By OWEN BOSS
Staff Writer
NORTHAMPTON - Agnes A. "Gush" Valenta, a lifelong Hampshire County resident well known for promoting girls sports in an era when opportunities for female athletes were scarce, died late Tuesday night at age 77.
Her name, now memorialized on a city softball field, has become synonymous with women's and girls sports in western Massachusetts, especially the Northampton Lassie League, which she cofounded in 1969.
Born on the Fourth of July in 1933, Valenta was a 1952 graduate of Northampton High School, coached the Blue Devils girls basketball and softball teams and for more than 20 years worked for the city's Recreation Department.
Valenta, who most recently lived on Grove Street in Haydenville, spent her childhood in Northampton and devoted 55 years of her life to promoting various women's sports leagues in cities across western Massachusetts.
Her tireless efforts did not go unrecognized, and she was the proud recipient of numerous awards: In 1988 the Professional Women of Hampshire County named Valenta their choice for Woman of the Year; in 2007 she received Boston College's Heights Award for forwarding women's sports; and in 2003 she was inducted into the New England Women's Sports Hall of Fame.
Despite her many accolades, in 2005 Valenta told a Gazette reporter that the "highlight of her life" came on a brisk fall afternoon in 1985, when city and state officials came together to honor her and rename the city's Lassie League Field near the Three-County Fairgrounds "Agnes 'Gush' Valenta Lassie League Park."
"When the city named the field after me, that was the highlight of my life. I had no idea. I was retiring and they gave me a city employees' party in the back room and sent invitations and told people to just drop in and say goodbye to Gush, but they wanted to do something else," Valenta said in 2005. "They couldn't do it at a restaurant because they felt there wasn't any place that would be big enough, so they decided to do it up at Look Park Pavilion. It was perfect because we had hot dogs and hamburgers and it was a lot of fun. It was great how many of my Lassie Leaguers and coaches came back. It was unbelievable."
Valenta, whose seldom-used given name Agnes was dropped early on in her life in favor of its Polish shorthand, grew up with an affinity for basketball, softball and field hockey in an era when there were few athletic opportunities available to young women.
Her life spent promoting girls and women's sports began soon after her high school graduation, when a few girls in her neighborhood expressed interest in playing basketball after high school. There were no basketball teams in town for young women.
By day, Valenta worked as an accountant for Pioneer Valley Ginger Ale, the soda pop company that once bottled Pepsi in downtown Florence, and on nights and weekends she worked to establish the Gazette Girls semi-pro basketball team.
Valenta spent about a dozen years organizing the team's annual road trips to Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and one year took the team on a goodwill trip to Bermuda.
Although her career began with the Gazette Girls, Valenta is better known locally for bringing the Lassie League, a youth softball league, to Northampton.
Soon after it was introduced, the local league was a huge hit. Though Lassie League, which involves girls from childhood through late teens, was offered in cities across the commonwealth, the Northampton league was recognized as being among the most successful statewide.
Ray Ellerbrook, who served alongside Valenta on the city's Recreation Department from 1976 until her retirement in 1996, visited her at the Linda Manor Extended Care Facility in Northampton earlier this week.
Ellerbrook described Valenta as "a woman before her time" and said the formation of the city's Lassie League was the effort that was always "nearest and dearest to her heart."
"When Gush set her mind to doing something, she would see it through and nothing could stop her," Ellerbrook said. "She had tons of friends and tons of supporters, and she didn't think twice about calling on them to help her out if it meant forwarding something for the girls in the community."
Ellerbrook said he has organized a celebration of Valenta's life, to be held at the Garden House at Look Park immediately following the burial of her ashes on Monday.
"The celebration will be open to anyone who would like to stop by and talk about Gush and what she meant to this community," Ellerbrook said. "She was the one who started everything when it came to women's sports in Northampton."
Services
A memorial Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, Jan. 31, at Our Lady of the Hills Church in Haydenville. Immediately following the service, Valenta's ashes will be buried in St. Mary's Cemetery in Leeds. There are no calling hours.
Donations in her memory may be made to the Gush Valenta Softball Field, in care of the Northampton Recreation Department, 90 Locust St., Northampton, MA, 01060. The Czelusniak Funeral Home has been entrusted with her arrangements.
Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.
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