Morton College softball coach Paul Netzel is eager to make the most of a second chance for his first season. The Panthers opened the 2020 campaign with a doubleheader loss to Triton before the NJCAA pulled the plug on entire spring season because of COVID-19.
A two-game season in 2020 hasn’t prevented an all-time high in participants for the 2021 campaign. The Panther roster stands at 24 with 14 newcomers and 10 returnees who all received an additional season of competition under an NJCAA ruling dealing with the coronavirus.
Netzel is big into the student part of the student-athlete. He challenged the players at a meet-the-coach meeting prior to the start of the 2020 season to strive for a team 3.0 grade-point average. Three players – Nora Cuevas, Nyome Zavala and Itzayana Carranza – were named NJCAA All-Academic Third Team and Illinois Skyway Collegiate Conference All-Academic. Kelly Sullivan and Cassidy Woywod also were selected Skyway All-Academic.
“If you’re not smart in the classroom, you’re not going to be smart on the field,” Netzel said. “Our goal is to get our players to move on to four-year schools. I think that’s the key.”
Discipline, communication and having fun are the cornerstones of Netzel’s coaching philosophy.
Whether it’s basketball, baseball, cross country, golf, tennis or softball, all sports the Kankakee native has coached during a career in education and sales, those three things are constants.
“A lot of it is self-discipline,” Netzel said. “It’s the little things, like your batting stance. You have to do the right things consistently. It’s part of the self-discipline I want to impart. The communication aspect is important. I want to be sure to communicate so the players know what the expectations are.”
Netzel also tries to incorporate having fun into his coaching style. He’ll replace the drudgery of running sprints by turning it into a team competition.
Netzel served as an assistant at Benedictine University under Katie Heidkamp, whose 596 career victories makes her the 20th all-time active winningest coach at the NCAA Division III level. He served as the associate head coach in 2019 at Kishwaukee where the Kougars’ 11-26 record was deceiving with eight one-run losses.
At St. Edward High School, Netzel led the Green Wave to a fourth-place finish in Class 2A in 2016.
“We were the first Elgin school to go downstate,” Netzel said. “That was kind of exciting.”
Netzel, a graduate of Illinois State, spent 13 years teaching and coaching at West Chicago High School. As boys basketball coach, Netzel tried to talk Scott Dierking into joining the team. Dierking, who went on to play eight years in the NFL with the New York Jets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, opted to spend his winters on the wrestling mat.
Netzel then went into private business and served a term as mayor of West Chicago where he offered the Chicago Bears 700 acres to build a stadium. While the Bear fight song didn’t become “Bear Down, West Chicago Bears,” Netzel always thinks big.
Shortly after getting the Morton College position, Netzel already has tapped into his large contact base for recruiting purposes.
“Part of leadership is working with people and being involved in the community,” Netzel said. “What I can offer our student-athletes is to help them with their careers. With my experiences, I think I can help them succeed.”
