Celebrating Title IX: Chris Bellotto

LAKELAND, Fla. - Florida Southern College athletics celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the passing of Title IX continues by highlighting various Moccasins who paved the way for Florida Southern's student-athletes, coaches, administrators, and teams. Next, we share the story of the start of softball at Florida Southern. 
 
FSC's first softball program head coach, Chris Bellotto spent 40 seasons at the helm for the Mocs. Before she coached at Florida Southern, she was a student at FSC, transferring in her junior year from Polk State. It was in her senior year at Florida Southern when former athletic director Hal Smeltzly tasked Bellotto with starting a varsity softball team. She started Florida Southern in slow-pitch competition in 1982, winning the SSC Championship three years in a row before moving to fast-pitch in the 1985 season. Winning the NCAA National Championship in 1993, Bellotto took the Mocs to 20 NCAA postseason tournaments, with five NCAA Regional Championships. A 1980 graduate of FSC, Bellotto compiled a 1256-562-1 fast-pitch career record to rank among the NCAA Division II leaders in terms of winning percentage and victories at the time of her retirement in 2020. 
 
To add to her three slow-pitch SSC titles, Bellotto won 24 conference championships in fast-pitch competition, including a record 19 consecutive league championships before having their streak snapped in 2001. Bellotto was named National Coach of the Year two times (1989 & 1993) and is a seven-time South Region Coach of the Year recipient. In the SSC, Bellotto was named SSC Coach of the Year 15 times. She is also a member of the National Fast-pitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Sunshine State Conference Hall of Fame, and Polk County Sports Hall of Fame. Below is a Q&A with Chris Bellotto as she shares more about softball's start and the importance of Title IX's impact on Florida Southern's female athletes. 
 
Q: With only a couple of women's sports at FSC when you started, how were you able to make an impact so early on winning titles in slow-pitch and later a national title in fast-pitch?
 
A:  "Being at a place where so many people have won national championships, even back when I first started, I was picking everybody's brain. Charlie Matlock, the golf coach, won numerous golf titles, and I'll never forget him saying to me, 'You're going to win a national championship,' and that had a tremendous influence on me. I thought to myself, 'Wow if somebody like him has watched me coach and thinks I am capable,' that really set me on fire. And then of course Hal Smeltzly won numerous national titles. I just tried to pick those people's brains. When you're surrounded by greatness like that every day, you hope that some of that rubs off on you and I think that's a big part of my success."
 
Q: In a 40-year span of FSC success, what did you learn from the early years of Title IX that led to the program's success?
 
A: "Patience. It has changed; it has taken an awful lot of time for changes, but it's really cool that Patty Gasso makes a million dollars a year [coaching] at the University of Oklahoma. That is a direct result of Title IX. When I started, we didn't have a budget hardly at all and we would literally play games in either basketball or volleyball uniforms. I was fortunate because I got some of the basketball and volleyball kids to play for me, so we kind of pieced it together that way."
 
Q: What was a message you gave your student-athletes as they advanced through the program and prepared for life after college?
 
A: "Always be open to listening to people. One of my favorite things is 'I never learned anything while I was talking,' and it's the truth. It is a great thing to be able to understand and listen to people and be able to see their viewpoint and where they got, what their success was and how they did it."
 
Q: What advice would you give a young female athlete looking to participate in college athletics? 
 
A: "Be open to any offers that you get. I used to tell kids to pick five places they think they might want to go and be open to the differences. Division II is tremendously competitive, so you can be challenged no matter what level you are at. It is just a matter of finding the right fit."
 
For more information on FSC's commitment to Title IX, please visit: fscmocs.com/TitleIX