How Oklahoma State softball became a power 50 years after Title IX era began
Jacob Unruh
Oklahoman
STILLWATER — Oklahoma State softball coach Kenny Gajewski insists his players do not become spoiled.
That’s why after each game inside Cowgirl Stadium each player jogs to the outfield wall. They form a line and walk as they slap the hands of hundreds of fans leaning over the padded wall.
The good-will gesture keeps the Cowgirls grounded. It also keeps the growth of the program tied to the grassroots level it originated from.
“I don't want anybody to get bored with success, because it's not easy,” Gajewski said. “And winning — we should not get bored with it. That's why I have our girls run out to the wall, and that's the expectation now, because winning is hard.”
Under Gajewski, winning has become more and more common.
With the Cowgirls in their third straight Women’s College World Series, their rapid rise in the past seven seasons under Gajewski is on full display. They’re the hottest ticket on campus. They’re rockstars. They’re a national powerhouse.
And it’s originated behind their coach as he honors the past and pushes forward.
“We just try to keep making it good,” Gajewski said. “We just need to keep going. It's baby steps.”
On the 50th anniversary of Title IX’s passage requiring equal treatment for women and men by public schools and universities, the Cowgirls — and not just in softball — are thriving more than ever.
“For us, we just want to win,” OSU first-year athletic director Chad Weiberg said. “If we got it, we want to be good at it.”
The road has certainly been arduous at times in the past five decades. There is still progress to be made for equality. But OSU officials believe they are on the correct path.
All women’s sports are competing at a national level, each qualifying for the NCAA Tournament within the past two years. The equestrian team won the national championship this spring, a first for a women’s team in university history.
The Cowgirls boast new facilities with Neal Patterson Stadium for women’s soccer and the Michael and Anne Greenwood Tennis Center for women’s and men’s tennis.
And a new softball stadium is the next step, though at least a few years away.
“You gotta put the vision in place to start having those conversations and get people to start dreaming with you about the project so that hopefully you can find the funding for it,” Weiberg said. “I’m confident that we will.
“I think the popularity of it has reached a point I think we will be able to do that.”
For decades, new facilities and growing budgets were not an option for the Cowgirls, but they figured out a way.
The Title IX renegades at Oklahoma State
Ann Pitts and Sandy Fischer were never ones to back down from a challenge.And someone had to push for change at Oklahoma State.
“I was very much a renegade when it came to Title IX,” Fischer said in a recent phone interview, “but it was always backed by facts.”
Both became head coaches — Pitts for women’s golf and Fischer for softball — in the late 1970s as the university met the Title IX standards and left the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women for the NCAA.
In 1977, Pitts guided her team to its first Big Eight Conference title, the first in any female sport at OSU. By 1980, Fischer led the softball team to the conference title.
Each happened a year after they were hired.
“When I started coaching, it was new and, oh, they loved it,” said Pitts, who now goes by Ann Pitts Turner. “It was new to me, too. And I grew up with them.”
The newness wore off somewhat quickly for all.
Transitioning to the NCAA meant less women’s sports. OSU once had swimming and volleyball and field hockey among other sports.
They all went away.
Pitts, who is credited with founding the golf program, was making $200 a month for 10 months per year when she started coaching. She eventually got a raise, but OSU tried to keep her at a 10-month salary. When she declined and asked for a full year, administration offered to keep her salary the same but add two months. Finally, the raise was granted over a full-year term.
Pitts felt coaches of men’s sports viewed women’s sports as a threat, especially financially.
“I’m not trying to take anything away,” Pitts said at the time. “I want my team to play.”
Despite the struggles away from the golf course, Pitts led the Cowgirls to an elite level over 24 years. Fifteen conference titles and NCAA Championship appearances. Five AIAW Championship appearances. All-Americans starred for the Cowgirls.
And Fischer had as much success on the diamond, winning more than 900 games and making the WCWS or AIAW Nationals nine times in 23 seasons while coaching several All-Americans.
She also had her own battles for equality.
Each player received roughly $10 per day on road trips for food. Fischer worked to change that.
The Cowgirls were once given a small part of a locker room in Gallagher-Iba Arena, only for it to be taken away the next school year unannounced.
“That lit a fire under my butt,” Fischer said. “Again, they just took it. We didn’t have any right to it other than what they gave us. They threw us some crumbs.
“The white male thinking, ‘We gotta make this a little bit better to shut her up and then we’ll go on down the road.’ It was never about what the female athletes deserved and worked for.
“That’s how I felt. I can’t say that’s how it was. That is truly how I was made to feel. So, I had to get louder and louder. And Pitts had to get louder and louder because it was the only way.”
Pitts eventually filed a Title IX lawsuit against OSU in 1993.
She sued the university for violation of the federal Equal Pay Act and also Title 7 and Title 9 laws of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In 1994, she was awarded $36,000 in back pay and damages after a jury determined the school unlawfully discriminated against her because of her sex.
Fischer testified at the trial.
“I didn’t like doing it,” Pitts said of the lawsuit. “Honestly, it was very hard. You certainly find out who your friends are real quick, because 95% of the people are not your friends at that time.
“But I just sucked it up and I coached for five more years. I’m not a grudge-holding person. That doesn’t do any good.”
Pitts paused.
“People ask if I’d do it again,” she continued. “I look back on it, and yeah, I would do it again for the effect it had on other people. It was worth it.”
When Pitts retired in 2000 after OSU did not renew her contract, she walked away with her head held high. When Fischer left a year later, she didn’t feel it was on the best terms, but she had equal pay to baseball head coach Tom Holliday.
Fischer watched from afar as OSU moved forward but still employed few female head coaches.
Even last school year, there were no female head coaches until women’s basketball coach Jacie Hoyt was hired.
“To this day, they have not hired enough women,” Fischer said. “They have not. Thank goodness they just hired a women’s basketball coach. But how they got away with not having any female head coaches for so long in this era is amazing.”
