BellaOnline Forums Sports Softball New Softball Editor

Hi Everyone,

I am the new Softball Editor. Both my daughters, ages 11 and 13 play on select teams. It's a lot of fun. The purpose of my site will be to educate others about softball, and to talk to other moms (and dads) about their experiences with their daughters who play softball. Questions and comments are welcome too!

I did play softball in my younger days. My dad's company sponsored the first girls' softball league in 1950, 51, etc. What a good time it was....and in a different time, of course. Nobody cared much who won or lost, but we all enjoyed the snacks afterwards. There were no fast food or pizza places then, so post game snacks were made by moms, regardless of team. As I said, a different time and perhaps a much better one.

Our 3 daughters all played softball, one went up through the junior college level and one plays for UTA in Texas now as a junior. She started as a walk on and is now the #1 pitcher for the team (the other pitchers are freshmen this year)

Our family benefited in a million ways from softball and had lots of fun traveling to tournaments. My husband coached lots of teams and is still our daughter's pitching coach.

We still travel around now to UTA's games and I still get nervous every time my daughter pitches!

How exciting to get to continue to watch your daughter play at the college level. I love the travel - little mini vacations - fun for the kids and parents. Good luck to your daughter; I will look for her at UTA.

That really was a different time with no one caring who won. Today, it can be taken a little too seriously - more so by the parents than the kids.

I agree some parents take all the sports stuff too seriously. We always just taught the girls to work hard so they knew they'd given it their best shot. My daughter has always loved to practice. She can pitch for hours perfecting something.

UTA should have a good year. They got to conference last year but lost in the championship game because, mainly, my daughter was having some problems with her wrist (she had a ganglion removed this summer.) Also, it was her first year pitching at that level. She just couldn't hold UTSA, which had the #1 homerun hitting team in the nation.

The coach hadn't even really expected her to do anything but after a freshman year of sitting the bench, my daughter worked really hard all summer and came back like gangbusters. At a pre-season tournament in Hawaii last year, she beat Hawaii and Southern Miss and from then on she was the #2 pitcher, beating out two others.

She started out as a walk on too. She just wanted to go to UTA and have a chance to play and it all worked out.

The tournament trips were great but I had a joke about that. When people would say it was so wonderful we got to go all those places, I'd tell them all we ever got to see of the place was the ballpark! We did get to spend a lot of time together tho, which was the main thing.