By BRAD KEITH
Sports Editor, Stephenville Empire-Tribune
The 14th year softball coach and Tarleton State seem to go hand-in-hand.
Mata played basketball for the TexAnns when they reached the NAIA national championship game in 1992 and graduated from Tarleton that same year.
She met her husband, Jose, in Wisdom Gym, where he later proposed to her.
After three years of teaching and coaching in public schools in south Texas, the Matas returned to Stephenville, and she began work on her master's degree while working as a graduate assistant with the basketball and tennis teams.
One year later, in 1997, Mata accepted the post of head softball coach in the second year of the program's modern era.
Now, the coach who was named to the Lone Star Conference 75th Anniversary Team in April, 2007, is celebrating 400 wins.
Mata's 400th win, a 4-1 victory over Cameron on Feb. 5 in the St. Mary's Invitational in San Antonio, was her team's first win of the season. The TexAnns are currently 4-3 on the year, pushing Mata's record as coach to 403-284-2 entering Wednesday's home opener, a 1 p.m. double header against St. Edward's.
"It's all about the girls. I don't look at 400 wins as being my 400 wins. They are our program's 400 wins," said Mata, who has had 12 straight winning seasons. "They belong to all the people who have come through our program."
All in the family
It seems as if Mata coaching softball at Tarleton came about as a matter of destiny.
It was softball, after all, that brought her family to Stephenville when she was just a young girl.
"My dad (Larry Foster) played big-time men's fast-pitch softball and we moved to Stephenville because they always had the men's state tournament here," Mata said. "Softball was all we did. Our summers were spent traveling wherever my dad played. Still to this day I meet people who know my dad as a great softball player."
Softball, especially nowadays, is the glue that keeps the Foster (and Mata) family together.
"It's all in the family now," Mata said. "My husband coaches it, my brother (David) coaches it and I coach it."
Mata still knows where to turn for softball advice.
"My dad and I always played ball together. He always came to my games and he still comes to my games now," she said. "I ask him for softball advice before I ask anyone else."
Taking the reigns
Mata may have come from a softball family, but she wasn't exactly the ideal candidate for a college head coaching job in 1997.
It was basketball, not softball, that she played at Tarleton, and basketball and tennis that she had served as a graduate assistant.
"I really didn't have a great vision for the program when I first started," Mata said.
She remembers her first interview as the TexAnns' head coach.
"Reed Richmond was our (sports information director) then. One of the first things he asked me was what I would bring to the team since I had no experience playing or coaching college softball," Mata said. "I told him I was real comfortable with my team-building skills. I thought that would be my biggest strength. I knew at that time we were kind of the David facing Goliath in Lone Star Conference softball and one of the most important things would be for us to become the perfect definition of a team."
Mata's team building skills showed early in her career, especially in 1998, when the TexAnns, with only one full scholarship for softball, won the LSC South Division championship.
"They're all sweet," Mata said of the five division titles the TexAnns have won under her direction, "but that one was just a little bit sweeter."
The magical 1998 South title run left Mata with a two-year record of 50-36-1.
She was well on her way to a successful career.
Special girls, special moments
The TexAnns won LSC South titles in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2008. They have been to nine conference tournaments and three regionals.
It takes Mata a second to remember the exact years in which those accomplishments were earned. It takes no time at all, however, for her to remember players' names and the special moments they had as TexAnns.
She remembers home runs by Monica Garza and Brittnee Rice, who she calls the best pure hitters she has ever coached.
Garza, who went on to play professionally and is now the head coach at White Settlement Brewer High School in Fort Worth, hit one that struck awe in all in attendance at the Tarleton Softball Complex.
Well beyond the right field fence is a building used for housing equipment, indoor batting practice and more. It is known affectionately as "BOB," short for big old building.
"BOB" sits well beyond the outfield fence. Garza's shot didn't just reach "BOB," it flew over the roof and landed on the other side.
"It was one of the longest home runs I've ever seen," Mata said. "The only one close is the one (Rice) hit last year."
The longest of Rice's long balls went to left field, where there is no "BOB."
"If the building would have been in left field instead of right, it would have gone over it like Monica's," Mata said.
There was another home run of note, one that extended the TexAnns' season when they were competing in a regional tournament at St. Mary's University in San Antonio.
Catcher Brynn Kamenicky went to the plate with Tarleton trailing 1-0 with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning.
"Their big pitcher was just dominating us," Mata said. "Then out of nowhere Brynn hits a home run over the left field fence and it was a brand new game. We ended up winning that game."
Mata also recalls a gutsy pitching performance by former star Carla Geeslin in another regional at St. Mary's, though this time the memory isn't as pleasant.
"I remember Carla working so hard to keep us in the game against Angelo State," she says. "We turned a double play and the umpires didn't give us either out."
Angelo went on to win the regional and advance to the national tournament.
"One play!" Mata exclaims. "We were that close. I guess it just wasn't meant to be."
Mata remembers Jalayne Johnson Rinewalt, who along with current Tarleton assistant Leslee Drummond Ortiz, were part of her early teams that were "big-hearted and practically played for nothing (in terms of scholarship money)."
Some of the most special moments come when former players return to Tarleton for alumni games, or just to drop in on their old coach.
"It's the people that mean so much. It's the girls," Mata said. "They come back to our alumni games and they bring their families and they have kids. They are out in the business world, or they're teaching. I run into them and it seems like it was just yesterday they were here playing softball."
Giving credit where it's due
Mata is the first to admit she couldn't have won 400 games alone.
"I want to thank all my assistant coaches through the years," she says. "People like Russ Mayes, my brother David, Cheryl Dickens, A.J. Bristow and Leslee (Ortiz) - the wins are every bit theirs as mine," she said.
Dickens was a standout short stop for the TexAnns before becoming an assistant coach. Bristow was a pitcher at Tarleton and Ortiz is back at the school as an assistant after playing in Mata's early years.
Mata's relationship with her former players turned coaches couldn't possibly be any stronger, but it's Mayes and David Foster she is especially appreciative of.
"Russ has one of the best softball minds around," Mata says. "He and David have always been there for me and they are a big part of this accomplishment."
Winnin' pills
Besides her parents, Larry and Elaine Foster, perhaps no one has made a more lasting impression on Mata than Cled Heathington.
Heathington, who passed away just after last season, was an old-time fast-pitch softball pitcher.
"If you talk fast-pitch in this area you always hear people say, 'Oh yea, Cled Heathington, best pitcher,'" Mata says.
Heathington spent many an afternoon and evening in his twilight years at the Tarleton Softball Complex enjoying TexAnns' double headers.
"He loved to be close to the game and he loved the way our teams played the game," Mata says. "And our girls loved Mr. Heathington."
Heathington always brought packs of M&Ms along to the games.
"He called them 'winnin' pills,'" Mata said. "He always said if you turned them over, the Ms turn into Ws."
The crowd at Heathington's funeral was somewhat of a who's-who in Tarleton softball history.
"It you saw how many players from our program were at his funeral, it was phenomenal," she said. "There were 13 years worth of players out there. He just meant so much to all of us and to the program."
The true meaning of success
Mata shares with all her teams the same message when workouts begin each fall.
"I tell them to imagine themselves as young girls looking over the fence watching us play. If they can picture themselves as that young girl dreaming of someday playing for our team, they have been successful."
After a disappointing playoff loss ended a record-setting season in a regional tournament in San Antonio, Mata gathered her troops for the final time that year. She reminded them of the message about the hypothetical little girl, and told her team she believed they were winners because any little girl would dream of playing on such a team.
"Our success isn't measured in Ws and Ls," Mata said. "It's measured in that little girl looking over the fence."
In the Tarleton State softball trophy case rests a photo. It means nothing to most passersby. To Mata it means the world.
A young girl who had purchased Garza's replica jersey when the former TexAnn was playing professionally, is pictured from behind as she stares out on the field enjoying the game, daydreaming of someday playing for her favorite team.
When Garza sent Mata the photo, she simply said, "Hey coach, I've done it."
