant pitcher and it’s lights-out – you’ll have a pretty easy time of it. In this league, the really dominant pitchers have all been taken by the area select teams. We have a group of average and above average pitchers, but at the same time we have the chance to play some offense, score some runs and have fun.”
Like most coaches in the league, Riggin is a parent.
“I coached baseball all of my life, but I made a promise to my daughters,” he said. “I told them that, after my son was through playing, I would coach them. It’s been a lot of fun for me. My oldest started in the league when she was 7 and she’s almost 18 now.”
Kari Aquino, who coaches the U10 F&F Foundations team, is different.
“I don’t have a child playing in the league,” she said. “My friend and I coach because we both played in the league. We got so much out of it that we wanted to help keep it going. What’s cool is that one of the girls we both played with when we were kids has a daughter on our team.”
Aquino played in the league for seven years.
“I got so much out of my time in the league,” she said. “We had the same group play together all the way through, and we had a coach that did a great job, and we knew that he never got paid for what he did.
“But we found a way to be very competitive – we all wanted to win so badly – and yet we all just had a lot of fun. That was the great thing about it.
“The kids I have now are just darling. They all have that desire to win, but we’re having fun while we’re doing it.”