Sonia Cooke had it all planned out. She planned to retire as a coach last year – including a retirement celebration at a softball field with many former players – and then plan to end her 40-year career as a teacher this school year. Ta. And she will definitely be missed when she's gone.
Then she changed her mind and decided to coach Davenport softball her final year. This was going to be a column about her retirement, but…well…she's not going anywhere–at least for now.
There is no doubt that she meant a lot to the players who raised the money to send her on a cruise to Alaska. And her passion for coaching was rekindled by the many posts her former players made on a Facebook page set up in Cook's honor about how much they meant to her. Ms. Cook, an Alabama native, was recently forced to return to Davenport as a physical education teacher, as her DROP program was changed to preserve her teacher employment, extending the term from her five years to her eight years. I decided. She also plans to coach softball for at least another year.
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Sheesh — If you don't leave, how will we miss you? And certainly Mr. Cook will be missed when he finally decides to retire for good.
Cook is one of the pioneers of fastpitch softball in Polk County and high school girls sports in general. When she came to Winter Her Haven 40 years ago, she played women's soccer, women's weightlifting, fastpitch, women's softball, women's golf, competitive cheer, women's weightlifting, women's lacrosse, beach she played volleyball, flag She had no football, no girls. wrestling. Girls just ran track and cross country, played basketball, tennis, and volleyball.
At Winter Haven, she began coaching volleyball and also briefly coached basketball. Cook, who played slowpitch softball at USF, joined Pete Harris' group that pushed for the addition of fastpitch softball to the FHSAA. When the sport was added in the 1986-87 season, Cook started the Winter Haven fastpitch softball program, one of three programs he started in Polk County. She started the Ridge Her Community program when her school opened in 2005 and Davenport's program when the school opened three years ago.
Cook, who coached Polk State from 2000 to 2005, is one of three coaches from the first year of fastpitch softball still coaching the sport, all of whom are taking time off. I was taking it. Bartow's Glenn Rutenbur returned a few years after being away for four years, and Nancy Denton, who started the Lake Wales program and retired after the 2015 season, returned as an assistant a few years ago.
So even just in softball, she's seen the growth of the sport, going from that first year in 1987 when only Polk and Hillsborough were playing fastpitch during the regular season, to slowpitch in the postseason. I remembered how I had to play. At the county tournament that year, Polk's team switched to slow pitch for the district tournament. She remembers having to switch first basemen to pitchers because the pitchers couldn't adjust from fastballs to slowballs.
“Needless to say, every team in Polk County obviously struggled a little bit with the difference in pitching,” she said. She “felt like I was hitting a changeup all day.”
Her Winter Haven flourished in its early years with a strong feeder system from the rec league, and when the late Jack Vogt started Polk County's first travel ball team, the Polk County Rebels, in the late '80s, she became coach I served as
“I learned so much from him,” Cook said. “Coaching with Jack over several summers was really transformative as I got to see how the team develops players all the way down to fastpitch skills.”
Her Winter Haven program flourished as one of the top teams of all time in the '90s. Talent was plentiful, even after Lake District opened in his '95 to his '96 and acquired standout players such as April Elston, Carla Crible, and Heather McCrimmon, and in 1998, Lake District All of the top players from the first state championship team were there as well. Winter Haven, a runner-up team in 1997, still remained one of the top teams. Her Blue Devils include players like Dani Reisinger, future North Carolina standout Tiffany Tolleson, Kristin Reese, Laura Beckert, Kim Harvey, Annemarie Granger and Amanda “Monk” Willard. There was a chance they could advance to the Final Four.
“I had team stallions, but they took away half of my great players. Of course, (Phil) Cheuning came (to the Lake District) with his daughters and worked with my players and Together, we won the state championship,” Cook said. .
Despite great talent, the Blue Devils were bitten by a bit of a snakebite during that time, as they ended up playing against Lake Wales, Bartow, or Lake Region, but were unable to break through to the final four. In 1995, for example, Kelly Bernadore pitched like a gem in the regional semifinals, but still lost to Bloomingdale, which boasted one of the state's top pitchers.
The most painful loss was in 1998. Winter Haven almost defeated Bartow in the regional semifinals. The Blue Devils led 4-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning when Tolleson made a shoestring catch but was unable to complete the double play that ended the game with a wide throw to second base. Bartow then came back with two outs.
“That’s part of going out and playing the game,” she said. “You never know what's going to happen.”
She benefited from the multi-sport athletes who were at Winter Haven at the time. She still coaches volleyball, and she led the Blue Devils to the regional finals two years in a row, along with softball standouts Torreston, Reese and Beckert. Winter Haven lost to Cardinal Gibbons both years.
Although missing the state tournament may be disappointing, Cook still finds the greatest joy in the instructional side of coaching, especially when her players learn what she is trying to teach them. For example, at Davenport this year, she told her players that first base runners need to be cautious and try to get an advantage by going to third base because there is often no defender at third base on bunts. Ta. When it happened in a game, the player was excited to advance from first base to third base on a bunt.
“She never slowed down and got up and worked her way to third place,” Cook said. “She said, 'Coach, I learned something, I learned something.' I said, 'Yes, I do.' She did well. '”
Although most of her coaching career has been at the high school level, she left Winter Haven in 2000 to take the position at Polk State University. After spending her five years at Polk State University, she returned to the high school game and started Ridge's program.
“The decision to quit was a difficult one, but I always wondered if I had the knowledge and skills to teach at the collegiate level,” she said. “I really didn't want to leave Polk County. … The reason I left Polk and went back to high school was because I missed teaching the game. Colleges are very focused on recruiting.”
Cook was a different coach when he started the program at Ridge than he was when he started the program at Winter Haven.
“The first high school fastpitch softball game I ever saw was when I coached,” she said. “I went through college playing slowpitch. I was smart enough to hire an assistant fastball catcher coach, so she really helped me with the transition.”
Cook has seen major changes in athletics, especially the explosion of travel ball, which has been good for the sport, but not all has been good.
“Some players spend more money on things like travel ball and lessons than they would on a college scholarship,” she said. “When you add up all the costs of lodging, gas, meals, hotels, lessons, uniforms, supplies, etc., you end up spending more than the value of your scholarship.”
And then there's the burnout factor.
“When I was at Polk State, there were kids who came up to me and said, 'Coach, all I've done is play softball since I was 10 or so. 's parents, get a scholarship, get a scholarship, get a scholarship,'' Cook said. “And they say, 'Now that I know, I don't have any work to do and I don't enjoy the game anymore.' So they're going to give up their scholarships. Some of them , some stay in school but don't even play. That's why I see a lot of burnout and overuse injuries. They're using the same muscles all the time.”
In the past, volleyball and softball players were common. Athletes like Reese and Tolleson, both also soccer players, will be first-team all-county players in multiple sports. Players like them, or even more recent players, are rare these days.
Cook said she played volleyball, basketball and softball from an early age.
“When you play different games, you use different muscles,” Cook said. “They forced the kids to pursue specializations that caused problems with their arms and knees.”
After many years, Cook decided he was done. But the players, who mean a lot to her and who mean a lot to her, inspired her to change her mind.
“I mentioned it on Facebook earlier, and you all have given me the motivation again,” she said. “You've rejuvenated me. I'm continuing on this team because I enjoy the players and I enjoy the sport.”
And she enjoys coaching the young players at Davenport. That was one of the reasons why she continued to quit coaching volleyball even though she wanted to lighten her load and quit coaching volleyball in the 90s.
As such, Cook will continue to have an impact on women's sports in Polk County, something Winter Haven athletic director Redone Gibson has seen firsthand. Mr. Gibson played basketball under Mr. Cook at Winter Haven in the '80s and was an assistant volleyball coach for several seasons in the '90s. She knows what Mr. Cook means to high school girls sports.
“She means a lot to me because she has touched so many lives through different sports,” Gibson said. “Coach Cook, what I want to say is, she's just an icon because I know she's a great coach and a great human being. I coached with her She always got the best out of her kids, even when she didn't let them in half the time. No, Coach Cook didn't play like that. It was either you give me everything or nothing, and she always got the best out of it. She made it fun.”
