The heart behind OSU’s national contending softball team

Practice is Kenny Gajewski’s favorite part of coaching.

There are no distractions. Just time for him and his players. One-on-one and all together.

During fielding drills, he fired a ball off his fungo bat in the perfect spot of leftcenter field. Chyenne Factor, who will be 24 in May, sprinted almost 60 feet to make a running catch before the ball landed. In a real game, it likely would have been an extrabase hit if the ball landed.

“You had to run a long way to get that one, huh, grandma?” Gajewski joked to his fifth-year centerfielder.

“Yeah, yeah,” Factor sighed in response.

“Yeah, yeah,” he repeated back.

Not all his interactions are lighthearted, though.

In a drill for his infielders to practice rundowns, freshman third baseman Claire Timm didn’t communicate with her teammates, allowing a different runner to advance. When the mock play ended, Gajewski walked from home plate to Timm and got close, told her “That’s on you,” continued to coach her on what to do in that scenario and gave her a high-five before walking back and resuming practice.

Other times, he doesn’t talk at all, such as when he went nearly 10 minutes without saying anything to any player. The only sound from his direction was the ball smacking off the bat.

Gajewski is nearing the end of his eighth season as OSU’s coach. The Cowgirls have never seen a losing record in his time and are attempting to make a fourth-straight Women’s College World Series this season.

He, his players and others who know him well say the success derives from his character and the culture he built with it. Gajewski said he is honest with everybody — family, friends, players, recruits, other coaches, administrators, boosters — and in return, many love Gajewski. His personality, love, care and effort for what he does, others and the program is why OSU has become a championship caliber contender and why he’s a beloved figure by many.

“It’s about ‘The Cowgirl Way,’” Gajewski said. “It’s not about winning. Winning is a byproduct of living ‘The Cowgirl Way.’” ***** Gajewski grew up outside. If his parents were upset with him, they could bar him from playing outdoors.

He was born and grew up in Los Alamitos, California — a small suburb of Los Angeles between Long Beach and Anaheim. Gajewski would go to the beach, play in his front yard with neighborhood friends and his sister, and during the summer, sneaked into a strawberry field behind his house to pick and eat the fruit.

“Illegally, of course,” Gajewski said.

His grandfather, Bud, lived a mile away, and Gajewski spent many days with him. They sat together in the dining room and listened to Los Angeles Dodger games on the radio while eating Snickers bars and peanuts and washing it down with Cokes. Gajewski is a diehard Boston Red Sox fan now, but said he is fond of and grew up attending and following the Dodgers and Angels.

He didn’t realize it at the time, but he said that’s what really got him into sports, although he played them throughout the day in the streets regardless. Around 5 years old, he began playing soccer and baseball. Gajewski looked forward to local All-Star baseball tournaments the most.

One year, he played for a catholic league team — despite not being catholic — and they played a team from the Navy base league. Many of his friends were on the Navy base team, and they defeated Gajewski’s squad. It’s a loss he still remembers in his 50s.

“I was a big baby, I cried a lot,” Gajewski said. “I cried every time we lost at anything we ever played. But it motivated me to work. It made me really want to improve and grow and want to get better.”

After high school, Gajewski continued his baseball career at Cerritos College, a JUCO less than 10 miles from Los Alamitos. Junior college baseball at the time was much different than now, with more good coaches and more good players, forcing everybody into a survival mode. Gajewski said he was confident his and many other JUCO teams would’ve beat D-I teams.

It was there he said he truly discovered his love of baseball. The grind, the rigorous schedule, the competition; he said it all taught him to not just become a better player, but a better planner and worker.

After a year there and two more at Cal State Dominguez Hills — a D-II school — he played his final year at Oklahoma in 1994, a season the Sooners would end with a national championship. He wasn’t the ace pitcher, but he helped his team reach the peak with similar characteristics many see in him now — dedication and perseverance.

“He was gritty,” said M.J. Mariani, a former teammate at OU and friend of Gajewski. “Where he came from in California, you didn’t have a choice. You either got after it, or you moved on. He’s a worker. He’s savvy. He’s a Greg Maddux type. He wasn’t the most powerful pitcher, but he was smart. Kenny’s got that fire. That’s from his upbringing. The guys from Cali we grew up with, they were some dogs.”

***** At Cerritos College, Gajewski swung the fungo for his teammate’s fielding drills. Greg Bergeron — who’s now an assistant baseball coach at Cal State Northridge — would complain that he hit the grounders too hard.

What, are you going to ask the other team to take it easy on you? Gajewski would say back.

Although it wasn’t what Bergeron said he wanted to hear, it was true, and it was an example of Gajewski’s honesty.

Honesty that comes from his love and care for all of his friends close to him. Some of it shows on the field, but most of it is off.

“Kenny is just one of those people you need in your life,” Mariani said. “He tells you the truth. He cares about you. He’s not afraid to tell you brutally honest and straight to you, because it comes from his heart and out of love. Those are the things that made Kenny and I so close. We became friends because we became close on a national championship team, but now we don’t talk about that stuff. These days we talk about life. We talk about relationships, our spouses, our family, the things that come along with it, and our kids… “His whole chest is his heart. I’ll send him a text, and he’ll know when I’m feeling down. If I call, he picks the phone up. And that’s rare.”

One of Mariani’s daughters, Ava, plays softball. On occasion, Gajewski will call her — and often other members of his friends’ families — to check in and see if he can provide input or be a different voice during a dispute. If M.J., or his other friends are frustrated, they say Gajewski is there to make sure they stay leveled and he tells them the truth, no matter how harsh.

Gajewski’s honesty helps his team get better, too. Many new players at OSU — transfers and freshmen — say they appreciated and admired Gajewski’s honesty about expectations and their role when they’re asked about what drew them to the program during recruitment. In the fall, he put the depth chart on a wall in the clubhouse for all to see and told the players if they didn’t like their spot, they had the ability to change it.

He’s also not afraid to tell players if he thinks they won’t make it at OSU. After redshirting her freshman season, Gajewski told pitcher Kelly Maxwell that he didn’t think she was good enough at the time to play at OSU. He told former outfielder Chelsea Alexander that she wasn’t good enough for him to offer her a spot on the team at a recruiting camp OSU hosted.

“I feel like everyone always wants honesty whether it’s hard or not,” Gajewski said. “I love these kids. I love everyone in this program. I love the people who help us.

“When I recruit them, I under-promise. I tell them I’m not going to promise all this stuff, but I’m going to over-deliver each day.”

***** When Tallen Edwards, the No. 3 player in the country in her recruiting class, was in high school, Gajewski wasn’t recruiting her intently, despite being only 70 miles away. She held an offer from almost every top SEC program and didn’t give much attention to OSU early on. If Gajewski thought she wasn’t interested, he said he wasn’t going to push it.

Eventually that changed, Edwards wanted to stay closer to home and committed to OSU in November. Gajewski set up a visit for Edwards and her parents, Pam and Larry, to come to Stillwater in December.

Larry got COVID before the meeting, so it had to be postponed. But he never recovered and died after 40 days in the hospital.

Edwards just committed to OSU, but Gajewski said his first instinct was he thought he needed to be a father figure for her during the emotional time, not just a coach.

“I tried to support her the best I could,” Gajewski said. “We talked. We talked a lot. I don’t think I’ve talked to any kid in my time here like I’ve talked to Tallen. It was easy. She needed it, I guess I did, too. It wasn’t even about softball then.”

To further help in Edwards’ healing, Gajewski pitched an idea. He asked if she would forgo her senior season and reclassify and enroll at OSU a year earlier. At first the answer was no, but after more time and visits, the family realized it was where Edwards needed to be.

“You couldn’t find a better father figure that isn’t her dad,” Pam said. “(Gajewski) has that loving side that makes sure she’s OK.”

Gajewski has an open-door policy. Anybody is able to go in his office and talk with him about anything. He doesn’t even close the door when he leaves. He has deep, personal talks with many of his players, especially seniors, who often go to Gajewski for advice after college like they have asked him for years before.

He can even tell what type of conversation he is going to have with someone depending on where they sit when they enter his office. If they lay on the couch or a large glove-shaped chair, it’s normal. If it’s at his desk, there’s something wrong or they need help.

His relationships with his players are the most important things to him. He gets to know them well. He gets emotional often. He’s not afraid to cry in front of them. He’s not afraid to cry with them and he usually cries when talking about his players, because he knows what many of them go through, and is happy to see them be themselves, become more mature and overcome adversity.

“I’m not afraid to pry into their lives,” Gajewski said. “Everybody thinks they’re the only ones who have wacky families or things that go bad. It’s all of us. We all have the same thing. I enjoy prying information out of them because they want it out. They’re just afraid of what might come. I try to build this relationship of trust that they can appreciate. That’s where I start each day. It’s never just about softball.”

***** Although he is often there for others whenever needed, Gajewski admitted he isn’t the best at talking about what affects him.

After a loss in the series final vs Iowa State in 11 innings on April 16, Gajewski said he went home, didn’t want to talk to anybody, did not respond to any calls or texts, went outside to his backyard, had a drink, watered the grass and just sat.

“I’m not as open as I want to be,” Gajewski said. “With the girls, I have no fear of having these conversations, but even with my own family it’s not like that.”

It’s something he said he wants to get better at, but his way of treating others is something he learned later in life anyway.

When for 10 years he worked as OU’s turf and maintenance director, he spent a lot of time around Bob Stoops, the Sooners’ football coach at the time. Gajewski described how he watched Stoops handle others and create relationships out of respect no matter who it was.

Gajewski said he always knew he had a big heart and cared for others before but began to focus on it and noticed the benefits when he left OU to become the director of baseball operations at Tennessee, then an assistant softball coach at Florida and after the head coach at OSU.

“I really started to implement the things I’ve learned from the past 10 years,” Gajewski said. “Just communicating and killing everyone with kindness. Scratching people’s back so they’d scratch yours. I saw what I was doing, it was positive, and there’s still a lot of people in Tennessee I still talk to. And that’s why. When I got to Florida, I was able to keep that going. And I think there’s still really good friends and athletes I still talk to. My inner workings affect people in a great way, so why not use that. So, it’s the way I’ve been (at OSU) from day one.”

Many of his friends say the way Gajewski cares for other people worked. Bill Mosiello, who is now the baseball coach at Ohio State, coached Gajewski at Cerritos and worked with him at Oklahoma, where he saw Gajewski develop his interpersonal skills and experienced his care firsthand. So, when Gajewski went to Tennessee, Mosiello followed, saying he wanted to work with him again.

“He’s as special of a human being as I’ve ever met,” Mosiello said. “He’s the most caring, but yet he has an amazing toughness and discipline. He has such amazing characteristics. What I get upset about is that I’ve learned way more from him than he’s learned from me. That’s what drives me crazy. Like, are you kidding me? He’s a much better coach than I’ve ever dreamt of being.”

***** Even after winning three national championships in his life — one as a player and two at Florida — Gajewski said he doesn’t want to win at all costs.

On a six-hour bus ride from Lubbock, Texas, after a series with Texas Tech where OSU won two of three games, Gajewski was thinking how the Cowgirls should have swept the Red Raiders, but on the bus, a karaoke contest broke out.

“It’s wild who thinks they can sing,” Gajewski said. “Then it’s wild that some of them are actually OK. And it’s wild to see who comes out of a shell. We just had a blast. That’s one of my favorite things about bus rides. There’s something valuable about hanging out. It’s always been the way I’ve wanted our program to run. I want to have fun. I don’t want to sacrifice fun for being a tyrant. I want to win and create some memories, and winning creates memories. But very few kids across the country get to experience a championship, but the next best thing is creating memories.”

He said he’s also been trying to live his life with more opportunities to relax away from softball. He vacations with Mosiello and his family, something he wished he began doing sooner.

Gajewski regrets not celebrating championships and accomplishments, and prioritizing rest away from the game more, rather than sacrificing fun and getting back to work so the team doesn’t fall behind.

“They should make the national championship winning coaches a paid vacation with no cellphones, so you can go and just reflect on how amazing the finish was,” Gajewski said. “Because right when you get back, it’s for softball. The next day after Oklahoma wins, they’re recruiting. How stupid is that? It’s a wacky world we’re in.”

***** There are few days Gajewski doesn’t want to get up and go to work. And it’s usually because he wants a little extra sleep.

“I love what I do,” he said. “Hopefully it’s easy to see. And when you have something you love, other than your family, it makes it easy.”

From the moment he does wake up, he’s usually thinking about how he can improve the program in some way or what changes could be made. His schedule is often full, with four games a week and meetings with his family, friends, players and the athletic department, but he will make room to be available for anybody who needs him at any time.

Practice is still his favorite part of the day, though. He looks for opportunities to coach, he watches his players — or as he addresses them at the beginning; his friends — learn, get better, come together as a team and be happy in their environment.

Gajewski is in his element, too. With the people he loves, doing the thing he loves the most with no distractions from whatever is happening outside the walls of his sanctuary. He’s back in California as a kid playing in those strawberry fields.

Nothing is real. And nothing to get hung about. Strawberry fields forever.