Before Rachel Shipley played 12 summers for Lyle Day’s Bloomington Lady Hearts, before she built a career at State Farm Insurance, before she was an assistant coach at Illinois Wesleyan, she was an 18-year-old freshman on the Illinois State softball team.
Her parents lived two hours away. They were running a business, had lost a son to leukemia three years earlier, and had children 5, 7 and 13 at home. There wasn’t much time for trips to Normal.
The good news was Shipley had a teammate named Lori Day, a junior pitcher. In the crowd at nearly every game was a kind man with an infectious smile and a white mustache.
The entire team gravitated toward Lori Day’s father. Yet, for Shipley, Lyle Day was more than a friendly face. He and his wife, Barbara, became her “softball parents.”
“They attended a couple of parents’ weekends with me after Lori had graduated,” Shipley said. “My senior day at Illinois State fell on the same day as my sister’s prom. I told my parents that they should be there with her. Lyle and Barbara walked me out on the field that day.”
If you didn’t know Lyle Day, know this: if you were in his softball family, you were family. He cared about you unconditionally. His death last week at age 88 leaves a void in the softball community beyond wins and losses, trophies and championships.
What Day provided was love and support, opportunities and experiences, memories and lasting friendships. None of that goes away with a final breath.
“It’s a pretty special thing,” said Nicole (Kurth) Duncheon, an Illinois State Athletics Hall of Famer who pitched 10 years for the Lady Hearts. “His legacy will live on in all of us. His wonderfulness will live on inside of us.”
Day formed the Lady Hearts in 1985 when Lori, a Normal Community High School star, and her friend, shortstop Susan Wissmiller, became too old to play in the Bloomington-Normal Girls Softball Association 18-under division.
It was an ambitious undertaking. The Bloomington Hearts men’s team, sponsored by Heart of America Realty, was well-established. Why not a competitive women’s fastpitch team?
The roster would have to be built. The team needed a schedule, uniforms, a home field.
“It always amazed me that you start a team with two players and no uniforms, and no budget to buy uniforms,” said Rick Jones, who later joined Day and Rudy Klokkenga on the Lady Hearts’ management team. “They borrowed uniforms the first year from Villa Grove (which had purchased a new set).
“They had no place to play. Lyle was playing wherever he could find a piece of dirt.”
Humble and connected
From those humble beginnings sprung an organization that has won two ISC World tournaments, traveled to New Zealand, competed in the Canada Cup and played multiple exhibition games against the United States Olympic team.
In each of Team USA’s four national tours leading up to Olympic appearances, there was a stop in Bloomington-Normal. Lyle Day was a big part of that, though he’d never say so in his thick New England accent.
“Lyle was impressive in terms of the connections he had and how humble he was about those connections,” said Tiffany Prager, Illinois Wesleyan’s head softball coach and a former Lady Hearts player. “You never knew all the work he was doing behind the scenes.
“Lyle never took credit or wanted credit. He was just all about providing the best possible experience to so many different people involved in softball in general. I think that speaks volumes to who he was and how he went about things. He was such a humble heart.”
Along with managing and later overseeing the Lady Hearts, Day was a volunteer assistant coach at Illinois Wesleyan. He began at IWU in the mid-90s, telling then-head coach Mandy Neal he would help for a year.
He never left. He was involved with practices and games for many years, then became an assistant coach emeritus. Among the many IWU players he impacted was my daughter.
When informed of Day’s death, her text message reply read, “Oh no, Lyle. Such a beautiful soul he was. Wow, that breaks my heart.”
A lot of hearts are in pieces, whether touched by Day through IWU, his long career at State Farm Insurance or the Lady Hearts.
Duncheon was talented enough to have other summer teams pursue her. She rejected every offer, saying, "Once a Heart, always a Heart."
“Nobody can replace those relationships that you make, no matter what kind of team they throw at you,” Duncheon said. “It didn’t matter who it was (recruiting her) … I was a Heart, it was your summer family and we would never deviate from that. We called ourselves the Summer Sisters. A lot of those girls, we’re still really close.”
Duncheon attributes that tight bond to Day, Klokkenga, who died in August, and Jones. “The three amigos,” she called them.
Shipley began her 12-year run as a Lady Hearts player in 1988. From the start, she felt the warmth throughout the organization.
“I watched the love and admiration for Lyle from everyone around him,” Shipley said. “Everyone knew Lyle, and everyone loved Lyle and his devoted, equally loved, wife, Barbara. The Hearts were a family, and Lyle and Barbara loved us all.
“An amazing thing about Lyle was the magic bubble he had around him. He would wander around the field while we were warming up and balls would fly by him and never hit him. It was remarkable, and anyone who played for Lyle knows what I’m talking about.”
Prager saw it with the Lady Hearts and later at IWU. Her theory?
“He was such a great person, somebody was looking out for him to make sure he stayed safe and sound,” she said.
A member of the Illinois Softball Hall of Fame, Day was the person our parents hoped we all would be … kind, caring, humble and ever-so consistent.
“He was the same every day,” Jones said. “You didn’t have to worry about what version of Lyle you were going to get.”
Twanda Moore learned that more than 30 years ago. A Missouri native, she played softball collegiately at Southeast Missouri, then for the St. Louis Classics summer team. That led to meeting Day and migrating to the Lady Hearts, where she played “all of the 90s” and 12 years total.
Not only did she compete in weekend tournaments, she drove three hours each way from her home near St. Louis for weeknight doubleheaders.
“It was easy. It was fun,” she says.
Then came a move to Knob Noster, Missouri, near Kansas City. The three-hour drive was now six hours each way. For her final three years with the team, Moore did it, stopping in hotel parking lots on the way home to sleep a few hours in her car.
Crazy?
Her parents, who she loved dearly, thought so. But Moore was committed to Lyle Day and she was a Heart.
“I know the team name was for (Heart of America), but you couldn’t have come up with a more appropriate name for a team or a leader,” she said, her voice cracking. “Sorry, I get choked up thinking about him. As Susan (Wissmiller) would say, he’s the biggest Heart of all.”
Moore helped spread the word of Day’s death via Facebook. She contacted people in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Arizona, Florida, the Dominican Republic and New Zealand.
“I mean, who does that?” she said. “Who do you know who has that widespread of an impact?”
Day’s life will be celebrated Sunday at East Lawn Funeral Home in Bloomington. Visitation starts at noon and the funeral service at 3 p.m.
Saying goodbye will be difficult for Barbara, his wife of 67 years, their three children, seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. It won’t be easy for anyone.
Prager will tell you her time with Day and the Lady Hearts “not only changed the trajectory of my (softball) career, but my life as well.”
Even in failing health, Day supported Prager through emails and phone calls. The words were always “so generous and kind,” she said.
And now? Her message to him?
“Lyle, we love you and we appreciate you beyond measure for all that you’ve done for softball and the people connected to it. The way you lived your life, I hope is the way we can all continue to live our lives. Your legacy will live on.”
