Player Profile: Gina Yakimoff
Gina Yakimoff played her first softball game for Mill Creek Junior Baseball League at the age of 15. Almost 30 years later, she is still actively involved in the league and shows no signs of leaving any time soon. Yakimoff coaches Amanda’s Angels, a girls softball team ages 10-12. Even though she’s had success as a player and a coach, she stays modest. “I know many other coaches who have been been involved in the league for 10, 15, 20 years,” she said. “Those who have coached all that time have a love for the league and a love for what it offers the kids.”
Q: What got you interested in playing softball?
A: I didn’t have any idea about the league until my friend, Lisa Cogar, told me about it. She and her father got me into it.
Q: How long did you play?
A: I played for one year, when I was 15. Back then, girls “retired” after 15, and there were no teams in high school, so it was just that one year.
Q: What position did you play?
A: I played first base, and I think they probably put me there because I was the tallest.
Q: What’s your favorite part of the game?
A: Being with the team. I know it doesn’t sound exciting, but it is. That one year I played, our coach Rich Hlinka, was in his first year coaching. He took that team that went 0-20 the year before, and turned it around to win a championship.
Q: Why did you want to stay involved in the game?
A: The experience I got while playing and the excitement from our coach about the game, made me want to stay involved. Also, the feeling of accomplishment I got from playing with my teammates.
Q: How long have you been coaching?
A: When I was 16, Chuck Ialenti [coach of Hank’s 13th Frame in 1981] asked me if I wanted to help him coach a lower division team, so that’s how I got started. I’ve been coaching now for 27 years.
Q: What age groups have you coached?
A: I’ve coached summer Pig Tails (10-12), summer fast pitch (13-14), and I also coached varsity for Ursuline High School for four years and Chaney High School for one year.
Q: What’s your favorite age to coach?
A: The 10-12-year-olds are my favorite. It’s such an impressionable age, and they just soak everything up. They’re old enough to be competitive, but they still like to learn things every day.
Q: What’s one of your best memories as a player?SFlbA: Being able to spend that whole summer with my father. He passed away this past November, and that summer gave us so many memories. It was something we were always able to talk about and share with one another.
Q: What’s one of your best memories as a coach?
A: Two years ago, in 2006 my regular season team went 24-0. We were undefeated, and we won the championship against Knight Line that year. I also coached an All-Star team in 1992, The Mill Creek All-Stars. They lost the first game of the tournament to Campbell, then came back to win 11 straight games in the losers bracket. They beat Campbell twice and won the championship.
XInterview by Elise Franco , Vindicator staff writer.