EX-SOFTBALL STARS SHOWING THE WAY.

Byline: Eric Sondheimer Daily News Deputy Sports Editor 

They were all gifted high school softball players who learned the game from mostly male coaches in the 1980s. Then they went off to college, many on athletic scholarships.

Now they are returning to the San Fernando Valley as coaches. They are part of a new era in softball, a time when men coaches are turning over their clipboards and bats to women coaches.

"The kids can look up to somebody now. It's not just going to be some older man," said 23-year-old Beth Calcante, the new softball coach at Westlake High School.

"I think it's great," said 23-year-old Camarillo first-year coach Nichole Victoria. "All of us have played the sport. I think it's good to have coaches who played fast-pitch (softball) and have been at a higher level and can shed light on the sport."

Four first-year head coaches this season - Calcante, Victoria, Jen Fleming (Burbank) and Andrea Rochetti (Chatsworth) - all played for male coaches in high school. Calcante and Fleming went on to star at Cal State Northridge, and Victoria played on UCLA's 1992 national-championship softball team.

Now they're ready to start teaching girls themselves. Rochetti will even face her old high school coach, El Camino Real's Neils Ludlow, this season.

"I'm glad to see them getting a chance," Ludlow said. "Hopefully, the girls can pass a few things on. Hopefully, I taught them something."

Fleming, Rochetti and Campbell Hall head coach Beth Silverman all played on City championship teams at El Camino Real under Ludlow. They plan on using their own softball experiences to help bring out the best in their players.

"If we can be good role models for them, maybe they can be good role models for someone else later on," Rochetti said. "Coach Ludlow was a great coach. Maybe he sparked interest in me coaching just because he was such a good coach. Now that we have more females in the area, maybe that will help women's athletics more."

There's no doubt the success of Cal State Northridge's softball program under former coach Gary Torgeson has helped clear the way for more women entering the coaching ranks. Calcante, Fleming, Harvard-Westlake assistant Kelly Hunt, Crescenta Valley assistant Lisa Erickson-Tibbetts and Louisville coach Dana Vasquez all played for Torgeson.

"Coach Torgeson ran an outstanding program that taught a lot of us how to be better players, how to be better human beings, how to be coaches," Vasquez said. "All of us tend to have the same philosophies. It's a lot of discipline, hard work and dedication."

Torgeson, now the dean of physical education at Sacramento City College, said women are entering the coaching ranks better prepared.

"When women were first put into it, they didn't have the training or the background the girls have today," he said. "The knowledge they have on how to handle young people and how to plan and organize is far greater. Women are being more accepted. It's an excellent trend."

Samantha Ford, probably the area's greatest softball player when she attended Hart High and later UCLA, has joined Saugus High as an assistant coach this season after years of giving pitching lessons on the side.

"I think what's happening is because we played and got scholarships and went to college, it's easier to get into teaching," she said. "You have a background in softball, you're going to end up coaching. I wouldn't say it was my life's desire to become a coach, but when you're at a high school, it's hard to be there and not be involved."

Ford, like the others, is finding out it's harder to coach than play, especially after being such a competitive player. "It's a little more stressful when you don't have as much control over the situation," she said. "I'm a little too competitive. He (head coach Ron Hilton) is the bad guy, I'm the good. Except he said when we lose, he always blames it on his assistants."

This season, there will be more than 20 women coaching local softball teams. Calcante, Victoria, Rochetti, Monroe's Jody Ferrie and Calabasas' Debbie Thomas are all new coaches taking over programs previously run by men.

Welcoming the new group is longtime Granada Hills coach Carolyn Gunny, one of the pioneers of women coaches. She has been at Granada Hills since 1971 and coached Monroe's Ferry and current Northridge coach Janet Sherman in high school.

"I think it brings new enthusiasm," Gunny said of the new women coaches.

Coaching hasn't been easy for Gunny. Twice she was pregnant during the season, but because her husband, Ed, was also a coach, she had a strong supporter.

"I've been fortunate," she said. "While coaching and having a family, we've shared responsibility."

Some of the new coaches are taking advantage of their elite softball skills to personally demonstrate to their players how they want a drill executed. Then again, they might look young, but their bodies are old.

"I can't show them how to throw anymore," Fleming said. "That's what happens when you get run into the ground."

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