The NCAA Women’s College World Series celebrates its 40th year of existence in 2022. In today’s historical lookback, it’s a spotlight on the 1983 tournament.
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Sixteen teams competed in the entirety of the 1983 Division I softball tournament. Eight head-to-head regionals took place to determine who would qualify for the second-ever Women’s College World Series, set to be played in Omaha, Nebraska. With each regional set in a best-of-three format, five of the eight locations played the maximum amount of games possible, including a winner-take-all game 3.
Missouri was the only team to qualify for the WCWS after losing the first game of their regional, having lost their series opener to Southwest Missouri State (now known as simply Missouri State). Eight of the twenty-one games played in the regional round were decided by one run, while fifteen were shutouts. The full Women’s College World Series field ultimately included Cal State Fullerton; Indiana; Louisiana Tech; Missouri; Pacific; South Carolina; Texas A&M; and UCLA.
Only two of the teams – Cal State Fullerton and UCLA – had competed in the inaugural World Series the year prior. Head coaches Judi Garman and Sharon Backus, respectively, led those teams, and both coaches would go on to be inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame. An annual tournament still put on by Cal State Fullerton bears Garman’s name in her honor.
Perhaps the most intriguing anecdote in looking back at the 1983 WCWS comes from two other coaches who took their teams to Omaha that year. Joyce Compton and Gayle Blevins are both also in the NFCA Hall of Fame, inducted in 2002 and 1999, respectively. Looking back into the archives, though, you would see both legendary coaches in some particularly unfamiliar colors.
Compton is best known for her 23-year career as the head coach at South Carolina, a tenure that saw her lead the Gamecocks to the Women’s College World Series in 1989 and 1997. Back in 1983, though, she was beginning a stint as the head coach at the University of Missouri, then of the Big Eight Conference. The Tigers were making their first appearance in the softball championship tournament, but finished 0-2 in Omaha. A win in their elimination game would have matched the program up against South Carolina, the very team that Compton would take over just a few years later.
The most famous portion of Blevins’ head coaching career was a 22-year tenure at Iowa, a legendary time that included the Hawkeyes appearing in the Women’s College World Series four times in a seven-year span from 1995-2001. Before she got to Iowa, though, Blevins spent eight years as the head coach at Indiana and it was in Bloomington that she earned the first two WCWS appearances of her coaching career. The Hoosiers also went 0-2 in the ’83 tournament, unable to add to a career win total that would pass 1,200 before Blevins’ career’s end.
