Flint native Cathy Wylie to be inducted into Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame

(This story is one in a series profiling the 2024 inductees into the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame. The profiles are provided by the GFASHOF. This year’s induction banquet will be held at the Ascension Genesys Banquet Center in Grand Blanc Township on Saturday, Dec. 7. Doors open at 3:15 pm.)

FLINT, MI – Cathy Wylie was forced to use softball bats that were probably more suited for construction work than softball.

When Wylie played at Flint Northern and Central Michigan University in the mid to late 1980s, she used bats that were constructed from aluminum-based materials. Today, bats are constructed from titanium-based materials, which have a higher strength-to-weight ratio, which lends itself to extra speed and distance.

“You could use (aluminum bats) to pound in stakes,” Wylie said. “They were pretty lead weight. The trampoline effect (today) makes the ball shoot off the bat.”

Even with less-than-desirable technology, Wylie was still one of the top hitters in Northern and CMU history. Besides being an All-State performer at Northern, she notched then-program records at CMU for batting average (.338), runs (112), hits (214), RBIs (120) and home runs (16). Her records for home runs, hits and RBIs were all then-Mid-American Conference standards.

Wylie will be honored for her accomplishments on Dec. 7 when she is inducted into the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame. The ceremony will take place at Genesys Athletic Club in Grand Blanc.

“You had to be strong to hit the ball.” Wylie said. “(Today) it’s all technique because of the technology.”

Growing up in Flint, the 1984 Northern graduate was an avid hockey player, and she played in a youth league in Royal Oak. Today, she competes as a center on a 50-and-over team at the Kensington Valley Ice House in Brighton.

Because girls hockey was not prevalent in the Flint area in the 1980s, Wylie gravitated toward softball in high school. The Brighton resident played at Flint Academy as a freshman in 1981 before transferring to Northern her sophomore year.

In the spring of 1982, she logged a school-record 72 RBIs while helping the Vikings capture a Class A district championship. Northern lost 9-3 to Howell in a regional semifinal game. The 5-foot-9 first baseman earned first-team All-Saginaw Valley Conference and honorable mention All-State accolades.

She continued to pound the ball for Northern as a junior and a senior, earning first-team all-league and All-State honors in both seasons.

Wylie then went on to CMU, where she was a four-year letter-winner from 1985-88 and a three-time first-team All-MAC pick from 1986-88. She snared All-Region honors in 1987 and ’88.

As a junior in 1987, she led CMU to a 34-11 overall record, a No. 5 national ranking, the MAC title and the Chippewas’ first berth in program history in the College World Series. CMU went 1-2 and took fifth place in the CWS.

“You don’t see a MAC school go to the CWS hardly at all,” Wylie said. “We were half the budget of everybody else that was there.”

Wylie had a standout senior campaign in 1988, logging program single-season records for batting average (.385), RBIs (38) and doubles (14).

She continued to play after college, capturing a pair of USA Softball national championships, one with the Raybestos Braketts (Stratford, Conn.) and another with the Redding Rebels (Calif.).

Wylie served as a graduate assistant coach for CMU from 1989-90 before taking an assistant coaching position at the University of Michigan in 1991. She coached in Ann Arbor for three years, helping the Wolverines capture Big Ten championships in 1992 and ’93. Wylie served as an assistant coach at Iowa State from 1995-96.

She was inducted into the CMU Athletic Hall of Fame as an individual in 2005 and as part of the Chippewas’ 1987 team in 2018.

“The (GFASHOF) means a lot to me,” Wylie said. “I am who I am because of the Flint Community Schools. I give 100 percent of my accomplishments to the Flint schools and the Flint Community Schools directors, particularly Whitey Rettenmund.”