The best two-sport athlete in Kansas City Kansas Community College history?
Go no farther than Kathleen Myszka Morrow. Simply and decisively, an All-American catcher in softball and a starter on one of the best women’s basketball teams in history.
As a freshman, Myszka powered the Blue Devils to their first appearance ever in the NJCAA DI national softball tournament. As a sophomore, she came heartbreakingly close to being a member of a national tournament basketball team.
Heartbreaking because with just two games remaining in the regular basketball season, Myszka tore her anterior cruciate ligament that would end that season and the 1996 softball season. “Someone stole the ball and threw it to me on a fast break and I made the basket but the next thing I remember is I woke up and everyone was looking at me. That’s all I remember.”
At the time, Myszka was not only averaging 7.2 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists but drawing the team’s most difficult defensive assignment. One of the team leaders in steals, her nine steals against Labette are the third most in history. As it was, she could only watch as the Blue Devils dropped a down-to-the-wire regional championship thriller 61-57 to Independence, which would go on to win the national championship.
Would Myszka’s presence have more than made up that 4-point deficit? “I don’t know. I was on a roll,” says Myszka, who had games of 22, 17, 14, 12, 11, 9, 9, 8 and 8 points in Jayhawk Conference play.
“I would like to think we could have beaten Indy with Kathleen in there but I don’t know. Indy was really good,” says Coach Leslie Crane, who know coaches at Allen County. “Without her, we had to shift players to different positions and it impacted what we did. She was a tough kid mentally, would go after rebounds, play good defense and made a difference.”
Sharing the Jayhawk title for the first time in history (the Blue Devils split two games with Indy), the Blue Devils would finish 28-4, the best record in history at the time and a No. 22 national ranking.
And then it was right to the softball field where despite missing the first seven games and playing the most demanding efforts on the field, she had a torrid .486 batting average with 55 hits, 20 for extra bases and 49 RBI – all team bests. Perhaps even more dramatically, she struck out only twice in 113 times at bat – something of which she was not aware. “Just two strikeouts? That’s crazy.”
The best would come in the regional tournament at Johnson County. The No. 6 seed after a 17-9 conference record, the Blue Devils tore through the tourney like a Kansas tornado with Myszka delivering the game-winning run in the three first-day wins that ignited a 5-0 sweep.
Her path of destruction : A two-run, bases-loaded double in the 10th inning that rallied KCKCC to a 3-2 win over Coffeyville; a key single in a game-tying 3-run rally and then a sacrifice fly that drove in the go-ahead run in a 6-4 win over No. 3 seed Barton County; and finally a 3-run home run backing Missy Meek’s 4-0 shutout of Independence.
Tied 1-1 with Cloud County in the sixth inning of the semifinals, Myszka’s line drive triple to center drove in the game-winner in a 2-1 win that propelled the Blue Devils to a 6-1 thumping of Butler County in the championship game, a game highlighted by sensational fielding plays by Kim Manthei, Angie Fiatte and Debbie Terrell.
Drawing No. 2 seeded Northeastern Oklahoma in the opening round of the national tourney in Hutchinson, KCKCC fell 7-3 but rebounded with a 7-5 win over Camden County (NJ) before being eliminated by Chattanooga 10-2. For her efforts, Myszka was named the All-Jayhawk and All-Regional catcher and second team All-America by Louisville Slugger, KCKCC’s first All-American.
Myszka was recruited out of Bishop Ward High School where she played four sports. The most proficient basketball scorer in school history, averaging 24 points, 7 rebounds and 9 assists; she also earned All-State and All-Huron honors in softball; and qualified for the state track meet in the shot put.
Her basketball skills earned her several offers including ones from UCLA and Harvard before KCKCC’s Crane and staying close to home kept her home. “I really had to go hard after her,” said Crane. “She was hard-nosed; someone we needed for our program.”
Myszka played in all 32 games as a freshman, averaging 4.6 points and 1.8 rebounds as the Blue Devils finished 28-5 and 12-2 in conference play.
Stripped of the 1996 softball injury by the torn ACL, Myszka came back in the spring of 1997, never missing a beat by hitting a lusty .468 with 28 of 65 hits for extra bases including six home runs. “I couldn’t catch because of my injury so I played third base and pitched a little because I could throw hard,” she remembers. An All-Region second team and first team All-Jayhawk selection, she struck out just five times in 139 times at bat.
Offered a scholarship to play both basketball and softball at Park University, Myszka after much soul-searching decided to close out her college career and joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers as an electrician. “I wanted to go but I was a little burned out and there were bills to pay,” remembers Myszka, now nearing her 26th year with the IBEW.
Her first date with Rob Morrow came in 1991 when both were at Bishop Ward and the relationship carried on to KCKCC where Rob played two years of baseball. Married in January 2000, they have two sons, Zayne, 24, who played baseball one season at KCKCC and two seasons at Park where he just graduated; and Blake, 22, now a personal trainer.