For the Naperville Diamonds, winning on the field was one thing. Their biggest win of the year, however, came far away from the field.
Bill Kugelberg’s Naperville Diamonds 16-under team won the ASA Northern National Championship on July 27 in Ames, Iowa. It’s one of the finest accomplishments in the program’s history.
Perhaps how the Diamonds won was even more impressive.
After playing to a 2-2 tie in the first seven innings and falling behind 3-2 after the top half of the eighth, the Diamonds mounted a rally. An infield hit, a stolen base, a walk, a sacrifice fly, a single and a fielder’s choice pushed the Diamonds — as well as coaches Kugelberg and Scott Kowalczyk — to the victory.
“They were just so laser-focused on winning that game,” Kugelberg said. “They knew exactly what they had to do.”
The Diamonds finished 34-22-2 as Kugelberg — who just completed his eighth season with the team — will move to the 18-under edition for the next two years.
“This team has been through hard times,” Kugelberg said. “It’s almost like softball to them was an escape. Like, ‘We’re going to enjoy ourselves. We’re going to put all this other stuff to the side. We’re not going to forget it, but we want to enjoy ourselves.’
“It was just great for them to come out and play at the level we knew they could play.”
Chief among the hard times was coach Scott Kowalczyk’s battle with Hodgkin lymphoma. Kowalczyk, whose daughter Katie is an outfielder/second baseman on the team, is Kugelberg’s close friend. Kowalczyk was diagnosed with the disease in December 2012.
Since then, he had undergone eight rounds of chemotherapy. Sometimes it would take and the cancer would fade, but it always came back. In September 2018, he decided he had had enough chemo.
The next option was more risky — he was told it had an 80% success rate in 2012. But to Kowalczyk, it was the only remaining option.
He underwent a bone marrow transplant that month, and once again, it didn’t take. Various issues arose. Sores developed in his throat. He couldn’t talk or eat for almost a month. The mindset was bleak.
But then, things changed. A new drug defibrotide, to treat his veno-occlusive disease, turned everything around.
As he recovered Kowalczyk, an Oswego resident, couldn’t stay too far from the Loyola Medical Center’s bone marrow transplant unit in Maywood. He had to be in bed but couldn’t be more than 30 miles from the hospital, so he moved to the Residence Inn in Oak Brook.
Through various fundraisers, the Diamonds raised over one million Marriott points for Kowalczyk. The pressure of mounting hotel bills subsided as his body recovered. On Dec. 29, he returned home. He remains free of cancer.
Kowalczyk doesn’t think about the softball. He thinks about the girls, their families, his daughter. He returned to his post as first base coach on June 7, and he was there for the Diamonds’ title.
“The support I get from them, the girls telling me I’ve made a difference in their lives?” Kowalczyk said. “Well, they’ve made a difference in my life. I think about them all the time. The softball thing is great, especially since we won.
“But I told the girls late in the season. ‘I don’t know if you realize this, but I wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for you girls and your support. Your families. This team. You inspired me to be here.'”
Rich Mayor is a freelance reporter for the Napervlle Sun.
