Gretna softball thriving under Brooks’ influence

By Matt Fuchs
Danville Register & Bee
Published: June 3, 2008

GRETNA — Sometimes, when Gretna coach Ketina Brooks stops to watch her team, she can’t help but be a little awed.

Not because of a dazzling defensive play one of her Hawks may have made, or a hit they might have roped into the outfield. No, what gives her pause is something deeper.

When Brooks looks at her team, she sees her seniors as they are now and remembers how they were when she first met them five years ago. She sees everyone on the team as her kids and as her little sisters. She sees them as a group that has worked to achieve goals that others said were impossible, and how much fun they are having doing it. And she hopes, as Gretna prepares to open the state quarterfinals by hosting Middlesex today at 5 p.m., that she sees the future Group A champions as well.

“They told me that they wanted to make it the best season ever, and that they were willing to put in the work that it took,” Brooks said of her players. “They persevered, and now they’re at the pinnacle.”

And it only took the Hawks 27 years to find their way back to the top.

“Whatever this week leads to is more than what has been accomplished at Gretna High School in something other than football in years,” Brooks said. “Either way, this is the last week.”

Not since Gretna’s 1981 state runner-up playoff run have the Hawks made it this far as a softball team. It’s even debatable whether or not this year’s squad would have made it this far if it weren’t for Brooks — whose quirky and up-beat disposition have kept her players motivated when they otherwise might have given up. Failure was, after all, what some people expected when Brooks took over as the Hawks’ head coach in 2004, after serving as an junior varsity assistant with the program the year before that.

“It was extremely hostile at first,” Brooks said of the response from some adults in the Gretna community. “They didn’t know how to channel their bitterness properly, and they were taking it out on the kids.

“As freshmen, (the current seniors) took a lot of heat. They were called my pets. I couldn’t tell you the number of heart-to-heart conversations we had because they believed it, but nobody outside of their family support and administration did.”

But the important thing was that Brooks did believe, and she quickly made the players believe too. Brooks promised those freshman that by their junior or senior season they would be ready to compete. She promised them they could go all the way. And so far, the Hawks have held Brooks to her word.

“She keeps thing fresh and upbeat. She always keeps you on your toes,” senior pitcher Teresa Dalton said of Brooks. “Coach never gives up on us. Coach is our leader, and if you see your leader give up, you won’t believe in yourself.

“Coach has always been there for us.”

Added senior catcher Cheryl Crews: “It’s not even just softball. School problems, family problems, it’s made us that much stronger.”

Bolstered by Brooks’ faith and the psychology major’s plethora of catchphrases and slogans the Hawks built themselves up from what some had thought was nothing.  In Brooks’ first year as head coach Gretna tied for third in the Dogwood District. And last season the Hawks showed a flash of greatness early on — starting the year off 10-2 before stumbling through district play and finishing 11-10. It was a season that Brooks left it up to her players to improve on.

The desire to do just that is exactly what she saw.

“The seniors have worked hard for the last five years to get to this point,” Brooks said. “They told me they wanted to get their diplomas on the softball field.”

With steady pitching and defense on their side, the Hawks might get the chance to do that in the Group A finals on Saturday even as the rest of Grenta’s seniors have commencement — if only they can continue to hit consistently (which was the Hawks’ downfall last year). But first the Hawks will concern themselves with today’s game against Middlesex. Both the players and Brooks feel they have endured too much to lose because they overlooked even one opponent.

As Brooks told her team after practice on Monday: “Sometimes God takes you through things to get you to where you need to be…

“We’re not where we want to be yet.”