At Lisle High School, Team is Also Spelled L-o-v-e

Sixth-grader Anne Hamilton may very well have the most unique after-school activity among her classmates at Lisle Junior High School.

When school is dismissed, Anne’s mother, Mary Pat, a library assistant at Lisle Senior High School, picks up Anne from junior high and drives her back to the high school. There, Anne dons a Lisle blue-and-white jersey and goes about her duties as a team manager for coach Jen Pomatto and the two-time Class 2A supersectional qualifying Lisle softball squad.

Anne, who is developmentally disabled, helps Pomatto and the team during practice sessions and at every home game. She does everything from feeding the pitching machine with softballs for bunting practice, to making sure umpires sign Lisle’s scorebook before the game, giving the Lions’ lineup to opposing coaches, working the scoreboard and assisting with the softball bulletin board.

And once in a while, she’ll bring a stash of candy for all the players to dig into. Prior to Thursday’s home game against Dwight, Anne set a large tub of Dubble Bubble, along with bags of strawberry licorice and Swedish Fish, down on the dugout bench.

“Thanks for bringing all the snacks today, Anne,” one player told her. “You’re the best!”

Before the start of the season, Anne served as Pomatto’s point person for such tasks as assigning players gym lockers, taking their sizes for uniforms and other softball apparel, passing out uniforms and helping to organize the storage room where the team keeps its equipment.  

Anne loves being a part of the team—“It’s fun,” she said—and Pomatto and her players love having her on it.

"Annie! Anne!"

Mary Pat recalls standing outside the gym after dropping Anne off for practice recently and listening to the team’s reaction when her daughter walked in.

“Twenty girls are yelling, ‘Anne! Anne!’ ” she said. “It must be an amazing feeling for her.”

What was just as amazing, as well as heart-warming, for Mary Pat is how Pomatto, a math teacher at Lisle High School, one day asked her out of the blue if she thought Anne would like to be the team manager.

“I talked to Mary Pat about it to make sure it was something Anne wanted to do,” Pomatto said.

“I was kind of dumbfounded, a little hesitant,” Mary Pat said. “But Jen was like, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’ll be really fun.’ ”

Fitting into a peer group hasn’t been easy for Anne who, her mom says, experiences great anxiety. Yet the way in which Pomatto and the team have taken Anne under their wing benefits her in ways that Mary Pat can’t begin to describe.

“Just to see the smile on her face when she comes home from practice or after a game when I’m picking her up,” Mary Pat said. “Once she comes home, she likes for us to play softball with her for a while, and she’s the coach. For her to be part of something like this is huge. They’re a great confidence-booster.”

Team to receive Community Award

Mary Pat’s appreciation of how Pomatto and the team have reached out to Anne and befriended her resulted in Mary Pat writing a letter to nominate them for a Award—given bi-annually by the Lisle Community Character Alliance.

Recently, the Alliance announced that the team will be presented with a Pillar award. It will receive the award at the Lisle Village Board meeting on May 16.

Pomatto very much appreciates the award, but emphasizes that making Anne the team manager wasn’t done to garner publicity.

“I’m very proud of our girls,” Pomatto said. “Too many times people think of athletes as being on a pedestal. I’ve always tried to hold our girls to a higher standard and teach them that they can learn a lot from everybody.

“I’m glad their work is being recognized, but that’s not why they’re doing it. They’ve done it because they are good people. I don’t want our softball program to be just about softball. I want them to do well academically, athletically and be good role models and good people.”

Mary Pat doesn’t have to be convinced that members of Lisle’s softball team are good role models. She’s witnessed that first-hand.

“She’s (Anne) getting social skills from really good role models,” Mary Pat said. “These girls are amazing role models. Jen went out of her way to do this, and that’s huge. And to watch these girls follow through and follow suit, I wanted somehow to thank them.”

No need to thank us, Pomatto says. Having Anne on the team, she said, is “a breath of fresh air.”

“The girls love having her around,” she said. “She’s taught the girls about compassion and respecting other people’s differences and (having) patience. Her family says Anne is learning so much from the girls, but our girls are learning so much from Anne.

“It teaches them to be role models and good people. The girls have made a friend that they’ll have a connection with for a long time.”