Deb Johnston memorialized with renaming of Kankakee softball field

KANKAKEE − Nobody embodied girls sports at Kankakee School District 111 quite like Deb Johnston.

A 1971 graduate of Eastridge High School, Johnston died in November at age 71. She had a major influence on generations of students and athletes while leaving a footprint on every program in the girls athletic department, starting at her alma mater in 1978 and continuing long after Eastridge and Westview merged into Kankakee High School in 1983.

She served as head softball coach from 2004 to 2017 and brought the program its first – and still only – regional title in 2011. Her contributions to the softball program were recognized before the Kays’ home game Wednesday with Thornridge. In a pregame ceremony, the field where she spent countless hours was renamed the Deb Johnston Memorial Softball Field.

“It’s the house that J built,” Kankakee athletic director Ronnie Wilcox said during the ceremony. “If you knew Deb, if she wasn’t home on vacation or with family at a ball game, she was here on a machine, on a fork or something picking weeds and raking. This place is because of her.”

That dedication to the softball program that Johnston exhibited in part through her constant tending to the field was something that stood out to those who knew her over the years.

Debbie Null, a longtime friend of Johnston’s, said the level of care and commitment Johnston had is hard to replicate, and seeing people turn up to acknowledge that on Wednesday is something that would have meant a lot to Johnston.

“She’s looking down, and she’s smiling on all the people that came out to the dedication today,” Null said. “... They’ll never find another person as dedicated as she was.”

Null first met Johnston in 1998 through her daughters, Trisha Gaytan and Angela Pauli, who were both on the girls golf team coached by Johnston and also served as student managers under her with the girls basketball team.

After Null learned that Johnston did not really have family who lived locally, Johnston basically became a member of their family.

“Holidays would come up, and she’d be home by herself, so we’d invite her out for the Fourth [of July],” Null said. “She’d come out for Easter, for Thanksgiving – we just had her for all those years.”

Gaytan was in attendance with her mother Wednesday to recognize the former coach who had become such a big part of her life. As a result of the family “adopting” Johnston, as Gaytan puts it, she got to see just how much passion Johnston really put into her work.

“No one is going to have the heart and dedication that she had,” Gaytan said. “She cared about everybody that she coached. She would go out of her way, and there were several players she brought to and from [games and practice], fed, clothed. She went out of her way. She went above and beyond.”

But it was not just the players Johnston coached on whom she managed to make an impression.

Before later coming to Kankakee High School to teach and coach alongside Johnston, 1991 Bishop McNamara graduate and basketball player Gina Turro was well aware of Johnston.

“She might have been short in stature, but she was giant in her passion for everything she did,” Turro said. “She impacted me, and I never played for her in high school. Just watching her coach, just seeing her do her thing, she was legendary in my mind before I even got to walk on a field with her. I had the absolute honor and privilege working with her at the high school as a teacher and coaching on the basketball coach and softball field.”

Turro’s first stint at Kankakee from 2007 to 2012 saw her serve as the JV softball coach for two years and then as a varsity assistant to Johnston. Turro also served as the head girls basketball coach from 2009 to 2012 and had Johnston as an assistant coach.

“She’s a legend,” Turro said. “She put everything into this field, everything into the players, everything into this district while she was teaching in it and after. District 111 Kankakee was home, and she took care of it and the people in it like family.”