General | 9/8/2020 11:51:00 AM

Kathy Van Wyk, currently the head softball coach at San Diego State University, is a 1995 Texas Woman's Athletics Hall of Fame inductee. During her time at TWU, she was a catcher and pitcher on the 1979 national championship team and was named the 1979 AIAW Player of the Year. 
 
We caught up with Van Wyk to discuss her time at TWU in a brief conversation transcribed below. It has been edited and condensed for clarity. 
 
What was your favorite memory from your time at TWU?
Oh wow, there are so many memories from TWU. It's interesting because COVID has brought on a lot of extra duties around the house and I was recently going back through some photographs and pulling out old photographs and just comparing what we have now to what we had then – athletes and how we run things are very different – and appreciating the old friendships and just the beauty of being in Texas. I always felt like the people and the personality of the place was just extraordinary. I think my fondest memory was just of the instructors that we have. I still so vividly remember Dr. Ruth Tandy and Dr. Jo Kuhn - just all the wonderful instructors that left an amazing impression on my life. 
 
Jo is going to be happy to hear that… So you were on the 1979 national championship team what was being part of a national championship team like as a player? What did that mean to you?
You know, that is the pinnacle of our success. I was a freshman at the time and I don't even know if at that time we can relate to what an impressive feat it is. It's not until now, when I'm 60 years old and have coached for 25 years, do I understand how that was such an amazing feat. We had a wonderful team and [head coach] Donna Terry preached the hard work, the discipline that the team put together. We weren't half as talented as some of the other teams that we played against, but we were not going to be defeated.
 
After TWU dropped the softball program, you transferred to Cal State-Fullerton and had a tremendous time there, but you also had a chance to play on the U.S. national team. What was that like? 
That was very special because at the time, there were several different ways to the U.S. team – it wasn't yet an established team so far as going to the Olympics and such. I was able to be part of the team because I was selected as an All-American at our national championships in the summer of the Amateur Softball Association and also because our team won a national championship in the summer, so I got a wonderful experience with a lot of different athletes. And to be around athletes of that level – you know you hope by osmosis it all just sinks in because it's a different mindset. To travel to China, travel to Japan, travel to South Korea, travel to so many wonderful places that softball and this career has just been everything in my life. 
 
You've gone on to have a successful coaching career, now the head coach at SDSU, what are some things that were impressed on you as a player during your time here that you put on to your players now?
Donna Terry was the picture of hard work and discipline and those are the two main factors that I preach to my players. The hard work, the discipline, attitude, and the way that you handle those difficult times in your life are what's [going to] get you farther. Everyone's going to have them, whether on the softball field or in your life, you're going to have difficulties. It's how you handle the failures that is really going to push you further in life. That philosophy of Donna Terry is absolutely what I try to impress upon my players on a daily basis.
 
What advice would you give to the Pioneers of today as they're dealing with this environment? As someone who has been in their shoes, what would you say?
This is something that I have also said to my players: everything in your life happens for a reason and COVID-19 has happened to us for a reason. And I think one of the reasons is, it's telling us to slow down, it's telling us to appreciate what we have, and in America that means a lot of freedoms that sometimes get taken away from us in these difficult times. The freedom to play our game was taken away from us abruptly – some kids were in their senior seasons and had to stop playing and may never see a softball field again. It's an attitude of gratitude. We have to go and appreciate what we have. It's allowed us to reconnect with our families and spend more time with our families and just appreciate what we have been given and the freedoms we have as Americans. When it all comes back to normal – and it will someday we, will get through this – then we will take a different level of motivation to our daily lives and our families and our relationships and all the wonderful blessings we have.