DePron steps up to the plate for her senior season

Joei Younker JYounker@dailYegYptian com

SIU softball player Aubree DePron came into the 2023 softball season with a different outlook than previous years. Having played at Southern Illinois her whole collegiate career, the Oklahoma native has been an amazing asset for the team.

Ending her sophomore and junior seasons hitting in the .270 batting percentage range, DePron stepped up to the plate for her senior season ready to leave her mark on SIU softball.

She started the season on fire with a .636 batting average, a .667 on-base percentage and an eight game hitting streak tallying 14 hits. These can all be attributed to her new-found confidence and aggression when she goes up to the plate.

“I’ve simplified my mentality at the plate: put the ball in play, trust your speed, and make the defense work,” DePron said

Although the Women’s Liberation Front was successful at entering some of the trustees’ meetings, despite not being able to get on the agenda, they were widely disregarded by the trustees for not being a registered student organization at the time, and inevitably due to the sexism of the time, for being women, with trustees mainly asking about what the male students thought about the matter. On May 17, before the walkout, President Morris took a tearful Pat Handlin aside, and told her that it “might not be time to press the issue right now.” As is often the case in matters of civil rights, the diminished stature of women left WLF with no choice but to appeal to the rest of the student body and their male supporters, who were taken more seriously by administration.

“We are planning campus walkouts every night until something changes,” said Judy Micheals, a member of the WLF. After the abolishment of the women’s hours by the Student Senate on May 15, and the walkout on the 20th, came consequences. Female students were threatened with “campusing” an infantilizing disciplinary action forcing women to spend a certain number of hours in their dormitory library or rooms, as well as disciplinary probation, a status which could see them expelled if they continued on to violate the rules in any way. Administration attempted to make assurances to the students, claiming that only women that already had histories of rule breaking would be disciplined for the walkouts, but the student government was having none of it, unwilling to accept any punishments or warnings for the

The Salukis started their season with two tournaments. The first was in Fort Myers, Florida, where the Salukis went 4-0 on the week. The second was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where they took on Kansas, Ole Miss, North Dakota State and Sacramento State going 2-2, beating Kansas and Sacramento State, teams they wouldn’t normally see.

The latter was the game DePron said the Salukis started putting the puzzle together.

“The first game that comes to mind is Sacramento State, being in Mexico playing was an experience in itself, but we also played a really good game. All the pieces were coming together, hitting, defense and pitching,” DePron said.

As of March 26th, DePron is hitting .400 and is ranked 53rd on the D1 Softball national batting statistics. She also sits in the top 10 of the conference for hitting categories like total runs, total hits, on base percentage and even students’ actions, which were not a rule violation under the student government’s bill.

The Student Senate itself staged a sit-in on President Morris’ own lawn in protest of any disciplinary action against female students taking part in the walkouts, approved democratically by its own 15-8 vote, with only the senators who voted in favor participating. Feeling responsible for the women who acted under the shield of the senate’s bill, they agreed to sit on the lawn until women’s hours were abolished and walkouts were granted amnesty, or until the participating members were expelled from the school. This was supported by the WLF, which asked any women experiencing discipline for the walkout to contact the Student Senate. At this point, a local attorney by the name of Julian Bond even considered taking the issue to court, as the school was thought to be in violation of Federal Civil rights laws, and Illinois State law.

When the lawn sit-in happened, not just the Student Senate, but more than 2,000 students showed up, all on President Morris’ lawn, including a hard rock band which played for 3 hours until the police showed up and demanded they stop or be “disbanded.” The band only left when 30 SIU security officers showed up equipped with riot gear and nightsticks.

“Girls, you have no hours,” said Carl Courtnier, a Small Group Housing senator who spoke first at the event. “The senate has already abolished them.” stolen bases.

Students were told by administrative aide Paul Morrill that the sit-in “could have no positive effect, only a negative one” but also that no action would be taken against students unless they violated the law.

When it comes to the changes DePron made to get to this place, she said her biggest focus was cutting down on strikeouts; last season, she tallied 27 strikeouts in 151 at bats, making for almost an 18% strikeout rate. DePron has cut that percentage down by almost 10% this year, with only seven K’s in 85 at-bats.

“That’s 27 at bats that I didn’t put the ball in play and give myself a chance to get on base. Becoming more aggressive and jumping on the first pitch I like has helped me improve a lot,” she said.

Not only has DePron started off the season well, but so has the team as a whole. The Salukis lead the Valley in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, total bases, rbis and runs scored by wide margins, making for perhaps the best team in the conference at the moment.

With a coaching change during the 2022 season, the Salukis had

Crowds continued visiting Morris’ lawn every night, constructing an effigy of the president and hanging it from his roof on the second night, much to the chagrin of the administration. Meanwhile, the Student Senate was able to convince faculty to discuss the matter with students in official class time, and the measure was endorsed by Chancellor McVickar, who encouraged faculty to discuss the issue formally and informally.

As the nights on Morris’ lawn continued, criticism from administration was levied against the confrontational tactics of the protestors. Some students were persuaded, and requested that the demonstration be moved to SIU’s stadium, but were quickly outvoted by a loyalist core of students.

Lorek addressed the crowd of more than 400 students on Morris’ lawn, claiming to be studying the issue of women’s hours for the WLF. He said that he would present a case against women’s hours to the student board of trustees, and would file a lawsuit if the board proved unreceptive.

On the third day of the Morris lawn sit-in, Courtnier resigned from the student council, and started a hunger strike on Morris’ lawn, to continue until the same demands as those sitting in were met; that women’s hours were abolished and the women participating in the walkouts were granted amnesty. His hunger strike was to be short lived, disrupted by upwelling of radical students at the sit-ins on Morris’ lawn. Students were spotted with molotov cocktails, scaring the student senators and other protest leaders, who had almost lost control of the protest on previous nights. This, paired with a compromise struck between the student body vice president, Pete some adjustments to attend to.

New head coach Jen Sewell took time during the team’s pre-season to work on its chemistry and how the Salukis played together. From having the Saluki Shakers teach the team their half time dance to group yoga classes, the team’s chemistry has been at an all time high.

The 2023 season is one of the best starts in Saluki softball history, and that is attributed a lot to the growing chemistry of the group. DePron said that there have been games when the team hasn’t put the three pieces (hitting, defense and pitching) together, but they have found a way to pull through and find a way to win.

“I think the love for the sport that every girl on the team has has gotten us to where we are at. In our minds we are always winning the game, even when we’re down no one gets nervous or tight,” she said.

Looking forward to the

Rozzell, and Chancellor MacVicar signaled the end to the Morris lawn sit-ins and the hunger strike. Allegedly, MacVicar promised that female students would only receive warning letters.

However, resistance to women’s hours remained very much alive, as some students from the demonstrations continued the protest across the street from Morris’ house as well as in a dome near campus lake for several more days.

Even parents wrote the Daily Egyptian with criticism of women’s hours criticizing the “3 - M company” (Morris, MacVicar, and Moulton) for women’s hours committees’ new, parental-consent centered plan, calling it arbitrary and discriminatory.

“They are playing with the natural reluctance of parents to give up their hold on their children, a reluctance difficult enough to overcome without the interference of self-righteous administrative elitists,” said Glenda and Patrick Engrissei, parents of two female students. “They are using, in fact fostering, divisions between parent and student, when it should be a function of the university to heal these splits. In essence, the proposed plan makes the administration an enemy of both parent and student.” remainder of the season, DePron said, “I’m just excited to see how far this team is going to make it.”

On June 8, fire broke out in four separate places in the Old Main building, destroying 24 classrooms. The building was found to be unsalvageable, and demolition crews were called in. Later in June, arson was announced to be the cause of the fire. The draft for the Vietnam war had begun to take effect, and the issue of women’s hours was largely forgotten, as the political environment on campus became a blazing inferno to match that of historic Old Main.

The hardest part of the game for any athlete is the mental aspect, especially with a sport like softball. DePron’s personal goal for the remainder of the season is to stay confident in herself and her skills.

“I think this is something that I struggle with the most, remembering to trust myself,” she said.

Sitting a-top of the conference’s overall record at 23-5 on the season, DePron and the Salukis have a good opportunity to make a run in the postseason.

“I just want to keep having fun and competing with these girls, I think this team has high expectations and we want to make it far,” DePron said.

Sports Reporter Joei Younker can be reached at jyounker@dailyegyptian.com.

However, some scraps of information are still available in the years following the movement. The women hours committee finished its work about a year after its inception, on August 15, finalizing the university’s new policy of allowing all female students in good standing to choose their own hours, with the condition that those under the age of 21 were required to get parental permission. Along the way, a member of the WLF quit the committee, finding it to be ineffective at granting women equality on campus. Over the course of the protests against women’s hours, those who opposed them were often criticized for being uncompromising in their pursuit of equality, but were largely supported by women surveyed by the women’s hours committee. Less than 6% of women chose to stick with the school’s current regulations - the one’s so widely protested by the Action party and the WLF. 30% chose unconditional self regulated hours for all women, bringing them to total equality with male students. 50% choose self regulatory hours for all women students but freshman. The committee did little to address female students’ opposition to requiring parental consent.

Today, as students face an all time high in political polarization, a widening class divide, a cold war in danger of reigniting, and debt-inducing tuition rates (with a lawsuit suppressing the Biden administration’s forgiveness of student loans), it’s difficult to believe we are incapable of the same levels of political mobilization as students were in the ‘70s.

Staff reporter Daniel Bethers can be reached at dbethers@dailyegytian.com