I want to thank you for so many things at once because you really helped me grow into the person I am today. I want to thank you for keeping my love for softball alive. There were many times throughout my athletic career where I just wanted to stop, to give up, put the bat and glove away and just focus on other things. But I would hear your voice in the back of my head, saying "Let's go, Petzold, get back out there!" and that was enough to push me to not give up. Your encouragement was helpful on the field, it made me swing better, run faster and think more clearly. But your encouragement was helpful off the field too. Even when I would be sitting at home, about to throw my calculus textbook across the room because I didn't understand the problems, I thought about how disappointed you would be if I failed that class since that meant I would sit on the bench during games.

I remember one time during a game, we were losing by a few points and it was my turn to hit. Before I stepped up to the plate, I looked at you standing at third and you gave me a false signal. I almost laughed because it was funny watching you do weird hand gestures that meant nothing. And then you tugged on your right ear, and I got excited because that meant I could swing as hard as I could, you just wanted Megan on third base to come home. When I stepped up to the plate, I swung and missed two times, and on the final pitch, I swung as hard as I could. The ball ended up in left field but I got Megan home, and that was all that mattered since that tied us up and we went into overtime. Although this isn't some great "all tied up in the bottom of the ninth and I hit a homerun and win the game for us" story, it felt like that to me because I got Megan home, and that was what we wanted to happen.

So to the coach that became my second mom, I will always appreciate you. I will always be thankful for you pushing me to do my best. I will always appreciate you being tough on me, I definitely didn't like the yelling back then, but now as I look back, I realized that I can take criticism well now. I can learn from what others are saying and then fix myself. Thank you for being someone I can look up to and always talk to. Thank you for teaching me that family doesn't always have to be blood.