New Adventure Awaits Longtime Best Friends

They were batterymates at Cal State Fullerton. Pitcher and catcher.

From that, Michelle Gromacki, the catcher, and Connie Clark, the All-American pitcher, became best friends. Together they helped Fullerton win an NCAA softball title in 1986. After graduation they went off together for an adventure. They played club ball in New Zealand. They worked part-time jobs in shoe factories, as bartenders and waitresses, as pickers of fruit in a strawberry field.

Then they came home and grew up. They worked in advertising and finance. One of them tried out for an Olympic team. Both of them loved the game of softball too much to stay away. Both of them love to tell a good joke and to call the other late at night to gossip, to talk strategy, to just have an understanding ear willing to listen to problems big and small.

Except on Thursday.

Thursday Gromacki, the rookie coach who has followed Judi Garman as Fullerton’s softball coach, and Clark, who is well on the way to building a successful program at Texas, will lead their teams in a first-round matchup at the NCAA Softball Regional in Fresno.

The Titans are ranked No. 12 in the country and are the No. 2-seeded team in the regional. The Longhorns are unranked and seeded No. 5, but they defeated Fullerton, 3-2, this season.

What a tribute to Garman. After 20 years as Fullerton’s coach, Garman retired in January. Her hand-picked successor was Gromacki. Garman’s hand-picked successor has brought the Titans to the NCAA tournament and into a game against another coach who was taught by Garman.

Some people would feel uncomfortable following a legend. And in softball circles Garman is a legend. Until five years ago, Gromacki, 36, didn’t even plan on being a coach. Her degree was in finance and Gromacki got a job in her field after that little trip to New Zealand.

Gromacki and Clark were not ready to be grown-ups after graduation. Some friend had told them about the New Zealand leagues, so the two took off.

“We had our plane ticket paid for and the league had jobs waiting for us,” Gromacki said. “But we weren’t getting paid to play. It was for fun.”

The shoe factory jobs didn’t work out. “We hated it,” Gromacki said. So the two best friends scrambled for six months taking whatever jobs they could find and playing softball. “It was a riot,” Gromacki said.

“We had a blast,” Clark said.

When they got home, Clark gave up playing and went to work. Gromacki didn’t quit playing and, in fact, was one of the last cuts in tryouts for the 1996 U.S. Olympic team. “That is the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through, the most adversity in my life,” Gromacki said. “I really thought I’d be on that team. I had played on the national team two months earlier that had won the world championship.”

Clark became an assistant coach at Florida State in 1990 and became head coach at Texas in 1997. Clark’s challenge was to build what had been a club-level program into an NCAA force. When Garman approached Gromacki about becoming an assistant coach, Gromacki called Clark. “With her personality and enthusiasm,” Clark said, “there was no doubt that Michelle could be a good coach.”

When Garman told Gromacki last year that she was getting ready to retire and that she would like Gromacki to take her job, Gromacki called Clark. “I know it’s hard to follow someone like Judi,” Clark said, “but the thing about Michelle is that she believes in herself.”

Said Gromacki: “When Judi told me she wanted me to take her job, my first reaction was to be proud. And that’s how I still feel. Proud. I’m proud to be here and proud to keep building what Judi started.”

This matchup against Texas, this tournament game against her best friend’s team, still seems incredible to Gromacki. “It never occurred to me that I’d see Texas next to us in the draw,” Gromacki said.

When the pairings came out on Sunday, Gromacki called Clark, got voicemail and left a message. When Gromacki got home after a little team celebration, there was a message from Clark. “Who called first? I don’t know,” Gromacki said.

But there has been no communication since. There hasn’t been time.

“I honestly don’t mind playing Connie,” Gromacki said. “We’ll be friends before the game and after the game and during the game it will be great to try and beat her.”

“Quite honestly,” Clark said, “I don’t think either one of us will notice the other one during the game. That’s how it is with competitors. And we’re both pretty tough competitors.”

Most of all, though, Gromacki and Clark will still be best friends afterward.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com