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‘Forever grateful for all the fight she had.’ Kathy Stricker advocated for girls’ sports

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Kathy Stricker, the only softball coach in the history of Franklin Central High School, died Tuesday after a five-year battle with cancer.

Tributes poured in on social media in honor of the 67-year-old Stricker, who was an advocate for girls’ sports during her 45-year career as a teacher and coach at Franklin Central. Stricker, a former four-sport athlete at Franklin College, pushed for gender equality and inclusion in sports going back to her days growing up in Southern Indiana in the 1960s and ‘70s – before the girls’ state tournaments were offered by the Indiana High School Athletic Association.

“Coach Strick” won a lot as Franklin Central’s softball coach over those 45 years, leading the Flashes to two state runner-up appearances. Franklin Central named the school’s softball complex for her at a ceremony in 2021. She finished her career with a record of 697-359, winning 11 sectional championships and seven regional titles.

“Softball lost today,” New Palestine coach Ed Marcum wrote Tuesday night. “Coach Stricker was a good friend and terrific coach. I’m going to miss our battles on the field and friendship off it.”

More: Kathy Stricker has pushed for equity in girls sports her whole life. ‘She fights for us.’

Visitation will be Friday from 3-8 p.m. at Flinn and Maguire Funeral Home (2898 North Morton Street in Franklin). The memorial service will be Saturday at 1 p.m. at the funeral home with additional visitation time from noon to 1 p.m. In lieu of flowers, contributions to the Franklin Central High School athletic department for the Kathy Stricker Memorial can be received by the funeral home and family, or mailed to 6215 S. Franklin Road, Indianapolis, IN 46259.

“Coach Stricker was an important part of my high school life and helped me be the person I am today,” wrote Amy Matthews, who played for Stricker at Franklin Central. “Forever grateful for the all the fight she had in her for equality in girls sports.”

That fight started as a kid who loved to compete in sports but had to get her chores done first. She learned how to drive a tractor and milk the cows growing up in Southern Indiana. Her father, Everett, encouraged her to pursue the few sports available to high school girls in the 1970s.

“My No. 1 job was to make sure the cows were fed before I left,” Stricker said in 2021. “If I had basketball practice at 5:30 in the morning, my dad would say, ‘That’s OK with me. Just have the cows fed.”

Stricker graduated from Silver Creek in 1974, two years before the Indiana High School Athletic Association began offering a state basketball tournament for girls. But she played with her older brother, Larry, a member of the 1969 regional championship team and his friends, and convinced her principal at Silver Creek to put together an eight-game schedule for the girls – then playing in the Girls Athletic Association, which was similar to intramural competition – for her senior season.

At the urging of her government teacher at Silver Creek, Butch Zike, a Franklin College graduate who would go on to teach, coach and serve as athletic director at Whiteland for 38 years, Sticker enrolled at Franklin College, where she was coached by Ruth Ann Callon and Doreen St. Clair.

At Franklin College, Stricker learned not only about how to play sports but how to work for your opportunities.

“You earned everything you got,” Stricker said in 2021. “We put up scaffolds and painted the gym at Franklin. Ruth and Doreen fought a lot of battles for us just to be in position to be competitive. I don’t think our kids today have any concept of what went on that long ago in getting things accepted. I had to have someone do that for me and I wanted that to happen for my girls that I coached. Many of them have no clue how far we’ve come.”

She became known as “Coach Strick” during her four-plus decades at Franklin Central, where she led the Flashes’ softball program to Class 4A state finals appearances in 2008 and ’13. Stricker, who also coached volleyball and basketball at Franklin Central as an assistant, and was a speaker at the school during Women’s History Month in March on her role for helping girls have equal rights in sports at Franklin Central.

In 2021, Stricker talked about how her willingness to fight for what she believed likely cost her opportunities in her career. But she helped rectify imbalances in coaches’ pay, schedules and facilities with the boys’ coaches.

“There were good things that came out of it,” Stricker said. “But there were girls’ coaches who weren’t very supportive at the beginning. They thought we were taking things away from the boys’ programs. That wasn’t what it was about. We didn’t want to take anything away from them. We just wanted things to be equal.”

Stricker retired as a teacher in December of 2020, a year-and-a-half after she was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. She was never a smoker.

“In 36 hours, my life turned upside down,” she said in 2021. “At some point, some sort of cancer will probably take my life. I don’t know when. I don’t know what. But nothing really changes for me. I’m as competitive as I was yesterday.”

Stricker kept coaching, leaving a legacy that goes well beyond her win-loss record.

“She set the culture here,” former pitcher Josie Newman said. “That culture is that we’re going to have fun and we’re going to do what we know how to do. She knows how to have fun. I know Strick takes it very personally when she loses and I love to win, too. But we’re going to enjoy the game, too. It’s not the end of the world if you lose.”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

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