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The surprise party was planned. The food had been ordered. The house already was decorated. Dobson softball Coach Nancy Ellis had no idea. All the Mustangs had to do was win, and Ellis would notch her 500th career coaching victory.
There was just one problem. Dobson was trailing Marcos de Niza, 2-1, in the sixth inning, before Elizabeth Harmon's two-run single gave the Mustangs a 3-2 victory Monday.
"I asked them later, "What would you have done (about the party) if we had lost?' " Ellis said. "They said they knew we'd get it sometime this week, and besides, the food would have lasted another day."
But day-old food was not on the menu. Ellis' momentous victory was. And the left column on that win-loss ledger is still growing because the Mustangs captured five victories this week, culminating in the championship of the Marcos de Niza/ McClintock Invitational Softball Tournament.
Ellis is now up to 503. A number she had no clue she was close to until the Arizona Coaches Association nominated her for the Southwest Region Coach of the Year award (covering six states) earlier in the season.
Ellis won that award and now is in line for the national coach of the year, which will be announced at the end of this month.
"It's a nice honor," she said.
Actually, Ellis has received the regional honor twice before, but in the special sports category. Those were for badminton, which she still coaches at Dobson.
One thing Ellis considers very nice is she was able to win her 500th softball win with this team.
"They all get along so well," she said. "It's really a nice group. And one with the fewest parent problems."
It's also a team that has its sights set on a state championship. The Mustangs, behind sophomore pitcher Kristen Swetel, are 13-1 and on a roll.
"You have to be good, and you have to be lucky," said Ellis, who guided the Mustangs to the 1990 state championship. "You can't have bad hops or injuries. If everything goes right, we've got a chance.
"It's a nice mixture with some very talented people."
Ellis began her coaching career in 1968 in Orange, Calif., a hotbed for softball. She graduated from Arizona State in 1968, but softball really wasn't big here then, and Ellis wanted to both coach and play.
"I spent three years there, and we won a state title in 1970, but the 1971 earthquake convinced me I needed to be out of there," she said. "We used our gym for an evacuation center. We saw the Santa Ana River floods. We saw the freeway break away. And my three-story apartment had the wall crack from floor to ceiling.
"It was time to go."
So she moved back to Arizona, and took over the Mesa High program at the "old" Mesa High. She coached there for 10 years until Dobson opened in 1981.
"It was closer to home, I knew the principal and they offered me the department head and computer technology," Ellis said. "It's always exciting to begin with a new school."
Besides softball and badminton, Ellis has coached track, basketball, tennis, archery and field hockey. It's been through this plethora of sports she has met, and kept up with, a multitude of girls.
"The memories are what's special about coaching," she said. "There are so many special moments. I remember in 1985 we won seven games in a row where we came from behind in the seventh inning.
"That's why I have gray hair."
But she doesn't mind that snow on the rooftop when she thinks about all the lives she hopes she's touched.
"I get e-mail from girls I've coached from all over the world," she said. "With the Internet, they all come back. They find me on my home page. I've got girls who are police officers, coaches, college professors. (And at least one lawyer, daughter Tami, who played for Ellis in 1986.)
"I've got a twin sister who is a math professor at Texas A&M. And who does the school hire as its softball pitching coach but Ali Andrews, who pitched for me in 1990."
When Ellis says the memories are special, those are the intangibles. The tangibles are such things as the ball used in Monday's 500th victory.
Seems Dobson Athletic Director Barb Adams grabbed it after the game and gave it to Ellis. She calmly tossed it in the dugout. Adams went and got it and brought it to that night's party.
"She had it signed by all the players," Ellis said. "It was special."
Just like this coach.
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