2001 Female Player: Debra Stamm Germann

Debra Stamm Germann

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Back in 1976, Debra Stamm Germann received an exemption to play ball with an adult softball team while still a Milstadt High School junior. It marked the beginning of a career that would see Germann win numerous All-Tournament and MVP honors in two softball associations over the next 15 years.

During summers off from playing volleyball and fast pitch for Southern Illinois University and Illinois State University, Germann played slow pitch with Hecker-Miller Lite.

Throughout the early- and mid-80s, Germann won numerous All-Tournament and MVP honors. In 1985, she joined Coors Light out of Champaign. Playing shortstop and batting lead-off, Germann, along with teammates Marion Bell at first, pitcher Carol Stark, outfielder Vicky Winchester and power hitting Carol Moering, won the USSSA Women’s Class A State Title in 1985 and 1986. Coors turned in final four finishes at the USSSA World in Springfield in 1985 and the 1986 World in Parma, Ohio.

Along the way, Germann married Mark Germann, and by 1990 she had new priorities – she was pregnant with daughter, Amy – causing her to hang up the spikes. She is now a physical education teacher and helps run Mark’s construction business.

She was the one everyone looked to for leadership and to come through in the clutch.
— Marion Bell

However, while Germann has forgotten many of the details of her playing career, many who witnessed her athletic accomplishments have not.

“She was the one everyone looked to for leadership and to come through in the clutch,” Marion Bell, a Hecker and Coors teammate, said.

Fellow 2001 inductee Gloria Kolbusz, whose Chicagoans won three USSSA Class A titles, remembers Germann’s Coors team as highly competitive, well-coached and Germann as a force to be reckoned with at the plate, on the base paths and in the field.

“She was one of the best shortstops around,” Tom Burton, Lassies manager, said. “For as tall as she was, she had great range and quickness. [At the plate] she had good power and was consistent.”

Illinois USSSA State Director Brenda Paulson remembers the first time she saw Germann play clearly.

“The first time I ever saw her play, at the Lassies NIT in St. Charles, she stroked a base hit to right, and was standing on second before they got the ball in to the infield,” Paulson said.

Germann is honored by her induction.

“As I sat with Marion Bell filling out the application form, we were laughing at all the memories that came up,” she said. “It was all about the teammates, the camaraderie.”

One more time, it is all about a great teammate and softball player, with Debra Stamm Germann’s induction into the Illinois USSSA Hall of Fame.

2001 Female Player: Barb Beimal

Barb Beimal

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Ask people to talk about shortstop and outfielder Barb Beimal and most of them will respond, “She could always get a hit.”

A skilled place hitter and defensive stalwart throughout her playing career, Beimal established herself as one of the top woman players in Illinois from the mid-70s through the mid-80s, starting with Big Blue out of Lombard, then the National Bank of Rochelle and later with Prairie Moon Saloon of Rockford.

Always an outstanding athlete, Beimal was the first woman to receive an athletic scholarship to Northern Illinois University. She was also the only woman to ever play three major sports – volleyball, basketball and softball – for four years at NIU. She brought that combination of athletic skill and tenacity to her USSSA career.

Beimal was a .610 lifetime average place hitter who prided herself on talking the ball “wherever it was most advantageous to our team.”

Once on the base paths, the fun was just starting for Beimal, who was particularly adept at manufacturing runs.

“I always enjoyed base running,” she said. “And I loved to make the defense throw the ball around and away.”

Even when she made a mistake, Beimal made up for it. On one occasion, she was charged with an error on a difficult play with two outs in the seventh inning of a previously perfect game. Disappointed but not shaken, she responded by turning a double play on the next batter, salvaging a no-hitter for her pitcher.

Beimal likely would have received more national attention if she had played on more nationally competitive teams, but she valued playing with people she knew and liked more than tournament trophies.

The USSSA organization should be commended for its outstanding efforts in bringing quality athletics to girls of all ages and color, across the nation. [It] has helped literally hundreds of thousands of young girls develop into strong, confident, successful women. I am grateful and I will speak for all those who were given the same opportunity when I say ‘thank you’ from the bottom of my heart.
— Barb Beimal

While her teams did not always dominate tournaments, Beimal certainly stood out. One season, she was named the tournament MVP in five of the seven tournaments her team played. She won eleven MVPs overall, and was also MVP of an All-Star game.

After nearly 25 years in the game, Beimal appreciates the USSSA experience more than ever. Now a Dean of Students at a high school for troubled youth in Florida, she plays softball recreationally; however, it’s the well-being of future generations that’s most important to her.

True to her calling as a coach and mentor to young people, Beimal is thankful to the USSSA not just for what the sport has given her, but also for the opportunities it affords countless girls throughout the country.

“The USSSA organization should be commended for its outstanding efforts in bringing quality athletics to girls of all ages and color, across the nation,” Beimal said. “[It] has helped literally hundreds of thousands of young girls develop into strong, confident, successful women. I am grateful and I will speak for all those who were given the same opportunity when I say ‘thank you’ from the bottom of my heart.”

The Illinois USSSA Hall of Fame returns that sentiment and honors a great softball player and role model.