The Glory Days

Before I really start blogging today, I just want to announce:

I got a job!!

Thank you to everyone who prayed for me and/or listened to me complain about getting a job. The teaching world is pretty competitive. Especially when you're a young teacher, everyone's resumes start to look the same. We all have degrees. We all did some amount of student teaching. I had a little something extra going for me because I had a few years of experience and a master's degree, but I surely wasn't the only person with those qualifications. God definitely deserves all the credit for choosing to place me in a position that I am so excited about and for giving it to me waaay early in the summer so I've got 2 months to prepare!

I'll be teaching 2nd grade at Cedar Grove Elementary. Which brings to mind one of my favorite "Friends" quotes, courtesy of Phoebe regarding 2nd grade:

"I love the second grade! It's so much better than first grade, when you don't know what's going on. And definitely better than third grade, with all the politics and the mind games."

Always making me laugh.

 

Okay, the glory days...as the title of this post appears to be.

It is one of my favorite times of year. The Women's College World Series of SOFTBALL!!!!!! In case you didn't know, I started playing softball when I was 6. Fast pitch. I took a little detour into slow pitch when I moved to Knoxville in 4th grade and fast pitch was not offered. But fast pitch from 6th grade on.

I was often on 2-3 teams at a time. April was always a particularly busy month when league softball, school softball, and travel softball were all going at the same time. But I loved it. I love the game. I love watching the WCWS and being proud that I know all the little nuances of the game. For a while in college, I had played with or against a lot of the girls you saw on TV. It felt good to know that I had gotten hits off pitchers you saw striking girls out at the World Series.

I played on a LOT of teams in my 12 years of playing. But two stick out as the most memorable because I spent the most amount of time playing with them. 

First, the Oakland High School Lady Patriots.

2003.

What a weird team...but great friends! We had a different coach all four years that I played. Still, we managed to win the district tournament for the 12th year in a row. My sophomore year, we earned a trip to the state tournament and placed 4th. Not bad for having only 2 juniors and 1 senior!

I don't have a lot of pictures from high school because digital cameras weren't really cool then....

Sophomore Year.

State Tournament 2002

I played right field 99% of the time. I was running toward the fence in the second picture. And I caught it. :-)

Senior Year.

I also pitched. Not much though. Our starting pitcher was really good, so fortunately I didn't have to pitch too much. But we did have a pretty sweet strategy. I was so much slower than our regular pitcher, that we could switch out pitching between innings and the hitters could never adjust to me or her. They were waaay ahead of my pitches and waaay behind hers. I mean, it worked.

Senior year, punting softballs out of gloves.

 

My main job, other than dominating right field, was to steal bases. This got harder as I got older and most teams knew I was going to steal if I got on base, but I made it work. I just got really good at punting softballs out of peoples' gloves. This took a toll junior year when a slide went awry, and I had to have ankle surgery to put the ligaments back together. But I made a comeback and also became certified in taping ankles with athletic tape.

So okay, high school softball was fun but was pretty much straight business. Win the games, go to state, bring home trophies.

My real team was Sudden Rage. We were all the rejects from the Firebirds, the other travel team in Murfreesboro. We even went by the name Firebirds "B" our first year. Yeah...pretty humiliating. That is, until we played them in the championship game of the 4th of July Tournament, 1999. We were 13 and a little terrified. Our coach had this brilliant idea that I would pitch (I had never pitched a single game before) and that would throw them off enough that we might win. It worked. Apparently it's nearly impossible to hit a ball when not even the pitcher is sure where it's going to go.

But the best part of that team is the family I made. I don't remember how many games we won or lost, but those girls will always be like sisters. We played together for 5 years and had the same core group of 9 girls the whole time. We spent every weekend every summer traveling around the South, staying in hotels, playing softball. It's been 7 years since we last played a game together, but we still get together for cookouts, bowling, bridal showers, baby showers, etc. Love these girls!!

2000. Our first year as Sudden Rage.

2002 maybe? We won a lot of tournaments. It's hard to tell.

5th place at the World Tournament in 2002!

Our last end of the year party our senior year of high school.

Getting together after going to so many different colleges!

Experiencing some "sudden rage" with Sudden Rage the day I broke up with my boyfriend.

Sudden Rage at my wedding shower.

We lost our Coach Tim suddenly this past year. He made sure we knew every detail of how to play the game, but also spent just as much time making sure our "heads were on straight," even if that meant doing a little "girl talk" in the hotel room. He was a great guy. I was so glad we were able to get together with Kylie and Jesi to celebrate how much their dad meant to all of us. I'm going to miss being severely pinched in the arm fat.

Okay that's my softball blog. Let me know if you ever want to throw the ball around and I will hurt your hand.