When I was four, my dad and I decided that I wanted to play softball. I started out picking flowers in the outfield at my tee ball games. When I wasn’t picking flowers, I was making sand castles at first base. After playing five years of fall ball in the Leander Cedar Park Youth League and four years of All-Star games, I started playing “select” softball at eight years old with the Texas Stix. I played for the Stix for about two years usually starting at shortstop.
When I was younger, just like all the other girls, I wanted to be a pitcher. That didn’t last long. My catching debut came when I was nine and the catcher we had on my dad’s team didn’t like to chase the balls she missed. My dad took me from shortstop and put the gear on me because he was tired of seeing her walk everywhere. He knew I had a lot of energy so he told me, “I don’t care how many balls you miss, just please hustle. That’s all I’m asking of you.” There’s no telling how many balls I missed that day, but I loved it. After he let me catch that one day, I was never going to let him forget it. I was going to have him out in the yard every day teaching me how to catch.
All that work started to pay off when I joined my next team, the Texas Comets. They started letting me catch more and more. If I wasn’t playing shortstop, I was catching. It easily became a love for me. I was in every play and I was the quarterback of the softball field. When I was ten and I had been playing “select” for about two years, we qualified to go to Missouri and play in the Amateur Softball Association (ASA) National tournament. After enjoying the sights and playing softball for about a week, it soon came to an end. We finished in 6th place.
By this time, softball had consumed my life. We started averaging 15-20 tournaments and between 90 and 120 games a year. At that age I wasn’t thinking about college, I was thinking about the Olympics. I didn’t even watch college softball; I just wanted to be on the USA National team playing for that gold medal.
Then, when I turned 14 we decided that I was ready to play 18 and under ball. By this time I had left the Comets and had joined the Texas Regulators out of Waco. We practiced twice a week, so on Wednesday and Sunday my dad and I would make the trip up to Waco. I was the youngest girl on the team which earned me the nickname “Baby”. I was playing with girls who were three and four years older than me, but I was still getting my chances behind the plate. Since I was so young and so much smaller than everyone else, I mainly played 2nd base. Even though this wasn’t my best position, I was still pretty good. One month when our schedule came out, there was a tournament listed as the Katy College Exposure tournament. I looked at my dad and said, “What the heck is this?” I would soon find out that it was a tournament to show off our players to colleges. So, I showed up ready to play.
At almost all of the exposure tournaments the players get different colored wristbands to show what grade they’re in. Being an 8th grader, they didn’t have one for me; they said I was too young. Even without that band I was getting some looks. After one game a college coach walked up and talked to my coach. I saw him walk by and figured he was looking at our pitcher or someone who was a senior. But he wasn’t, he wanted to offer me a full ride to play 2nd base for the Mississippi Valley State Tigers. That would be my first offer.
After about a year with the Regulators I went back and joined the older Comets. These were girls who were a year older than me, and some that I was playing in high school with. We went to some local tournaments around Austin, and then started expanding to bigger tournaments for more exposure. The exposure was good, but we were signing up for the tournaments too late and we were winding up at the fields that the big colleges didn’t go to. There were so many teams that the tournaments were using more than one or two complexes. We would get the bad fields with maybe a few coaches every now and then. There’s no telling how many e-mails I sent out to get the coaches to come and watch me play.
After a few more tournaments like this we finally finished out the season. I had received no calls, no responses to my e-mails, no coaches had talked to my coach and I was a Junior in High School. I thought this would be the end of my dreams for playing at the next level. One of my coaches told me I was too small to play Division 1 softball. That definitely hit a nerve. I started working even harder, going to the batting cages, going out and throwing, never giving up. But I guess someone was looking out for me and that’s when I found Fit Athlete.
Todd would come to my games and study me as I caught. He took notes of my weaknesses and observed the muscle groups I used as a catcher. He researched and found how to strengthen the muscle groups I needed to make me quicker on my feet and have stronger throws. The next time we worked out, that’s what we were working to improve. His knowledge, nutrition and work outs helped me tremendously.
I soon joined the Texas Stix Gold and the coaches were everywhere. We were the team to watch, but I didn’t stop sending those emails. At one of our games there were 43 college coaches watching us play. About 30 of them were Division 1. We finally started getting the looks we needed. All of the exposure made it that much more fun to play. We were there; we were playing up to their level and getting noticed for it. So slowly but surely the coaches started handing out business cards and talking to our coaches. There were some teams that were pretty interested, so now it was on me to decide what I wanted.
The teams I communicated with were mainly Division 2, 3, and Junior Colleges. To me it didn’t matter what division it was, I just wanted to play. I didn’t want to be picky; I just wanted to play softball at the next level. I just felt that I needed to figure out which place would be best for me. So I started going on some visits and getting some offers. I loved the first school I went to, Angelo State, but I was warned not to fall in love with the first place I went. I’m really glad that I didn’t. The interest from Louisiana Tech was a later development, so luckily I didn’t jump at anything and commit too early.
To me picking a college is all about what you want to do with your life and which direction you want to go. It’s good to go on a lot of visits so you can tell where you really fit in and where you feel like you can live and be happy. I feel that I have found that place and I can’t wait to get there. I just recently found out that I scored what I needed on my ACT test to get my out of state tuition waived. I will now be playing softball for Louisiana Tech on a full scholarship.
So in conclusion, look around and figure out where you can be happy. Think about what you want to do with your life and follow your heart. Keep reaching for the stars. You’re never too small for anything.
Allie Geisler
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