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Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Last week the fastpitch softball world lost one of its great friends and a pioneer — Mary Nutter. Mary was one of the first (if not the first) to bring quality live instruction in the techniques and strategies of fastpitch softball coaching to a broader audience.

Mary Nutter, softball pioneer

Her National Sports Clinics helped thousands of fledgling coaches (including this writer) learn about a game that requires a lot of knowledge to do well. She brought top-level coaches, private instructors and former players (including several Olympians) out to the masses to help them improve their ability to teach a very complex game.

Mary was quite the character. She ruled her National Sports Clinics with an iron fist. No, that's not an apt description. More like a mother hen.

Mary knew her clinics had to cover a lot of ground to maximize their value, and that meant keeping speakers on time. The speakers used to joke about Mary giving them the evil eye, but none would dare to run long if Mary told them their time was up. Yet she was always warm and wonderful to the attendees, stopping to talk when she had a moment and always wanting to make sure everyone was learning and enjoying the program.

I remember one January in Chicago when Mary wasn't there. One of the speakers told us she was ill with a cold or the flu, and we all knew it must've been horrendous because nothing short of that would've kept her away.

Her team did a great job of running things, but it just wasn't quite the same without her. She had a presence that just made you feel like something special was going on.

The thing that came through most was her passion for our sport. You could just tell that she loved it and wanted to see it played well. Mary didn't discriminate against any type of coach, either. College, high school, travel, rec league — all were welcome and encouraged to learn.

One other great thing Mary did was the assemblage of vendors at the National Sports Clinics. You could find books, videos, balls, devices, trinkets, all sorts of things in the downstairs area during the formal breaks.

In fact, there was so much good stuff that I had to come up with a strategy, especially in the early days, so my wife didn't know just how much I'd spent.

I'd take cash, the checkbook and a credit card and put some on each. Over the years I accumulated quite a library, and more than a few devices. But it was worth it to me.

Mary Nutter, we will miss you. Thank you for all you did for our sport, and for those of us whose only desire was to do a little better for our players and/or daughters. You made a difference in many lives, and the ripples from that will be felt for a long time to come.

Anyway, that's the way I see it.

So, what do you think?

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