Beecher’s Landis sisters return as softball assistant coaches

Last summer, Margaret Landis was browsing for her first full-time job after graduating from Olivet Nazarene University when she saw an opening in the early childhood department in her native Beecher. She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to return to work in her hometown until she saw another posting – an assistant softball coaching job at Beecher High School.

That’s where Margaret, a 2020 graduate, and her sister, Kate, a 2018 graduate who now works in elementary education at Peotone, were state champion softball players. They were both on the school’s 2017 IHSA Class 2A state championship team and the 2018 runner-up squad, with Margaret also part of the school’s 2019 championship team.

The pair applied for the vacant assistant roles, and in their first seasons outside the foul lines they couldn’t have settled into their new roles under their own former head coach, Kevin Hayhurst, much easier.

“It feels very similar,” Margaret said. “Coach Hay has a very particular way of games and practices, conditioning, everything like that. Being back here, it’s like we never left. It just feels like home.”

“I really looked up to him as a player, so getting to coach with him makes me excited to come here every day,” Kate said. “I just love being around him in general. He was my biggest role model from sixth grade through college.”

Hayhurst, whose Bobcats have won four state titles in seven appearances since he took over in 2002-03, couldn’t be happier to have two of his former All-State stars back. Save for former assistant Carly Patkus, the Bobcats haven’t had many women in the dugout in recent years, with the recent graduates providing a fresh perspective to the program.

“It’s a big plus for our program, in terms of what they went through, how they played the game, how they can relate to the girls and let them know what’s ahead of them,” Hayhurst said. “They just got through playing in college, getting their education. It’s nice to have them back around.”

Things haven’t changed much since the girls graduated in terms of program success. At the time of writing, the Bobcats are 22-1 on the season, including an area-best 21-game winning streak to start the year. Junior pitcher Taylor Norkus said that having the Landises in the dugout has definitely played a role in that success.

“It’s really different,” Norkus said. “They relate to us so much more because they’ve played for coach [Hayhurst] before, and they have the history with winning state and everything. They’re definitely more personable to us.”

That ability to be more personable and relate as young women is something the sisters, Hayhurst and another junior pitcher, Ava Lorenzatti, all agreed on.

“We’ve never really had female coaches, and since they’re close in age with us, they’re super relatable,” Lorenzatti said. “We can talk to them about whatever, and so I think it’s just a different kind of relationship.”

Hayhurst’s daughter, Emily, graduated from Beecher with Margaret, and the longtime Beecher coach has known the sisters and their family since long before he became their coach at the grade school level. And wherever their educational and coaching paths may take them, Hayhurst knows that Kate and Margaret will be as successful as the softball program they came from.

“You knew that they’re going to be coaches,” Hayhurst said. “It’s in their blood and how they’ve been brought up. I knew they’d have long careers ahead of them as coaches because they both really enjoy it, and they’re good coaches.”