Oklahoma softball’s first step onto Love’s Field made history.
And as Mark McGuffin walked through Gate 2, he created his own.
He had arrived at 8:30 a.m., five and a half hours before the Sooners game against Miami (Ohio), but the OU fan had no intention of being the first person there.
“It just happened,” McGuffin told the OU Daily.
However, as he went through the barrier, it not only served as an indicator that he was the first fan to enter Love’s Field on opening day, but it also represented OU’s transition from the past to the present of collegiate softball.
“The girls that play, you can tell they give it their all,” McGuffin said after entering the Sooners’ new facility. “The coaching staff gives it their all and the fan base gives it their all. Being here is a dream come true.”
The gates were initially supposed to open at noon, but as Timberlake Construction, who stated it had “no comment about the situation,” continued to build the stands beyond the left field wall as the ribbon-cutting ceremony unfolded, it was delayed.
As he stood in line next to his 91-year-old mother, McGuffin watched as fans ran up to the gates asking how many Love’s Field commemorative softballs were left and reflected on his own admiration for the Sooners.
Memories of former OU associate head coach Melyssa Lombardi teaching him how to throw an underhand pitch, his wife and two kids getting to circle up with the team and giving Oklahoma a pregame speech flooded his mind.
“My mom put my name in for Patriot of the Game,” McGuffin said. “They picked me to throw out the first pitch at the Baylor vs. OU softball game at Marita Hynes. I was practicing the motion and making sure I had it down right.”
McGuffin had just returned from a tour in Iraq, but his biggest concern on that day in 2011 was throwing the perfect pitch.
“I threw a strike, but there was absolutely zero speed on the ball,” McGuffin said with a smile. “It still got across the plate.”
His love for OU softball was ignited as the ball flew out of his hands, and it only grew from the mound at Marita Hynes to the front of the line at Love’s Field on Friday.
Walking beside his mom on the concourse, McGuffin passed each section of stands, honoring what the Sooners’ former stadium made possible and acknowledging the power that their current one already possesses.
“It’s going to be so cool when they fill up all 4,200 of those,” McGuffin said as he looked at the empty seats.
It didn’t take long for Oklahoma fans to fulfill McGuffin’s vision, as the Sooners announced an opening-day attendance record of 4,450 following their run-rule win over Liberty.
“It’s just watching the girls play, it’s just incredible,” McGuffin said. “It’s the fanbase, and it’s Patty Gasso teaching them more than just softball.”
‘The jacket is totally vintage, but Love’s Field is not’
Mary Thompson remembers rain-soaked nights in the dugout at Reaves Park because it didn’t have a covering.
But those open roofs led to the biggest on-campus softball stadium in the United States.
For Thompson, who pitched for the Sooners during the 1985 and 1986 seasons, it was the foundation her team built that mattered --- not the field they played on.
“We didn’t know any better,” Thompson said as she and some of her former teammates made their way from the Lloyd Noble parking lot to Love’s Field. “I mean, in our eyes, we were big time. We had scholarships in college to play softball.”
Thompson, who is an Iowa native and season-ticket holder, is staying with former center fielder Lori Johnson in what Johnson refers to as her “home and free Airbnb” in Norman for the next month.
However, for the two, even when they played for OU, it was never about circumstance. Instead, it was about perseverance and persistence.
“After games, we had to roll up the temporary fence so they could play slow pitch,” Johnson said. “It was ragtag, but we knew we had to start somewhere.”
As Sooner softball alumna Gwendy Galbraith, who proudly donned the white warm-up jacket she sported from 1983-1985, walked alongside Thompson and Johnson up to the entrance of the new stadium, she thought about her own rainy days at Reaves Park, learning from former coach Marita Hynes and how those lessons changed the future of OU’s program.
Former OU softball player Gwendy Galbraith wears her warmup jacket from 1983-1985 to the Love's Field opening.
“It speaks volumes for Patty Gasso and for Marita Hynes,” Galbraith said. “Marita really started the first team, she recruited Patty and she built the first field. She is a huge stepping stone of where we are today.”
Although relics of OU’s softball, like Galbraith’s jacket, remain, it is the legacies of former players like Galbraith, Thompson and Johnson that continue to propel OU softball forward.
“The jacket is totally vintage,” Galbraith said. “But Love’s Field is not, and it’s a great representation of how the sport has grown exponentially in the past two decades.”
‘I definitely wish there were student seats’
The University of Oklahoma reserved 150 student tickets for Love’s Field’s opening day and Presley Hinch was first in line.
However, he didn’t have to be.
As graduate student Kinzie Hansen hit a walk-off home run to secure the first win in OU’s new facility after Miami (Ohio) clocked back-to-back-to-back homers to tie the game in the top of the seventh inning, 98 of the tickets remained.
Hinch grabbed the first student pass ever handed out of the stadium’s ticket office, something he noted he was “pretty proud of.”
OU student Presley Hinch holds the first student ticket handed out at Love's Field.
“I was a little bit nervous because it is opening weekend at Love’s Field,” Hinch said as he leaned against the railing in the outfield. “I wanted to make sure I got a student ticket, and I knew gates opened at 11 a.m., so I showed up 30 minutes early anyway.”
But as people like Mark McGuffin and former OU softball players Mary Thompson, Lori Johnson and Gwendy Galbraith filled the seats, and students, like Hinch, walked around the stadium with their standing-room-only tickets in hand, scouring for open spots, the generational divide between the Sooners’ fanbase and the university’s student population on a Friday afternoon was evident.
“Love’s Field is a great atmosphere,” Hinch said. “But I definitely wish there were student seats.”
Although the free student tickets are standing room only, Oklahoma’s Executive Associate Athletic Director of Engagement Leah Beasley, confirmed that the university has still made room for them at Love’s Field.
“There is not a student section per se, but there is standing room, ” Beasley told the OU Daily. “We have an allotted amount of student tickets, so we are still accommodating for them to come to the games.”
Since head coach Patty Gasso arrived in Norman, she only remembers the sounds of parents filling the stands, not students, and for Gasso, opening day told the same story.
But in a new era of OU softball, the head coach is encouraged by the idea of growing the student population at her team’s games.
“I don’t know if I see a lot of students out here,” Gasso said postgame. “Really, the rowdies are the parents from what I’m hearing because they’re right over our dugout, but if we could get the OU student body out here, that would be phenomenal.”
Reserved section or not, students like Hinch, and the other 51 who grabbed a ticket, will continue to come — even if they have to stand.
“I came to support OU softball,” Hinch said as Hansen touched the bases after her homerun. “I don’t understand the logistics behind everything, but I am proud to be here and thankful to be at the new stadium.”
This story was edited Jason Batacao and Grayson Blalock.
