Kathy Harris Hillsborough

Polk Was a Fastpitch Pioneer in Florida, and Remains a Power

It shouldn't be a surprise that a Polk County team is in the state tournament. A Polk team has reached the state tournament every year except 1989 since the state series began in 1988, which Auburndale won. Eight schools have reached the final four, winning 14 state titles.

Polk County is a pioneer in high school fastpitch softball as the first county, along with Hillsborough, to play the sport in 1987. The state series is just 24 years old, but Polk is wrapping up its 25th year of playing fastpitch in high school.

THE BEGINNING

It all started with Title IX, part of the Education Act of 1972. Title IX states, "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance..."

It wasn't aimed at sports, but it was the driving force that increased athletic opportunities for girls and women at the high school and college level.

Still, Title IX couldn't settle a split in the softball community. Slowpitch or fastpitch?

In the mid-1980s, Polk was considering adding softball for girls, but there was concern in the softball community that this meant slowpitch. No one in Polk wanted slowpitch.

Pete Harris, who died about two years ago, began a grassroots push to promote fastpitch softball in the high schools. Harris was then vice president of Miss Florida Softball and formed a committee that included representatives from Miss Florida Softball, Dixie Youth and Little League to help get fastpitch softball into the high schools.

"Polk County is the only county with more than one high school that does not ­offer ­softball," Harris told The Ledger in the fall of 1985. "We have two goals — to get softball accepted, and to get fastpitch softball."

He noted at the time that there were 1,300 girls between the ages of 7 and 18 playing fastpitch in Polk County.

"He kept pushing. He wanted to bring fastpitch softball to the high schools," said Ridge Community coach ­Sonia Cook, who started Winter Haven's program and coached there until 2001.

Also in 1985, State Rep. Mary Ellen Hawkins, R-­Naples, sponsored a bill in the state legislature to require high schools to switch from slowpitch to fastpitch, but it didn't pass initially.

Lake Wales varsity softball coach Nancy Denton, who in 1984 organized the fastpitch program for Lake Wales Little League, was on Harris' committee. She remembers the group writing letters and going the schools to garner support.

Vote count lags in Hillsborough, may take hours for outcome

TAMPA -- As vote tallies poured forth from several other counties, Hillsborough results have trickled out slowly in the most watched election in living memory.

Hillsborough Commissioner Kevin White, a member of the county canvassing board, said at 10:45 p.m. that the county's scanning machines were having a transmission problem sending in their results to the Election Services Center. White said the county is going to have to physically bring in about 125 of the machines so their totals can be obtained. That process could take 90 minutes after they are brought into the building, he said.

And there are about 16 machines at the center that have not had their totals uploaded, White said.

Thirty minutes later, Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson made a five-minute statement to reporters about the how the day had gone.

"It's been a beautiful day for Hillsborough County,'' he said. ""I can't tell you how happy and proud I am of this office.''

Johnson seemed to blame Premier Election Solutions, the vendor the county hired to scan the votes, for the problems tonight. He said the company was writing a statement about what happened.

He said, however, that he's satisfied with Premier and said the issues with reporting speed were not major. He said he intends to keep Premier on and gave no signal that he would revisit the contract. 

He then refused to take questions.

Earlier tonight, Kathy Harris, general counsel for Johnson, said there had been no technical problem, but there are still precincts open.

"I will talk to my technical people, but I don't get a sense of it taking a long time,'' she said.

When asked by reporters why Pinellas, Pasco and other highly populated counties were nearly done reporting their results, and HIllsborough had only posted abouit 20 percent of the vote, she shot back, "what's a long time to you?''

"We think we're doing a good job,'' she said.

Harrison's statement to the press contradicted a comment made by Canvassing Board member James Dominguez, who attributed the delay to an overwhelmed computer.

"The computer can only handle what it can handle,'' he said. 

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