Soo-Jin Berry wrapped up our interview in May with an important closing thought.
“Coach Karl is the best,” Hawkeye Softball’s starting shortstop stated with conviction.
Karl Gollan stepped in as the team’s acting head coach during the middle of a season completed in early May. He led the University of Iowa to one of its best finishes in the last decade and a half. All-Big Ten pitcher Jalen Adams and starting catcher Desiree Rivera, also part of the interview, immediately agreed with Berry’s sentiment.
“No offense to anybody else, but we want Karl,” Rivera chimed in.
The three women were in a happy place, confident Iowa’s administration would agree with them. They’d just won 35 games, tied for the program’s most since 2009. It happened in the face of an off-the-field conflict threatening to divide the Hawkeyes as it has other sporting communities across the U.S.
“It’s a good culture when you can lose two coaches and everybody wants to come back and play for each other,” Rivera said. “This program is building something really good from deep within.”
That was to be the conclusion of this piece following our May 21 discussion. A week later, it wasn’t.
The disruptions started in December, just prior to practice beginning, when it was announced that head coach Renee Gillispie would miss the season due to personal reasons. Third-year assistant Brian Levin stepped in on an interim basis.
Players Adams, Berry and Rivera said the Gillespie news created stress and took time to process, but the team was unified and believed Levin could lead it. Indeed, Iowa started with 10 wins in its first 13 games before heading to the Arkansas tournament from Feb. 28 to March 2.
Despite the on-field accomplishments, all was not well. Several Hawkeyes, including Berry, were kneeling during the national anthem as a form of protest, mainly against racial injustice and police brutality. The action did not sit well with Levin, a U.S. Army veteran and former green beret.
He told the Daily Iowan that some team members agreed with his concerns about kneeling.
“There’s been a cultural problem in the softball program since I arrived,” Levin reportedly said in an audio message to the newspaper, adding he doesn’t want to “be blamed for” or “be a part of” that environment.
A meeting was called on March 1, between games at the Arkansas tournament. Levin expected backing from the student-athletes he said supported his views. He did not get that, and informed everyone he was done coaching them.
“The day that coach Brian left the team,” Rivera said, “we had just finished the game and we weren’t done with the weekend yet. So everyone was a little frantic.”
The team completed the tournament without a head coach.
“Playing that next day was one of the hardest games I’ve ever had to play, but my teammates were all there for me,” Berry said.
The Hawkeyes left Arkansas with a win against Illinois. When they departed Iowa City for the Alabama tournament the next weekend, Karl Gollan had been named the acting head coach.
Kneeling continued throughout the remainder of the season but wasn’t a distraction. Gollan put the squad’s focus on softball. With that, team members grew their relationships to better accept their differences. A dedicated activity was created and fostered bonding.
“When we were on the road, we made it a point every morning, no matter how early we had to be at breakfast or be at warm-ups, we were getting coffee together,” Rivera said. “You would see a group of girls in Iowa gear walking down the street to get coffee.”
Adams didn’t live with any softball teammates. She cherished the coffee talks.
“I really looked forward to those trips,” she said.
The student athletes composed a diverse roster of backgrounds. Adams grew up in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Berry and Rivera were raised in California.
“I think it just helped me to kind of put my lens out further and see that softball is a big part of all of our lives, but it’s not the end-all, be-all,” Adams said.
The Hawkeyes spent a lot of time together beyond the coffee dates. Earning each other’s trust translated to success on the field. Iowa won seven of its next eight games after returning from Alabama.
Still, they entered Big Ten play as an afterthought, having won only six conference contests and finishing last a year earlier. They had other ideas, however.
Iowa kept the post-Levin momentum going with 15 league victories and a sixth-place finish among 17 teams. An early exit from the Big Ten Tournament ended the season just short of the team’s first NCAA Tournament berth since 2009. The five teams ahead of Iowa in the Big Ten standings made it.
“The ending to the season was very unsettling, being on the cusp of making a regional,” Rivera said. “The whole team doesn’t want to experience that again. We want to make next season a no-doubter that we’re in the tournament.”
But UI Athletics Director Beth Goetz would soon throw a wrench in Rivera’s vision for 2026.
On May 28, Goetz announced former Hawkeye Stacy May-Johnson would be the new head coach of UI softball. Karl Gollan was out, much to the dismay of key Hawkeyes.
The choice makes sense when comparing resumes. Gollan was hired as Iowa’s pitching coach last August following a year in the same role at Mississippi. He spent 2023 leading Division III Augustana, the only time he’s been a college head coach in the U.S.; he’d mostly worked in the game internationally. Meanwhile, May-Johnson served as head coach at Fresno State and Utah Valley, improving both programs during her tenure.
To tab Gollan would have been a leap of faith largely based on the team’s 2025 results and the support from the players — after succeeding through adversity, they believed the team, including Gollan, had earned another shot.
Thank you to the players for welcoming me in and allowing me to be a part of your team. Will miss you guys…..nothing but love !!!
— Karl Gollan (@KarlGollan) May 29, 2025
After news broke that Gollan would be replaced, Adams, Berry and Rivera entered the transfer portal. They were joined by infielder Jena Young, the team’s most decorated player, and second-team pitcher Talia Tretton. The group included the season’s top two hitters and pitchers.
“At the end of the day, we all had to make an extremely hard decision,” Rivera said. “That could have maybe been avoided with different action taken from the athletic department.”
Recent NCAA rule changes allowing more student-athlete movement without new players having to sit out a season provided AD Goetz with greater power in choosing the coach she wanted. If hiring May-Johnson resulted in losing top players, the program could reload with immediately eligible replacements from other schools. And that’s what they’ve done.
Fresno State’s Serayah Neiss, the Mountain West Pitcher of the Year, will step in for Adams. UI Athletics has added five other transfers as of June 18. The roster turnover resembled what the school’s men’s basketball program experienced this spring when it hired Ben McCollom after firing Fran McCaffery.
Whether Goetz made the right hire won’t be known for years. If the Hawkeyes win, graduate and do it right, it’s a victory. If results go backwards, it’s fair to wonder what may have been achieved had the team been kept together.
Meanwhile, the stars of this season will be chasing glory at other schools: Adams at Arizona, Tretton at Nevada, Rivera at Mississippi State, Berry at UCLA and Young at Alabama.
Berry took the change especially hard. She’ll miss being around teammates who supported her during an emotionally difficult time. Adams was especially important.
“She helped me get through everything with Brian. She was the first person to be there for me after the meeting, and she is always the first person to help me get out of my head,” Berry said.
They’ll keep in touch, perhaps getting together for coffee sometime, discussing what might have been. But it will never be the same as the magic they created during their final season at Iowa.
“It’s not something that can be manufactured,” Rivera said. “It’s natural. You just feel like you’re with your sisters.”
Sisters that taught others what good can result from working through differences. It’s the legacy of the 2025 Iowa Hawkeye Softball team.
Rob Howe has covered UI Athletics since moving to Iowa City in 1997. He began his journalism career five years earlier in the northeastern U.S. This article was originally published in Little Village’s July 2025 issue.
