All-American Flashback: Stephanie VanBrakle (2003-06)
11/30/2015 12:00:00 AM | Softball
In honor of Alabama softball's 20th anniversary, rolltide.com will be catching up with our 20 former All-Americans in a series of feature interviews. Our eighth feature is with Stephanie VanBrakle (2003-06), a dual threat from the plate and in the circle who earned All-America honors as a junior and senior.
As both a player and an assistant coach, Stephanie VanBrakle has been a part of three SEC regular season titles, two SEC Tournament titles and six Women's College World Series appearances at Alabama, including a national championship in her first season as an assistant coach. VanBrakle now calls Tuscaloosa home, but it was a long journey from her original home in Chambersburg, Pa.
"To be honest, growing up I didn't know anything about Alabama or the SEC," VanBrakle said. "I knew a lot of the Big 10 schools, Penn State is only two hours away from my house. I knew about Maryland and that was about it. I played three sports in high school so I was pretty unaware. I played with a team called Team New Jersey and I had to drive four hours to go to practice every weekend and they took us to two tournaments. One was in Florida and the other was in California. That's when my recruiting process took off around my junior year. I started getting recruited by a lot of schools in the SEC and a lot of Midwest schools. That's when my eyes opened up to college softball outside of the Pennsylvania area."
The long distance from home prevented VanBrakle and her family from taking many unofficial visits to schools outside the northeast, but occasional travel-ball tournaments around the country provided the opportunity to make the most of the road trip.
"My mom and I would drive to places that were nearby the tournaments we were playing, just to see those places on my own and decide if I wanted to eventually take an official visit," VanBrakle said. "One year we played nationals in Marietta, Ga., so on my drive down I looked at places like Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina and places like that. I tried to narrow down my schools that way before I decided where I wanted to take my five official visits."
VanBrakle narrowed her five official visits down to Alabama, LSU, Tennessee, Arizona State and Oklahoma. She took her first visit to Alabama in the fall of 2001 and was scheduled to visit LSU the next week. However, that week coincided with the September 11th attacks and her visit was canceled. VanBrakle took a visit to Oklahoma as well but the first impression made in Tuscaloosa stuck.
"I felt like Tuscaloosa was a lot like where I'm from," VanBrakle said. "The actual town is smaller but there are some bigger cities close by. The team had a family atmosphere. Being 12 hours away from home, it was huge for my mom that I go somewhere that I would be taken care of and that if something happened she wouldn't have to worry. It felt right in my gut. I wanted to take a visit somewhere else besides Tuscaloosa just to make sure I wasn't caught in the hype of recruiting so I went to Oklahoma. It was nice but I just didn't get the same feeling I got from Alabama.
"[Patrick] Murphy and Aly [Habetz] did a really good job recruiting because I got something every week in the mail. I still have everything saved that they ever sent me. Every letter, picture or anything. I remember they sent me a puzzle to put together and, when I did, it turned out I was the last piece to the puzzle. There were a lot of neat things like that no one else was doing. I felt a connection with the coaches and it really felt like a family."
VanBrakle arrived in Tuscaloosa in 2003 as a freshman amongst a very deep team, both offensively and in the circle. She appeared in 67 of the team's 70 games her rookie season as either a pitcher, designated player or third baseman. The immediate starting time validated her talent potential but didn't diminish her willingness to improve even further.
"There was a competitive spirit at practice," VanBrakle said. "I felt like my class, especially me, Dom [Dominique Aceturro] and Staci [Ramsey] were all really competitive with each other. We all raised the bar for each other and it was even higher when you add people like Jackie McClain and Ashley Courtney into the mix. I hit behind Jackie McClain and nobody wanted to pitch to her so I knew they were going to pitch to me. I had to learn to step up and emulate what she was doing. With the pitchers, Jen [Wright] and Erin [Wright] were much better than I was my freshman year. I felt like I needed to push myself to get to their level. It wasn't like I was comparing myself to them, I just wanted to get my game to their level because I would see how Jackie hit or how Erin and Jen pitched and I felt like I could do better than I was doing and work harder. It was a good competitiveness because we all loved each other at the end of the day but we were all pushing each other to be better than the other person."
VanBrakle's freshman year culminated with an SEC Tournament title and an undefeated run through the NCAA Regional in Tuscaloosa to earn a bid to the Women's College World Series. VanBrakle would ultimately make the trip to Oklahoma City in three of her four years. Postseason play and, more importantly, postseason wins became an expectation at Alabama.
"I think my freshman year I was overwhelmed," VanBrakle said. "I remember watching Arizona at the World Series on TV and then here we were playing Arizona in the first game there. You feel like a small fish in a big pond. I feel like our eyes were a bit too big my freshman year but when we went my junior and senior years, we wanted to be there and knew we were supposed to be there. We were on a mission. It wasn't as intimidating as the first time we went."
Being a pitcher and a hitter, VanBrakle had the opportunity to face opposing pitchers at their own game in the circle and one-on-one from the plate. In three of her four years at Alabama, VanBrakle got to go toe-to-toe against one of the sport's all-time greats in left-hander Monica Abbott, who broke the NCAA strikeout record as an All-American at Tennessee from 2004-07.
"My biggest personal rivalry in college was when we played Tennessee and went against Monica Abbott," VanBrakle said. "I loved whenever we were getting ready to play her. I hit a walk-off home run to beat her my sophomore year and, ever since that happened, it seemed like that series was big for us. Not that teams like LSU and Georgia weren't important, but I always liked playing Monica and Tennessee. It was because she was so good and it was always special when we could come out on top."
VanBrakle's sophomore walk-off happened on March 13, 2004 in the opening game of a doubleheader in Tuscaloosa. In the circle, VanBrakle allowed just three hits while striking out 11, but the Volunteers pulled ahead with three unearned runs in the top of the fifth to take a 3-1 lead. With two on and two out in the bottom of the seventh, VanBrakle helped her own cause from the plate with a long ball that bounced off the top of the fence in right field for a walk-off homer to win, 4-3. Alabama would go on to sweep the series, including a game three rematch for VanBrakle and Abbot where Alabama edged out Tennessee, 2-1.
VanBrakle went on to earn NFCA Second Team All-America honors in her junior and senior seasons. Her junior ERA of 1.34 and her senior ERA of 1.19 both rank in the top five in program history. Her 341 strikeouts as a junior was a school record until she beat it as a senior in 2006 with 345. That stood as the record until Kelsi Dunne broke it in 2010 with 355 and then Jaclyn Traina with 361 in 2012. VanBrakle's 1.53 career ERA ranks third in program history and her 1,113 strikeouts rank second.
The class of 2006 ended its final season as SEC regular season champions for the first time in program history and were the first class to make three trips to the Women's College World Series. The comradery between the entire team, and especially her senior class, is one of VanBrakle's most cherished memories.
"I miss having 18 of my closest girlfriends to hang out with," VanBrakle said. "I miss being able to just call them up and go get dinner or hang out. We all had something in common because we were all here for the same reason. I remember when me and Dom lived together we always had people over to hang out. One night it was raining really hard outside so we decided we were going to come up with a dance and we had this dance party. We ended up having a dance competition in our apartment and it was really cool. I miss having everybody so close because now my graduating class is all over the country and we can't just call each other up to hang out. Even though we were around each other on the field every day, we still enjoyed each other's company enough to hang out outside of softball."
After graduation, VanBrakle got the itch to start coaching and, unbeknownst to her at the time, her road back to Tuscaloosa had already started.
"Coaching wasn't really something I knew I wanted to do when I played," VanBrakle said. "When I was giving lessons after I graduated I realized I really missed the competition. It just so happened that Birmingham Southern had a job opening so I was fortunate to get that. I didn't think I was ever going to be a coach. My mom always preached that I should get a degree so I had something to fall back on. I got my degree as a P.E. teacher but it just so happened that I ended up coaching and it has been awesome."
VanBrakle started as an assistant coach at Birmingham Southern in 2008 before serving as the head coach for two more seasons. Then, following one year as the head coach at Samford in 2011, Murphy had to recruit VanBrakle a second time as the new pitching coach at her alma mater.
"I think coming back to Alabama crossed my mind before," VanBrakle said. "I knew I wanted to come back and coach in the SEC at some point in my career. I had only been at Samford for one year so I waivered a little bit. My first boss at Birmingham Southern, [Athletic Director] Joe Dean Jr., told me the worst thing you could do for your career is be a job-hopper, so I was kind of hesitant. When I thought about it though, it was a no-brainer to come back because I was comfortable here, I knew the expectations and I knew I wanted to come back in the conference. Ultimately I knew it would be a good career move for me."
VanBrakle now has the opportunity to shape the future of Alabama pitching. She oversaw the final three years of Jaclyn Traina's career where she was twice named SEC Pitcher of the Year and was the World Series MVP after leading the Tide to its first national title in 2012. This past season, Sydney Littlejohn threw two perfect games, the first since VanBrakle did it herself as a senior, and Alexis Osorio was named the SEC Freshman of the Year and a finalist for the NFCA Freshman of the Year.
VanBrakle and her fiancé, Quintin Prothro, currently reside in Tuscaloosa.
