PEORIA MAGAZINE July 2023

G iven the length of her coaching career and her accomplishments, it’s hard to determine where to begin to tell the story of Lorene Ramsey. Perhaps it’s best to begin at the beginning. Before she became a four-sport standout athlete at Illinois State Uni versity, before she became a star on the Pekin Lettes fast-pitch softball team, and before she coached more than 1,700 basketball and softball victories at Illinois Central College (ICC), Ramsey was a small-town girl who just wanted to play. But around Ramsey’s hometown of Washington, Missouri, there weren’t enough other local girls so inclined. Not enough to form teams, at least. And Ramsey had no siblings. She would play catch with her father, George, in their backyard when she wasn’t attending local men’s softball games. There, she paid particular attention to one of the pitchers. “I was imitating him and I found out, ‘Wow, I can throw this ball hard,’” said Ramsey, whose 87th birthday is July 10. “My dad said, ‘Would you like to play on a team? I’ll see if I can get you a tryout.’ I was 14.” ‘I’M BETTER, I’M FASTER’ That tryout came with a women’s softball organization in St. Louis, about 50 miles from home. Reluctantly, the coach allowed Ramsey to join, with no guarantee of playing time. The team already had two established pitchers. “We’re going home and my dad says, ‘How do you think you pitch compares?’ I said, ‘I’m better. I’m faster. I know I am,’” a smiling Ramsey said some 73 years later. “But I’m not going to get a chance.” Ramsey got that chance much quicker than she might have anticipated. Not long after she joined the team, another pitcher cited illness in leaving a game early. That pressed a barely teenaged Ramsey into service against the de fending league champion. “She (the coach) looked at me and said, ‘Can you warm up fast?’” Ramsey

recalled. “I had no idea in the world how long it took to warm up, but I wanted on the field. And I shut them out for six innings. … I had a string of 67 innings before they scored a run.” That experience might summarize Ramsey’s professional career, which ended in 2003 when she retired from East Peoria-based ICC. It featured plen ty of persistence, timing, confidence and success. ‘IT’S CENTRAL ILLINOIS AGAINST THE ENTIRE U.S.’ Hired at ICC in 1968 as a physical education teacher, Ramsey coached basketball there from 1969 until 2003, and softball from 1970 until 1998. Her career records are 887-197 in basketball and 840-309 in softball, with a total of seven junior-college national championships. The ICC gymnasium bears Ramsey’s name. “She was the queen,” longtime Peoria area high school girls basketball coach John Gross said. In her tidy Washington residence, there’s copious evidence of Ramsey’s 34-year ICC reign. Included are framed newspaper stories and photographs of Ramsey and her players and assistant coaches. Among the prominently displayed plaques is one that commemorates the ICC team Ramsey coached to a national title in 1982. The 1-0 championship victory over Central Arizona was a first for Ramsey as coach, and she still considers that ICC team her favorite. “When I eat breakfast in the morning, if I’m not picked up for the day, I just look over” at the plaque, she said. “(Central Arizona) had players from six different states and full scholarships. We didn’t have a penny. “We started four girls from Washing ton, three from Richwoods, one from Pekin, one from Roanoke-Benson and one from what now is Notre Dame. I told them, ‘It’s central Illinois against the entire United States.’ … People told me you’ll never win with all local kids.” Players recruited from area high schools were the foundations for Ramsey’s ICC teams. Those included

the 1998 softball national champions, as well as women’s basketball titlists in 1992, 1993, 1998, 1999 and 2003. ‘MY FIRST INSPIRATION’ Among the local athletes who shined for Ramsey was Tonya Gilles Koch, a 1978 graduate of old Bergan High School in Peoria. She played softball at ICC in 1979 and ’80, was an all-America selection and later played at ISU and for the Lettes. She also appeared as a pitcher in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own . — ICC President Sheila Quirk-Bailey Well before that, Koch fell under Ramsey’s winning spell. When Koch was 10, her father, area bat-and-ball legend Tom Gilles, took her to watch Ramsey pitch for the Lettes. From 1955 until 1972, Ramsey compiled a 401-90 record on the mound. “I was just starting to be interested in pitching,” Koch said. “I saw her pitch and she was so powerful and so good that I wanted to be just like her. She was my first inspiration.” UNCLE SAM PROVIDES A BOOST Inspiration merged with legislation in the early 1970s to help boost Ramsey’s nascent ICC programs. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 banned discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal money. Title IX represented a massive change, but ICC was ahead of the curve. “Coach Ramsey was a pioneer of her time, advocating for women’s sports years before Title IX legislation existed,” current ICC President Sheila Quirk Bailey stated. “Without her, Illinois Central College would not have the successful women’s athletic program it does today.” ‘COACH RAMSEY WAS A PIONEER OF HER TIME, ADVOCATING FOR WOMEN’S SPORTS’

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