NORMAN —Patty Gasso remembers the first time she saw the OU softball field.
Well, the first time she kind of saw it.
“When I was coming here on an interview, they drove by Reaves Park at night and pointed over to it —‘That’s where you’re gonna play, but let’s go look at the football field,’” she said. “It was a drive by, super quick.”
That was no doubt by design.
Reaves Park, where the Sooners played when Gasso was hired in 1994, was no home sweet home. It was a city-owned rec field, used primarily by youth teams and beer leagues and yes, OU softball. Just getting it ready for practice, much less a game was an undertaking.
“I went from picking up dirty diapers and beer cans from slowpitch to get the field in order …,” Gasso told The Oklahoman, “to, ‘Wow, look at this.’”
A major donation from Love’s Travel Stops announced Thursday has provided the wow. The gift could be as much as $12 million if a matching pledge is maxed out, and that would be the final push to fully fund a new softball stadium.
Reaves Park begat Marita Hynes Field, which will eventually begat Love’s Field, a massive, state-of-the-art facility that will rival any in college softball.
Projected groundbreaking: 2022.
Expected grand opening: 2024.
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“This transformational gift from Love’s Travel Stops turns our dream of building a best-in-class softball facility at the University of Oklahoma into a reality,” OU president Joe Harroz said in a statement.
The new stadium is a sign of not only how far the Sooners have come in less than three decades but also how big the sport has gotten.
“Everybody’s tuning in, and everyone is at a whole other level of excitement over our sport right now,” Gasso said, alluding to the record-breakingnumbers for TV broadcasts and the ever-expanding crowds for the Women’s College World Series. “The goal is to keep growing and keep striving upwards.”
For Gasso, the new stadium is a sign of what is left to accomplish, too.
Yes, she is a hall of famer who has won five national titles and 20 conference crowns in 27 seasons at OU. Sure, she has created a juggernaut of a program that shows no sign of slowing down.
But she has more goals.
“My ultimate goal has always been, I want to be a program that is a positive moneymaker,” she said. “You hear in women’s sports about, ‘You know, football’s making the money, and you’re not.’“We could never do it without a new stadium.”
When Marita Hynes Field opened in 1998, Gasso remembers 500 fans feeling like a big crowd in the 1,378-seat stadium. A couple years later when the Sooners won their first national title, sellouts became a regular occurrence.
OU eventually added temporary bleachers that essentially became permanent. They boosted the capacity to around 1,900.
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Sometimes, it still wasn’t enough.
Especially after Keilani Ricketts arrived in 2010.
“Everything started to change,” Gasso remembered. “Lauren Chamberlain. Shelby Pendley. Those type of athletes really started to change the direction of our program to where it was going to land in an elite place.
“And when we did, the fans just really started coming.”
Fora decade, OU has squeezed in as many fans as possible, but still, it couldn’t meet the demand.
Last spring when OU hosted Washington in super regionals, for example, an overflow area beyond left field had a thousand fans in it. They watched on a massive big screen. They added to the energy. They just wanted to be close to the action.
All of that was great.
But each of those fans likely represented lost revenue for Sooner softball.
Gasso has witnessed the fan interest in so many ways over the years. Lines stretching into the parking lot before the gates open on game days. Scalpers selling tickets for eye-popping prices.
A couple weeks ago, she added another to the list —sellouts for fall ball.
The first game of the fall season, Gasso didn’t think the Sooners played well. They seemed out of sorts.
“I’m looking at our team like, ‘What is the problem?’” she said.
After the game in the locker room, she asked what was wrong.
“We were nervous,” they told her.
“For what?” she asked.
“We have a sellout for a fall game!”
“Oh. OK.”
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Such things create great potential with a new stadium. It will have permanent seating for 3,000, and Gasso said it could accommodate an additional 1,000 fans. Plus, if the fixed capacity isn’t enough —OU could be playing in the SEC when the stadium opens, after all — future expansion is being factored into the stadium plan.
All of that makes Gasso hopeful for what her program can do.
“I want to make OU money,” she said. “I want them to go, ‘We are cash positive with OU softball.’
“That is a big goal of mine to say we have arrived —‘You don’t have to worry about paying our bills anymore.’”
Gasso admits she hasn’t put pencil to paper yet to figure out what those numbers would need to be, but she didn't want to waste time on it until a new stadium was sure. This donation from Love’s will help turn that dream into a reality.
It has excited Gasso in a way that she hasn’t felt in a while.
“My stomach doesn’t churn much anymore,” she said. “I’m used to a lot of things. But this is something I’m not used to. I’m very butterflies in my stomach about it.”
She told Jenny Love Meyer as much. The chief culture officer and executive vice president at Love’s spearheaded the company’s donation, and it has transformational possibilities.
“The fact that she and their family would give us that much money is overwhelming to me,” Gasso said. “The fact that it’s for our sport, for softball and for women’s athletics is overwhelming to me because I just don’t see women’s athletics getting that kind of gift.”
Patty Gasso has seen lots in her career. She watched her program go from Reaves Park to Marita Hynes Field, moving just across Jenkins Avenue but feeling a world away. Now, the Sooners will be moving about a quarter mile south down Jenkins to Love’s Field.
The days of dirty diapers on the field are long gone, unless one of Gasso’s grandbabies comes for a visit.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
HOW TO DONATE
Donations to the OU softball stadium can be made by calling the Sooner Club at (405) 325-8000 or by visiting www.TheSoonerClub.com/softball.
