Slowpitch gives athletes another outlet, says coach

Just because a guy’s collecting a paycheck for a job doesn’t mean he needs to call it work.

At least that’s the attitude that Rogers High School slowpitch softball coach Cris Coffield has about his teaching and coaching positions at the North Side school, from which he graduated in 1991 and where he’s been employed for the past seven years.

“This fall’s a struggle on the field,” Coffield said, “and I’m not used to that. But I love coming here every day. I got into education because I love kids, and softball and athletics in general is a big part of that.

“I had a successful career as a student-athlete at Rogers, and I attribute that to the staff here and to my parents. I love being a teacher and coach here. My boys are 3 and 5 years old, and I hope and plan for them to come to Rogers.”

This is Coffield’s sixth year as the Pirates’ slowpitch coach – the only one they’ve ever had – and he also heads up the fastpitch program in the spring. He’s seen the fall sport change since its inception.

“Over the last six years, I’ve seen more fastpitch kids playing slowpitch. I’m not sure if they’re dropping other sports to do that, but I do know that the level of play has improved. The Valley schools are all in now, so Mead, Mt. Spokane and Gonzaga Prep are the only GSL schools without slowpitch teams.

“We’ve been blessed with pretty good talent in both sports here. We’ve been competitive and successful pretty much every year. But we lost five seniors last spring, and although numbers are up in some other places, they’re down here a little. There are three schools in the league now which have three teams, and some have had over 50 girls turn out.”

The slowpitch program was started to bring numbers up in girls athletics, and it’s certainly been a success in that respect, Coffield said. The season is short – only six weeks – and in the beginning many girls who turned out had little or no experience in the sport. In fact, Coffield says, there are some who still contend that slowpitch isn’t quite a “real” sport.

Fastpitch coaches give the fall sport mixed reviews, some contending that the games are so different that girls cannot improve their skills by playing in the fall. But others now actively encourage girls to participate, maintaining that defensive and base-running skills in the sports are similar, and that the more swings a player gets, the better.

Coffield, obviously, is one of the latter.

“By coaching in the fall, I get that much more contact time with my players,” he said, “so it’s a great opportunity to work with the girls I’m going to see in March. But I also like building kids up, bringing ‘em in no matter what their talent level is. Some of my girls won’t end up playing fastpitch, but they can make a heck of a slowpitch player.

“One thing’s the same: to be successful in either sport, you have to love the game, learn how to compete, be there every day. If you do that, you’re going to get better. We still don’t cut girls from the slowpitch program, but girls are coming out with the same expectations as fastpitch. They know that they can’t just walk out here on the first day into a starting position.”

And, at Rogers at least, they still don’t call it work.