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Mrs. Owen couldn’t have been more wrong.

In October, Mary Owen (B.S. ’80, D.D.S. ’86, M.S. ’97) was inducted into the M Club Hall of Fame as a Golden Gopher softball star. In her stellar career, she lettered all four years and finished second on the Gophers’ career list for RBI, runs scored, and home runs. In 1978, she led the Gophers to a third-place finish at the Women’s College World Series while batting .349 for the season and setting school records for hits, runs, home runs, and total bases. Known as “Sparky” to her teammates, Owen is still tied for first in the Gopher record book for her single-game performance with four runs scored and two home runs.

In all, Owen’s athletics career spanned more than 20 years. “I loved it from the beginning,” she says. “There was never a game I didn’t want to play.”

Owen got her first glove in first grade. She listened to the Twins on her transistor radio and wore a Twins shirt with the number 7 sewn on the back. “[Twins centerfielder] Lenny Green was my favorite because he was a left-handed hitter—just like me,” Owen recalls. Thanks to her mom, she had plenty of chances to play ball in her Minnetonka backyard. But when her brother moved up to Little League, Owen sat on the sidelines. Back in the 1960s, girls just didn’t play ball. And by the time she went to Minnetonka High School in 1971, girls still weren’t playing ball.

Owen finally reconnected with her first love after senior year, in 1975, when she played in the Amateur Softball Association’s women’s fast-pitch softball league. That summer she got in shape to play for the University of Minnesota—after which she turned professional with the Mount Vernon (New York) Explorers, who named her Rookie of the Year in 1979.

When the league folded in the fall of 1979, Owen returned to the U to finish her degree in secondary education, then worked as a science teacher and softball coach. After waiting a year to regain her amateur status, Owen rejoined the ASA fast-pitch league, and her softball career took off again. First her team made it to Nationals, and Owen earned all-American honors and a place on the U.S. team that competed in the Tri-Nation Championship in Japan.

When Owen returned home, she took the dental-school test and proved that her academic skills were on par with her athletic skills. She graduated with honors from the School of Dentistry in 1986, won first prize in the Saul Kamen Scientific Report Research Award Competition in 1994, and earned a master’s degree in oral health services for older adults in 1997.

Today, Owen still goes to bat for the University. She works as a clinical dental specialist at the School of Dentistry, teaching geriatrics and overseeing students at Wilder Senior Dental Clinic in St. Paul and Walker Methodist Health Center in Minneapolis. She also maintains a private practice in Glen Lake, Minnesota.

Owen played her final softball game in 1997. In her last at-bat, she got a double off an Olympian pitcher. “It was a nice way to end my career,” she says.

“I think the fact that I couldn’t play when I was little made me appreciate it all the more when I was older,” Owen says. “I always felt that it was such a privilege—just to be able to play the game. I loved it. I still love it. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.”

—Patricia Kelly