2018 Female Player: Betty Kollar

Betty Kollar

The sport of softball was not prominent in Betty’s early life. She grew up on Parker Avenue on the Northwest side of Chicago, playing whiffle ball and sand lot league ball – she was not allowed to join little league back then. In high school, Kollar competed in basketball, tennis, track, soccer and joined a local Chicago 16-inch softball team.

During her junior year, Kollar was recruited to play for the farm team of The Ravens of the International Women’s Softball League. Although fast pitch was not her cup of tea, it was at this time Kollar was introduced to USSSA 11-inch slow pitch softball. For the next 12 years, she got to meet and play with some of the greatest players, coaches, sponsors and mentors of the game.

In 1978, Kollar played on the Bud Light sponsored team, home base in Deerfield, Illinois. When that team folded, coach Mary Biondi-Kasinski of Precision Softball from Racine, Wisconsin stepped in and recruited Betty and many of her Bud Light teammates to join what would become a dominating USSSA Class A team.

The Precision team finished top in every Wisconsin league and tournament they entered. Rated as the best USSSA Class A team in Wisconsin, they traveled to as many NITs as possible.

Small in stature, Kollar surprised many opposing pitchers by her excellent speed on the bases that allowed her to reach extra bases, especially when there was no fence and she scored a home run or two. Batting in the top half of the order, Kollar had a consistent high on-base percentage (.558) and covered center field with her signature slide and catch of short-looping fly balls.

Precision Softball had great chemistry with National and Illinois Hall of Fame inductee Laura Filip on the mound, 2017 Illinois USSSA Hall of Fame inductee and outfielder Mary Ellen Buckley and an all-star roster of the area’s best softball players. Precision had their best finish in the 1984 USSSA World Tournament – 4th place!

Kollar is humbled to be an inductee in the Illinois USSSA Hall of Fame. Welcome Betty Kollar into the Illinois USSSA Hall of Fame!