Jul 28, 2005
LOWELL -- Many a day he would come home from his construction job, dead tired, and want nothing more than to take a nap.
Then the voices would call out: ?Dad, do you want to play catch??
And the answer from Armand Hebert, to all four of his daughters, was always the same: ?Yes.?
He doesn't know how many hours he spent teaching the game of softball to his daughters; he jokes he wishes he got an hourly wage as compensation for all the instruction time spent at nearby McPherson Park in the Centralville section of the city.
But thanks in part to his tireless work with his daughers, the Heberts -- Tabitha, 21; Rachel, 19; Katie, 16; and Danielle, 14 -- have forged a reputation as one of the top softball families in the Merrimack Valley.
All four of Armand Hebert's daughters evolved into pitchers.
Last month, Katie Hebert, a Lowell High senior-to-be, pitched the Red Raiders to an improbable Division 1 state championship. Once Hebert became healthy about 10 days into the season, the Red Raiders went from a sub.-500 team to a squad which blazed its way to the school's first state softball title.
She finished the season 12-1 with a sparkling 0.83 earned run average. At the plate, she hit .463 and drove in 17 runs.
Danielle Hebert, a sophomore-to-be, served as Lowell High's pitcher until her sister got healthy. A tremendously hard thrower, Danielle struck out 92 in 78 innings.
Rachel Hebert also pitched for Lowell High and is now a member of the Merrimack Valley Twisters' under-18 softball team which Armand Hebert coaches.
The first member of the Hebert pitching dynasty at Lowell High was Tabitha, who recently completed a stellar softball career at UMass Lowell. Tabitha recently spent time playing professionally in Holland.
?They're fundamentally sound,? said Lowell High softball coach Rick O'Brien of the Hebert sisters. ?Sometimes it's tough when you're a high school coach -- you have no control over what you have. A college coach can recruit and he knows what he's getting.?
Due to Armand Hebert's tutelage, however, O'Brien said he knows when a Hebert reaches Lowell High they're going to know the game of softball inside and out.
?My brothers got all the boys,? Armand said with a laugh. ?My whole family are all athletes. It's something they just picked up. I was umpiring at the time and they see the girls throwing the ball and they'd be like, ?I want to do that.'
?I've always enjoyed softball and I was hoping to get them to do it. If they didn't want to do it, that would have been fine with me. It's a lot of work if you want to be a pitcher. A lot of girls just try to ... be pitchers, but they've got to learn how to field, they've got to learn how to hit,? he added.
O'Brien calls Katie Hebert one of the best-fielding high school pitchers in Massachusetts.
As a softball player, Armand Hebert was always a catcher, a position which helped him gain a unique perspective on pitchers.
?Pitching is tough. I taught the basic stuff,? he said.
When his daughters got older, he sent them to clinics run by Joe Sargent, who also produced several daughters who went on to pitch at Lowell High. Also, Armand Hebert arranged for his daughters to learn under top collegiate pitchers Kim Page (Merrimack) and Shannon Downey (Boston University).
Prior to this spring's Cinderella march to the title, the furthest a Lowell High softball team had ever advanced was the Division 1 North finals, when Tabitha was on the hill.
?She had hurt her back the day before and they lost the game 2-1. It just hurts because she didn't feel she was at top form,? her father said.
Armand Hebert, 41, jokes that his ?eyes are going and the knees are going.?
Still, he never refuses to work with his girls.
?The girls need someone to throw to. The older ones are a little tougher (to catch) now. Now I'm smarter -- I get the catcher,? he said with a laugh.
The night Lowell High defeated Taconic Regional for the state championship was the night before Father's Day. Even with everything nearly a blur that night, Katie and Danielle Hebert remember talking about presenting their father with the ultimate gift -- a state title.
?It was for him because he always loved the sport so much,? Danielle said.
