Remarkable Resident: Softball Dad Coaches Daughters Through Youth

Gordon Aronoff once made a promise to himself and his daughters. It'll be fulfilled Tuesday.

“My dad has been coaching our softball teams for 20 years,” said his daughter, Nicole. “He said he would coach my sister and I all the way through our softball years."

He is set to retire after Nicole's last game.

Aronoff, who has been married to his high school sweetheart, Karen, for 33 years, was president of the Field Division for the Affton Athletic Association from 1997 until 2005.

The retired Southwestern Bell fiber optics lineman stays busy as a referee for football, basketball and wheelchair basketball. He also spends time with his family. Karen Aronoff was a Girl Scout Leader, but Gordon got his time with the girls through sports.

“It’s fun to have your dad as the coach,” Nicole said. “We’re both really close to my dad through sports.”

One time, his daughter Nicole was having a problem hitting during a softball game. From the stands, his wife told the pair's daughter to move up in the batter box. Gordon Aronoff ignored the advice, but his daughter took the suggestion and got a hit.

"They called Karen Coach of the Year," Aronoff said.

Nicole said her dad treats all of his players as if they were his own daughters.

"He always just wanted us to have fun and be responsible," she said. "He also wanted all us girls to be confident enough to be strong, independent women and to be able to hold our own when we have to."

One of the things Aronoff is most proud of is how all of the girls he coached turned out to be remarkable young women, he said. There was a core group of 13 girls he coached with his daughter Jessie, up until they were 18.

"Twelve went to college, and one flew jets for the Air Force," he said. "That’s my claim to fame."

Health problems could have kept him from coaching these girls as long as he did. He suffered a heart attack in September 2006, but was back to coaching four days later. He was about to climb a telephone pole, though, and had a major stroke. He was hospitalized for weeks and did a year's worth of rehab. During this process, in 2008, he lost all of his toes to an infection.

It never crossed his mind to stop coaching though, and a surprise was planned for his last few games.

In T-Ball, the girls he coached were called the "Purple Kittens." Gordon always told them that on the field they were his girls—they should go to him first with any kind of problem.

For those last games the players wore special jersey's with the old "Purple Kittens" logo on the front, and simply "His Girls" over every player's different number.

"It will be hard for him, but it’s time," Nicole said. "He’s done what he set out to do.”