How a Brutally Honest Conversation With Mike Holder Prompted Gajewski To Make Key Changes Ahead of 2026

STILLWATER — During the weeks that followed Oklahoma State’s worst season in nine years, softball coach Kenny Gajewski turned to former OSU athletic director and eight-time national champion golf coach Mike Holder for advice.

“We got about 500 steps in, and he said, ‘You know, you screwed up this last year,’” Gajewski said. “And I was like, damn, we’re just, we’re 500 steps into a seven-mile walk.

“And I said, ‘This is gonna be tough.’”

The Cowgirls finished the 2025 season 35-20 overall, making it the worst win total, excluding the shortened 2020 season, since Gajewski’s very first year on the job when the team went 32-26 in 2016.

Last season also saw the Cowgirls fail to make it out of regional play for the first time since 2018, snapping an active streak of five consecutive Women’s College World Series appearances. Only six other programs have ever accomplished such a streak.

“Last year was a disappointment for a lot of us,” Gajewski said. “It was just, we didn’t meet the standards that we’ve been used to the last five years. And there was actually a lot of growth in that and a lot of painful growth. I think that’s where some of your best growth is, is when it hurts the very most.”

And if the early exit wasn’t painful enough, Holder had nothing but tough love for Gajewski during their walk.

“He just said, ‘You know, you screwed up when you kept saying this is the best team you’ve ever had,’” Gajewski said. “And I was like, ‘okay, well, that’s how I felt.’”

Almost one year ago, Gajewski kicked off his annual media day press conference with a bold declaration.

“It’s the best team we’ve had here,” Gajewski said of the 2025 team. “For sure, the most talented team, the most depth that we’ve ever had.”

With the returning talent and the addition of key portal transfers, including ace Ruby Meylan, it all added up on paper at least. Plus, the Cowgirls’ place in Oklahoma City had proven to become something of an inevitability in recent years.

“I think a couple of the missteps I made, one of them was last fall, we were so good,” Gajewski said. “We were just so good, we were. The practice, the discipline, all the stuff that you dream about, as far as a coach.”

Gajewski felt so sure 2025’s group had the potential to take Oklahoma State all the way, but as Holder pointed out to him, they hadn’t earned anything yet.

“That’s what I love about Coach Holder, like he just, he can keep it right, he can keep it real,” Gajewski said. “And he’s dead, right. And he told me, he goes, ‘I was laying in bed one night,’ and you know, he was telling Robbie (Holder) his wife, he said ‘he’s screwing this thing up. I know he thinks it’s his best team. And I love when he talks about his team. He’s always behind them, he’s always got their backs, but he’s too far.’”

Gajewski said he felt so confident in where the 2025 team was starting that he skipped some steps.

“They started at A, and they got to B and they earned that,” he said. “And then I rushed them ahead to D, and I didn’t do that out of like, neglect. I did it out of a feeling, or a part of me that said, hey, like this may be the team that could win that first last game here at OSU, and let’s push them along. They can handle that.

“And what I learned is every team has to earn what they get.”

Only six teams in the country have more wins than the Cowgirls since 2021, and OSU will open the 2026 season as a consensus top 25 program. But Gajewski still felt the need to hit the reset button this offseason.

He wants to wind things back to his first year on the job so that season, nothing gets taken for granted and no steps will be skipped.

“We’re getting back to every single thing matters,” Gajewski said. “To the color of socks that you’re going to wear when we lift weights. If they’re not the right socks, Chance (Marek, the team’s strength and conditioning assistant) will send you home. Don’t ask me to be in shorts, we’re not wearing shorts. We’re wearing pants. My first teams never wore shorts. If they did, it was the biggest treat. It was the biggest party that they ever had.

“We’re not wearing shorts like you’re going to earn that stuff. And as your coach, I need to do a good job of making sure you understand you can get anything that you want to get. Just got to earn it.”