| After playing softball for 15 straight years, and not competing for the last two, I have finally figured out what this sport is all about.
Softball is not about how many home runs you hit, what your fielding percentage is, or where you attend college. It isn’t about being the best player on the field, the most talked about, winning all the awards, or being on the “top” teams. And, it sure isn’t about winning every game. Softball is about much more than that.
It is about the life lessons you walk away with at the end of the day. It is about becoming a better person through both your failures and accomplishments. It is about learning to make commitments to not only others, but to yourself. It is learning that to fail is not to be a failure. It’s about the people you meet, and the relationships you create; the discipline you learn and the work ethic you maintain. But, most of all, it is about the memories you make.
My memories root all the way back to my T-Ball team, the Killer Bees. Here I learned my first and most important lesson in this sport: Softball is fun! We were good, really good. We never lost a game (do you ever in T-Ball?). After a one-year stint there, my sister and I, as well as two other sisters, headed over to Little League Baseball for a little more of a challenge. Here I learned that girls are just as good as boys ... if not better.
I was a 9-year-old girl in “Major’s Division,” made the all-star team, and led the league in home runs... the same league and division that major-leaguer Evan Longoria was playing in, mind you. And, this is where I learned lesson No. 2: Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you aren’t good enough, because you are.
My next lesson came a little tougher for me. My dad, being the smart man he is, realized that no future exists for girls in the sport of baseball. Good ole’ Mike Schroeder then tricked me into my first travel-softball practice. A practice where I could not wear my comfortable softball pants (we wore shorts and kneepads back then), and my ever-thoughtful dad went ahead and bought me the overly-embarrassing full-length trace kneepad (girls, wear the short ones, trust me on this one). I remember being so mad at him for tricking me into going to that practice, but it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. From then on, it was all softball.
The next handful of years were a whirlwind. But it wasn’t the eight-hour practices or the four-game days that I remember from that time in my life. It’s 12U Nationals being rained out and having to play at 2 a.m. It’s experiencing the power of “teamwork.” It’s the life-long friends I have made, and the experiences we have had together. It’s the traveling, and meeting people from all over the country. It’s the pin-trading. It’s catching a College World Series game at Rosenblatt Stadium with your dad on a day off. It’s learning that losing doesn’t feel good, but often you learn much more from that than winning. It’s driving for the first time with your best friend and dad at the age of 14 on some back roads in the middle of nowhere, in a rental car, and riding a camel with that same best friend at the Illinois state fair after eating alligator and visiting Abe Lincoln’s house. It’s playing 12 games in two days to make it to the championship game out of the losers' bracket, and realizing that with perseverance, heart, 14 teenage girls, and four crazy coaches anything is possible. It’s the “Waffle House” chant in the “crazy-van” in Oklahoma City. It’s screaming the "ole" chant for the very first time. It’s secret handshakes with your sister. It’s knowing that you will always be a “Blonde-Beezy.” It’s you and your pitcher throwing at trash cans. And, most important, it’s knowing that somehow, some way you’ve impacted so many girls’ lives simply through a sport you love with all of your heart.
Later in my career, I was fortunate enough to have competed with the Worth Firecrackers and the UCLA Bruins. And, although I learned an incredible amount about the physical aspects of the game from these two elite programs, the most important lesson I ever learned was this: Softball is about so much more than the wins and losses; it is about being a part of something bigger than yourself.
It’s a game that connects hundreds of thousands of girls, but it’s the memories we create, and the life lessons we learn through this sport that allow each and every one of us to be unique.
So live in the moment, create as many memories as possible, be grateful, have fun, and never-ever forget why you love this sport so much. |
