Rachel Gill is the head coach of the St. Louis Chaos 16U team that fans will most likely see in our upcoming Fab 50 rankings next week.

Gill had a standout career at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana where the catcher is first all-time in batting average (.421) and second in both hits (211) and runs batted in (158). Gill was also an All-American during her time at DePauw.

We had the chance to catch up with Gill and discuss her 5 years of coaching experience so far with the Chaos.



You had a successful playing career at DePauw. What is your coaching background?
I’ve been coaching since I graduated from there. I’ve always had that desire to teach, and I love teaching this game. I never played with the Chaos because they didn’t have a team in my age division, but I played against them. Evan Beatty is the main coach of the St. Louis Chaos and he’s been coaching for 20 years or so in the organization so I played against him a lot. So when I got into coaching, he asked me to come help him with his catchers about five or six years ago. That’s how I started coaching with him and I coached our 18U team with him for about 3 years then 2 years ago he dropped me and Lindsay (the Chaos’ 16U assistant coach) to the 16U team. Our team has come a long, long way. We’ve really tried to reestablish this organization as a national powerhouse. There were some gaps in the organization and we just really felt like it was our job and duty to reestablish this organization. We now have a team in every year and are working toward making the whole organization and national powerhouse instead of just a couple teams.

You mentioned coaching being teaching. Discuss what that means to you and how it affects your coaching.
I truly believe you can only teach something that you are truly passionate about because things are always changing. So when it comes to teaching, you have to have an open mind and you really have to take new ideas and work hard to develop them so you can teach them. This game is ever-changing — it evolves a little bit more every day, and I have a strong desire to keep up with it.

Softball is a game that taught me everything. I truly attribute my character and everything to this game because it teaches you a lot of life lessons. Another big aspect of the game is understanding how it works. You can’t just teach a kid to do very specific skills; you have to teach them to understand how the game works. You also have to teach kids how to rebound from failure. This game is not easy, and the girls who are good at this game know it’s not easy and know they will fail. I love working with young kids and being able to experience their success keeps me going, so that’s really what it’s about for me.

What has been your proudest moment as a coach?
Wow, that’s a tough one! There have been a lot of proud moments because I also coach high school ball here in St. Louis, which is a lot of fun because it’s a completely different level of game. My proudest moment was probably when I first took over this ’99 team. They were super raw so we pretty much overhauled the team and only had one offseason to work together as a team and learn how the Chaos play the game. We stepped on the field for our first tournament in the spring and I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew I had a good group of athletes, but I was going to be able to see if all our hard work paid off. We came out and won the tournament! It was just one of those moments when you’re like, ‘Man, all the work and tears and everything is really worth it’.

Your coaching staff is unique in that both you as the head coach and your assistant coach Lindsay are both women. What are your thoughts on the lack of women coaches in the club world?
It is interesting. There have only been a few times the last couple of years where I’ve gone up to the plate for the coin toss and there has been another female up there with me. It’s rare. One thing I always joke about is that when there’s a guy up there with me, he always lets me call the flip, so when there’s a woman up there it’s like, ‘oh, who’s going to call it?’

But you’re right — this is a sport played by women but run by men, and as far as how I feel about it, truthfully I don’t know. I mean, I was coached by men my entire life until college. My college coach was female and I loved her. I also learned a lot about coaching from my dad and Evan Beatty. I feel like a lot more women are coaching college versus taking the time to do travel ball because travel ball is just a whole other beast. I think a lot of women want to, but it’s just about having the time and availability to. Right now, club coaches are usually older men who have a background in baseball who have had the opportunity to establish careers around softball, and for women I feel like the careers for softball are in college. I do love to see other women in club softball and how much energy they bring and their ability to relate to these girls on a whole other level. But then again, there are some amazing male coaches, so I think it’s great either way. I don’t really notice the lack of women often just because I’m in there running right with the men.

You had a very solid team in 2015. How do you improve going into 2016?
This team, especially the pitching staff, were late bloomers. We really had to fight hard for every single win — we’re very scrappy. We run the bases well and have a lot of speed on our team and w have a couple power hitters, so our game is very much a hitting team. We knew we had to score runs because we were going to give up some runs. But now our pitchers are getting very good. That came out a little last year and it’ll show up this year more. We added another pitcher and a couple really good solid defenders and hitters so I think this will be our biggest year.

What’s your focus for the team in the offseason?
Our focus in the offseason is of course a little different for each player, but we do a lot of offseason training. We have about four months where we practice 3-4/week in an indoor facility. We really work on getting stronger in everything we do, as well a focusing on the little things. We’re scrappy and we know we have to do everything right to win. We practice fast. We really try to stress them out in practice so the games seem slow. We also do a full strength and conditioning program and that’s these girls really learn how to compete and how hard they can push themselves.