2024 Female Player: Jennifer Glonke Stewart

Jennifer Glonke Stewart grew up in Palatine, Illinois, with parents, Jim and Nancy, and older brother, Jim. Her family was filled with talented athletes and hard workers. From a young age, Stewart watched her grandfather, father, and uncles compete in 16" softball tournaments and her brother play park district baseball. She learned how to keeps core from her mom and grandma while cheering from the sidelines. At the bus stop Stewart's mom played catch with her, her brother, and their schoolmates. It seemed inevitable that Stewart would be a softball player. She played multiple sports as a child and joined the park district fastpitch program as soon as it was available. Her high school career culminated in a trip down state for softball, after which she successfully walked on to Northwestern University's Division I softball team. Four years later she graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering and assumed her years of competitive softball were behind her. Little did she know that a new opportunity was about to surface.

A year or two after graduation, a family friend asked Stewart to play on a local slowpitch league team. There she met women who also played on USSSA tournament teams and was invited to fill in with Mood Swings (MS) softball. The rest was history. From 2007-2011, Stewart was a part of the MS program, led by Vicky Richards, and earned state and regional accolades. When that program folded, she was recruited by Made to Order (MTO) softball under Hugo Donado, Steve Gill, and Daryl Bones. The players and coaches of MTO had built a legacy. Stewart was honored to be a part of an Illinois USSSA Hall of Honor-worthy program. She played for MTO for nearly a decade, eventually competing at the B and A levels and participating in Conference USSSA. Highlights of Stewart's tenure with MTO include taking third place in the B World and a spot on the All-World tournament team in 2018, top five finishes in the A World in 2016 and 2020, and two appearances in the Women's Major World Series in 2019 and 2020.

While she temporarily hung up her cleats after the 2020 season, Stewart wasn't quite done with the Conference circuit. In the summer of 2022, friends who had competed against her for years asked her to play one more season of USSSA ball with them on Xtreme/ASP/Athlon/Anarchy. The Xtreme team included several Minnesota state hall of famers and was coached by the owner of ASP/Athlon, Brandon Roberts. In what turned out to be a record-breaking season, Xtreme won the first ever women's AA World Series, and Stewart was once again named to the All-World Tournament Team. The team were also runners up in the A World, finished seventh in USSSA conference standings, were the highest seeded A team in the 2022 Women's Major World Series, and survived Hurricane Ian.

Stewart had the opportunity to share the field with many Illinois USSSA slo-pitch Hall of Fame members throughout her softball career. She was a part of co-ed teams, including Fleming's Tap, Happy Endings, Bubba's Excavating, Turn Up the Heat, and Landmark Landscaping; competed in state, national, and world co-ed tournaments; and earned multiple Joliet City Tournament championships. Playing next to Jim Walsh, Jim Cushing, Scotty Klein, and Jim "Tank" Kersten helped Stewart learn more about the game, not to mention the endless entertainment it brought. Softball also brought Stewart and her husband, Curt, together. Mutual friends introduced them at a tournament in 2012 and, while they never played on the same USSSA team, Stewart gives Curt credit for encouraging her to be a better competitor. Both Curt and Tank spent countless hours pitching her batting practice, refining her approach, and launching balls for her to track down in the field. She would not have had the confidence or the success she did without these two. Stewart is appreciative of those who paved the way for women's softball in Illinois and to those who continue to promote the sport today. She is honored to join the ranks of this talented group of players, coaches, sponsors, and umpires in the Illinois USSSA Slow Pitch Hall of Fame. She is happily enjoying her "retirement” from the game, traveling with Curt to his tournaments, and cheering for all of those who continue to play softball around the country.