By: Mark Wasik
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Kennesaw State Department of Athletics will induct three new members into its Hall of Fame this fall at a ceremony on Friday, Nov. 21 at NorthStar Church in Kennesaw. The inductees will also be recognized during the Saturday, Nov. 22 KSU football contest against Missouri State at Walens Family Field at Fifth Third Stadium.
The event will start at 6 p.m. with a mingle hour before moving onto the dinner at 7 p.m. and the ceremony at 7:45 p.m. Tickets are available to the Hall of Fame dinner, both for an individual ($75) or for a table ($500).
KSUOwls.com will profile each inductee leading up to the ceremony, and we begin today with Scott Whitlock.
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One of the most impressive and unlikely softball dynasties in NCAA history might never have happened if not for an off-chance meeting at a women's basketball practice.
Scott Whitlock was a recent graduate of Piedmont College in Demorest, Ga. where he played baseball for the Lions. When asked what position he played, he replied, "I played the position of pitcher. I would not call what I did pitching."
Despite the downplaying of his collegiate career, playing with Piedmont allowed him to become familiar with Kennesaw College (as KSU was called until 1997) due to competing in the same NAIA district. He also served as the student assistant basketball coach at Piedmont for his work–study job.
After graduation, he moved to Marietta for a job with the Schwin Bicycle Company, working for their shop on Roswell Road. One day he stopped by the Kennesaw campus to watch a friend of his that was playing on the women's basketball team. The Owls had also just recently hired their first full-time women's basketball coach. While Whitlock was watching from the wooden bleachers, the new athletic director, Coach Spec Landrum, spotted him in the stands and remembered him from Piedmont. They started talking, which led to a lunch meeting the following week, where Landrum had an unexpected proposition.
As Whitlock recalled, "We met and he said 'Look, I know you played baseball, and I know that you helped coach up there with the women's basketball team. I've just hired a new women's basketball coach, but I need her assistant to be somebody that can also coach softball.' So that's how I got to Kennesaw."
After just one season, Whitlock found himself as the head coach of the Owls, and at that time, all the NAIA schools and high schools in the area were playing slow-pitch softball.
KSU quickly excelled under Whitlock, with an amazing 153-15 record over the first four years, but then came the next change in his coaching career.
Following the 1989 season, new athletic director Dave Waples called him into his office and asked Whitlock what he knew about fastpitch softball. Whitlock was honest, expressing that he did not know anything about it and that it was not a good idea.
He portrayed that all the high school teams and travel clubs played slow-pitch, and he was against the idea of the Owls moving to fastpitch.
However, he was always quick on his feet, so when informed by Waples that if he was going to continue to work at KSU he would have to learn how to coach fastpitch softball, Whitlock quickly interrupted him and said, "Let me tell you something. I love fastpitch softball; it is the way of the future."
He got to work, first watching other fastpitch teams playing and quickly realizing it was very similar to baseball. To this day Whitlock uses his phrase that "fastpitch softball is just baseball played inside a pinball machine. Everything is shorter, the angles, the distance, the basepaths, and the pitching distance. But once the ball's in play, it's still a matter of hit, catch, run and throw."
It was obviously a big change when he let the current Owls on his slow-pitch team know about the move, but he felt he had 12 to 13 athletes and that even if they couldn't score, they were going to play great defense. The players took it as a challenge to see what they could prove at the next level.
Another life -changing decision that Whitlock made was for his coaching staff. He needed to find a part-time assistant coach without enough money for a full-time assistant yet. At that time, Whitlock was still serving as the school's sports information director (a role he would hold through the 1995 season), and traveling with the baseball team for the conference tournament at North Florida. He would find himself watching and being impressed by one of the Owls at the plate, Don McKinley. Whitlock thought it was the smoothest, sweetest swing he had ever seen and thought "You know what? If that dude can teach as well as what he does, I might be able to use him.'"
Just like that chance meeting four years before, McKinley and Whitlock talked after the tournament, which led to a perfect match. "We were like a ying-yang," said Whitlock. "I was like a tornado, he was the calming influence that calmed the team down after I went through the dugout."
"The one thing that has remained constant about me is that I've tried to surround myself with good people. Let them do their jobs, and be unafraid to hire somebody that's smarter than you and better than you at certain things," Whitlock recalled.
"Sometimes at practice, I would go strolling down by the batting cage, and anytime I got close, Don stopped what he was doing with the players and quickly said 'Did you need something Coach?' And I would just say 'no, no,' and turn around and walk back to the defense because I knew he didn't need me down there meddling. He took care of his area, and I took care of mine. And it worked. It worked for so long."
The Owls were an instant success as a fastpitch team under Whitlock and McKinley, turning in an almost unheard of 41-11 record and a No. 4 national ranking in their very first year transitioning from slow pitch in 1991. Success kept building. KSU made the NAIA World Series every year from 1991-1994, including a national runner-up finish in 1992.
"Those first 13 years with the fastpitch team, starting with the 1991 squad, was just absolute magic," stated Whitlock. "Lightning-in-a-bottle crazy. Our players had no idea we were not supposed to be able to do those things because we had never played it before, and we were beating teams that had been playing fast pitch for the past 30-40 years at their college. But the more we started to win, the more our reputation went up, especially after our runner-up finish in 1992."
In the fall of 1994, KSU left NAIA to join the Division II level, but Whitlock knew he had a contending team even at a higher level.
"Our slow pitch players had blossomed, and we had all the pieces assembled, Kelly Rafter was here, Brenda Farrell (a fellow Hall of Fame inductee this year) was here," said Whitlock.
The Owls were dominant in the 1995 season, reeling off a 40-game win streak that was snapped in the opening game of the 1995 College World Series. The resolve of the team showed in that loss, because the Owls bounced right back to win five straight to claim the national title. A year later, it was the same story as once again KSU claimed the national championship, though this time it was from a team that featured six starting freshmen, while Farrell and Rafter were unstoppable in the circle.
Whitlock remembered "I would get asked, how did you do that? How did you win a second-straight title after having to start so many freshmen? I like to think the best attribute of the teams I coached was they hated to lose. They hated to lose so much more than they loved winning; they just did not like to fail." Whitlock set the tone for the team. He wanted only those that were serious players who knew when it was time to have fun and when it was time to go to work.
KSU played 11 total seasons at the Division II level, and reached the World Series in nine of those 11 seasons, which also included a national runner-up finish in 2000. His 2004 squad, meanwhile, still holds the school record for most wins in a season after going a mind-blowing 64-6 overall.
The Owls joined Division I play in the spring of 2006, and they were barred from NCAA postseason play during the schools transition period but that didn't stop the team from succeeding. KSU claimed the 2007 Atlantic Sun regular season championship, and a winning record in seven of its first nine years in D1, including a 34-20 mark in Whitlock's final season as the head coach in 2013.
He finished his amazing coaching career with an absurd amount of honors earned by his players and Whitlock, including:
- 51 total All-Americans (24 1st Team selections)
- Two NCAA Division II National Player of the Years
- Two Atlantic Sun Players of the Year
- One ASUN Pitcher of the Year
- 1 ASUN Freshman of the Year
- 3 ASUN Coach of the Year honors (2006, 2007, 2012)
- Ranks fourth all-time in NCAA Division II history for career winning percentage at 76.7% (997-302) over his total career.
- Member of Five Hall of Fames (Atlantic Sun Conference, Peach Belt Conference, National Fastpitch Coaches Hall of Fame, Truett McConnell Junior College, Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame
KSU wasn't done with him yet. He had always had an itch to try his hand on the administration side in the athletic department.
"Administration interested me because it's nothing more than team building," said Whitlock. "And if there is something I knew how to do, it's how to build a successful team."
So Whitlock moved over following the 2013 season, and as a member of the administration team as senior associate athletic director, he was responsible for capital projects, as well as serving as the program administrator for softball, women's golf, men's golf and volleyball. He also worked closely with the start of football at KSU program, helping oversee the upload, scheduling and facilities.
"The football adventure was by far the funniest thing I did in my time as an administrator. At that time, Vaughn Williams was the AD, and he asked me oversee the capital projects related to the team. So I helped in turning the current space the football offices are at into what they are now from a warehouse and additions to the stadium for what we would need for to be a Division I program."
Asked what his favorite memory with football and he's quick to bring up the Owls' historic road win at Montana State in 2017. "Best trip I ever took was when we went up to Montana State and beat them," said Whitlock. "They punted the ball to us at the three–yard line with 10 minutes left, we were down two points, and we never let them get the ball back. We went for it three times on fourth down, twice on our side of the field, and we were able to run the clock down and kick a field goal in the last few minutes to win it. That was by far the coolest thing I've ever been a part of. Being on the plane ride back, it made me realize our football dream became everything we hoped it could be. It was a true affirmation for the program and what we did to bring it here."
His best overall memory of Kennesaw State, though, still goes back to that inaugural fastpitch team from 1991. "Obviously the national championships are the quickest that come to memory, but the team I'm proudest of is '91," said Whitlock. "Six starters on that team were playing fast pitch for the first time in their career, the head coach and assistant coach had never coached an official game before that season, and to go 41-11 and finish fourth in the College World Series, that is something I'll never forget."
