Cal State Fullerton Notebook : Monroe Is Happy That She’s Healthy This Season, for a Change

Shortstop Charis Monroe is having a good junior season for Cal State Fullerton’s softball team.

Monroe, a graduate of Ocean View High School, is leading the team with 15 runs batted in and is tied with Missy Coombes with five game-winning RBIs. She also is second in hitting (.312) and hits (39).

But, numbers aside, Monroe is just happy not to be under the care of a doctor. Or a physical therapist. Or an athletic trainer. Or any other person who treats injuries.

Monroe is healthy. And that alone is enough to make her jubilant.

“I’m out there playing, and that makes me feel good,” Monroe said. “I’ve had so many things go wrong with injuries that I wanted this year to be special.”

This is the first season since her senior year in high school that Monroe has been healthy. And only the second time since she was 16 that she hasn’t been slowed by injuries.

The summer between her sophomore and junior years at Ocean View, Monroe was hit by a ball in her right arm while playing for the Orange County Batbusters, a club team. It split the bone from the shoulder to the elbow, causing her to miss three months of playing time.

As a freshman at Fullerton, Monroe had an appendectomy in December and missed the early part of the season.

The next year, she injured her right knee in September and underwent surgery in December. She returned six weeks into the season, then broke her left hand and played sparingly until the College World Series.

“I’m only 20, but there are days when my body feels 30,” Monroe said.

The constant battle with injuries has made Monroe consider quitting.

“You think about it a lot when you’re hurt. You tell yourself, ‘Enough,’ ” she said. “But, as you start to heal, that feeling disappears. You start itching to get out there.”

When Monroe has been healthy, she has produced.

As a senior at Ocean View, she helped the Seahawks to the Southern Section 4-A championship and was was named to the All-Southern Section team.

But the next year, when she entered Fullerton, the injuries started again.

Last season was the worst. Monroe damaged her knee while covering second base during a workout, but she didn’t have surgery until December.

“I tried to rehabilitate it, but it just wasn’t getting any better,” Monroe said. “It got to the point where I couldn’t walk without pain.”

Said Titan Coach Judi Garman, “Charis kept a big secret from us. She was hurt more than she let on. If she’d told us sooner, we could have had it taken care of in September and she wouldn’t have missed a game. But that’s just her competitiveness. She didn’t want to be injured; she wanted to play.”

Monroe came back and played five games. Then, in a game against Hawaii, her hand was stepped on while she was sliding into second base.

“The doctors wanted to put it in a cast, but I decided not to,” Monroe said. “I tried to play with it, but it was too painful.”

After last season, enough was enough. Monroe was ready to give the sport up and concentrate on school. There had been too many injuries and not enough playing time.

“I was frustrated,” she said. “I kept wondering what was going to happen next. I had already decided to quit after the summer.

“During summer ball, I decided to give it one more shot. One last year, hopefully without any problems.”

There haven’t been any. Monroe has played in all games but one, after missing 26 over the previous two years.

However, this season will be Monroe’s last, at least for a while. She has decided to quit because of the past injuries.

“You get tired of being beat up all the time,” she said. “Maybe I’ll play again someday, but right now I need a rest.”

Fullerton’s softball team, ranked seventh in the nation, will play a doubleheader against top-ranked UCLA on Friday at 1 p.m. at UCLA’s Sunset Recreation Center.

The Fullerton-UCLA softball rivalry dates back to the days when both teams were part of the Western Collegiate Athletic Assn. The conference was disbanded in 1985, and Fullerton joined the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. A year later, UCLA became part of the Pacific 10 in its first year of women’s competition.

The series has been reduced to one doubleheader per season. In 1987, Fullerton won the first game, 3-1, and lost the second, 2-0.

“Last year or two, I’ve been disappointed,” Garman said. “I felt our players didn’t give UCLA the respect you would like them to.

“There was a time when we won nine straight against them. They were important games to our players. UCLA broke that streak in 1982, and the one game they won was in the College World Series. That hurt.”

Garman is also hurt that other people, including those involved in softball, don’t realize how Fullerton has dominated the series. The Titans are 22-10-1 against the Bruins.

“I’ll go to softball games around the country and people will be impressed that we even play UCLA,” she said. “I have to tell them that we not only play them, we beat them. It’s the name recognition. People assume UCLA always wins.”

The Fullerton women’s gymnastics team, ranked 11th in the nation, will compete in the Western Regional Saturday at Oregon State.

Fullerton will compete against third-ranked UCLA, sixth-ranked Oregon State, 14th-ranked Washington, Stanford, Boise State and Seattle Pacific.

“There’s just 1.50 points separating the nation’s sixth-ranked team and ourselves,” Coach Lynn Rogers said. “Everybody is really bunched together this year. It’s quite different from years past.”

Rogers said the increased parity will make for a more competitive regional.

“I used to start thinking about the nationals about now, but not this year,” he said. “They will probably take three teams from our regional to the nationals. This year, no one, even the ranked teams, can be assured of getting to the nationals.”

In recent years, Fullerton has had at least one returning All-American gymnast to build the team around. In 1987, it was senior Tami Elliott, who won 10 All-American awards in three years of competition.

But this season, Rogers has depended on youth. Freshmen Lisa Dolan and Stacey Harris are the key competitors.

“We didn’t have a Tami Elliott type when the season began, but Lisa has sure developed into one,” Rogers said. “And Stacey is not far behind.”

Dolan’s all-around average is 37.37 for the beam, vault, bars and floor exercise. Harris averages 36.94.

Both probably will make the nationals, even if the team doesn’t qualify.

“And those two have been pushed by Krickitt Pappas,” Rogers said. “She’s been around 9.2, 9.3 and 9.4 all year. I think this team has a real neat future.”

Wade Lockett, a former Fullerton wide receiver, has been drafted by the Los Angeles Cobras of the Indoor Football League. Lockett, who played for the Raiders during the National Football League strike last season, graduated from Fullerton in 1985.

Lockett caught 57 passes during his career with the Titans, tying him for 10th on the school’s all-time list with Tyrone Perry.

“Wade is perfect for the indoor league,” said Jerry Brown, Fullerton assistant head coach and offensive coordinator. “He can play wide receiver and defensive back, and that’s what you have to do to be successful in that league.”

The eighth annual Cal State Fullerton football coaching clinic will be May 7, beginning at 8 a.m.

Kent Stephenson, offensive line coach for the Seattle Seahawks, and Mike Haluchak, linebacker coach for the San Diego Chargers, are among the speakers.

The Titan Athletic Foundation announced that it has raised $145,691, which is 39% of its goal, during the first two weeks of its fund-raising drive.