DEFOREST, Wis. — On Sunday, the Wisconsin American Legion hosted its first ever girls softball championship.
Derrick Standky is the Waupun Legion softball head coach and a state chairman for Wisconsin girls Legion softball.
He played a huge part in making Wisconsin the 10th state in the nation to have an American Legion Girls Softball league.
“We had 29 [teams] the first year and we are hoping for like 50 [teams] next year,” said Standky. “We have had a lot of interest, a lot of teams reaching out, I think they wanted to see how the first year went, what kinks we needed to work out yet to be a good program like the baseball team. ”
Unlike travel softball leagues, the American Legion league requires less of a time commitment, as families do not have to travel for games and it is also cheaper.
“It is a great opportunity for high school coaches. They can coach their team in the summer and build that relationship with their team that much longer and it just breeds success along the way within itself,” said Standky.
Standky hopes as the program progresses it can have as much success as the boys baseball league, which currently has more than 200 teams.
“We need to give these girls the opportunity, they play hard, they work hard in the off season,” said Standky.
He said it is about more than saving money, it’s also about building relationships.
“To be able to hangout with the friends, you go to school with every day, to bring them all together is great,” said Standky. “Instead of having a girl go to this travel team and others over there, so this is just a nice community based way of getting the girls back in the game.”