Women's History Month Q&A with Kathy Vandeventer

Helping Girls Learn Leadership and Resilience Through Sports  

March 8, 2025 marks the celebration of International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is “For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.” Central to this vision is empowering the next generation as catalysts for lasting change. In honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, SitusAMC asked employees how they help empower girls and women in their communities and the workplace. Kathy Vandeventer is a VP, Product Management for SitusAMC’s Acuity technology. 

Q: You're involved with girls’ sports. What do you do? 

I work with an organization called Waukee Athletic Club (WAC) Fast Pitch in Iowa, a non-profit, volunteer-led organization to help girls develop softball fundamentals. We have about 150 girls in the program across 12 teams. I’m a board member and head coach for one of the 10U teams (10 years old and under). Girls come from all across Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska to participate in tournaments.  

Q: What motivated you? 

I was motivated by many things, my desire to lead a team, attain a college degree and incur as few student loans as possible were at the top of the list. Playing softball at Waldorf College afforded me the opportunity to meet those goals. 

Q: What is the most rewarding aspect? 

The first 10U team that I served as head coach was my daughter’s. We didn't have any pitching or catching experience going into the fall season. I think we lost every game. But the girls would never come up to me at the end and ask how many points we fell behind. They had the ability to find the joy in the sport even though we weren't winning. They worked hard through the winter and then we went about .500 in the spring season. To have the girls improve that much and be excited to come to the ball field was just so cool to see.  

I also love watching them learn to set realistic goals and meet and surpass them. At first, the girls want to set goals like “hit a home run.” We really had to step them back and say, “Your goal might just be to stay in the box and not step out while the ball is coming across the plate today -- to swing one time.” Helping them evolve their goals over the course of the season, and watching them progress to the point where they could say, “my goal is to hit a double” was really fulfilling. 

Q: Why do you think it's important for girls in particular to play sports?  

They learn so much more than how to field and hit the ball. They learn sportsmanship, leadership and how to work as part of a team to be successful. There are opportunities all over the place to grow. It may be as a team captain, informal leader or by being the first in line to shake hands with the other team.   

The sport also helps you learn resiliency, because you're going to get out more often than you get on base. You're going to make mistakes and be asked to forget about them quickly, and try to do your best on the next play.  

Sports are also about the exercise of testing your limits and working extremely hard to meet your goals. Last night at practice we talked about how we are capable of so much more than we know. When I make a drill really hard, it's not coach “being mean.” It’s coach pushing you to improve. In fact, I want you to not be able to catch that fly ball, or be able to dive and stop that ball, because when you try to do that, you’re testing your limits, right? And next time maybe you'll accomplish it, because you pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone. Of course you balance that -- sometimes they just need a hug. I just love them so much.   

Q: What are the benefits of playing a team sport? 

I think it's important to be surrounded by other like-minded girls who are pulling together and cheering for you. It’s a good first opportunity to find camaraderie, and people who support you and want you to succeed. I have a great group of dads who coach with me, but they want me to lead, because they know their daughters benefit from seeing a female leading their team.