RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
You know Karen Weekly as the co-head coach at the University of Tennessee who was recently inducted into the NFCA Hall of Fame thanks to her 22-year collegiate career that has seen her win 1,073 games–850 of them at Tennessee after getting 223 victories at Tennessee-Chattanooga.
She and husband and Vols co-head coach Ralph Weekly, who himself was inducted into the NFCA Hall of Fame in 2011, have lead the Lady Vols to seven Women’s College World Series appearances, two runner-up finishes (2007 and 2013) and produce 35 All-American honorees, five SEC Players of the Year and 76 All-SEC or SEC All-Freshman selections.
But what you may not know is that Karen Weekly has also been a practicing lawyer and professor and, according to family, is also an amazing chef.
“She cooks all the time,” says Ralph proudly. “Very few coaches, when given the chance to cater food for the team, actually do the cooking but Karen does and she’s a really good cook as evidenced by my big belly!”
Originally from the Seattle area, Karen got a law degree from the University of Washington and successfully practiced for five years in civil litigation and defense.
When she began her coaching career at Tennessee-Chattanooga in 1997 as co-head coach with her husband, she also taught Business Law for six years and was on her way to getting tenure before Ralph and Karen took their current positions at Tennessee in 2002.
“One reason Karen was asked to be the President of the NFCA,” says Ralph, “is because of her background as a lawyer and professor. When we moved here (University of Tennessee), she was asked to teach more.”
“I didn’t think I could do both,” Karen adds, “but I do love teaching.”
Extra Inning Softball spoke with the coach in-depth yesterday on all things softball as well as probed more into the pressing question of what she cooked for Christmas!
Here’s the interview…
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Where did Christmas 2018 find you?
We were in Knoxville this year as every other year we stay home and opposite years we go to Seattle where I was born and raised to see my two sisters.
What was this week like for you and the family?
I was cooking non-stop as Christmas Eve was a big family get-together for us with 15 people who came over. We went to church and had dinner with the family, but Christmas day was quiet, just me and Ralph here.
You draw raves from your family on your cooking… what did you make this year for the big Christmas Eve meal?
My background is Norwegian and Swedish so I made Norwegian Kringler, a dessert we have every year, and the scalloped potatoes are also popular with everyone. We also had turkey, corn pudding, green beans and a couple of salads.
Did you get to enjoy some time off over the Christmas break?
We never are out of softball mode, but we try to focus on church and family as we can and get rested and rejuvenated. We had a Christmas camp the weekend of December 15 and 16 and after that tried to pour ourselves into the Christmas holiday. About now is when we start getting ready for softball again as the girls come back January 6.
You were into the NFCA Hall of Fame on December 7th… what has that experience meant to you over the last year?
It’s really weird that you know for a full year and when it was first announced it was shocking; I never expected to have my name called–not this early in my career. After the initial shock wore off, I started to think about things like the ceremony, my speech and what I would say, but as the year went on and we got into the season and recruiting, it would float in and out of my mind. The last couple of months leading up to the Hall of Fame banquet, it started to be more heavily on my mind and to reflect on how I got here to this point.
I heard Pat Summitt (the late Hall of Fame Tennessee Lady Vols basketball coach) once say her famous line: ““Left Foot, Right Foot…Breathe” in response to how she was going to deal with her Alzheimer’s diagnosis and it applied to me and how I would deal with everything in my journey in coaching: taking steps, breathing and moving on.
In so many ways I feel like I’m just starting to figure this coaching thing out, I feel like I’m learning more now than 15 years ago.
As President of the NFCA Convention that took place in Chicago, what was your take-away from the meetings?
What stands out to me is we’re really working together well as a softball body. I don’t get to attend that many different caucuses as I’m in the Division I one, but in ours I was pleased that we’re unified and working together well. It’s not to say we don’t debate and discuss things, but I see that it’s healthy and has grown over the years. I was the NCAA Representative (at Tennessee) from 2010 to 2013 and I just completed my second year as President of the NFCA. We’ve come a long way in areas like legislation and rules of the game and it’s great to see things coming together in other areas like umpires and the TV component. Everyone is working together to make softball the best it can be and it’s really gratifying.
Was there one big topic that was addressed this year?
