The Journey – The END or is it?

The Journey – The END or is it?

The END of the journey of being a softball mom?  This is the last weekend of BIGXII play.  I sit here in my hotel room ready to pick up one of my best friends from the Airport.  We’re going to watch our daughters play on opposing teams but never against each other.  We carpooled to hitting lessons.  We coached Rachel and my youngest Chele for a couple of years together.  Chanin was 2 years older.  Even though Chele went on to play college soccer we’ve remained close friends and softball moms for life.  We have buckets of memories good and not so good; all can be laughed about today. 

Looking back, we had parents yell at us after games, even at National’s when we just placed 3rd, We were undoubtedly the best team there but it just didn’t work out that “one” day.  We got slaughtered personally on Chat boards.  We were criticized for our coaching decisions, our personal choices and for picking some kids to play on our team.  Silly, to say the least, when looking back the ridiculousness of some of the things that happened along the way.  These girls went on to play at Iowa State, Harvard, Nebraska, Michigan, Notre Dame, Long Beach State, Virginia, Oklahoma, Utah, UC Davis, University of Illinois, South Alabama, Ohio State, Utah State, University of Central Arkansas, UNLV, Claremont, and this is just from two travel teams. 

We met at Rancho Trabuco Girls softball.  We quickly became friends. We saw a commonality in each other!  I liked her immediately.  She was sharp, smart, witty, she was an awesome mom, I admired her, she was a very successful corporate leader.  She’s an awesome wife.  She was everything I wanted to be.  We coached All Stars and Fall Ball and the list of colleges these girls went on to are astounding.  Volleyball, soccer and other sports!  Just amazing families and athletes we met along the way.

We won a United Way award for leadership to young women in the community; we showed them leadership games we learned in Corporate America.  We stressed getting a college degree.

Today,  I count the blessings, the friendships, the life memories, the traveling, the cheap hotels, the sunburn, the freezing cold, the carne asada meals in the ball park, the road trips, the conversations at dinner with the scorebook open, our notepads of drills and strategies, our one too many margarita’s, the matching female coaches uniforms, our visors, our bucket chats, our decisions even when we didn’t agree we let each other make them, our husbands supporting us doing this crazy coaching thing,

Today I honor my friend Randi Jo Hartman!  I hope you all can find a Randi through your softball journey! 

It’s not the END  it is the continuation of friendships for life!

Enjoy the journey as this is your life!