Dave Zeitlin: What's wrong at Warren?

I'll be honest. I don't know a whole lot about college softball.

Maybe it's a sport where players are expected to play two or three years before growing to hate something they once loved.

Maybe it's common for a team to lack upperclassmen. Who needs senior leadership when you have a healthy crop of talented freshman anyway?

Maybe it's a sport where the coach has absolutely free rein over her players. After all, keeping your players in their hotel rooms without food is only normal, right?

Maybe the coach doesn't have to cater to her players' needs. If a player gets injured, well that's just her own damn problem.

In college softball, maybe that sacred player-coach bond doesn't really exist.

Or maybe this is just the case of the Penn softball team, a team that saw nearly half of its players quit the squad after last season.

Now, here is what you may know about the softball program here at Penn: A highly-touted coach, Carol Kashow, was hired five years ago with the formidable task of turning a struggling program around.

Kashow, however, has not been able to right the sinking ship. In her five years at Penn, the Quakers have never been anywhere close to a winning record, going 10-29 in 1998, 15-22 in 1999, 13-30-1 in 2000 and 12-21 last season. This year, Penn is 12-27 after a split at Lehigh yesterday, with that hideous 30-loss mark looming on the horizon again.

Here is what you may not know: Behind all the losses are serious problems, ones much larger than errors or a lack of hitting.

When one or two players quit a team, who would notice? When three or four players quit, there might be some reason for concern. When seven players leave the team in just over a year, then you have yourself one heck of a problem.

*

Heidi Albrecht is now a member of the Penn track team -- and for the first time in her athletic career at Penn, she's happy.

Albrecht, now a junior and once a promising young catcher for the Quakers, quit the team in a flame of controversy in the middle of last season.

During the Quakers' Spring Break trip to Florida, Albrecht got into a heated dispute with Kashow and then-assistant coach Martine Susko on the team van.

"The coaches then sentenced the entire team to their rooms," Albrecht remembers. "Someone said, 'Hey, it's our night off.' The coaches then said, 'Fine, you don't get to eat anything either.'"

"I felt like I was 12 again -- I hadn't been grounded in eight years!" said a former Penn softball player who wished to remain anonymous. "It was shocking for all of us."

Albrecht went on to describe some of her other major qualms with Kashow and Susko.

"There are supposed to be two people per room [on road trips] -- we had four. We didn't get enough meal money," Albrecht said. "It was just out of control."

Things did indeed spiral out of control last year.

Even before the season's disastrous Florida trip, some players almost staged a mutiny in protest of the coaching staff. According to Albrecht, pitchers Dina Parise and Becky Ranta and catcher Dani Landolt were ready to quit at the end of February, but were talked out of it.

Parise ended up leaving the team shortly before Albrecht did, in part because of nagging injuries but also due to her deteriorating relationship with Kashow.

"She wasn't willing to bring out my potential and that squandered my confidence," Parise said. "Softball has been the best part of my life, but it didn't work out at this particular program.

"I miss the girls, but I don't miss the Penn softball program."

*

Catcher Molly Meehan, outfielder Clarisa Apostol and second baseman Jamie Pallas -- seniors and roommates -- each came back to school in September with startling news for each other.

After a lot of thought over the summer, each decided to forgo her final year of eligibility. It wasn't a group decision, but one that each player reached independently.

Four years ago, Kashow brought in nine freshman recruits. By last year, the nine had dwindled to five. With the departure of Meehan, Apostol and Pallas prior to this season, only two seniors had survived four years of softball at Penn.

"Quite frankly, the [seniors who left] didn't have any effect on our team," Kashow said, noting that her main loss was freshman pitcher Kara Eyre, who quit the team for personal reasons before ever suiting up. "Everyone has to make choices. The challenge of Division I athletics and academics is not for everyone."

Third baseman Jen Moore, one of Penn's two remaining seniors, sympathized with her former teammates.

"Priorities change," Moore said. "We're not going to the pros. We came to school for the education. What are we going to stick around for?"

But the fact remains that many of the players who quit did so because of major issues with their coach.

Meehan, for one, was unhappy that her injuries were not dealt with properly. The former catcher suffered three concussions and needed shoulder surgery during her career at Penn, but was still used in the field until the very last minute.

Kashow "never conveyed any concern to me," Meehan said. "I went home for surgery in the fall of '99, and she didn't even call. And she had me catching right up to the day of my surgery. I didn't want to say anything, but it just got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore."

Meehan, like many others, said the sport they had once loved was no longer something they enjoyed doing.

"I've been playing since I was three. I didn't want to give it up," Meehan said. "But it just wasn't fun anymore."

*

The record may not show it, but things are getting better at Warren Field.

Susko, the assistant with whom Albrecht quarreled, is no longer with the team, having been replaced with the more personable and knowledgeable Lacey Schanz, who Moore describes as a "little ball of intensity."

Kashow is hoping that the recent rash of quittings is not contagious.

"We're looking for people who can handle demands," the head coach said. "We're looking for kids who would die for the game."

But is dying for a sport really what college -- not to mention Ivy League -- athletics are about?

And if it is about results -- well, where are they?

Does something have to change at Warren?

Or maybe there's nothing wrong with the program at all. After all, what do I know about college softball?

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.