Brandice Cutspec looked through the chain link fence and realized she needed to be back on the other side of it. Badly. Yes, the barrier that kept her from her personal field of dreams was once self-imposed because being a community college assistant softball coach isn’t quite akin to taking a vow of poverty — but it’s in the discussion.
But Cutspec realized that marketing pet food and then running her own marketing and design company wasn’t going to give her the voice or the fulfillment she wanted in her life. You don’t get back to the other side of the fence plugging pet food or designing websites.
Which is where the Voice comes in. The Voice — her Voice — could get Cutspec back to the field. She’d literally talk her way back to the Santiago Canyon College softball field, back to the other side of the fence.
“I literally got to the point where I realized I needed softball back in my life,” she said. “I realized I do love it more than anything else and kept asking myself, ‘How do I get it back?’ Well, they needed an announcer, so I went back as an announcer. It’s me. Done. I would have gone back as a volunteer coach. I didn’t care how I got back to the field. I needed to be back on the field.”
And that’s how SCC found its next softball coach. Only the second one in school history.
One year after announcing lineups, Cutspec is making out lineups. One year after announcing who’s coming to bat, Cutspec is figuratively — if not literally —back in the batter’s box. She’s back on the field, back on the other side of the fence.
The first-year SCC coach has a big act to follow. She took over from her mentor, former coach and former boss, Lisa Camarco, who built the SCC program from scratch when it began in 2007. Camarco retired as coach after leading SCC to state championship appearances in 2014 and 2016. The 2016 team won SCC’s first state title, becoming the first team since 1996 to lose the first game in the double-elimination tournament and come back to win the title. That team also became the first team since 2005 to mercy-rule its final opponent, when it dismissed Sacramento City College, 8-0, after five innings.
During her initial four-season stint as an assistant coach (2014-17), Cutspec was a part of both teams. In fact, all four of those teams would reach the state Super Regionals and the 2016 team would earn National Fastpitch Coaches Association California Junior College National Coaching Staff of the Year honors.
Before then, Cutspec was an all-conference first baseman for the Hawks, who helped SCC make its first regional appearance in 2011. And before that, she was an all-league first baseman for Ocean View High, who powered the Seahawks to the 2008 CIF Division 4 championship via a fifth-inning grand slam off Bishop Amat’s Amy Lwin — one of the best pitchers in the division.
So yes, the bona-fides now established, Cutspec looks around her new digs and still finds reasons to pinch herself. Her voice now carries louder than the PA system that reopened the door to the other side of the fence.
“Honestly, of all the jobs I had, that was the hardest. I couldn’t be on the other side of the lines. It was tough for me,” she said. “I’ve been the athlete. I’ve been the coach. But when you don’t know what’s going on, and when you’re not on that side of the field, it’s hard. But had I not taken that job and done that, I don’t think I would be in the position I’m in today.”
And yet, even Cutspec’s infectious confidence, outgoing presence and electric personality that pulsates with every word found doubts. She left the sport in 2017 because of that pesky meager paycheck. Cutspec decided it was time to turn her natural curiosity, love of writing and designing everything from websites to brochures loose in the corporate world. After spending nearly every waking moment on a softball field since she was 4, Cutspec felt a different tug, one that included picking up an MBA at Chapman University and starting up her own marketing company.
But after flexing her voice and talking to Camarco, who recruited her out of Ocean View, then brought her into the coaching ranks, could Cutspec reinvent herself again?
“To be honest, I was nervous. Being away from it for a lot of years — five or six years — the game’s the same. But it’s been a while,” she said. “I felt nervous that I’d been away from it for so long that maybe I wouldn’t be as effective as I could be if I stayed in it the whole time. But I trust Lisa so much. She wouldn’t have handed the program she built over to me if she didn’t believe in me. There’s a big confidence factor that she believed in my ability to continue the legacy she built.
“I think I feel more pressure to continue the culture she built and continue what she’s turned Santiago Canyon College softball into. Being an athlete and a coach, I have a strong understanding of it and know how important it is to help the girls who come through our program.”
Cutspec’s outgoing personality helped the transition. So did the journals she’s kept since she was 7. For as long as she can remember, Cutspec embraced writing, using a journal. It provided power, release and growth when she was trying to figure out who she was as a person. Not only did it help Cutspec make sense of the world around her and build her writing voice, but it provided another side gig.
Cutspec sells her Daily Journal templates to “give people an opportunity to be able to do that and to find the same pleasure and growth from it that I’ve had.” These templates are brought to you by Cutspec.
But her journals? They’re more than a sidelight. They’re a guiding light.
“To this day, I haven’t told very many people this, but when I would feel lost in the mix of things, if I felt lonely or I didn’t feel like I belonged, I would take my favorite TV show and write myself my own character, so I could make myself feel like I belonged somewhere,” she said. “I could create myself wherever I wanted to be and throw myself into my favorite TV shows and oh my God, I felt perfectly safe there. That would make other parts of my life feel better.”
Those parts are feeling better these days. Cutspec found the other side of the gate, the side that allows her to mentor young girls, provide them those oft-told life lessons and navigate some of the trickiest, most stressful times of their lives. Her voice has the same passion, the same caring intensity it had before she picked up — and put down — the PA microphone.
“I see myself doing this for the foreseeable future. Right now, I only coach here, but I would love to teach at the college and be a professor,” she said. “I definitely want to grow in my role. And I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.”
