In the mid-1970s, Gloria Kolbusz, a 2001 Illinois USSSA Hall of Inductee, was managing a 16-inch softball team, but they were looking to get into some 12-ich softball.  She soon found the Northeastern Illinois Women’s Slow Pitch Softball League, which featured some of the best women’s softball teams in the area. 

Wanting to push themselves to the next level and see where they measured up against the best competition available, they were soon looking beyond the Chicago land area.

“When you’re a big fish in a small pond, you want to see what else is out there,” Kolbusz said.

The Chicagoans began play in ASA softball, but because the tournament set up wasn’t to their liking, they moved to the USSSA.  Now they found themselves matched up against such powerful national teams like Little Caesar’s out of Detroit, Michigan and Cincinnati Knights of Columbus.  They finished as high as eighth nationally and were always ranked in the Top 20, mostly due to solid defense and powerful hitting.  During the 1980’s, the Chicagoans traveled all over the nation, which included many tournament stops in Rockford.

The line up consisted of such great players like Illlinois USSSA Hall of Famers Mary Malpede, Karen Foley and Jan Wilson, along with Mary Pat McGuire and Mary Schaeffer. 

Malpede, an Illinois HOF inductee in 1999, won over 500 games from the pitching circle and appeared in 10 USSSA Class A World Tournaments.  Foley, Ill. HOF in 1996, was the first female to hit a homerun over the year old 250’ fence at Forest Hills Diamonds. Wilson, Ill. HOF in 1999, was a career .557 hitter with over 200 homeruns.

In 1982, the Chicagoans won their first of three Illinois Class A State Championships and pulled the trick two years later by capturing the championship in 1984.  In each championship, Foley was named the most valuable player and Wilson was selected to the All-Tournament team.  Although the team changed their name to C.M.C., they were still just as tough and were Class A champs in 1988.  During those years the Chicagoans, along with the Lassies and Coors Light were always among the favorites.

“Gloria’s teams competed in our program than any other Class A team,” said Illinois USSSA State Director Brenda Paulson.  “They didn’t just play, they were competitive and that had a lot to do with Gloria Kolbusz.”

Tonight we honor a team that pursued the goal of being the best and playing the best they could.  Great teams take more than one great player and have to have a smart and creative manager, the Chicagoans meet both those attributes for many years. 

“Softball gave me the opportunity to meet and associate with so many great people, both here and around the country,” summed up Kolbusz.  “There have been so many memories.”