2004 Lifetime Achievement: Tom Burton

Tom Burton

In over a quarter century of USSSA softball, Tom Burton’s support of the game has been unwavering. Always willing to do whatever it took to give his team the best chance to win, Burton prided himself on his scouting acumen and ability as a defensive strategist. Along the way, he also sat behind the microphone as a tournament announcer for over half a dozen tournaments.

Starting with the legendary Fox Valley Lassies in 1979 on through stints with Lady Blue, UPI, Kinder Sharks and Shooters out of Orlando, Florida, Burton has contributed his coaching skills to some of the top women’s slow pitch teams in America.

Burton can list players, officials and coaches from all over America who will attest to his skills and personal characteristics, including directors in Kansas, Florida, Kentucky and, of course, Illinois.

He has coached for five World Champions, including three Lady Blue teams, the 1995 UPI team and the 1995 35 & Over World Champion Bret Givens team.

Scouting is not near the top of the lists of most coaches’ favorite activities, but Burton thrived on that essential task. He loved to break down other team’s offenses and draw up defensive schemes to beat them.

“I just love the strategy part of the game,” Burton said. “Trying to stop the opposing team’s hitters.”

That job often required sitting for hours and watching opposing offenses play, which was just fine with Tom who said, “I enjoyed watching games until midnight or much later.”

“I will never forget his tenacity to get a scouting report,” Dr. Deborah Kerr of the Lassies said. “Even if it meant watching a team at 4 a.m. in the rain.”

His teams have been successful because of Tom’s knowledge of other team’s statistics, where opposing players hit and their weaknesses and strengths, recalled USSSA National Women’s Director Tammy Totland.

While Burton obviously takes great pride and satisfaction in being part of five World Championship teams, he is quick to bring up what he still considers his greatest accomplishment. In 1993, Burton drew up a defensive strategy that helped Lady Blue hold World Series opponents to just six runs in five games, including a 25-2 title game win.

“I will never forget his tenacity to get a scouting report. Even if it meant watching a team at 4 a.m. in the rain.”

— Dr. Deborah Kerr

“Six runs allowed in five games of slow pitch softball; I doubt that will ever happen again,” Burton recalled as if he still couldn’t quite believe it.

Most of all, Burton cherishes the friends he has made over the years and across the country; something that is reciprocated by many of those people.

“Besides Tom’s abilities on the field, he also was a good friend to all players, coaches and fans,” Lassies’ Jo Suave said.

We would like to offer Tom Burton one more thing he can take away from this game with an induction into the Illinois USSSA Hall of Fame with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

2004 Lifetime Achievement: Laurie "Smitty" Smith

Laurie “Smitty” Smith

A self-described “fair player with a decent bat,” Laurie “Smitty” Smith played third base and catcher through a career that included roster spots on such Rockford Park District teams as First National Bank, Ace of Diamonds, Bolender Jewelers, Diamond Bar and Valley Furnace Flames.

When her playing career ended in 1982, her body left softball behind but her hard couldn’t. Like so many others, the love of the great sport led her to seek out other ways to stay involved with the game. That has led to serve the game of softball in every way from scorekeeping to announcing to singing the National Anthem.

“I wanted to stay involved with the game and be around my friends,” Smith said.

Happily, by 1982, her former coach, Brenda Paulson, was the Illinois USSSA State Director and running numerous tournaments in Rockford. Smith began keeping score, running the scoreboard and announcing the games.

“I was being called the ‘Harriet Carey of Forest Hills,’” Smith said.

As time went by, Paulson entrusted Smith with more responsibilities. She became Diamond Director for State and Qualifying Tournaments, as well as handled the checking in of teams and players and collecting the ever-elusive team rosters.

“As strenuous and exhausting as it was, I enjoyed almost every moment,” Smith said. “When the day was over, as players and umpires were leaving the park and going to the nearest bars for cocktails, I was faxing in the day’s scores to the newspaper, cleaning up the score booth and locking up.”

Smith remembered an embarrassing moment from a day she was calling a Men’s tournament at Forest Hills. With the stands filled with fans, Smith was at the microphone when a batter stroked a single down the first baseline. “It’s a base shit!” Smith blurted out. Blushing beet red and sliding away from the front of the booth, she hid in the recesses, then gathered the courage to peek out over the window ledge at the crowd where no one was laughing at her gaffe. “Thank the Lord!” she breathed and went on with her announcing duties with greater care to enunciate her words.

“My years in softball have been the best years of my life. This is where I met my best and dearest friend, Brenda Paulson, along with my many other cherished friends. I want to say, ‘Thank you, I love you and God bless.’”

— Laurie Smith

Smith knew she was being fully accepted around the ball park when she found herself with male players regularly in her face and “yelling at me as though I were Brenda.”

“Of course, their problems were self-induced most of the time, but I tried to keep my cool as best I could,” Smith recalled.

She has, she said, enjoyed it all.

“My years in softball have been the best years of my life,” Smith said. “This is where I met my best and dearest friend, Brenda Paulson, along with my many other cherished friends. I want to say, ‘Thank you, I love you and God bless.’”

Laurie Smith is welcomed into the Illinois USSSA Hall of Fame with the Lifetime Achievement Award and we say thank you in return for her proven love and devotion to the USSSA and the sport of softball.