Camille Gaito Returns to San Rafael a Champion

In the highly competitive world of providing pitching lessons for aspiring softball stars, ’s resume can now include something hard to top.

One of his prize pupils won a national championship in the spring.

In this case, there’s truth in advertising: Gaito’s 20-year-old daughter Camille pitched University of California, San Diego to the Division II national title in June.

“Winning the championship was very surprising after her team was picked to finish fourth in their conference,” said dad, who currently coaches the San Rafael-based NorCal Smackers’ 10-and-under team. “Her personal success is not that surprising because of the way she has always competed and been very calm.”

After a long college season and more than a month traveling through – and playing some softball in – Europe, Camille can't wait to return to San Rafael and throw some to her dad in the backyard just like the old days.

Even if dad isn’t looking forward to this occurrence quite so much.

“Pitching at home is always a crapshoot because as Camille's skills mature and improve, mine diminish,” Bill noted. “I usually wind up getting a bruise that lasts a month or more.”

Dad knows exactly who to blame for this – himself. After all, he coached his daughter almost every year from age 7 to 18, including several seasons in Marin Girls Softball and two at .

The lessons – and a ton of individual success in high school and on the summertime travel-ball trail – landed Camille in San Diego, where the road to the top was a bumpy one. Kinda like her younger years.

“We never made the playoffs,” the 2008 graduate said of her four years at .

“Softball was less popular in Marin then. San Rafael was not a big softball school. We always had a couple girls on the varsity team who had never played before. There were some games where I would strike out 19 and we’d still lose.

“Still, I enjoyed myself and had a lot of fun. I was able to keep it in perspective.”

At San Diego, Gaito and her mates used a postseason-less season as a springboard to bigger and better things. Much bigger and much better – a national title.

“I was so mad,” she said of not making the NCAA Playoffs in 2010. “I told the freshmen (before last season): We didn’t go to postseason last year. You can’t ever let it happen again.”

The championship run concluded in storybook fashion: Beating the top-ranked team in the country, Alabama-Huntsville, on national television.

With an easily visible, washable tattoo on her neck.

“The final game was the only one on TV,” she explained. “The coaches didn’t want to stress us out. They told us: Be classy. Be respectful. No cursing. Be mindful of how many people were going to be watching.

“Me and two other girls got washable tattoos. Mine had two kissy lips. It got multiple people calling my parents and asking: Does Camille have a tattoo on her neck? Oh, no.”

San Diego won that game 10-3, Gaito’s ninth consecutive victory on the mound in the postseason. She’d given up a total of just eight runs in the first eight games, then coasted a bit in the final after her team had “tattooed” Huntsville for 10 runs in the first three innings.

“The most ridiculous part of the game was … We’re a good hitting team, but we never scored like 10 runs in a game,” Gaito recalled. “We get to the most intense game of the season and we’re scoring runs like never before. It was like a dream.”

Having witnessed first-hand his daughter pitch in Salem, Va., on a championship stage, dad realized two valuable lessons learned along the way.

“It is important to play with the best players possible against the best competition,” he said, recalling his daughter’s years in the powerful Sorcerer travel-ball program. “It is far better to lose to a superior team than to beat up on hapless inferior competitors.

“Another is not to gauge one's success and ability by high school accolades and success.”

Now two months since her tattoo washed off, life as Camille Gaito is still dreamy. First she got an opportunity to play for a USA Select team of collegians that went to Europe and, among others, took on the same Czech Republic squad that Team USA encountered at the recent World Cup in Oklahoma City.

Facing a team that would score two runs against the top Division I pitcher at the World Cup, Gaito spun a shutout.

After that, she took some time to see the sites in Italy, and soon she’ll be returning to San Diego for her senior season.

But after swinging by Reno to watch her 10-year-old sister Mikayla play for her dad’s team in a tournament, Gaito will get a few weeks to relax in San Rafael and catch on a year’s worth of family happenings, even if she has some of the best stories to tell.

And what about possibly of making some money off her success by offering pitching lessons like her dad?

“I’m not ready for pitching lessons,” she admitted. “I know what works for me as a pitcher, but I don’t want to make everyone pitch like me.

“I remember when I got a new pitching coach my freshman year of high school. It’s all muscle memory and I was being told to do things differently. It was very frustrating.”

Rest assured, her dad knows better than to offer her tips of his own.

“I've learned not to coach her anymore,” he claimed, “because the minute I do, so she threatens to stop pitching.”