Katy Lifestyles and Homes magazine Mar 2009: Matte Haack at Katy High School signs with the University of Kansas to play softball.

Matte Haack and her family have a lot of balls in the air, and you just might need to check the score board to keep up with who’s on first.

Yell “batter up” in Matte’s house and you may get a response from her mom, Leslie, a former college softball all-star. Leslie was also the head coach of the Cinco Ranch High School girls ’ softball team when the school first opened.

Or, you might get a signal from Matte’s dad, Kalum, who, as a graduate assistant, coached Leslie before she was his wife. Years later, when he was head softball coach at Katy High School, he coached against his wife ’s Cinco Ranch team for a couple of seasons.

“We played against each other for two years,” said Leslie. “It was tough. He had a developed, strong program and I had a first-year varsity team with only juniors and sophomores. Our first district game against each other, Katy High beat Cinco Ranch 10-0. This was hard because we are both competitive people. I don ’t think I talked to him for two weeks.”

Younger brother, Brooks, probably wouldn’t respond to “batter up,” although he would answer to “down, set, hike” because football’s his game. As the only outsider to softball in the Haack family, he’s making a name for himself, too. Brooks quarterbacked Katy High’s freshmen team throughout the regular season to an 8-0-1 record. Due to team injuries throughout the playoffs, he became the school ’s varsity backup quarterback, having the distinction as the first freshman quarterback to appear in a Katy High School varsity game in 27 years.

Today, Kalum coaches Matte at Katy High School. His superstar shortstop daughter recently signed with University of Kansas to play softball next year on an athletic scholarship. The cleats are now in the closet for Leslie, who is a principal at Sealy High School after serving as principal at Cinco Ranch and Morton Ranch high schools.

While at Katy, Matte has been a three-time all-district first team shortstop, named the All-Greater Houston Area Most Valuable Player after leading all of Houston in hits, RBIs, total bases, doubles and runs scored, and helped the Bengals reach the state finals where she was named to the all-tournament team. Matte is really a two-sport talent —making a name for herself in varsity volleyball as well. Not only has she been a starter on the varsity volleyball team every year, but she ’s also been on the all-district team and has been the school’s volleyball captain for two seasons. This year she was named co-Player of the Year.

As an active member on the high school volleyball and softball school teams as well as club teams for each sport, Matte was all over the place with games and tournaments.

“I told her she had to choose which sport to really concentrate on. With both sports, it took up every night of the week. It was making her tired, ” said Kalum, who was advising more as her dad than her coach. After much soul searching, as well as systematically weighing the pros and cons of each sport, Matte turned to softball.

And speaking of having your dad as the head coach of your high school team, some days are hard, some a bit easier according to Matte.

“On the field he’s my coach. At home, we don’t talk about what went

wrong. We leave it on the field,” she said.

Although it gets left on the field, the field is where both Matte’s parents have been before her and with her since she was 6 years old.

“I am proud of her athletic accomplishments as well as her academic ones,” said Leslie. “We are very similar in regards to playing the game; however, athletically she is much more gifted than I ever was. She has an instinct for the game that cannot be taught. It ’s one of the reasons she is such a good shortstop—she reads base runners and makes plays that I would have never thought of.”

Kalum’s been around softball his whole life. His father, Buster Haack, played major fast pitch softball. Although it was not considered a professional sport, the team traveled the country playing every weekend and had a sponsor who paid their expenses. Because there was no high school baseball in Hempstead where Kalum grew up, he played with his dad ’s team.

After high school, Kalum played football at Sam Houston University but quickly went back to the game of softball as a graduate assistant coach. From there he spent the next 18 of 20 years coaching college softball at the University of Nebraska, University of Kansas and University of Alabama. In the middle of all the softball, he took a two-year hiatus to become the football coach at Katy Taylor High School.

“I was always on the road (coaching softball) and I wanted to come back to Katy. I had done everything in college sports you could do, ” said Kalum who began coaching softball at Katy High School in 1998. Prior to returning to Katy, his longest stay anywhere was 10 years in Lawrence, Kansas, where Matte was born. She spent the first six years of her life there and is excited to return as a Jayhawk.

“I’ve always wanted to play in the big 12, and the softball program there is a great one. My aunt and uncle still live there, and though I was young, I still remember the snow and the campus. The city of Lawrence is a true college town. It ’s an all around great town,” said future Jawhawk, Matte Haack.