By Lee Davis
A decade ago, C.J. Hawkins left a successful program at Clay-Chalkville to become the new softball coach at Spain Park. On her first week at her new job, Hawkins realized the challenge she faced.
“We were cleaning out the dugout and found an award they had been giving to players for diving for a fly ball – just diving for it, that’s all,” she said. “We knew then that the bar had been set too low and things needed to change.”
The turnaround wasn’t immediate, but it came. Now the Lady Jaguar program is one of the best in Alabama, and it is getting national recognition.
Spain Park’s staff was named the National Fastpitch Coaches Association’s South Region Coaching Staff of the Year. Members of the Lady Jag staff include Allyson Ritenour, Ryan Thompson, Eric Gibbons, Chad Miller and Jason Zajac in addition to Hawkins.
The team is coming off of 40-19 record in 2016, highlighted by a trip to the Class 7A championship finals.
“God has blessed us with a great community, great parents and a great group of girls,” Hawkins said. “Our coaches and players work very hard to make this program reach its potential.”
It wasn’t always that way. When Hawkins first arrived, she learned that softball was far down the pecking order of girls sports at her new school. So she had to become a promoter of the game as much as a coach.
“We had to make softball important to the kids,” Hawkins said. “Soccer, tennis, golf and other sports were getting more love. We were playing softball but weren’t really competing.”
Hawkins’ enthusiasm for softball soon took root in the student body. More players in the Spain Park’s feeder system attended camps and played travel ball. A rising number of the school’s best girl athletes picked softball as their first-priority sport. Even girls caught up in the numbers game at schools with more softball tradition moved over to be part of the new legacy Hawkins was building.
“When we got to Spain Park, a lot of kids were flipping the switch from one sport to another,” Hawkins said. “After a while, we got kids who were choosing softball first.”
One reason for Spain Park’s success is the number of players who participate in travel league teams during the summer months, according to Hawkins.
“Almost all our girls on the varsity play on travel ball teams that are at a very high level,” Hawkins said. “That helps them get the skills they need not only for high school, but if they want to play in college.”
Hawkins, who has claimed more than 700 career wins in 21 years as a head coach, said she isn’t motivated by awards.
“It’s always an honor to be recognized, but as I said, it’s not about me,” she explained. “The real thrill is to see these girls be successful. Any award the coaches receive is really about our players.”
The Lady Jaguar staff wasn’t the only part of the Spain Park softball family to be honored by the NFCA. Shortstop Mary Katherine Tedder was named second-team All-American and third baseman Kynadi Tipler was named to the South Region team.
“Both girls had great seasons,” Hawkins said. “We wouldn’t have gotten as far as we did without them.”
Although Hawkins has achieved her goal of making the Lady Jags one of Alabama’s elite softball programs, she never tires of promoting softball any way possible. Near the top of her wish list is to slightly change the format of the state championship tournament, which presently plays every round at Montgomery’s Lagoon Park.
“I would love to see the championship games moved to a college venue,” she said. “That would be an amazing experience for our girls.”
In the meantime, Hawkins promises that she and her staff will work to make Spain Park softball better than ever.
“We’re teaching the game in all our feeder programs,” she said. “The approach here will continue to breed success.”
Hawkins and her staff’s journey – which began with a dugout cleaning chore just a decade ago – hasn’t reached its final destination.
