Stephens adds softball, cross country

Monica Massey chose Stephens College last fall. She was from a small school and didn’t want to be overwhelmed by a larger school atmosphere. She didn’t think she would play sports while in college. She didn’t think she was good enough to play at the college level.

Volleyball coach Dane Pavlovich helped change her mind after she found the Stephens Web site and e-mailed him. She sent in a tape and was awarded a scholarship for the year and started almost every game during the season.

Athletes at the school heard rumors early last year about adding a couple of sports, and while working in the admissions office, Massey chimed in to anyone who would listen with her opinion about adding softball.

Massey is even more excited to come back for her sophomore year at Stephens because she will be playing both volleyball in the fall and newly added softball in the spring.

“To even have the chance to play college softball is going to be amazing,” she said. “I’m just excited to be able to start that at Stephens all over again since they haven’t had it for a while.”

Until then, in the small town of Butler, south of Kansas City, when she’s not working one of two jobs she’s holding this summer, Massey can be found in the gym and weight room of her old high school, writing down her weight-training workout and hoping to train with her old volleyball team.

In addition to softball, coached by Chris Collier, Stephens will also be adding fall cross country, coached by Pavlovich. Pavlovich also coaches basketball but will not be coaching volleyball next year.

“Sports are a great way to recruit and retain students,” Athletic Director Deb Duren said. “It gives the campus something to rally around. It helps to bond people to an institution.”

Duren stresses that students primarily choose Stephens because of the classes and atmosphere it offers. Sports are a bonus. When it comes to athletics and academics at Stephens, coaches and athletes need to strive for balance between the two, Duren said. For a student-athlete, the student part comes first, and almost any athlete you ask will agree.

“When I was first recruited, Dane said the school was very good about that: student comes before athlete,” junior basketball player Pam Dodge said. “Throughout my past two years there, I’ve seen that. Sometimes I’ve seen teammates who couldn’t come to practice one day or couldn’t go to a game. He’s very concerned with our grades. He talks to us about it, and we give him a copy of our syllabus so he knows when there’s a test or big paper due.”

Pavlovich doesn’t want Stephens to be a school that only tries to “sell” academics but one that actually practices it. He said Stephens sports are starting to get results because of the achieving students they’re attracting.

“We want to be competitive in the right way,” Pavlovich said. “We’re heading toward that by obtaining good, quality student athletes. We have the types of kids we want on the courts and in the classrooms.”

This year, the basketball team tied the school record with nine wins. The swimming team sent four athletes to nationals, and it’s the first time Stephens has sent athletes to a national competition since their sports returned in 1994.

Between 1988 and 1994, Stephens went without sport competition. In 1994, the college reinstated swimming, tennis and volleyball and added soccer. Basketball was added in 1998, with a new arena addition to the college, but the school dropped soccer in 2003 because of problems finding a practice field in the fall. This shouldn’t be a problem for softball, because the season will begin in February and end by May when the fields at Antimi Sports Complex will be used for summer leagues. The cross country team will be able to run on Stephens Lake Park Trails.

By adding softball and cross country to the sport reportoire, Stephens is hoping for a better chance of being accepted into a conference. The college has initiated contact with the Heart of America Conference, the American Midwest Conference and the Midland Collegiate Athletic Conference, according to Collier.

Right now, Stephens is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which determines rules for recruitment, eligibility and official distances. However, the school functions independently, which means that each coach and sport is responsible for setting up its own schedule for the season.

Joining a conference would put a decreased scheduling burden on the coaches, but they would also have less control over who and when they play. Right now, the school tries not to schedule overnight trips so students don’t miss classes, and it considers the missions and goals of the colleges the teams choose to play.

“I see getting into a conference as a goal — it needs to happen at the right time and be with the right one,” Duren said. “This isn’t like changing your shirt every day.”

Although the athletic department has been through rough times, Collier feels the department is stable enough now to add two sports and think about joining a conference, but he doesn’t anticipate adding any other new sports in the near future.