I can remember the first time I whipped my arm around in a full windmill rotation and chucked the softball at my brother. I was 8 years old and we were on my front lawn goofing around. I pitched a lucky strike and at that moment I fell in love with the game. I begged my Dad to take me to pitching lessons at the field, and little did we know it would become a part of our weekly routine every Sunday morning for 10 years.

Softball taught me a lot of things. It taught me to be a humble winner, and a graceful loser. It taught me to fight for what I want, to pick myself up when I am down, and to have confidence wherever life takes me. The game taught me how to be a leader, as well as how to take constructive criticism and become a better learner. Some of my greatest life lessons were learned in between the chalked lines of the softball diamond.

One of my most vivid memories of softball as a child was the first time I was thrown out onto the pitcher's mound. I was playing in a little league game in Bucksport and coach decided I was ready to go in. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was, in fact, not ready. Two consecutive pitches were thrown high and mighty and sailed right over the entire backstop and into the woods. I probably injured a nest of birds. I can remember my cheeks getting hot with embarrassment and my chest and throat tightening up with the threat of tears. The waterworks started flowing and my coach had to call a timeout. I had pleaded to come out of the game but all he told me was that I needed to get my shit together because I wasn’t going to come out and I needed to finish the inning. I was only 9 or so, so those weren’t his exact words but I’m sure they were similar. I’m now 23 and writing this, so I obviously got myself out of the inning eventually and survived my first real encounter with adversity.

Now let’s fast forward a few years to the summer I turned 13. I had already inherited my lucky snack sized chip bag (cheeto to be exact) from one of my coaches who had been too lazy to throw it away. He folded it up and stuck it in my sock and told me it was “good luck.” I’ll admit that 10 years later I still have it and wore it in my sock every single game I played until I hung up my cleats after high school. The summer I turned 13 was probably one of the most memorable years of my sports career. My team won the state championship and we spent a week in New York playing in the regional tournament in hopes to make it to the Little League World Series. Despite winning 3 games and only losing 1, we didn’t make it, but drove 9 hours back to Maine to a police escort through town and people from our community out on their lawns cheering us on and welcoming us home. It was an experience that I will never forget.

Over the years the friendships and memories I have made through softball are too many to count. My 4 years of high school gave me another state championship, a broken arm, many many innings pitched, a few hit by pitches, a homerun over the fence, and just the overall high of being a part of a team and accomplishing something with a group of people who loved something just as much as me. Through softball I learned the value of teamwork and hustle, what it’s like to work to become better, the power of determination, and to never quit something just because it starts to get hard. I owe the game for my ability to overcome adversity, my ability to be a leader, my ability to work with others, and my ability to be passionate in all that I do. I am forever in debt to the game of softball for it has given me more than I can ever repay.