SOFTBALL

As they sit in their office outside Ryan Field, the undeniable chemistry between Kate and Caryl Drohan shines through. They’re identical twins, after all, though Kate is the serious one while Caryl is the more “laid back” of the two.

At times they complete each other’s stories. Other times they joke about their time playing college ball or the coaching decisions they made the day before.

It’s no suprise the two have spent all but five years of their lives together. Now Kate and Caryl coach Northwestern softball, Kate as the head coach and Caryl as the associate head coach.

NU has enjoyed several successful seasons since Kate took over and brought Caryl in as her assistant. But this year, under the guidance of the twin coaches, the team has jumped to a new level, climbing the national rankings to as high as No. 15 and recently garnering the No. 9 seed in the NCAA tournament.

And don’t ask Caryl if she’s ever going to leave NU — at least not in front of Kate.

“It’d be silly not to be open to it,” Caryl said, smiling and glancing in Kate’s direction. “I really love the group of kids we have now, I’d like to see them through.”

What about going to another Big Ten school?

“Never is a hard word to use.”

“I’m going to give you slack for that,” Kate said from across the room, letting her sister know she didn’t want her going anywhere.

And almost before Caryl could finish asking why, Kate was already laughing.

“Just kidding,” Kate said.

As they reflect on their time together, Kate and Caryl Drohan seem like the perfect combination.

“We’re so different in the way we deal with the kids, what our strengths are coaching and our personalities, I feel like it really enabled us to elevate this program so quickly,” Kate said. “It’s nice because we balance each other out. Good cop, bad cop … whatever you want to call it.”

Family Ties

Kate knew she wanted Caryl to be her top assistant as soon as she became the head coach at NU in 2002. The tough part was convincing the NU athletic department.

“We wanted to see what we could do together, what we could create together,” Kate said. “It took about two weeks of convincing central administration that that would be OK. Rick Taylor, the athletic director at the time, thought it was a horrible idea. But he laughed about it. He said ‘Alright, but if you hate it, it’s your fault.'”

Kate hired Caryl despite the worries and said it has helped to create a family atmosphere for the NU program. That became especially important in 2004 when their father John Drohan needed a kidney transplant. The sisters were both matches to donate, and both wanted to be the one to do it.

With neither willing to back down, they had to resort to what they thought was the fairest way to decide.

“We ended up flipping a coin in the trailer here,” Kate said. “The volleyball coach flipped a coin, and I won so I was fortunate enough to do it. I think I got the easy job. I think it was much harder for Caryl to wait, to take care of everybody as we were both recuperating. But it wasn’t a difficult decision for us. The hard part was convincing Dad to take it from one of us.”

John Drohan continues his recovery and is one of Kate and Caryl’s biggest fans, often watching NU’s games on Gametracker.

“I just go over the game with them and critique the game a little bit,” John Drohan said. “Kiddingly one day I said to them, ‘Why don’t you just leave your cell phone on and I’ll give you a call and tell you what to do.’ But they didn’t take that (too well).”

Growing Up

The Drohan sisters say they can’t remember not playing softball.

Following the influence of their older brother and under the tutelage of their father, who coached their youth sports teams, the girls were involved in sports at a young age.

Of course, the two didn’t just play softball. At their small parochial high school, they also played basketball and field hockey, said their mother Janet Drohan.

But though the sisters were equally involved in sports growing up, they said they were never too competitive with each other.

“I wouldn’t say we were cutthroat with each other,” Caryl said.

“Certainly not with each other,” Kate added.

The twins excelled at several sports, but softball was their passion. After their senior year, the girls made up their minds: They wanted to go to school together, and they wanted to play softball.

Together, they headed off to Providence College in Rhode Island.

The College Days

Providence’s softball program had just one-and-a-half scholarships, so both Drohan sisters had to walk-on to play. But it wasn’t long before the two found starting roles on the team.

Though they were at a new place, their close relationship — and the small competitions between the two — picked up where it had left off.

Early in their freshman years, when the two played center and left field, Caryl stole Kate’s batting gloves during practice. Kate said her coach started singing “You Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated” and moved the sisters to right and left field to keep them away from each other.

Later that year Caryl was replaced in the starting lineup during a midweek game because the coach wanted to allow a senior to get some playing time. But Caryl decided she wanted to play.

“I went up to the head coach and told her that Kate was really sick and was going to vomit because I knew that she’d put me in,” Caryl said.

“And the coach took me out,” Kate said, almost as if still in shock.

“So I got to play,” Caryl added, laughing.

By their junior year, the team captured the Big East title to qualify for NCAA Regionals.

But soon the Drohan sisters, who lived with each other for two of their four years at Providence, really separated for the first time.

When they graduated, Kate became an assistant coach at Boston College and Caryl stayed on to assist at Providence.

“It was uncomfortable, it was weird, but it was also really neat to sort of develop our own individual world,” Kate said. “We talked on the phone probably two or three times a day.”

After one year at Providence, Caryl left for Hofstra in New York. In 1998 Kate moved to Evanston and became an assistant to legendary NU coach Sharon J. Drysdale. Four years later, Drysdale retired and handed the reins of the NU program to Kate.

And with her sister at her side, the Cats are reaching a level of success NU hasn’t seen since the Drysdale glory years of the early ’80s.

In her first four years at NU, Drysdale had a .588 winning percentage. The Drohan sisters have a percentage of .644 since 2002.

So in 20 years, will NU players step onto Drohan Field for their home games?

Never is a hard word to use.

Reach Paul Tenorio at [email protected].