Join our free newsletters to get your weekly information roundup, information on issues to do in and round Forest Park and breaking information. We’ll preserve you updated on what’s occurring and what meaning for you.
Forest Park Review
A hyperlocal information website dedicated to in-depth reporting on points regarding Forest Park, Illinois.
All through her 50 years being concerned in softball, Joanie McElligott has seen loads evolve with the sport. But she’s as devoted as ever.
“It’s been the very best instances,” McElligott advised Forest Park Evaluation in an interview. “I’ve made lifelong associates and met lots of people. It’s been nice competitors and I’ve had numerous enjoyable enjoying.”
McElligott, now a Brookfield resident, has had a embellished profession as each a participant and a supervisor. Consequently, she was inducted into the Chicago 16-Inch Softball Corridor of Fame in 2022, an honor she nonetheless finds humbling immediately.
“It was an awesome feeling,” McElligott stated. “That’s not what I performed for, the truth is, again then it wasn’t round. It was an incredible honor.
Join our free publication to get native information despatched straight to your inbox.
“It was a fair larger honor when my workforce, Chaos, received put in final yr,” she added. “I used to be comfortable to go in with all my associates. It was an awesome expertise.”
McElligott first began enjoying when she was 14 years previous on the Northwest Aspect of Chicago. That’s when she says her love affair with softball started.
“I grew up throughout the road from Athletic Area (a Chicago Park District facility),” McElligott stated. “I might go watch the video games and ultimately I began enjoying in a (girls’s) league.”
McElligott went on to DePaul College, the place she performed volleyball and softball. However the Blue Demons performed with a 12-inch ball and gloves, which meant McElligott needed to make an adjustment.
“The sport was totally different,” she stated. “The coach observed the hitch in my swing.”
After faculty, McElligott continued to play throughout a number of leagues within the metropolis and suburbs. She additionally grew to become a supervisor, and her groups loved loads of success on account of their give attention to enjoying collectively and having enjoyable. For years, McElligott has participated within the Y-Me Match in Chicago’s Mount Greenwood neighborhood. Not solely is it the most important all-women match within the space, it additionally serves as a fundraiser for organizations devoted to combating breast most cancers.
For some time, girls’s leagues loved nice reputation. However McElligott feels the standard has been diminished lately, and he or she has a few good causes for it.
“What occurred is that there’s numerous co-ed softball now,” she stated. “Girls don’t have a chance to play as a lot, and in the event that they do it’s co-ed.
“Women play with 12-inch balls at school and on membership groups,” she added. “We don’t have as many parks providing 16-inch leagues for ladies as we used to. The parks are the place we discovered tips on how to play.”
To fight this problem, McElligott hopes that clinics provided by the Corridor of Fame will assist flip issues round and get girls’s pursuits peaked.
“It’s just about phrase of mouth. We have to introduce the women to (16-inch softball),” McElligott stated. “Everybody that performs 12-inch in highschool and faculty isn’t going to be an expert. My factor is, they should perceive that’s going to go away ultimately, and 16-inch softball will all the time be accessible to them.”
However in addition to the give attention to constructing curiosity for the ladies’s recreation, McElligott feels total that softball itself is prospering within the Chicago space.
“Significantly the lads’s recreation,” she stated. “There are tournaments in all places and there are 50 leagues.”
McElligott, who additionally sits on the Corridor of Fame committee, has attended many No Gloves Nationals tournaments. Nonetheless, she gained’t be at this yr’s match – however it’s for a superb cause.
“I’ll be enjoying in a Senior Division 11-inch match in Des Moines, Iowa,” she stated. “I’m enjoying with No Strain, which is new to me. I took just a little break from softball and I’m coming again into it now. I simply turned 64 so I’ve received to look at it.”
Join our free publication to get newest information and updates on Forest Park.
Donate | Contact Us | Advertise with Us | Newsletters | Subscribe | Work with Us | News | Events | Opinion | Obituaries | Pitch us a Story | Submit an Event to our Calendar
