By
Pat Dooley
Gainesville Sun sports columnist
Published: Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 5:26 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 9:44 p.m.
It was so long ago. Tim Walton’s memory sometimes fades just a bit.
His smile never does.
Not when he’s talking about them or the first time he saw them — individually — these five seniors who are leaving behind a growing legacy. He thinks about each of them, rubs his head and grins.
Oh, those girls.
Kelsey Stewart was in the eighth grade. Kirsti Merritt was a freshman in high school. So was Aubree Munro. Taylore Fuller showed up at a Gator softball camp. Taylor Schwarz didn’t know he was in the crowd at a tournament.
They all had something in common.
“Athletes,” Walton said. “But the common denominator was they were all winners. They all won something big. They are fierce competitors.”
They came to Florida at a time of crisis. Walton had dismissed three of the stars of his 2012 team just before regional play started. The result was elimination from the Gainesville Regional.
Then they showed up.
“Each of them got a phone call from me,” Walton said. Some of the parents wanted to talk to me. There were some question marks. Any time your softball program is splashed across the bottom of ESPN in a negative way there are going to be concerns. But once they got here and started practice any sense of uneasiness went away.”
The five seniors will play in their final regular-season series starting tonight against Arkansas. Senior Day is Saturday.
“You may have to play Saturday,” said Stewart, wiping away tears with a tissue. “We won’t be able to see.”
They came from different parts of the country and united as one. The seniors have won two national championships, been to three Women’s College World Series and have a chance to clinch another SEC title this weekend.
They are No. 1 with a bullet.
They saw it coming.
“We had the feeling of the team,” said Schwarz, the first baseman who has recorded the final out of UF’s two national titles. “I’ve been on good teams that never really meshed, where everybody wasn’t on the same page. I think that was different for our team. We all wanted the same thing. We were willing to do whatever to get that.”
The first time Walton saw Merritt, she was playing in a tournament at Northeast Park in Gainesville. Three different people had reached out to the Florida softball coach to tell him about this 105-pound kid who played the game the right way.
“I watched her run the bases, catch fly balls,” he said. “I saw her slide head first. I said, ‘I’m ready.’ And I went to Satchel’s with my family.”
The first time he saw Stewart, she was an eighth-grader playing with girls who were much older.
“I saw this little girl who played like a woman,” he said. “But she was the last one I offered because I didn’t know if I could afford her. A scholarship opened up on a Sunday and I called her on Monday. She committed on Tuesday.”
Until then, Stewart was heading to Alabama. Instead, she became an All-American at Florida.
“I think all of us came from high-level programs,” Stewart said. “Winning is just what we did. We had that same mentality when we got here. We had already decided the first week we were here, ‘We’re going to win a championship before we’re done.’ ”
He saw Munro at a tournament in California. He needed a catcher and was looking at five or six. She was a lanky shortstop, but he saw a catcher.
“Her coach told me, ‘She’s one of the best softball kids I’ve been around,’ ” Walton said. “She loves to play.”
He saw Schwarz at a tournament in Florida.
“I loved the way she threw the ball, over-handed, which you don't see a lot in softball,” he said. “And she got a hit the first two times I saw her play. The first time, she didn’t know I was there. She knew the second time. It’s always interesting to see how they perform when they know I’m there.”
He saw Fuller in camp and from that point, kept encouraging her to be a catcher, which she was as a freshman before switching to third base.
“She looked like a catcher,” he said. “So whenever I’d see her, I’d ask her how the catching was coming along even though she was a shortstop. I needed a catcher.”
She agrees that she looked like a catcher.
“I was in eighth grade and a 200-pound shortstop,” Fuller said. “I was terrible looking. It was sad. My 10th-grade year, I finally grew, like, six inches in one summer. (Walton) asked my coach if that was still me. I lost weight and looked like an athlete.
“One day my coach said, ‘You’re catching.’ I remember one specific tournament, playing Team North Florida, I was catching and, my coach kept getting on my butt to be quicker on my throw-downs (to second base). I’m like, ‘Why is he freaking out? Calm down.’ I turned around and coach Walton was back there and timing me.”
The five players signed in February of their senior years in high school and Walton did something he said he’s never done as a coach.
He sent them note cards with instructions on what they needed to do before they arrived in Gainesville.
“He told me to run three miles,” Merritt said. “For the three-mile test. I would go run. I was just trying to prepare, because I had no idea. I had never run before I came here. It was crazy, hit every day, run every day.”
They’d see Walton at their games even after they committed.
“In his signature stance,” Munro said.
And she demonstrated it. Hands on the back of his hips. Think Mick Jagger in a Tommy Bahama shirt.
In the Gator team meeting room, there was a lot of laughter and as many tears as the five seniors talked about the end coming.
“I think it’s bittersweet,” Stewart said. “You’re not ready for it to be over. We can clinch the SEC this weekend. Now we can have more rings than every other class. Yeah, we can be like, we beat everyone’s butt. But the five of us aren’t going to be on the field much longer.”
More tears.
“I’ve enjoyed my time as a Gator so much,” Munro said. “That’s why it’s sad for me.”
Stewart: “Being a Gator, just walking on campus. Sometimes, we’re like, why this is awesome.”
Merritt: “You just try to cherish it. That’s what I’ve been trying to do the last few weeks. It’s hitting me. This is the end. I don’t want it to end.”
It will. But there is still work to do.
The SEC is on the line. The conference tournament is next week. The regionals follow. The quest for a three-peat for the No. 1 team in America is still on the horizon.
But any look to the future comes with a reflection on the past four years.
Four incredible seasons for five special players. Five special people.
Contact Pat Dooley at 352-374-5053 or at pat.dooley@gvillesun.com. And follow at Twitter.com/Pat_Dooley.
