Winds of change blow through W. Chicago softball program

West Chicago promises to take its softball program in a new direction this year with the hiring of head coach Emily Johnson.

Some wonder what was wrong with the old course.

The Wildcats were sitting atop the softball world last spring, winners of the DuPage Valley Conference and regional champions for the first time since 1999. A perfect way to go out for Jim Schaudt, who announced his resignation in April after 14 seasons as head coach.

Schaudt hoped that associate coach Laurie Davidson would take over the reins of the program. After all, she left Naperville North in 1999 to return to her alma mater and was varsity assistant the last six seasons.

Change is nothing new for West Chicago athletics. The school also has a first-year baseball and football coach this school year. West Chicago has made public its desire to leave the DVC for a conference it can better compete in.

Softball, though, has been as stable as any sport. Schaudt was just the fourth coach to sit in the Wildcats dugout since softball started in 1972.

"With a coach like Laurie it would have been a seamless transition to keep the program rolling," Schaudt reasoned.

Schaudt wrote a letter of recommendation for Davidson. It wasn't difficult. Davidson, a 1991 graduate, was an all-conference player at West Chicago, an All-American at Aurora University. She coached for a year at Concordia University and three at Naperville North before coming home to West Chicago.

"If anybody is more qualified than Laurie," Schaudt said, "I'd like to find them."

Turnover in the West Chicago athletic office pushed the hiring process to the back burner until later in the summer.

West Chicago hired Johnson near the beginning of the school year.

West Chicago will be Johnson's first head coaching job. She is not without a softball background, though. A standout pitcher at Wheaton Warrenville South, Johnson went on to set pitching records for career strikeouts, innings pitched and ERA at the University of Missouri. She is a pitching instructor at the DuPage Training Academy in Carol Stream.

First-year West Chicago athletic director Doug Mullaney was confident that Johnson's hiring is consistent with the mission of the high school. He said he has received positive feedback from those around the program. Girls were thrilled at meeting Johnson for the first time.

"We make our decisions based on the best interests and needs of our kids," he said. "We certainly have done that here."

Davidson was notified in a call from Mullaney that she didn't get the job, that a coach was found to take the program in a direction it needs to go in. The timing of the hire has left her as a coach without a team.

"I'm devastated, still crushed. Kind of numb," Davidson said.

It's especially difficult for a self-proclaimed West Chicago "lifer" who still has a framed jersey from her high school days hanging on her office wall at Heritage Grove Middle School in Plainfield where Davidson teaches.

She and the West Chicago softball coaches in past years helped raise funds for an outfield fence and press box when money was not available from the school. Davidson ran the West Chicago summer camp when the coaching situation was still in limbo.

Davidson does not deny that West Chicago has the right to hire the coach it chooses. She wishes the girls the best, "already misses them" and said "they'll be good no matter who coaches them."

But the ordeal has left scars that will not soon heal.

"When West Chicago tells one of their own that they are no longer good enough for them," Davidson said, "they need to do some looking in the mirror."

jwelge@dailyherald.com