It was Senior Day at Illinois College in April of 2015 when Scott Kwasnitza, watching his youngest daughter Courtney’s last collegiate softball game, was convinced it was also his swan song on the diamond.
The proud father, who spent 12 years coaching his two girls in Stonewall — and many more seasons with other young athletes — was emotional in the stands thinking about a lifetime of playing and teaching the sport he fell so desperately in love with at a young age.
“For me anyway, it was like this was the end of an era,” said Kwasnitza, who still gets choked up today. “It’s kind of sad but at the same time, you’re overjoyed that she had the opportunity.”
In 2018, Kwasnitza dusted off his whistle for one summer to help Courtney (Robak) coach the U14 Interlake Phillies softball team — an opportunity that Robak wouldn’t have taken on without her father’s help.
Kwasnitza was certain he was done for good after that summer.
“At that point… I sort of thought, ‘I did this… I’m glad I got to coach with my daughter but I’m probably done now.’”
So he thought.
The 62-year-old came out of retirement again to coach another family member this summer. This time, it was his granddaughter Harper, who at 10 years old played her first season of competitive softball for the AA Interlake Maroons.
Coaching his grandchild brought back many of the fond memories Kwasnitza had from the days spent with his daughters, though, he found a greater sense of appreciation for his role this time around.
“There’s certainly parallels to coaching your own kids, but I think I’m just so much more acutely aware. When I was coaching my own kids, life was busy: we were working, your life seemed to go at warp-speed and maybe at times you didn’t take the time to smell the roses,” Kwasnitza said.
“I’ve done all that and now I just find myself much more actually aware of the joy that she’s having and the experience that she’s having.”
Harper’s mom, Janna Farthing, was coached by her dad for three years before she bowed out of softball. As Harper became interested in playing for the Maroons, she couldn’t think of a better person to help guide her through the summer.
“She thinks that’s the coolest thing that her grandpa knows so much about softball and even my sister. They don’t really know a lot of their actual accomplishments but we’ll tell them little tidbits here and there and (Harper) and her teammates are just so impressed,” Farthing said.
“They just think of him as the grandpa out there but they don’t realize how talented he really is.”
Kwasnitza was inducted into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011 as an individual and re-joined the Hall in 2012 as a member of the 1988-93 Grosse Iles Blue Jays.
Born in Newmarket, Ont., Kwasnitza moved to Winnipeg at four before his professional career as an educator took him to Stonewall.
He started coaching shortly after his playing career ended, beginning in hardball with boys and later converting to softball after his daughters were born.
Kwasnitza proved to be more than a guiding voice for the 12 young women on the Maroons this summer, he was also a mentor for first-year coach Charlene Stetch.
“He was an integral part of our team,” said Stetch, who coached her daughter Hailey this summer. “He was taking charge at leading drills and breaking down skills. He has such a huge amount of knowledge to pass along to these girls, and the leadership style that enables him to do it — that’s just his nature.”
Coached by her dad for eight years — and on the same staff for one — Robak knows better than anyone what teaching the game has meant to Kwasnitza. Softball became the glue in their relationship, and you don’t need to look far for an example of that.
Despite it being a 16-hour drive from Stonewall to Jacksonville, Illinois, Kwasnitza was in the stands to cheer on his daughter on countless occasions over her four-year university career.
“We often joke that our classic thing was the post-game chats on the drive home from the games, so it was really special that we could kind of reflect in either a positive or a negative way depending on how I played. He was right there, right in the whole game so we were able to talk about anything,” Robak said.
“It was definitely a special relationship and I was very fortunate to have someone like, ‘Can we go play catch? Can we go down Quarry Park and hit a bucket of balls?’ We did a lot of extra stuff outside of the regular practice time that was obviously helpful for me to improve as an athlete.”
Kwasnitza’s reasoning was simple when he was coaching his daughters, and it will remain the same as long as he’s coaching his granddaughter.
“When it boils right down to it, you’re spending time with them. You’re spending time with them, enjoying something that they love and something that you love. There’s just a passion that develops,” Kwasnitza said. “It’s very special because it’s my granddaughter. It’s special because I didn’t expect at this age that I would be coaching anymore.
“I had all that with Janna and Courtney, and now I get to do it again, it’s sort of like winning the lottery twice.”
