Thanks for the memories: OU softball's final weekend at Marita Hynes Field
Oklahoma softball head coach Patty Gasso has no idea what feelings are going to be running through her this weekend.
As the Sooners prepare to play their final games ever at Marita Hynes Field, it’s going to be a wave of nostalgia. Celebrating the past and the present and looking ahead toward the future.
Gasso has said often this season she has been allowing herself to soak in some of these moments a lot more than she did in the past. But as for these final games? She doesn’t have a clue.
Nobody is more excited about Love’s Field opening for the softball team for the 2024 season than Gasso. She’s the only head coach the OU Softball Complex has ever had. But Marita Hynes Field isn’t just a place Gasso has coached softball. It became a second home.
“It’s bittersweet. My whole life has been spent on this field,” said Gasso when asked by SoonerScoop.com. “Lots of memories. Going from Reaves Park to us – this was like the Taj Mahal. The greatest thing we’ve ever seen. Then you did see that we were starting to outgrow this. I think once we won the national championship in 2000 that everything started to change, fan-wise.
“We’ve been living in it since then. It’s been now 23 years. Every year the fan base grows and grows. Did I ever expect it to get here? In my mind, probably not. But in our play? Yes. People have been following us all over the country and showing up to see us. I know we’ve arrived.”
This season has served as a trip down memory lane for current and former players. Maybe too many memories to count. The complex has seen it all during OU’s rise to prominence in the sport.
The Sooners have won 16 regular season Big 12 championships since the facility was built. They’ve reached the Super Regionals 16 times and made the Women’s College World Series on 15 occasions. And of course, there’s the six national championships.
OU will look to add one last impression when it welcomes No. 16 Clemson to Marita Hynes Field this weekend in a Super Regional.
Gasso can take in everything, obviously, because she knows where this program was when she first arrived.
Seeing the vision
Before Marita Hynes Field opened in 1998, OU played at Reaves Park. It’s just a public park owned by the City of Norman. No bells and certainly no whistles.
Anything felt better when Marita Hynes Field first opened.
“I didn’t have to pick up trash before practice like we did over at Reaves Park,” Gasso said. “We didn’t get kicked off the field at 5 o’clock because they had slow pitch. I mean, that’s what we were dealing with.
“You would never know we were a collegiate team by the way we were treated when we went over there. When I came here, I felt like we went from playing basketball on the blacktop to coming into a real gymnasium.”
A process that Marita Hynes herself played an instrumental role in. She said she remembers talking with then-athletic director Donnie Duncan to discuss a new stadium.
“I’ll never forget standing on that side, basically where the ticket office is where you go in,” said Hynes to SoonerScoop.com’s George Stoia. “There were two cedar trees, and I looked between those two trees and looked over the campus and this is just a wonderful place to have a field. That’s kind of how it started.”
It opened in 1998, and the OU Softball Complex was officially named after Hynes in 2004. Hynes was the head coach from 1977-84 and ranks second in OU history with 257 wins, trailing only Gasso.
Gasso has a 1,250-280-2 overall record heading into this weekend. Hynes remembers giving Gasso her start at OU, and it’s something Gasso has never forgotten, either.
“So Marita Hynes hired me when I had my youngest son,” said Gasso when asked by SoonerScoop.com. “I was pregnant, and he was born on Jan. 6. It was the first time we’d ever driven in snow, so we had to go from Norman to Oklahoma City and we tried to leave real early because I knew it was about time. So we drove about 20 miles an hour just to get up there, and Marita Hynes had no idea where we were. So she was calling the Highway Patrol. She’s trying to find out where we are. What happened? Are we OK?
“So she’s always been extremely caring. She was there after D.J. was born. She was, besides my husband, the first one to hold him. So there’s just always this family connection. I talk to her often. She’s the reason why I’m here.”
And Hynes will get one last look at the field. She is making the drive from Ruidoso, N.M., to make sure she’s in attendance to say farewell.
She’s grateful for the honor and overwhelmed by the success of the program and the growth of the sport. Still, it’ll be a little bittersweet.
“It has been a wonderful 25 years for that deal. I’ve enjoyed having my name on it,” Hynes said. “But I’m so pleased and happy that they’re getting a new facility that will accommodate all of our fans. I kind of started that whole procedure for building that stadium. I’ll miss it.”
The OU softball future at Love’s Field
But everyone is, obviously, excited about what’s to come. Love’s Field will have a capacity of more than 3,000 fans compared to around 1,600 for Marita Hynes Field. It is a project years in the making that will finally be completed and ready before the 2024 season. Approved in 2018, it broke ground to officially get the ball rolling in 2022.
From Reaves Park to Marita Hynes Field was one thing. To go from Marita Hynes Field to Love’s Field is going to be another one of those massive jumps.
“Every time I drive by, I slow down,” Gasso said. “And now I’m starting to see framing going up. Last week we were fortunate enough to put on hard hats and be able to take a ride through. And it is a wow, wow factor.
“So I see it on paper and I’m wowed. But when I’m standing in it and saying this is your new indoor facility that is four or five times bigger than what we have right now. It’s just a dream. I feel like I’m dreaming. It is going to be something else.”
Gasso has told the story a bunch of bringing in players for visits and showing them around the football facilities. Yes, there is always a wow-factor surrounding the football program. Nobody questions that.
However, there was always this feeling of what’s that got to do with softball? Love’s Field is the wow-factor, and Gasso is as instrumental in building this stadium as Hynes was nearly 30 years ago.
“I’m able to have comments on what’s going to be on the walls, what we’re going to be sitting in, what colors are the tables,” Gasso said. “This is really going to be a class-act, grade-A facility for athletes. but the wow-factor is going to be in our softball stadium.”
OU softball memories that last a lifetime
But Marita Hynes Field isn’t done just yet. And those who have played on the field have a lifetime of memories.
Not just the wins – the many, many wins or the rare losses. The relationships and growth that came along the way. Turning girls into young women and seeing them succeed well beyond the softball field.
“That stadium – it became more than just a field,” said Nicole Mendes, who played at OU from 2017-21 and won two national championships. “It felt like home. It was a field that felt like home and had everything I could have ever wanted.”
Mendes has one of the best final moments for a player on the field, catching the final out to send OU to the Women’s College World Series in 2021.
“I got to make the last out,” Mendes said. “For that to be my last play ever on that field was unreal. I caught one deep in the outfield. It’s the one that always stands out to me. Just doing it all for my teammates and in front of the fans. A real special moment.”
Last Dance
This is it. Clemson coming to town with everything on the line. OU is 54-1 overall and riding a 46-game winning streak.
If the Sooners can win Friday and Saturday, they will set the record for softball’s longest winning streak at 48 games. OU would surpass the 47-game mark set by Arizona in 1996-97.
Gasso has stressed the team is not worried about the streak. It’s just making sure there is some sort of celebration once again for the team going back to the Women’s College World Series by weekend’s end.
It’s something the current team understands as well.
“We’re just embracing it,” said junior Tiare Jennings about the final weekend at Marita Hynes Field. “It’s bittersweet. Knowing that we’re gonna be part of a team that’s gonna be the last ones to play in here. We’re just trying to represent the legends that have played before us.
“And we’re getting a new field and trying to be that team to set the tone with that new stadium. It’s exciting to be part of both – to have the best of both worlds. We’re gonna miss this field, but we’ve had so many great moments.”
Hynes isn’t sure where she’s going to be sitting this weekend. Gasso doesn’t know when that moment is going to hit her that the playing days at Marita Hynes Field are over.
It’s time to move on. It’s a testament to OU’s success and the sport’s growth for the demand to make this happen.
But, well, you never forget that first home.
“So whether it looks beautiful or not, or whether it has enough seats or not, it’s still where this program was born,” Gasso said. “But my memories will always live here. This is home. It’ll always be home.”
