BY DANI TIETZ
dani@sjodaily.com
Most people know St. Joseph-Ogden alum Stephanie Fiscus Dable for the time she spent on the field.
It’s not hard to understand why.
By the time Dable graduated with the class of 1990, she was a four-year varsity letter winner for the SJ-O softball team and had helped her team capture fourth place in the 1989 IHSA State tournament.
She graduated with accolades as an Illinois State Scholar and was a member of the National Honor Society. She was an All-Conference member for her pitching efforts, served as the co-caption her senior year and was named the Spartans’ Most Valuable Player and was the first-ever News-Gazette All-Area Softball Player of the Year for the 1990 season.
But, for Dable, softball wasn’t a place where she could shine individually. For her, softball gave her a place that she could be part of a team and a community.
Growing up in the 1980’s, Dable felt that even though women’s sports didn’t have the same platform or opportunities as they do now, she was fortunate to play at St. Joseph-Ogden.
“When we went to state, we had fans like crazy coming to support us and watch,” Dable said. “Which now, you know, you expect, but back then it was a big deal to have everybody come and follow us.”
Being a part of a community that consistently supports kids was a big part of Dable’s decision to return to her hometown to raise her children.
“The St. Joe community is just amazing, always has been,” she said. “It still is to this day behind every extracurricular activity, all the sports, everything. And I think that’s, that’s a huge deal.”
With parents who supported her by sacrificing their time to watch her play the sport she loved, Dable felt fully supported.
It wasn’t just driving her to practice in her hometown. In the 1980’s travel ball opportunities were scarce, and Dable’s parents encouraged her to follow her dreams while playing in Decatur in the off-season.
“My mom and dad were huge supporters of both my brother and I, growing up,” she said.
While her husband, a fellow SJ-O alum, and two sons, Blake, a senior on the SJ-O football team, and Brandon, a junior at Illinois State University, will be at St. Joseph-Ogden’s homecoming on Friday to watch their mom be inducted into the Hall of Fame, Dable will be thinking of her mom, Jill, who passed away 17 years ago.
Although her mom couldn’t be there while her sons were growing up, it was important to Dable that she passed on the care that she was shown as a young athlete.
“There’s nothing I enjoy more than watching my kids in sports,” she continued. “It’s kind of sad that this is the last year for my youngest son because the community is an amazing supporter of all the kids. It’s fun to watch.”
Watching female athletes and teams develop over the last two decades has also been something that Dable takes note of.
She played softball in a day when, even though she was a standout player, her knowledge of collegiate opportunities was scarce. Today, she enjoys seeing that female athletes have access to recruiting opportunities and scholarships.
Going into college without a scholarship did not stop Dable from pursuing the chance to play, though. As an Illinois State University student, she learned that she could try out to become a walk-on member of the softball team.
While at ISU, Dable played for four years while earning her Bachelor’s degree. Later, she earned her Masters of Public Administration Degree from the University of Illinois at Springfield.
Dable moved to Des Moines, Iowa, after college to work for the Principal Financial Group for three years. Once back in St. Joseph, she took a job at the University of Illinois where she’s served in various prominent positions including as an Analyst, Project Manager, Director, Senior Director of her department and now the Assistant Vice President in the Administrative Information Technology Services Department.
Although many in the St. Joseph-Ogden community will remember her for what she did on the field as she is inducted into the SJ-O Hall of Fame at the Homecoming game on Friday, Dable said that it is what she learned as a pitcher and a teammate that have propelled her throughout her lifetime.
Being the center of attention as a pitcher, Dable learned to have a thick skin.
“If you need an out and you walk somebody or you give up a hit, you know, it’s on you,” she said. “And you have to be able to deal with that. But you know, when you get that big strikeout, or you get that big out, it’s on you.”
That pressure has helped Dable deal with criticism throughout her professional career.
“If you react negatively, to any kind of criticism, you’re not going to go very far,” she said. “So you have to be able to just take that constructive criticism and improve from it.”
Figuring out how to improve as a team has also helped her along the way.
“Whether it’s a group of your friends or your sports team, or anything moving forward; it’s working together with people and figuring out how to make things work,” she said.
But Dable said that only works if there is a foundation of respect.
“That’s something that, you know, Coach (Randy Wolken) definitely instilled in us, and I learned that clear up through the college level,” Dable said.
Dable was able to reconnect with her college teammates last weekend when she played in an alumni game.
“Just seeing all of my teammates from 25 years ago, and just playing again,” she said, “it was it was a lot of fun.”
