For years, Centralia barber and pitching instructor Roger Gonzalez added names to the front of a sweatshirt, each one a girl he’d coached who had gone on to play softball at the collegiate level. Gonzalez eventually had to stop adding names, though it wasn’t because his athletes had stopped succeeding.
“Well, I ran out of room on my sweatshirt, so I had to quit doing that,” Gonzalez said. “But I will always treasure that. I’ve never worn it. I just kept it.”
At least 25 athletes who have played under Gonzalez’ tutelage have gone on to play at four-year colleges. Even more importantly for Gonzalez — all of them have graduated.
The list includes such local products as Dani Stuart, the Centralia grad who played at Syracuse and the University of Washington from 2006-2009, and another former Tiger — Julie Hughes, one of Gonzalez’ first Division I athletes, who pitched at Towson University in Maryland in the early 00’s.
And more names are still being added — Tenino senior pitcher Morgan Masters, coached by Gonzalez for several years, recently signed with Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore.
The list might be even longer than Gonzalez knows.
“In case I forgot someone, forgive me,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez, 70, has been working with pitchers and coaching softball in Lewis County since the early 1980s. A Texas native who graduated from Wapato High School before serving in Vietnam, Gonzalez played baseball growing up, then switched to track and field after his family relocated to central Washington.
“In Texas you breathe baseball. You breathe it, you eat it,” Gonzalez said. “I used to pitch in Little League and I had really, really good coaches down in Texas. They showed me everything. So I had fundamentals. I understood the language and everything. But when I came to Yakima they didn’t have Little League.”
In fact, the most influential coach in Gonzalez’ life was in track and field, not baseball. John Chaplin, the legendary Washington State University helmer, who in 2000 was coach of the United States Olympic Track and Field team, was Gonzalez’ coach at Wapato High School in the 1960s. Gonzalez credits Chaplin with shaping his coaching philosophy.
In 1982 in Centralia, Gonzalez was observing his daughter’s recreation league softball team as a parent. When he became frustrated with the coach’s decisions, Gonzalez asked if he could take the reins.
“I went and talked to him,” Gonzalez explained. “I said, ‘You know, I would like to take the team if you wouldn’t mind.’ I was young and dumb.“
As his daughter Laurie grew, Gonzalez took on a greater role within the local softball community, organizing a team in 1983 while giving additional mentoring to the pitching lineup, which included his daughter.
“I worked with her and worked with her,” Gonzalez said. “And then the following year I took the best kids that I could get ahold out of Centralia...That’s when pitching really started to get better here.”
Laurie Gonzalez earned a scholarship to play softball at Spokane Falls. She and two teammates were the first of Gonzalez’ athletes to achieve such a distinction.
“All three of those girls went to play college ball. That’s when it started. My head started spinning.”
Though he no longer had a team to coach, Gonzalez continued to work with pitchers, holding sessions throughout the week for athletes from Lewis County and beyond.
“Somebody asked me if I would work with their kids. That was the beginning, and it just kept growing and growing...They would come to me. I didn’t advertise or nothing, just word of mouth. I dealt with kids all the way from Hoquiam to White Pass, and all the way from Tacoma to Castle Rock, I was getting kids coming over here.”
Gonzalez would hold four separate two-hour sessions per day, working with young pitchers from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“At one time I was doing four days a week. Did that for about thirteen years,” Gonzalez said. “I was pumping out kids left and right.”
“That takes a lot of time,” Gonzalez said. “My wife allows me to do those things. How very fortunate to have a woman like that. Not too many women would allow their husband to be gone that much.”
Gonzalez work has had a marked effect on the quality of local pitching, according to Pe Ell-Willapa Valley coach Ken Olson.
Olson, who credits Gonzalez with helping him land his first coaching job at Centralia High School in the early 90’s, said, ”More than anyone at least in this area he got pitching instruction going. He’s mentored a tremendous amount of people in our area. He welcomes the fathers and mothers to come in and learn about pitching. It’s not about Roger. It’s about helping the kids, helping the parents understand the process.”
Two of the other big area softball pitching instructors - Barry Hughes and Ken Gray - can attest to Gonzalez’ influence. Hughes is the father of Gonzalez’ mentee Julie Hughes, and Gray’s daughter, Sasha, took lessons under Gonzalez while she played at W.F. West, before going on to pitch at Coker College in South Carolina.
Gonzalez’ almost daily practices are driven by a singular goal — to help his athletes get into college — which is why his requirements away from the diamond are so strict. He requires that they maintain a 3.5 grade point average.
“If you don’t, I want you to stay home, do your homework and get grades up before you can come back,” Gonzalez said. “My expectations are pretty high. If they want to come to me they better do their homework and their drills at home... I don’t guarantee that you will make it to college, it’s up to you. But that’s my mission - to help them go to school, get scholarships as well.”
“He’s tough on them, but they love him,” Olson said. "He demands a lot of them, but he gives a lot...He’s done a great service to this area.”
After more than 30 years of coaching, Gonzalez has scaled back on his coaching duties, now holding workshops only on Sundays at Washington Elementary. He believes the current crop of pitchers will be his last.
“It’s time for me to spend a little time with my wife,” Gonzalez said.
“I do it for the kids. I don’t do it for myself. It’s not about me. It’s about them,” Gonzalez said. "I get them when they’re about nine, ten years old. Cuter than a bug in a rug.
“Then you get to middle school, and you guys are ornery as hell,” Gonzalez added with a smirk. “But when I let you go to play in college, I see those little beautiful flowers moving on.’”
