The RoundHouse | 12/18/2020 11:18:00 AM

 LIsten to a podcast with Endicott.
 
Becky Endicott worked at the high-profile events – NCAA regionals, conference tournaments, big games and banquets.
 
Perhaps more important, she bundled up for cold February softball games, smiled through the ruckus of school-children's basketball games, traveled by bus with teams and stopped by practices to check in. 
 
Those moments told the story of her life at Wichita State University just as eloquently as the celebrations.
 
"She would show up pre-game and say 'Hey, Wylie, hey Ryleigh,' calling people by their names, telling them good luck and let's go get 'em," said Wichita State softball coach Kristi Bredbenner. "You know that person was behind your sport. That's a testament to a great administrator, somebody that is visual and wants to let their student-athletes and coaches know that they're not just behind a desk."
 
Endicott is retiring this month after 26 years at Wichita State in a variety of athletic department roles. Since 1999, she served as senior associate athletic director. She is one of the constants of the success story of Wichita State athletics over the past two decades and played a lead role helping Shocker women's programs hit unprecedented heights.
 
"She has a vast knowledge of, not only how things got to where they are, but why things got to where they are." Director of Athletics Darron Boatright said. "She's nationally respected, sits on committees with very high-profile men's and women's basketball coaches. The respect is there from a national level."
 
And on a personal level. 
 
Earlier this fall, radiation therapist Abby Bartlett, a former Shocker golfer, cared for Endicott's father during cancer treatment. Bartlett jumped at the chance to reconnect with Endicott and the chance to repay her kindness.
 
"That was special, to be able to reassure Becky that we would take great care of her dad," Bartlett said. "Becky had a big impact on my choice to come down to Wichita. She was awesome – one of the people I would see every day, in the office, or study hall. She was always checking in on us."
 
Bartlett arrived at Wichita State in the fall of 2007 and coach Chris Gomez left the school in October. Bartlett remembers Endicott as a helpful and soothing figure during the transition to coach Tom McCurdy in December.
 
"She would come to practices," Bartlett said. "That was important to us. Being a student-athlete was a lot more challenging than I thought it was going to be. It helped that everybody cared so much for you as an individual."
 
During those 26 years, Endicott handled almost every duty in the department's administration, accumulating a store house of information on how best to work within the university and the NCAA, how to hire and mentor coaches and how to advocate for her sports. 
 
"She had so much experience," said Tim Walton, former Wichita State softball coach. "She didn't need a book. She could have written a book."
 
Coaches and co-workers knew they could call any time for help – long hours never intimidated Endicott.
 
"I'll remember the people, not only the coaches, but the student-athletes," Endicott said. "If you treat people the way that you want to be treated, you're going to make great memories with a lot of people."
 
Endicott has seen the athletic department from every angle and devoted countless hours to responsibilities such as financial aid, academics, hiring and sports medicine.
 
"When I first started working here, our NCAA manual was probably 50 pages long," she said. "Now our NCAA manual is, not only 300 pages long . . . but there's (interpretation) and things that go on and on and on."
 
Endicott passed her philosophy of devotion and personal touch onto Korey Torgerson, Wichita State's associate athletic director for student services.
 
"You can know the NCAA manual, front and back," he said. "But if you can't have a conversation with a coach about the black and white of the manual and get to some type of resolution, you're not going to be successful. Becky would harp on me that 'You've got to get out from behind your desk and talk to people.'"
 
Endicott's depth of experiences shows in her hiring of softball coaches. 
 
She met Walton, then an assistant with the Sooners, while working as NCAA tournament director at Oklahoma. When she needed a softball coach in 2002, that relationship helped bring Walton, now coach at Florida, to Wichita State.
 
"The cool thing about Becky is that she has just a down-to-earth special vision," Walton said. "She told me where we were at. What we could do. What resources they could allow me to have."
 
Walton appreciated Endicott's honest communication style – unafraid to offer constructive criticism and always working to say "Yes" to requests before saying "No."
 
"She did it in a way that you didn't want to disappoint her," he said. "When you think of Becky – you think old school. I thought she was more of the new school than the old school. She just had all the experiences of the old school."
 
While she grabbed Walton from a national power, she hired Bredbenner from an NCAA Division II school 87 miles from Wichita. Endicott kept an eye on Emporia State's softball success under Bredbenner and brought her to Wichita State in 2011. 
 
Walton took the Shockers to the NCAAs in 2005 before leaving for Florida, where he won NCAA titles in 2014 and 2015. Bredbenner took the Shockers to NCAA play in 2016 and 2018. Both coaches played parts in Wichita State's success over the past 20 years, a rise started by the hiring of athletic director Jim Schaus in 1999 and the renovation of Levitt Arena and men's basketball success that soon followed.
 
"She allowed me to do what I needed to do to be successful," Bredbenner said. "She had her hand in a little bit of everything here and always had an idea in her head of how great this department could be. Having her around and knowing that her experience was always there and could guide us is something we've taken for granted these last couple years and will be missed."
 
Endicott's life in sports started in Wichita. 
 
She grew up on the fields and in the gyms around the city and her family loved sports. Bonnie Bing, an assistant athletic director at Wichita State in the early years of women's sports, taught her physical education in junior high school. Dr. Darlene Bailey hired Endicott at Wichita State and is another one of her important mentors.
 
"My mom was a great bowler and my dad played softball every night of the week," Endicott said. "It's just been kind of natural in my family."
 
Endicott played tennis and softball at Emporia State and coached softball and volleyball at Hutchinson Community College for 10 years before coming to Wichita State as an intern in 1993. In 1994, she started as director of student services. Endicott's background starts as women's athletics were growing with Title IX, the federal civil rights law passed in 1972, and continued into today's prominence. She attended Heights High School and coached at Buhler High from 1979-83.
 
While retirement will end her duties, she plans to attend plenty of Shocker games. She will have more time to golf, more time with family and more time to cheer on the Kansas City Chiefs.
 
"I'll miss the people," she said. "The daily interactions, whether that's (former golf coach) Grier Jones stopping in – and before he retired he stopped in my office every day - to the little things of someone stopping by just to say 'Hi.'"
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.