Lightning Strikes Back Against Whining, Winning at All Cost

When Mike Watrobski and Tom Frame started a girls’ club softball team two years ago, winning was not a priority. Nor was qualifying for nationals.

And those were the selling points.

“We sat them all down and explained that everybody was going to play, nobody was going to sit,” Watrobski said.

“We’re here to develop players for their high school teams. That is what makes us a little unique.”

Now into its second season, the 16-and-under SoCal Lightning hasn’t changed its mission statement one bit.

The Lightning is playing about .500 ball this summer, hasn’t won any tournaments, hasn’t qualified for the national tournament and, truth be told, doesn’t expect to.

But the players and parents are getting exactly what they signed up for, according to Watrobski: a club team free of “politics and personal squabbles.”

When Watrobski started the club, he placed an advertisement on the Internet that read something like this:

“If you’re sick of all the psycho, back-stabbing experiences of club softball, give us a call.”

There was so much interest, many girls were turned away.

This summer a group of 14- and 15-year-olds from Louisville, El Camino Real, Chaminade, Faith Baptist, L.A. Baptist and Providence highs are honing their skills against older competition at the 16-and-under level. And mostly getting schooled.

But a park-and-recreation team this isn’t. Six of the players started for their high school teams, including Fiona Landers of El Camino Real.

“If we only played our top nine or 10 [players], we’d win a lot more games,” Watrobski said.

Instead, the Lightning coaching staff focuses on development, truth, fair play and sportsmanship.

Seven players are from Louisville, including Watrobski’s daughter Heather. The group wanted to stay together this summer in hopes of rebuilding the Louisville program, which has suffered a major decline the last two years.

For the Louisville players, this summer is about school pride.

“They really want to play for their school,” said Watrobski, Louisville’s junior varsity coach. “As long as I’ve been around high school players, it’s like high school doesn’t matter.”

Watrobski despises the “win-at-all-cost attitude” he believes too many club coaches subscribe to.

He has been around the club scene for about six years since his daughter began playing.

“I’ve seen scary things,” Watrobski said.

That includes parents who complain about their daughters’ lack of playing time and coaches who lie to keep players and parents happy.

Watrobski is determined to take a different route.

“We really try to take care of the girls,” he said.

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Crystl Bustos of Canyon Country is not your average Team USA softball player.

She is the only woman on the 20-player roster who never played at a four-year college.

She’s the only woman who was named the junior college national player of the year--twice.

And she’s the only player picked by Olympic coaches to succeed former shortstop Dr. Dot Richardson, the most-publicized softball player in the 1996 Olympics.

Richardson was moved to second.

Since being named to the Olympic team and leading Team USA to a gold medal in the 1999 Pan American Games with a team-high 18 hits and 15 runs batted in, Bustos has continued her tear.

Twenty-three games into Team USA’s pre-Olympic tour, the 22-year-old graduate of Canyon High leads Team USA in eight offensive statistical categories.

She is batting .484 with a .984 slugging percentage, 20 runs, 30 hits, 31 RBIs, seven doubles, eight home runs and 61 total bases.