Northern Colorado softball retires jersey of former pitcher, ‘dominating force’ Lou Piel ...Saudi Arabia

For the second time in two weeks, the University of Northern Colorado celebrated the history of women’s sports.

On Saturday, the Bears softball program retired the No. 22 jersey of pitcher Lou Piel, a 1980 UNC graduate and two-sport athlete. Piel, 66, also played basketball for the Bears starting in 1976 — in the early days of women’s college sports.

Piel’s time as a scholastic and collegiate athlete came not long after the passage of the Title IX federal legislation, which had an effect of opening athletic opportunities for women. She also played before women’s sports was included in the NCAA. From 1972 until 1982, women’s college sports in the U.S. was governed by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.

Piel was a pioneer of girls and women’s sports in Colorado and nationally. At Prairie High in New Raymer, Piel and her peers were among the first girls to play for state high school titles. Piel was the first female athlete to receive a full-ride scholarship to play softball at UNC, meaning tuition and room and board were paid, former softball coach Gloria Rodriguez said. Rodriguez coached UNC softball for eight years in the 1970s, and the university’s softball field on 17th Avenue is named in her honor.

After UNC, Piel pitched for U.S. teams including at the then named International Softball Federation World Championship in 1982.

“I do think now that I look back at it, we were pioneers in a lot of ways,” Piel said.

Last week, the UNC soccer program celebrated 40 years as a varsity sport with an alumni weekend. The two days of festivities included a game featuring former players against the current UNC athletes.

UNC softball coach Dedeann Pendleton-Helm said Piel’s name came up as a candidate to have her jersey retired at the end of last year. Piel splits her time between Greeley and Jacksonville, Florida, and works with the UNC program in player development and video analysis.

Piel primarily works with pitchers in player development. She works with Pendleton-Helm to develop the Bears pitchers’ approach to the mental side of their position.

“She gets them to think about their game and how they really want to work,” Pendleton-Helm said.

Pendleton-Helm considered Piel’s stats at UNC, and called Piel “a dominating force” in the circle and “phenomenal for her time and phenomenal for today.”

“She was throwing over 70 miles an hour back in the day,” the coach said. “This small, little Northern Colorado and they’re going up against these big teams every year. We’ve tried to bring that era back in because it’s such a big piece of our history.”

Piel went to the university as a physical education major, which was a key component of the success of the women’s sports teams in the late 1970s. The school was founded as a teacher’s college, attracting physical education majors with backgrounds as athletes before women were widely seen or accepted as athletes, Piel said.

She grew up playing sports with her father and brothers. Piel’s father, Arnold, was an advocate of women’s sports. He coached a women’s fastpitch team, and he encouraged Lou to play as she went through high school.

“He was way ahead of his time,” Piel said, adding conversations with her father about her career at one point focused on work thought to be for women, such as nursing, teaching or a secretary. “By the time I was a senior in high school and we had that conversation, he said, ‘You can do whatever you want.’

“That’s how much the world changed. And he always instilled that in me.”

In high school, Piel played on the boys baseball team. She was named an honorable mention all-conference selection following her senior season in 1976. Playing sports with boys as she grew up taught her lessons she later used in the workplace.

Piel found she had to prove herself in business as a professional working with men — as she did on the basketball court or baseball field. Piel worked for State Farm Insurance after a coaching career. Once she proved herself to colleagues or teammates, Piel found it easier to become part of the group.

“It was that way early on in my business career, but I learned it because of sports,” she said. “You figured out how to navigate with the men.”

Piel had a 48-7 record at UNC with five no-hitters and 17 shutouts. Her earned run average was stunning, in the range of 0.50, according to UNC records. She was named Woman Athlete of the Year in 1980 by the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.

UNC reached the five-team AIAW Softball Championship in 1977-79. The Bears finished fifth in 1977, second in 1978 and fourth in 1979. Piel was an AIAW All-American in 1979.

Piel was inducted into the UNC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994. A year later, she joined the Colorado High School Activities Association Hall of Fame.

“We’re also playing on their backs,” Pendleton-Helm said of Piel and Piel’s UNC teammates. “We wouldn’t be here had they not started all of this. That piece is so important. The history of it is so important.”

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