Bill Galloway was a baseball player at Elkhart High School before graduating in 1964 and wanted to be a basketball coach after high school.
“They got all the headlines,” Galloway said about basketball coaches. “They wore a suit and tie and I thought that was cool too.”
Dennis Foster also thought Galloway could be a good basketball coach. Foster and Galloway knew each other through working together at Adams and Westlake Company and from playing softball together.
“We were running around together and he encouraged me about going to college and get into basketball coaching,” Galloway said.
“Dennis was the head boys basketball coach at Westview High School and younger brother of Dean, who was a boys basketball coach in Elkhart and at Penn. I was classmates with Dean at Elkhart. Dennis talked me into going to college. He told me I could be an assistant coach at Westview after I was done at Indiana University. I said, ‘OK’. I had every intention to be the next Bobby Knight.”
Instead, Galloway’s career took a completely different path.
Galloway, who didn’t start attending college until he was 28 years old, became an assistant softball coach at Indiana University in 1976 as a sophomore.
It was the start of a 50-year softball coaching career for the now-80-year old Galloway.
“They knew I played and coached softball some and they asked me if I wanted to be an assistant (softball coach) there,” Galloway said about what led to him getting a softball coaching job for the Hoosiers.
What followed after his coaching stint at Indiana, were softball head coaching jobs at Texas A&M in 1979 and Louisiana Tech in 1982. After 20 years he retired from Louisiana Tech. But Galloway wasn’t done with his softball coaching career, as he became the pitching coach at Bossier Community College and the assistant head coach at East Texas Baptist University.
At Texas A&M, Galloway won 208 games and had a .813 winning percentage. The program made three appearances in the Women’s College Softball World Series.
While at Louisiana Tech, Galloway totaled 705 wins, made NCAA Tournaments and advanced to the Women’s College World Series three times.
In his time at East Texas Baptist, the program won the NCAA III National Championship in 2010 and 2024, Also at the school, Galloway reached 1,000 career wins in 2023.
Galloway is currently the Associate Head Coach at East Texas Baptist University, which is located in Marshall, Texas where Galloway currently lives.
“Marshall, Texas is 40 minutes west of Shreveport, Louisiana,” Galloway said.
“When I retired from Louisiana Tech I got a call from East Texas Baptist and their coach Mike Reed,” Galloway said. “We had been to a couple of clinics together. He said they were looking for a pitching coach and he wanted to know if I would help them a little bit on a part-time basis. I said, ‘sure’. I started the process from there.
“After Mike left and took the head coaching job at the University of Texas at Tyler, a young lady Janae Shirley took over and she asked me if I would move into their staff full-time. One thing led to another and I’m still there.
“She’s done a fantastic job there and I couldn’t be more blessed. I love it at East Texas Baptist.”
Galloway’s coaching career began in 1974 when he led the Elkhart Komets girls’ softball team.
“When I started playing softball in Elkhart, Buz Swathwood was instrumental in sponsoring sports and he started that Komets team,” Galloway said.