Seven months ago, I took Sarah Kate for softball evaluations. I was on edge, knowing that the coaches probably weren’t expecting a “disabled girl” to show up. I feared the moment when she would have to run, revealing her limitations. But I faced my fears, because she had none.
Last night we returned to the softball field. This time there we no evaluations – just a draft, an email from the coach, and show up for practice on Monday.
It was a vastly different experience from last February.
The coach, an enthusiastic woman who coached 6U previously, asked me what position Sarah Kate played in the spring. Right field, I answered, leaving out the fact that she’d never once touched a ball in play from that position. I tentatively asked her if she knew anything about Sarah Kate, to which she answered with a smile, “Yes. That’s why I picked her.”
The first thing I noticed was that the other girls were all about Sarah Kate’s size. I knew from her email that they were combining 8U with 6U, but I hadn’t expected there to be a lot of younger girls because there were half as many 6U teams as 8U in the spring. But these girls were young – I could tell because of their baby faces, so unlike Sarah Kate’s more slender features.
I sat back on the bleachers and watched the girls warm up for a few minutes. It was obvious that not only are there a lot of young girls, but many (most?) have never played before. The one girl on the field that I know was as old as Sarah Kate is also new – she’s in Sarah Kate’s class and she had told me that she was playing for the first time.
I stood up and walked over to the dugout to tell the coach that Sarah Kate had, rarely, played catcher back in the spring (as a delay tactic when we were ahead to run out the clock, best I could tell). It wasn’t that I thought Sarah Kate SHOULD play catcher…it’s that as I looked around at the other girls on the team, I realized that she COULD.
I was shocked to hear the words coming out of my mouth.
As I retook my seat on the bleachers, I realized how far we’ve both come. Sarah Kate’s skills improved, of course, during the spring season, but my own transformation has been just short of miraculous. I don’t fear softball anymore. I’m no longer hyper-vigilant to the reactions of the parents around me. I feel like the pro – the one who knows the drill (and the rules, LOL!) of girls softball.
I have become an Ordinary Softball Mom. And it feels great.
Note: when I went to talk to the coach about Sarah Kate playing catcher, she told me that her previous coach said Sarah Kate was “the heart of the team”. So maybe we’re not completely ordinary yet. 😉 First game is Monday. Stay tuned.
Pitcher always appealed to me personally, probably because my cousins were all basemen (& a catcher). If SK ends up as catcher long term I could ask my cousin for some pointers for her.