How Oklahoma’s Softball Coach Uses Faith to Inspire Her Team
By Movieguide® Contributor
Even with seven national championship titles under her belt, Oklahoma Sooners softball coach Patty Gasso knows there’s more to her job than winning.
She recently shared how her faith in Jesus encourages her to invest in her players to create leaders on and off the field.
“I slid into a booth at IHOP across from a backup freshman pitcher for the Oklahoma Sooners,” Gasso wrote in an essay for Guideposts. “I leaned across the table. ‘Tell me what’s going on in your life outside of softball.'”
The softball player thought she was in trouble, but the coach assured the player she just wanted to get to know her.
The player began to open up about her two dogs, but then she dove deeper and admitted, “I’m a little lonely. I’m shy, so I’m not comfortable around new people.”
Gasso could relate.
She “grew up in California with a single mom who scraped together money to send us to Catholic school,” she wrote. “Some of my classmates had big houses on the beach. We lived literally on the other side of the tracks. I didn’t have what the rich kids did, and I always felt as if I had something to prove. That’s got in my way sometimes.”
That did get in her way, especially when she took on the head coaching position for the Sooners.
“One of our very first games, I met with the opposing coach and the umpire before we took the field. Both were men,” Gasso said. “They talked to each other as if I weren’t even there. As we turned to walk to our dugouts, the other coach finally met my gaze. ‘Good luck, Paula,’ he said. He couldn’t even get my name right.”
READ MORE: OKLAHOMA SOFTBALL TEAM PRAYS TOGETHER AFTER WCWS WIN
That moment motivated her to get her team to the Women’s College World Series. It took five “tough years.”
“Playing in the WCWS the next year consumed me. Winning became everything. Every night, I was on the phone with recruits, trying to sell them on Oklahoma and our program,” she explained. “Between calls, I’d read a bedtime book to my younger son, so exhausted that I would nod off mid-story. Hearing DJ say, ‘Finish, Mom! Finish!’ I would jolt awake. Then I’d be back on the phone or studying game film.”
In 2010, after a hard practice, she broke down and called out to God.
“This isn’t working, Lord,” she recalled praying. “‘I thought this was what you wanted for me.’ Yet I wasn’t succeeding as a coach or as a mom. I wasn’t winning. I was ready to walk away from my dream career and the game I loved.”
“You’re doing this wrong,” she felt God speak to her. “I didn’t bring you here to win ball games. Focus on your players. Let them see you living out your faith. You open the door, and I’ll do the rest.”
She’s done just that since then and has gone on to win six more WCWS titles, putting faith the forefront for her team.
“They are being led by literally the best leader in the country in coach Gasso,” University of Oklahoma softball chaplain Sarah Roberts said last year. “I get emotional thinking about it, because I know behind the scenes, I know the things they battle, and I know the things that they face.”
The freedom Gasso has in Christ to lead her team well allows them to trust God, no matter the outcome.
“We already know that the result and the ending — the Lord already knows,” Gasso explained. “It’s already planned. So just use our gifts and let’s go. Let’s go. Don’t be afraid of the outcome. And it is so freeing when you watch them play. They’re afraid of nothing. They’re certainly not afraid to lose, and that’s the beauty of this group.”
READ MORE: OKLAHOMA SOFTBALL COACH PATTY GASSO IS ‘HERE TO WIN SOULS’
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