2018 can be a banner year for Blaylock

This is the fifth and final part of a series of stories leading up to the start of the 2018 Saluki softball season. To read the first four features, click the links below.
Part one: Maris Boelens
Part two: Kelsey Gonzalez
Part three: Katelyn Massa
Part four: Sydney Jones

For 27 years Kerri Blaylock has been a staple in Saluki softball's dugout.

Blaylock spent her first nine years as an assistant under Kay Brechtelsbauer, a Saluki Hall-of-Famer and the winningest coach in program history. In 2000, Brechtelsbauer called it a career and Blaylock, a resident of Herrin, Illinois and veteran of the Missouri Valley Conference, was the ideal replacement for the Saluki legend.

19 years later, Blaylock still remembers that first game as the Saluki skipper.

"I thought I was going to throw up," Blaylock said with a smile and laugh. "I was nervous as all get out. We played Sam Houston State. I remember the kids that were on that very first team, and I remember them trusting me, which I thought was really cool because, at the time, I was 32-years-old. They trusted me to lead them. I was young when I started and I give the administration here credit for hiring me at that age and believing in me."

Since that first game, Blaylock has crafted a program at Southern that has played the role of giant killer and Conference champion. Her teams have beaten top-25 opponents 18 times and visited six NCAA tournaments. She's won the MVC Regular Season Title three times and the MVC Tournament once. She has the best winning percentage of any MVC coach that has won 500 games and is the only coach in conference history to lead a team to five-straight NCAA tournaments.

2018 likely will be a big year for Blaylock. She will manage her 1,000^th game on March 11 against Maine barring any weather cancelations. With 10 more wins in MVC play, she will become just the third coach in Conference history to reach win number 300. With six more wins, she will surpass Brechtelsbauer as the winningest coach in program history.

When Blaylock wins game number 633 to become the winningest coach in program history, she said it will be a bitter-sweet moment; she wouldn't be in her position if it wasn't for Brechtelsbauer.

"I was laying on my bed at my house crying with my parents. I majored in accounting in college and got my MBA, but I decided I wanted to go into coaching. I put out all of these applications to coaching jobs and was getting nothing in return," Blaylock said. "I was devastated. Then Kay called. She asked if I wanted to come coach here. She told me she didn't have much money to pay; it was a new position they were allowing her to have. I just jumped at the opportunity."

That call from Brechtelsbauer opened a door for Blaylock. She learned from Brechtelsbauer for the next nine years before stepping into her collegiate mentor's role and kept building on top of the foundation that Brechtelsbauer built.

In the first seven years of Blaylock's tenure as a coach at Southern, she took the team to five-straight NCAA Tournaments. That kind of success garnered her job offers from Big Ten, Big-12 and SEC programs. Blaylock turned them all down; she likes the coaching at the mid-major level and loves beating the power-five schools. Some of her favorite memories from her career are wins over power-five teams, like a win over LSU when they were fifth in the nation in 2007, an early season victory over Alabama in 2003 when the Crimson Tide was 22^nd in the nation and a no-hitter thrown by Cassidy Scoggins against Missouri in 2007. Blaylock said she wouldn't have it any other way.

"This is a great place. If you ask me who I am as a person, I'd say I am Southern Illinois. I'm not a power-five type of person," Blaylock said. "I'm a lunch pail, hard hat, get after it everyday person that tries to beat those power-five type of people. Some of my best friends in coaching are power-five coaches. I could call them right now and they'd let me come watch their practices. I admire them, but man would I like to beat them coming from where we are."

If you ask Blaylock why she's been so successful, her answer is never about herself. She would tell you a story about an administrative staffer who helped build up Southern's facilities. A sports information director that helped publicize the team. Or an assistant coach like Buddy Foster, Jen Sewell or Kelsey Gonzalez who have helped with recruiting younger players as she's aged.

Above all, Blaylock says her success is a product of the players she's coached.

"I don't go out and play the game. It's all about the players," Blaylock said. "I think it was Bo Schembechler that said 'the team, the team, the team'. It really is about those kids that put on the uniform every day. We have had some phenomenal players since I've been the head coach. That's what I'm most proud of. I'm proud of the kids that have played here and what they've done."

Blaylock's story is far from over. Retirement is not something she thinks about. Perhaps a role as an administrator is in her future, but she still loves coaching and will coach until that love is gone. She said she doesn't know what she would do if she didn't have to go to practice every day at two o'clock.

As for the milestones she will reach and records she will break in 2018, Blaylock said she's proud of them, but that she hopes the next head coach at Southern surpasses all that she's done.

"What I've done doesn't diminish anything that Brechtelsbauer has done. Her name is on our field, she made so many contributions to women's sports and SIU," Blaylock said. "Records are made to be broken. That's kind of the natural evolution of things. I hope someone comes in here behind me and has success too."

Calendar

Upcoming Events

Players Mentioned

Kelsey Gonzalez

Scoreboard

Southern Illinoise University Athletics