-
Dave Wilson
Texas Tech softball coach Gerry Glasco would not worry a lot.
When Glasco watched Oklahoma’s Abigale Dayton blast a game-tying two-run homer within the high of the seventh inning on Monday night time, “Sooner Magic” may need momentarily rattled him. However the Purple Raiders rallied to complete off Oklahoma’s dynasty run within the backside half of the inning.
On Wednesday, Texas Tech dropped the primary recreation of the Ladies’s Faculty World Collection finals to Texas, a heart-wrenching 2-1 loss to the Longhorns in Sport 1 of the best-of-three collection (Sport 2, 8 p.m. ET Thursday, ESPN). However Glasco’s not the sort to panic together with his again in opposition to the wall. He has overcome far more than this.
“Nothing about softball is horrifying to me,” Glasco informed ESPN in April.
Glasco has lived a colourful life and has taken a winding path to turning into among the best coaches in faculty softball at 66, making a run at a nationwide title in his first season at Texas Tech.
However he additionally has the sort of perspective that comes from immense tragedy. In 2019, his youngest daughter Geri Ann died in a automotive accident when she was a volunteer coach for him at Louisiana.
“When you notice that you do not have worry of failure to maintain you from doing issues, you notice there’s issues you possibly can’t perceive,” Glasco mentioned. “You go for it.”
Glasco by no means thought he’d be taking up Texas in Oklahoma Metropolis. He by no means even thought he’d be a school softball coach. So how’d we find yourself right here? It is easy, mentioned Glasco: Due to drug cartels.
Glasco is a gifted storyteller, which explains why he is such a gifted recruiter. Nonetheless, typically he glosses over issues. So, let’s decelerate somewhat bit.
“I am a looking man, a canine handler,” Glasco mentioned. “That is all I did for a dwelling 4 months a yr. After which I’m going dwelling and coach softball from March until November as a result of I’ve three daughters. I simply coached softball for enjoyable.”
Glasco turned the go-to looking and fishing information for greater than twenty years, taking businessmen and rich hunters quail and duck looking in Mexico — about two hours south of Brownsville, Texas. He and his spouse Vickie wished to retire south of the border and construct a home after Tara, Erin and Geri Ann obtained out of college in Illinois. He did not take pleasure in being away from his ladies, however he tried to work to stability his livelihood together with his household life.
“That was my entire childhood,” mentioned Tara Archibald, Glasco’s oldest daughter and his pitching coach at Texas Tech. “He would go away in October and he would come again in late February, early March, coming again for holidays and stuff. I can bear in mind him driving 48 hours from Mexico to Illinois, the place he watched my eighth-grade basketball recreation and drove all the way in which again.”
However starting in 2007, his journeys throughout the border began turning into extra treacherous.
“I am driving 40 weapons via Mexico and [the guns] are issued permits by the [Mexican] Military,” Glasco mentioned. “In 2006, they stopped me 3 times and I confirmed the permits. In 2007, I obtained stopped 18 occasions and so they made me get all 40 weapons out. They usually checked out each single serial quantity. I might by no means accomplished that.”
Lastly, in 2008, a few of his friends arrived late one night time, so he was driving to choose them up at 1 a.m., when he was lower off by a truck. Glasco says troopers jumped out, hit the bottom and aimed rifles at him. He obtained out to attempt to guarantee them he did not need any issues, when he says he was struck by the butt of a rifle and swarmed by the Mexican military, earlier than he was launched.
The following day, Glasco says he was summoned by the native comandante, who apologized to him, earlier than telling him they’d accomplished that so no trigger-happy soldier took a jittery shot at him. However he was informed that the disputes between rival drug cartels made it too harmful for him to proceed working his enterprise as traditional, and he could not simply present up unannounced anymore. When he obtained again dwelling to Illinois, he had a convention name with the Drug Enforcement Administration, who informed him his clientele had been too excessive profile and would turn out to be kidnapping targets if their journey preparations or looking licenses had been leaked and the fallacious individuals knew they had been coming.
So Gerry Glasco pivoted.
Glasco had all the time cherished softball. As a pastime, he spent seven seasons because the assistant softball coach at Johnston Metropolis (Illinois) Excessive College, and spent one season as the top coach of the junior excessive crew, the place he went 27-0 and received a state title in 2007. His Illinois Southern Power group that he constructed completed within the high 20 4 occasions at nationals and received the 2004 18U Gold nationwide championship. That yr, Glasco and his workers had been named the nationwide journey softball teaching workers of the yr by the Nationwide Fastpitch Coaches Affiliation.
Georgia coach Lu Harris-Champer had recruited certainly one of Glasco’s star Power pitchers, Kasi Carroll, who would turn out to be among the best gamers in Georgia historical past. She requested Glasco the place he was discovering all his expertise, as a result of there wasn’t an enormous softball scene in Illinois, and he defined that he’d recruit athletes off his daughters’ volleyball or basketball groups and train them to play. She was impressed and informed him that if he ever wished to be a school softball coach, to offer her a name.
Together with his dog-handling days in jeopardy, he began pondering that route. The Glascos weren’t rich. Gerry had grown up on a pig farm. He known as his dad and requested if they might begin it up once more, however then he remembered how a lot he hated pig farming. His dad inspired him to seek out one thing he cherished.
So in 2008, he known as Harris-Champer, interviewed, and obtained the job. He and Vickie took the leap and moved to Athens, Georgia, and the Bulldogs made it to the WCWS championship collection in his first season. Harris-Champer mentioned she was all the time drawn to how exhausting Glasco’s gamers performed for him, as a result of he was humorous, charming and so they knew he cared for them.
“It is all the time enjoyable,” she mentioned of working with Glasco. “He is hilarious. There’s power. Whether or not issues are moving into the correct path or the fallacious path, would not matter. The power is there, the eagerness is there. The assumption is there and the figure-it-out mindset is there.”
And that is what Glasco was doing, figuring it out. First, as a recruiter, then as a hitting coach at each Georgia (2009-14), the place his groups set 20 faculty offensive data and at Texas A&M (2015-17), the place they broke eight.
When he landed the top teaching job at Louisiana, he did not decelerate. From 2018-24, Glasco led the Ragin’ Cajuns to a 300-88 document, with 5 Solar Belt Convention regular-season titles and superior to the NCAA event every season.
Alongside the way in which, he obtained to educate Corridor of Famer Cat Osterman within the Nationwide Professional Fastpitch league.
He proudly remembers the pilgrimages he made, taking his ladies, then a school freshman, an eighth grader and a preschooler to St. Louis, attending to a recreation two hours early and organising garden chairs behind the house plate backstop. It was there, he informed them, that they had been going to see the equal of Michael Jordan in highschool, a highschool junior from Texas named Cat Osterman.
She struck out 20 batters with 50 faculty coaches within the bleachers behind them as Glasco befriended her father, Gary, an engineer, who informed him how he analyzed the spin on pitches and studied the engineering facet of creating the ball break.
“And she or he had the best rise ball on this planet at 18 years previous,” Glasco mentioned.
By 2014, Glasco was not a fan of Osterman. His softball journey allowed him to educate her.
“Who would’ve thought in ’99, I am watching the very best pitcher in highschool softball and 15 years later, I will get to be her coach. That may’t occur,” Glasco mentioned, including that he did not do any teaching of Osterman apart from to pencil her identify into the lineup.
Now a normal supervisor for the Volts within the Athletes United Softball League, Osterman has admired Glasco’s rise all these years, and seeing him work firsthand, she wasn’t stunned.
“He loved watching how I labored and why I labored the way in which I did, as a result of clearly I used to be nicely into my skilled profession once we crossed paths,” she mentioned. “He is all the time desirous to be taught, which is sort of cool as a result of typically individuals will really feel like they know all of it and they will come and impart their knowledge. Gerry was the other. He took the chance to soak in what all people needed to say.”
Osterman, a Texas graduate, is aware of how spectacular his work has been at Texas Tech, which had by no means received a convention title earlier than this season. She’s not stunned that he was capable of recruit NiJaree Canady, above and past the $1 million NIL deal. She knew firsthand how a lot his Louisiana gamers cherished him, having coached star hitter Mihyia Davis in journey ball, who scored the game-winning run in opposition to Oklahoma that clinched the Purple Raiders’ spot within the championship collection. She mentioned Davis’ star rose in highschool and had Energy 4 alternatives, however stayed dedicated to Louisiana.
“It was as a result of Mihyia cherished Gerry,” Osterman mentioned. “When Gerry was leaving, he informed her she ought to really feel out her choices. And she or he mentioned, no, I am coming with you. Mihyia entered the portal with the ‘don’t contact’ label subsequent to her identify. She was both going with Gerry or not going anyplace.”
4 of the Purple Raiders’ high seven hitters got here with Glasco from Louisiana, one thing that wasn’t misplaced on Canady when she was contemplating making the transfer.
These relationships matter to Glasco. He was devastated to beat one other of his former gamers, Oklahoma pitcher Sam Landry, who wore No. 12 as a tribute to Geri Ann at Louisiana and had Geri Ann’s identify on her glove throughout Monday’s recreation. The 2 embraced after their semifinal recreation, with Gerry telling her he cherished her.
“We’re all a part of Gerry’s household,” Osterman mentioned. “His spouse is aware of all of us. Everyone knows Miss Vickie. I’ve gotten to know his daughters over time. He desires everybody to really feel like they’re a part of the Glasco household.”
That even contains his good friend Texas coach Mike White, who coached Geri Ann at Oregon. He admires White for his path from New Zealand to a stellar teaching profession wherein he is by no means misplaced a regional, one thing Glasco says is “not possible.”
“I considered it final night time,” Glasco mentioned in a Tuesday information convention. “If Geri Ann was right here, I do not know if she’d root for me or White as a result of she cherished Whitey. She used to check us so much. She’d say, Daddy, Coach is rather like you. He is simply obtained a extra colourful vocabulary. She most likely thought he was somewhat smarter than I’m.”
Archibald, who left a head teaching job at Japanese Illinois the place she went 40-17 final yr to get an opportunity to work along with her dad, mentioned these household reminiscences — together with retaining Geri Ann shut — have been a giant a part of the Purple Raiders’ expertise in Oklahoma Metropolis.
“There’s a variety of satisfaction, there’s a variety of happiness, there’s a variety of pleasure, however there’s additionally some grief concerned,” Archibald mentioned. “It is exhausting to place into phrases clearly, however I really feel like Geri Ann’s actually proper right here with us and sending us indicators all over the place we go. We stroll within the stadium at the moment and there is a 12 in entrance of our face. I’m going to the laundry room and there is a 12 on my washer.”
“I simply really feel prefer it’s sort of been written and alleged to be this manner. With Sam [Landry], that was exhausting. That was so, so exhausting as a result of she is a daughter to my dad and mom and has been simply so good to our household.”
Now, after ending the Oklahoma dynasty and beating Patty Gasso, who has the very best profitable proportion (.811) of any coach with at the least 1,000 wins, Glasco has another shot at historical past in a championship collection in opposition to Texas.
Harris-Champer expects Glasco to go all out, laughing how “superior” it was to see Glasco calling Makayla Garcia to steal dwelling in a win over UCLA on Saturday, saying she would not bear in mind ever seeing anybody try this on the WCWS earlier than.
0:33
Texas Tech’s Makayla Garcia stuns UCLA by stealing dwelling in epic style
Makayla Garcia breaks the stalemate by stealing dwelling for Texas Tech within the high of the fifth inning vs. UCLA.
“He likes to steal dwelling,” she mentioned. “He likes to squeeze, likes to do issues which are to power the offense, to power that aggression.”
Archibald mentioned that is all a part of Glasco’s make-up. He goes for it.
“If we do not have what we have to get it accomplished, we will discover it,” Archibald mentioned. “If we will not rating a run, we will steal dwelling. It is an depth that is unmatched. He will do issues the correct approach, however the place most coaches could be apprehensive about how silly am I going to look if we get thrown out stealing dwelling, he would not care. If that is how we have got to attain a run for NiJa, we will work out rating a run for NiJa.”
Because the WCWS has gone on, Glasco has turn out to be an in a single day star, very similar to Canady was two years in the past. There’s an adage round Lubbock this yr with the media consideration that she has drawn: They will come for NiJa and keep for Gerry.
“Once we first began this entire course of, some individuals had been speaking about doing a documentary on NiJa and the story and the crew,” Archibald mentioned. “We began laughing and we’re like, yeah, they assume they will do a documentary on NiJa. They will get right here and so they’re actually simply going to comply with Gerry all over the place he goes. He is the true present.”
When he can discover the time away from softball, Glasco nonetheless hunts quail, nonetheless has his part-time looking information enterprise, and nonetheless goes to Mexico. He believes some issues are predestined, together with getting the Tech job when he did, at a faculty that was keen to go all-in on NIL, permitting him to land Canady and construct an offense round her. He is made his mark on softball historical past, the game that saved him from pig farming.
He has one final probability this season to go for it.
