In the spring of 2002, a senior from St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, named Sasha Brady and two sophomores, Jen Ward from New York State and Caitlin Kimura from Hawaii, found themselves softball teammates at Haverford College.
Brady was winding up a notable diamond career at Haverford by hitting .368, speedy Kimura was stealing 11 bases in 11 attempts, and hard-throwing hurler Ward was starting to show the form that would make her one of the Fords’ best pitchers in 2003 and 2004.
If Jen, Caitlin and Sasha ever thought briefly about fate taking a hand to bring them together in 2002, we can guarantee you none of them spent a second then predicting than an even stranger turn of fate would lead to a softball reunion in Orange, CA, on March 10, 2008– with each of them having become a Division III varsity coach!
But that’s just what happened last week when Haverford with Ward as head coach and Kimura as assistant outscored Wheaton College, 6-3, in the Sun West Tournament at Chapman College.
Brady left her sunny island last fall for the snows of Chicago and a master’s degree program at Wheaton, where she is also assisting in softball.
Ward took over the Fords as head coach in fall, 2004, only a few months after her graduation. She’s already led the team to a Centennial Conference championship and an NCAA tournament berth.
Kimura spent a year back in her native state, and then returned to Haverford as an assistant coach. She too is working on a master’s degree at Neumann College) and thinking about a career in college sports.
The spring break tournament was also a homecoming for Southern California Fords Lindsey Sullivan ’08, all-time HC career leader in hits, and Dana Irshay ’09, another top Ford batswoman.
We’ll leave it to the philosophers to ponder the meaning of time, space and coincidence and the mathematicians to calculate the odds of three teammates from 2002 ending up as coaches of colleges which played each other in 2008. For our part, we’re just happy to see three such fine Fords still on the diamond, passing on what they know to today’s
students.
–Greg Kannerstein ’63