In 1974, manager Gloria Kolbusz’s 16-inch softball team was looking to play some 12-inch ball.  She checked around and discovered the Northeastern Illinois Women’s Slow Pitch Softball League, which featured the best women’s teams in the area.  

Kolbusz and her team, The Chicagoans, great players like Mary Pat McGuire, Mary Schaeffer, Karen Foley, Mary Malpede and Jan Wilson, was soon playing against the best teams in northeastern Illinois.  Wanting to measure themselves against the very best competition that was available, Kolbusz and her teammates were soon looking beyond Chicagoland.  

"When you’re a big fish in a small pond, you want to see what else is out there," she said.  The Chicagoans originally played ASA softball, but switched to the USSSA in the mid-1970s.  

"I didn’t like their tournament set up," confides Kolbusz.  

The Chicagoans now found themselves playing against such national powerhouses as top-ranked Little Caesar’s out of Detroit, Mich., and the Cincinnati Knights of Columbus.  For over a decade, the Chicagoans traveled throughout the country, and to many Rockford tournaments.  

Though never finishing higher than eighth nationally, the Chicagoans were routinely ranked among the top 20.  Here in Illinois, they won three state Class A titles, in 1982, '84 and '88 and along with the Lassies team and Coors Light of Champaign, were perennial favorites throughout the 1980s.  

"Gloria’s teams competed in our program longer than any other Class A team," notes Brenda Paulson.  "And they didn’t just play -they were competitive.  That had a lot to do with Gloria Kolbusz."  

Beside the satisfaction of working with and against so many quality ballplayers, Kolbusz most appreciates the spirit and pride in her colleagues.  

"Softball gave me the opportunity to meet and associate with so many great people, both here and around the country," she says.  "There’s so many memories."