LEGACY FITS LIKE A GLOVE
Family’s scholarship honors former Ellington High School baseball player Steve Czyz and the community that comforted them after his loss
Kat Czyz wears her dad’s baseball glove when she plays softball. It’s a shortstop’s glove and she plays first base, but it doesn’t matter. Her nickname is “Pac-Man” because she grabs every ball that comes near her. Steve Czyz, who grew up in Ellington and played baseball at Ellington High and Western New England College, gave his daughter the glove when she started playing softball. He was her coach. When she was 8, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He died in 2015 when Kat was 10. He was 44 years old.
The Czyzs moved to Ellington when they had Kat because Steve wanted her to grow up there. When he died, the community helped his wife Sherri, so she and Kat want to give something back. They are starting a scholarship this year in Steve’s name to award to one baseball and one softball player at Ellington High who perform random acts of kindness.
“He always looked out for others and put others before him,” Kat said last week. “He helped me a lot with softball. He inspired me a lot. I definitely wouldn’t be where I am if it weren’t for him.”
Kat, 15, is now a freshman varsity softball player at Ellington High. In her first game with two on and two out in the bottom of the ninth inning and Sherri standing past the center field fence pacing nervously and talking under her breath to Steve, Kat smacked a double into center and drove in the winning run as Ellington beat Rockville, 1-0.
Sherri is reminded of Steve when she watches Kat play.
“He was a lefty and threw with his right, and she’s a lefty and throws with
“She won’t give the glove up. She’s always used it since he gave it to her and said, ‘You can start using this.’ ”
— Sherri Czyz, Kat’s mother, on the shortstop glove given to her by Kat’s father, Steve
her right, hits with her right,” Sherri said. “It’s strange. He played for the Vernon Orioles up until his mid-30s — he played with the glove she is wearing. She’s a first baseman. She should be wearing a first baseman glove with the padding. She’s wearing his glove. It’s a little tiny shortstop glove.
“She won’t give the glove up. She’s always used it since he gave it to her and said, ‘You can start using this.’ ”
Steve played baseball as a kid in Ellington, and the Purple Knights won the NCCC title in 1988 and 1989, his junior and senior years. At Western New England, he was a four-year starter at shortstop and set a school record for triples that stood for 13 years.
At his memorial service, people remembered him as more than just an athlete.
“Everybody said he was very good at baseball, but he was just an incredible person,” Sherri said. “He was kind. He would take the freshmen under his wing. I had a lot of his [college] friends and teammates reach out to me. They said the same thing: ‘I was the new kid on the team; he was the captain. Nobody talked to me, but he came to me and talked to me.’ ‘Made me feel comfortable.’ ‘He would throw with me and encourage me.’ ‘I didn’t end up making the team, but I always remember his kindness.’ ”
Sherri, a softball player at Western New England from Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Steve were introduced their senior year in 1992. They hit it off immediately and were married in 1999. Sherri continued to play softball and coached soccer at Manchester Community College. Steve played baseball in the Twilight League. Kat came along in 2005, and they coached her.
“Then he got sick, we didn’t know what was wrong,” Sherri said.
He was eventually diagnosed with colon cancer.
“He did so much when he was sick to try to be active with Kat,” she said. “I used to get jealous because they were so alike — very quirky and funny. I would always say that they were two peas in a pod. She reminds me of him so much.”
Sherri took care of Steve at home toward the end, but eventually he went to the hospital, where he died.
“The worst day of my life was telling [Kat],” Sherri said. “We didn’t want her in the hospital seeing him like that.
“We lean to different things to comfort us and for her, it was, ‘I want to go play softball.’ I said, ‘Kat, we just lost your dad. You don’t have to go,’ and she said, ‘No, I really want to.’ That’s what kind of got the two of us through the hardest year. I was coaching. That gave me something to focus on. She was playing with her friends.
“It’s always been a piece of our lives. Not the most important piece, but it’s always there.”
Kat played recreation league softball until this year, mainly because it was less stressful than travel softball when a lot was going on in their lives. This year, she told her mother she wanted to play travel softball. And now she is. These last six or seven years, she’s had to grow up fast.
“She’s a little more reserved than she was when Steve was alive but definitely more mature,” her mother said. “It was like a wake-up call, like, ‘This is reality and people die.’ It was really rough. But the community has been so good to her and to me. We just thought the scholarship would be nice just to give back. If it only pays for books, at least it’s helping somebody.”