Diamond in the Rough

From the ballpark to the boardroom, Barb Kozuh proves a heavy hitter

By Alison Bailin Batz / Photos by Claudia Johnstone

Growing up in Illinois, Barb Kozuh loved two things: playing softball and watching the Chicago White Sox.

A season ticket holder, Kozuh tracked the team religiously, cutting box scores from local newspapers every day and taping them into books. On the field, she developed into a power-hitting first baseman who batted cleanup, captained her team, and earned all-conference honors twice. Her .667 batting average set a school record that stood for decades. “Back then, I thought my entire life would revolve around softball, and ideally a career in baseball – for the White Sox, of course – when I could no longer hit the long ball myself,” Kozuh says.

Believe it or not, post-high school, her life initially trended in that direction. “I moved to the Valley to attend Arizona State University and play on their softball team, but when the idea of waiting on the sidelines for the older starting players to graduate became a little too much, I pivoted and went to work for the baseball team instead,” says Kozuh, who joined ASU baseball as an administrator while studying business.

Before long, she added another job with the Phoenix Giants, later renamed the Phoenix Firebirds, where a public relations assignment came with a familiar responsibility: cutting standings and box scores from newspapers and pasting them into books for internal and external communications needs. Long before email, Kozuh spent her days working with media, distributing team information and running the press box. She also worked with the Oakland A’s during spring training, while turning assignments from her baseball jobs into projects for her ASU classes.

Unexpected Dreams

After graduating in 1986, Kozuh remained with the Firebirds, inching closer to her Major League dream. However, there was an important detour on her journey. “Phoenix Memorial Hospital approached me about joining their foundation, including planning a baseball event,” Kozuh says. “What happened during my first year there changed my life.”

As part of an effort supporting underserved families, Kozuh collected necessities for a Phoenix family, delivering them to a multigenerational home with no beds, little furniture, and a mattress on the floor. “All I could think was, ‘Where are these kids sleeping? Where is grandma sleeping?’” Kozuh says.

Then the children found the toothbrushes. “They started crying and saying, ‘Now I don’t have to share a toothbrush with anyone,’” Kozuh says. “I cried, too.”

Suddenly, Major League Baseball was no longer her only ambition. Kozuh wanted to help people, too, and as it turned out, she would not have to choose.

In 1990, the White Sox recruited her back to Chicago to help launch the team’s charitable foundation. “I spent five seasons with the Sox, where I helped establish Chicago White Sox Charities and oversaw the auction of memorabilia from old Comiskey Park, proceeds from which provided early funding for the organization,” Kozuh says.

And then Frank “Big Hurt” Thomas came calling. The White Sox superstar tapped Kozuh in 1994 to work with his sports marketing firm and Big Hurt Charities, combining the two worlds shaping her career. Additional sports marketing roles followed before 9/11 brought a layoff and professional transition.

Then an old friend called Kozuh, asking her to relocate back to Arizona to lead the charitable arm of the Phoenix Coyotes. The opportunity and relocation eventually led her to the Arizona Sting professional lacrosse team before the Great Recession brought another layoff in 2008, just months after Kozuh gave birth to her daughter. “I took some time to be a mom, then decided to focus my work squarely on philanthropy.”

Doing More Good

She joined the Arizona Foundation for Women, where a board member who was then-executive director of the Delta Dental of Arizona Foundation eventually recruited her. For Kozuh, the connection back to that first family she helped was impossible to not to make.

She thought about those kids and the toothbrushes. “Those kids truly changed the direction of my career.”

In 2013, Kozuh joined the Delta Dental of Arizona Foundation (www.deltadentalaz.com) as fundraising manager, advancing through leadership positions before being named executive director in 2023.

In 2025 alone, Kozuh and the foundation positively impacted 724,544 people across all 15 Arizona counties, supported 122 nonprofits, helped provide 2.8 million meals and delivered more than 55,000 free dental screenings to children. She has also helped forge partnerships with Phoenix Children’s, Banner Health Foundation, Arizona PBS, Arizona State University, the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix and St. Vincent de Paul. “In a perfect world, through my work today, I want to eliminate the term medical-dental integration,” Kozuh says. “Instead, I want people to understand oral health is health. It is all about our whole-body health.”

Among the most ambitious examples is Smile-AI at ASU’s John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering, supported by a nearly $579,000 foundation investment. The initiative is expected to impact approximately 72,000 patients per graduating class annually. The foundation is accepting applications for the 2027 grant cycle through Oct. 8, offering $5,000 to $30,000 for programs serving underserved Arizonans through oral health, medical-dental integration, food insecurity and, for the first time, vision.