St. Joseph-Ogden Hall of Fame: Amy Scharlau (Lewis) succeeded in the classroom and on the softball field
Editor’s Note: The SJO Daily will highlight the 2020 St. Joseph-Ogden Hall of Fame Inductees this week. Gary Garrison, Greg Knott, Amy Scharlau Lewis and Ron White were selected to be honored. Inductees will be honored at the St. Joseph-Ogden High School football game on August 27.
By FRED KRONER
Amy Scharlau was at the top of her class academically and athletically at St. Joseph-Ogden.
The same pattern was continued at Northern Illinois University.
Now – nearly three decades after graduating – her accomplishments and achievements will be immortalized forever this fall when she is inducted into the SJ-O Hall of Fame.
The ceremony is scheduled for Oct. 2, prior to the Spartans’ homecoming football game against Prairie Central. She will join Gary Garrison, Greg Knott and Ron White as the 2020 honorees.
“It was not on my radar,” said Amy Scharlau Lewis. “I’m looking forward to the ceremony and being part of that history. I’m very humbled.”
She was the 1991 SJ-O valedictorian and a four-year letter winner in softball. An infielder, she was a two-time All-Area first-team selection and The News-Gazette Area Player of the Year as a senior.
Scharlau Lewis was a four-year softball letter winner at NIU, earning all-conference accolades as a senior, when she served as a team captain.
A 1995 NIU graduate, who majored in accounting, she was a first-team GTE COSIDA Academic All-American as a senior. She graduated summa cum laude with honors.
Her softball coach at SJ-O, Randy Wolken, wasn’t surprised that Scharlau Lewis excelled at the collegiate level.
“She was a great hitter,” Wolken said, “ahead of her time as far as the hitting went.”
Scharlau Lewis played regularly on the first SJ-O team to qualify for state in softball. The 1989 team placed fourth.
She was part of a seismic shift on the sports scene as travel ball opportunities were just coming into vogue during her high school career.
“After my sophomore year (at SJ-O), I played in Decatur with the Central Illinois Girls’ Softball (CIGS) program, on the 16-and-under team,” Scharlau Lewis said.
Wolken said that decision helped her shift from a solid player to an outstanding one.
“Her big jump came when she started playing AAU ball,” Wolken said. “I remember her game picking up so much after that. Her work ethic was very strong.
“She became more of a leader and pushed girls a little more. She was one of the reasons we took the next step.”
Her freshman year at SJ-O – in the spring of 1988 – marked the first of 32 consecutive seasons where the Spartans won at least 20 games in softball.
Her senior year marked the 10th year in a row for SJ-O winning a regional championship, a softball streak which was eventually extended to 18 successive years.
“It’s nice to have been a part of something so positive and to watch the program grow,” she said.
In truth, Scharlau Lewis said summer ball was just one part of the reason she was able to successfully transition from a Class 1A high school athlete to a Division I standout.
Wolken played a huge role, too, she said.
“As a coach and math teacher, he was influential,” Scharlau Lewis said. “His structure and practices, the way he did pre-game, so organized and focused, made it very easy to transition to the college atmosphere.
“It was very seamless because it was very familiar. High school was very good prep for what I was going to.”
The CIGS program offered challenges because Scharlau Lewis was surrounded by and competing against other elite athletes.
“Where summer ball came into play is that they were the same type of players,” she said. “With SJ-O softball, not every game was as challenging as you’d find in the summer.”
As a senior at SJ-O, Scharlau batted .464 with 26 of her 51 hits going for extra bases. She was regarded as a tough player to strike out and led The News-Gazette area with 54 runs batted in.
As a junior, she batted .371 and led the Spartans with 42 runs scored.
Her philosophy was to be a contact hitter and, she said, “not necessarily trying to hit it out.
“I tried to make the pitchers and the defense work,” she added. “Making solid contact was the focus, not how far it can go.”
Scharlau Lewis gained added confidence from her summer-ball experience.
“Pitchers changing speeds didn’t affect me too much,” she said.
The Spartans’ state berth in 1989 helped Scharlau and pitcher Stef Fiscus (Class of 1990) gain the attention of collegiate coaches.
Fiscus wound up playing at Illinois State, a school which also recruited Scharlau Lewis. Fiscus, Scharlau Lewis and Cyndi Streid (1983 SJ-O graduate), who played softball three years at Eastern Illinois University, were the Spartans’ first major college players in the sport.
Besides NIU and ISU, Scharlau Lewis also visited Ball State and Evansville.
In the early segment of the recruiting process, Scharlau Lewis didn’t know what to expect.
“I got some feeler letters, but I didn’t know how serious they would be (in following up),” she said.
What she did know was that her ambition to play beyond high school was growing.
“I had the desire to go to college and if I could go and play, that would be a good opportunity,” Scharlau Lewis added.
She received a partial scholarship at NIU, but combined with the academic aide that came her way from being the top-ranked student in her graduating class, “it ended up being pretty much a full (scholarship),” Scharlau Lewis said.
“I was really there to get my education and start a career,” she said, “but softball was a great vehicle.”
Away from home, her grade-point didn’t drop during her college years.
“As a freshman, we had mandatory study tables,” Scharlau Lewis said. “Even when we were on the road, we had team study times.
“It took a lot of focus, having a goal and pursuing it.”
At SJ-O, Scharlau Lewis was a two-sport athlete. She took up volleyball as a freshman and was a two-year letter winner as a setter. She was a team captain as a senior.
She enrolled at college as a pre-law major, but because she said, “math was one of my favorite subjects,” she shifted as a sophomore.
“Accounting was a good fit for me,” Scharlau Lewis said.
A Certified Public Accountant, Scharlau Lewis worked for a firm in Rockford before her and her husband, Gary – whom she has been married to for 24 years – moved back to Champaign County. She worked for a time in the tax department at Martin Hood, in Champaign.
The couple has two sons who attend St. Joseph-Ogden, Brady (senior) and Quinn (freshman).
“We grew up with grandparents nearby, and that’s something we wanted for ourselves,” said Scharlau Lewis, who has been active in the C-U Kiwanis and as the current treasurer for C-U Autism Network.
At Martin Hood, Scharlau Lewis had an interesting set of co-workers.
“At one time, me, Kelly Duitsman Loschen (1996) and Kaci Young Isaksen (2005) all worked there and we had all been Player of the Year (in softball) at SJ-O,” Scharlau Lewis said.
Four years ago, Scharlau Lewis made a move to a company which has been in the family for 63 years. She is the President of Illini Fire Equipment.
“My grandfather (Walter Carlson) founded it in 1957 and my dad (Harold Scharlau) ran it for 20 years,” said Amy Scharlau Lewis, who manages the operations for the company.
Though she enjoyed her time in athletics, Scharlau Lewis didn’t have any desire to return to the game as a coach.
“I never saw myself going into the teacher-coach lane,” she said.
As she reflects now on her highlights and memorable moments, it’s not specific games which stand out first and foremost.
“There’s still a lot of us (former SJ-O softball players) around in the area,” Scharlau Lewis said, “and we’re still good friends.”
Beyond that, her focus is on family.
“Being a mom and watching my kids grow up is one of the most important things to me now,” Scharlau Lewis said.
