The DOLLS girls fast-pitch softball program provides teams for girls and young women from seven to 23 years of age, with levels of play ranging from recreational to highly competitive.
INSTRUCTIONAL PLAY – Our instructional teams are for girls in grades Kindergarten to 4.
This level emphasizes instruction rather than competition. Coaches are responsible for teaching the basics of the game. Games are played on Downers Grove fields. Teams are assembled by elementary schools. If there are too few girls from a school to field an entire team, they will be blended with another team.
ASSOCIATION PLAY – This is for 10- to 23-year-old girls and is slightly more competitive.
Association play is divided into two levels as players age. In the first level, play is live pitch with umpires calling the game. Win/loss records are kept and an end-of-season tournament is played. Games are played in Downers Grove. Teams are formed by draft, and all girls are drafted. The age groupings are Grade 5 & 6 - Juniors, and Grades 7 & 8 - Majors.
The second level of play joins with the Southwest Suburban Fast-pitch League based in Romeoville. Half of the scheduled 20 games are played in Downers Grove, the other half in the southwest suburbs such as Romeoville, Lockport, Crest Hill, and elsewhere. The season starts after the high school seasons end. Coaches of Senior Level teams may elect to enter tournaments separate from the Southwest Conference. It is not mandatory that girls play in these tournaments, but if they do, an extra charge may be assessed to cover tournament entry fees. Players at this level are high school aged and older.
TRAVELING TEAMS – DOLLS also offers several levels of competitive tournament and traveling teams. The age levels are 10U, 12U, 14U, 16U, and 18U. Teams are formed as tournament traveling teams or as members of the Southwest Suburban Fast-pitch League.
Girls must tryout and be invited to play on these teams. Tryouts for the tournament teams are held in August, and tryouts for the Southwest teams are held in February. The costs are higher than association teams but teams travel throughout Illinois and, in some instances, out-of-state. Each coach provides a prospectus during tryouts informing girls about expenses and the extent of traveling required.
For more information on traveling teams, please click here.
DOLLS History
The DOLLS organization was formed in 1969 by a group of mothers who were unsatisfied with the lack of athletic activities available for young women. There were few sporting activities offered for young women within the education system or park district, which led this group to form a local neighborhood girls' softball league.
One of the leading women in this group was a physical education teacher at Downers Grove South named Ouida Gabel, a native of Oklahoma, an advocate for women's athletics and a former collegiate athlete. After some difficulty, Gabel and several other women gained permission and 75 dollars from the park district to begin the league known as Downers Own Little Lassies Sports, now called the DOLLS.
The original plan was to incorporate volleyball and basketball into the program, but there simply was not enough gym space to accommodate more teams. All games and practices had to be during the day because all available fields were given to men's and boy's baseball programs in the evenings.
The program began in 1969 with only two teams that played against each other, combining fourteen and nine year olds. The league expanded to five teams in 1970 and divided the age groups into appropriate categories. The league continues to grow each year.
Ms. Gabel passed away in November of 2007, and the annual DOLLS scholarship has been renamed in her honor.