If you’ve spent any spring Saturday morning over the last 30 years enjoying Le Peep pancakes in Evanston, odds are you’ve crossed paths with coach Kate Drohan and her Northwestern softball team — assuming they were playing at home, of course.
It’s not necessarily a headline-grabbing tradition. It’s just one of those quiet routines that speaks volumes about a program and the coach who’s been running it like clockwork since 2001.
Drohan chooses not to dwell on past successes, but her record speaks for itself.
Eight hundred nine wins. Eighteen NCAA Tournament appearances. Seven Super Regionals. Three trips to Oklahoma City — the site of the Women’s College World Series. And in 2006, a national runner-up finish, a few wins shy of the ultimate prize.
Now, the Wildcats will have another chance to compete for college softball’s greatest title. This weekend, they’ll travel to South Carolina to play alongside No. 11 Clemson, Kentucky and South Carolina Upstate in the opening round of the 2025 national tournament.
When NU reached this point of its season last year, an opening round trip to face No. 1 Texas in Longhorn territory seemed more like an impending execution date than a legitimate shot at the heights the program had reached in previous seasons — Super Regionals in 2023, and of the final eight teams remaining the year before.
With those lofty successes firmly planted in the rearview mirror, it seemed like NU’s luck may have run dry by the time it began its 2025 campaign. A good team, sure, but one that might be left behind in an increasingly competitive Big Ten.
It took me nearly a year and a half of covering NU softball to even hear about the weekend pregame ritual at Le Peep. Early morning breakfast outings are my forte, but for my dad and boyfriend, who tagged along on a dreary Saturday morning in late March, not so much.
At that point, I was almost certain that the ’Cats weren’t a tournament team. They dropped nine games in February alone, and despite successes in their first four conference games against Penn State and Michigan State, the team’s early performances indicated that they wouldn’t stack up against more formidable Big Ten foes.
In fact, I had already half-written my series recap for that weekend, a near-postmortem after NU was obliterated in its weekend opener to then-No. 19 Mississippi State: 14-0, five innings.
After that drubbing, I would’ve bet good money that they didn’t stand a chance. The idea of spending another day at The “J” watching NU get steamrolled by its SEC foe didn’t exactly thrill me.
At the time, just after Le Peep’s 7 a.m. opening, I was surprised when I saw junior infielders Kansas Robinson and Bridget Donahey round the Benson Avenue corner and make their way toward the entrance.
Then came pitching coach Michelle Gascoigne and graduate student pitcher Lauren Boyd, followed by a pair of freshman sluggers: Kaylie Avvisato and Avery Garden.
Within minutes, the restaurant was theirs.
I tried to focus on the conversation taking place at my own table, but my mind couldn’t help but wander to what the 10 or so different clusters of NU players and coaches were discussing.
I was shocked by how happy they all looked as they laughed and smiled, breaking bread and cracking jokes as if the previous day’s five-inning collapse had never happened.
I played softball for over a decade. And if traveling from diamond to diamond up and down the East Coast had taught me nothing else, I knew bouncing back from a beating like that didn’t usually happen over breakfast.
But, these weren’t high schoolers licking wounds in silence. These were players who had been recruited to play for a program that perennially threatened in the postseason. Some of them had even ventured to the sport’s grandest stage.
Still, a part of me questioned if they had taken the loss seriously enough.
I incorrectly assumed that the morning meal was meant to be some sort of one-time mood-booster, a reset after enduring the previous day’s brutal blow.
A few hours later, the ’Cats traded their bacon and eggs for gloves and bats. They silenced an opposing dugout that had barked at them in celebration Friday with a 4-2 win.
Afterward, I asked Drohan about the breakfast.
It wasn’t an experiment in team bonding, an adjustment or a morale play, she said. It was simply routine.
That’s when it hit me. What I had mistaken as nonchalance wasn’t a fatal flaw. Rather, it was a key ingredient to the recipe Drohan has cultivated over nearly a quarter century in Evanston.
Despite a legacy of leading the program to unprecedented heights, there were moments when the wheels seemed to fall off this season.
When the ’Cats got off to a rocky non-conference slate, when they looked overmatched against postseason-caliber opponents, when they dropped their first home series since 2021, there was no scramble. There was no attempt to reinvent the wheel.
Just pancakes.
And now, following the bracket revealed at Sunday’s selection show, NU captured yet another NCAA berth.
As Drohan experimented throughout the season to curate the right lineup, the right pitching rotation and the right defensive mold, there were some things that stayed the same.
While the people at the breakfast table have rotated over the years, the message is relayed to each new group: keep it simple.
With powerhouses like UCLA, Oregon and Washington entering the conference ahead of the 2025 season, it seemed safe to assume NU’s once-firm grip atop the Big Ten had loosened. Perhaps after six-straight seasons of securing a bid, this would be the year it would miss out on the tournament.
And yet, here they are.
Still showing up. Still eating pancakes. Still playing in May.
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— Softball: Northwestern punches 7th-straight NCAA Tournament ticket
— Softball: Northwestern falls in upset loss to Purdue, exits early from Big Ten Tournament
— Softball: Northwestern shocks No. 8 UCLA, ends regular season with series road win
