In the End, Plenty of Good to Look Back on and for Gajewski an Opportunity to Build

OKLAHOMA CITY – There is nothing more emotional for an athlete than the end. Obviously, the end to a career is the most devastating and that took place last night at the USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in the final game of the day on “Elimination Saturday” in the NCAA Women’s College World Series. Florida State beat the Cowgirls 4-2 to end their season at 48-12.

There are several Cowgirls that won’t put the uniform on again. Some of those may not play this highly competitive brand of softball again. There was also the end to the season. Former Oklahoma State baseball coach Gary Ward used to compare mourning the end of the season to the stages of grief when someone dies. I don’t think it ranks in that despair, but remember all of these athletes, coaches, and staff members pour themselves, their long days and hours, months of work, and the investment into each other for the season. The season ends, especially one as exciting and successful as the 2021 Oklahoma State Cowgirls season and it hurts, hurts bad.

“It's hard to reflect just quite yet. I don't know that I want to go there. It's another great run. Another top five. But, hurts. We're going to lose some great kids,” Gajewski said of his squad’s changing that takes place now.”

NCAA

Pennington late in the game against Florida State.

“It's really tough to see these seniors play their last game because Coach tells us all the time that we are not really going to remember the games,” leader and third baseman Sydney Pennington said. “We're going to remember these friendships and the memories and the moments that we make, and I think it's just really important that we remember the really good moments that we had this year and just continue to stay in touch with these people. And once a Cowgirl, you're a Cowgirl for life.”

“Team will look different this next year,” Gajewski said and his eyes you could see the impact of that thought. “I don't know how much I want to think about that yet.”

NCAA

Sunday early morning was littered with good-byes.

Gajewski is right. All-Americans Alysen Febrey, pitcher Carrie Eberle, and Hayley Busby are not expected to play in Cowgirls Stadium again. Others like Sydney Pennington at third base will take advantage of another COVID-19 grace season. The younger players will be back, but teams are never the same. They change.

“I just kind of hurt for those kids that this is it. That's the tough part,” Gajewski said. “So there's a lot of great things. Pitched very well. Played defense well for the most part. Really have grown on the offensive side. We're starting to look like an elite softball program, and we'll just continue to Chase the standard at OSU, and that's win championships. We fell short again. Right now, that's the hardest thing. We just fell short and maybe you can catch me in a week or so and we can kind of start going back over just how good of a year it was. But right now, it hurts.”

That hurt will diminish and besides the rebuild toward next year’s squad, Gajewski mentioned another rebuild or build during the season. He expressed the desire to have a new ballpark for his team. That conversation got a whole new audience on Sunday morning as the end of the season played out.

ESPN

Former OSU All-American and Olympian and now ESPN broadcaster Michaell Smith.

With former superstar from the program Michelle Smith part of the ESPN broadcast team they introduced the talk of Oklahoma State building a new stadium for softball. The entire broadcast team that also included Beth Mowins, Jessica Mendoza, and Holly Rowe agreed that would be a good thing to happen. Mowins and Mendoza even suggested as a prominent alum that maybe Michaell Smith might want to get involved in fund raising for the project.

There is the key. When Gajewski is ready to bounce back off this ending, and it will come soon. He may need to balance his coaching and team development with just that, some fund raising. Softball is hot! Oklahoma State fans in record numbers took to the team, the atmosphere, and especially, to that outfield deck known as “the corral.” The current Cowgirls Stadium was built on the backs of the Oklahoma State football team, at a time when that program made more than the usual sacrifices a football program makes for other programs in the department.

OSU Athletics

Cowgirls Stadium

Football helps fund everything, but in this case the Cowboys gave up a home game in Lewis Field in the 1998 season to play Nebraska in Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City for a huge check that helped pay for Cowgirls Stadium. The Cowboys lost to the Huskers on a neutral field 24-17. Imagine if that game had been at home in Stillwater. What is it, the home field is worth a touchdown? That OSU football team had only five home games in the 1998 season.

Football, no longer is prostituted for building projects in the athletic department. The program is too competitive to give away those advantages. It now makes too much on a home football Saturday.

Building projects in athletics now are fostered and born of generous donors that want to see progress and want to see individual programs grow along with the overall athletic department. The names of Boone Pickens, Sherman Smith, Michael and Anne Greenwood, Neal Patterson, and most recently, Cecil O’Brate adorn facilities. Their generous support has put Oklahoma State athletics in a new position, one of incredible opportunity.

Oklahoma State Athletics

Shrum was there at WCWS until it ended at 2:15 a.m.

I agree, softball is ready to explode. It is exploding. The new President at Oklahoma State Dr. Kayse Shrum is a former softball student-athlete in her college days. I expect that she and the new athletic director Chad Weiberg will be supportive, helpful. Look no further than the outgoing athletic director Mike Holder, football coach Mike Gundy, tennis coach Chris Young, soccer coach Colin Carmichael, and baseball coach Josh Holliday. All of them spent time cultivating, displaying, and convincing what new facilities could do for their programs.

That is the OSU way of getting facilities built.