I think the retirement of Jeanne Scarpello shocked a lot of Maverick faithful last week. It was pretty unexpected considering the Mavericks just got through transition and have a bright future in softball, but per the release is stepping away to spend more time with family and you have to respect that. Coaching softball takes up an incredible amount of my wife’s time and she is only coaching a few months of the year and not having to do all of the recruiting, off season work outs, and fall ball. Well high school softball in Nebraska is played in the fall, but you get the idea.
I am not sure if Cory Petermann (I just realized that I want to scream “HEY PETER-MAN (Office Space),” will be able to be promoted to head coach or not. I really hope that if a new coach is hired that they keep Petermann on the staff. He’s been with the Mavericks for so long and has done so much to make the softball program one of the most successful athletic programs (that is still competing).
I’m not sure about other Mav fans feel, but I am fully confident in the hiring abilities of Trev Alberts and staff. Dean Blais has taken Hockey to the Frozen Four. Jason Mims built a program from scratch, his team was ranked in the top 25 for a short while in just the program’s 5th year of existing, and his recruits seem to get better and better each and every single season…which is actually to be expected, but still, it could have ended up much worse. Chance Lindley was doing a stellar job with the women’s basketball team before unexpectedly in something that was just odd. Alberts dropped the interim tag off of Brittany Lange, who is really kind of quietly building that basketball program into a competitor and gets better and better every year. They’re going to be competing in the preseason WNIT in 2016 and they’re starting out at Colorado State, and that team could beat really Colorado State, who made the 2016 NCAA tournament, and possibly face off against Washington in the second round. Excuse me, I have to go make make sure all of my bills get paid by my SouthWest Airlines Chase card so I can secure enough points for a free flight to Seattle in November…
Anyway, the Mavericks are looking for a softball coach. I am sure that the process has already started, and we should hear who the newest head coach to Maverick athletics is in the coming weeks, but here are a list of random names that could be out there as potential candidates. Do I have any business throwing out any names or have any insider info for this? Certainly, no. But when a football program like USC (which sucks) is looking for a new coach, some idiot online lists off a bunch of names that where only half of the list is actually being considered by USC and another portion of the list may just want to hear what USC has to say. It’s just something kind of fun to talk about and contemplate as fans.
I’m content with being the idiot here. Whatever coach does take over softball at UNO is getting a program that will be returning four All Conference players, and a part of an improving athletic department that is in the middle of upgrading their facilities and has mentioned the potential of a new softball (and baseball) stadium.
Tony Baldwin – Georgia Assistant
I’ve listed Baldwin here for no real reason for other than that I may have been Georgia’s Good Luck Guy. It’s not a responsibility that I wanted, but it just happened. Whenever I caught a Georgia softball game on ESPN3, or actual television, they completely dominated their opponent. The Bulldogs were up 3-1 on Auburn when I was watching in the Women’s College World Series, and then I went for a walk and they ended up losing 3-4.
Baldwin is originally from the state of Indiana and played college baseball at Butler. He has spent 2 season as an assistant at Georgia, he was an assistant baseball coach at Michigan State before taking on the job at Georgia. He was mostly responsible for hitting and infielding for the Bulldogs, and in his first season at Georgia the team was 13th in the nation in batting average at .343, and they scored over 7 runs a game.
Jimmy Kolaitis – Oregon Assistant
Seriously, I have no business compiling this list.
Omaha is probably a far stretch for a guy that is an an assistant softball coach in the PAC 12, but going from a big name program to head coaching at a smaller program all to get a job as a head coach at a big name program again seems to be a likely road for many coaches.
Kolaitis was an assistant coach at South Alabama before taking the job at Oregon. While at Oregon he has been in charge of coaching hitting, and the Ducks have one of the better offenses in college softball. My wife is a huge Oregon Duck fan (seriously, this list is so biased) so I had to watch a number of Oregon softball games over the last 2 years, and their hitting is…dare I say it…”sick.” Last season they had 8 of the 9 players in their lineup hitting above .300, which is “sick.”
Diane Miller – Nebraska Assistant
Miller has been an assistant for the Huskers since 2008, after coaching at Colorado State and has been primarily in charge of coaching hitting and the catchers. With slight uncertainty where the Mavericks are going at the Catcher position after 4 years of Campbell Ditto behind the plate, it would be beneficial having Miller coach up catchers, especially in the beginning.
Miller has coached the Huskers to break more than 30 offensive records since becoming an assistant at Nebraska. In her time in Lincoln, the Huskers have hit at an average of .295, which is right around where the Mavericks were this last season. The chance to become a head coach, coach up a team that already has strong hitting, and develop a young team at an already successful program could be a huge attraction to Miller.
Ranae Sinkler – Creighton Assistant
Maybe this would help the relations between the Creighton and UNO program, who have still yet to face off since the Mavericks made the transition. Sinkler is a Lincoln-native and currently works with hitters and infielders at Creighton, and while she was a player for the Bluejays she won the Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year award in two separate seasons.
She graduated from Creighton in 2011 and has only been coaching for a few years, so she does not have a ton of experience. She could continue to help the Mavericks recruit some of the better players out of the state of Nebraska. This year Creighton had a fielding percentage of .961 and the Mavericks were at .956.
Still, UNO might be a difficult sell to anyone who has been involved with the one program, let alone Creighton, since their freshman year in college.
Jamie Trachsel – North Dakota State Co-Head Coach (Already took job at Iowa State)
So I was going to list Trachsel as a far fetch, but seriously why does North Dakota State need two coaches? Trachsel took the job at Iowa State last week, and she was in charge of defense, recruiting, and scouting while with the Bison. The Bison were first in the Summit in fielding percentage this season, and North Dakota’s roster is filled with players from the hot recruiting bed of softball we know as the state of California. Maybe the Bison’s defense and recruiting will take a slight drop and open up the gates for Omaha and the rest of the Summit League to compete for conference championships again.
If you’re wondering about Iowa State softball: they finished the season at 20-35 and lost to UNO, Creighton, Northern Iowa, and Drake to name a few.
Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler – former Iowa State head coach
Iowa State didn’t renew her contract after going 20-35 in 2016 and had an overall losing record with the Cyclones in her 11 seasons in Ames. She really helped the team improve their hitting in the beginning, and I really cannot imagine how hard it is to recruit softball players to play in Ames against the Big 12 competition. Her players did well in the classroom with over 70 players make All Big 12 Academic teams in 11 seasons, and I know that is something that UNO Athletics would love. Gemeinhardt-Cesler, which looks difficult to pronounce, was 153-76 in four seasons at the Division 2 level as a head coach, so maybe The Summit League is a more appropriate level for her than the Big 12.
The Leathernecks beat Wisconsin to open up the season, and I am pretty sure it is the most forgettable big time win by a Summit League team of all time. It is almost immediately discredited with: well, Wisconsin wasn’t together at that point…or something along those lines. There were people that believed in Western Illinois after that, and hopefully those people that did use that belief to discuss how good the Summit League was as a whole for the season. They probably more so had an attitude of: Well Western Illinois sucks, so who cares.
Western Illinois finished the season as 9th in the Summit League, which meant they had to sit out the Summit League tournament. At least they got to really bulk up Creighton’s non-conference schedule. It was not pretty after the Wisconsin win for the Leathernecks. The team picked up some lopsided wins against the likes of some division 2 schools in addition to Illinois-Chicago and Eastern Illinois before going on an 11 game losing streak. Then they hurt my brain when they broke their losing streak at home against the Mavericks. The Leathernecks did expose a large weakness of that Mavs that Omaha was not a great defensive team in the post. Once a team can get the ball past the quick hands of Tra-Deon Hollins and Devin Patterson, Omaha may not have the bodies to deal with guys down low. Denver saw this and they just kept throwing the ball into Christian Mackey and CJ Bobbitt to just ruin the Mavericks. Ehhh.
Much of the season for the Leathernecks was about as hard to watch as when your brother brings home some train wreck of a girl to meet your parents; and you hold a large amount of embarrassment that you know your brother.
The Leathernecks are going to be losing JC Fuller’s 12.7 points per game, which is probably a good thing as he thought he could have the green light to shoot like Steph Curry, but Curry actually makes the crazy shots he takes. Western Illinois only played Fuller for 8 minutes when they beat the Mavericks and instead gave most of the back court minutes to freshman De’Angelo Bruster, who might be the new fastest player in the Summit League. His speed created so many opportunities for other players in that game against the Mavericks, he may have actually won that game for the Leathernecks even though he scored 0 points. Bruster only scored 2 points per game, but the Leathernecks were 2-0 in games he played more than 20 minutes, so hell, they might as well at least make an attempt to give him more minutes in 2017…but Billy Wright seems like the least creative coach in the League; so who knows.
Garret Covington will be the Summit League’s top returning scorer, and that is fun, I guess. Covington has been known as being one of the league’s most threatening scorers over during the first three years of collegiate careers, but watch a Western Illinois game. No one else knows how to get open, the coaching staff doesn’t have a great list of plays to really get players open, and Covington never really scores when the game is on the line and he can push the Leathernecks over their opponent. Granted, they don’t have too many moments when the game is close for Covington can do that, but the point still remains…probably, I think, I may have gone in and out of points there.
The idea here is, who else on the team can actually score consistently? Jabari Sandifer would go 8-of-12 from the floor one game and then go 2-of-13 the next game, and most of shots were Aw Crap, When Did the Shot Clock Change to 30 Seconds shots. We like to ask these hypothetical questions of: Would Tre’Shawn Thurman put up the same numbers at a Creighton or a Nebraska? The simple answer is no because he would be on a different team with a different depth and a different offense than what he is currently on, but it does not mean he is a worse player.
Anyway, if you took Garret Covington and threw him on any other team in the Summit League would he still be known as one of the most prolific scorers in the league? Covington took 13 shots a game in 2016 and attempted almost 7 free throws a game to guide him to 18 points per game. You put him on South Dakota State, pretend you’re trading him for Reed Tellinghuisen… Covington isn’t such a dominant of a scorer that he would have taken shot attempts from their three seniors and Mike Daum…Covington would score less than 10 points a game with the Jackrabbits. Put him on Omaha’s roster, he’d score more than 10 points a game because of the offense, but he would have been the 3rd or 4th option on offense in most situations, and the Mavericks would have been freaking sweet…I think my general point here is that Covington should not have been a Summit League 2nd Team player. Didn’t Lawrence Alexander finish as North Dakota State’s winningest player with over 100 wins? It’s kind of a weird thing to say since basketball is a team sport, but Covington has only been a part of 27 wins in his three years at Western Illinois.
You know what, I hate talking about Western Illinois this long. They at best will finish with 5 conference wins next season. I am still salty at their men’s soccer team; they flopped so much against Omaha that I thought maybe Manu Ginobli, Vlade Divac, and Derek Fisher took up coaching college soccer.
My wife is out of town for a conference and I heavily debated of traveling (alone) to Tulsa to see the Mavericks take on Oral Roberts; or to Macomb to see UNO Softball play Western Illinois, but I unfortunately decided to be responsible and to save money. Damn it, I brought up Western Illinois again. UNO softball at Western Illinois is actually on the radio this weekend…sayyyyy whaaaaat? 88.3 FM is apparently a station?
I was worried about the softball team for UNO this season because of the depth of the pitching, but they are staying alive so far thanks to the bats. Not saying the pitching has been awful between Laura Roecker and Abbie Clanton, but there are not a ton of options if the two of them are having a bad game or were to get hurt. Nine players hitting above .250 right now…Nine! That’s how many times Ferris Bueller unofficially missed class his senior year. Three players are in the top 10 in the Summit League in batting average. Oh and this team just beat Iowa State in Ames! The Mavs are also 159 in RPI right now which is 2nd in the Summit behind North Dakota State.
With just one conference loss, the Mavs are currently 2nd in the conference standings behind 6-0 North Dakota State. The Mavericks will end the regular season at North Dakota State and also still play 3rd place team South Dakota at home next weekend, so there is still a lot on the line for the Mavs as the two top seeds get byes in the conference tournament in Fargo.
Oh and per twitter, Caroline Hogue has left the women’s basketball team. Someone may need to let Jon Green cry on their shoulder for a while.
I do not know my capability of talking about college softball, but I will take a shot at it here.
I have learned a bit about college softball over the last few years, I did after all marry into it. The sport though has grown in popularity over the last decade, partially because of more exposure from ESPN, who tends to go on lazy mode from the NFL Draft to the NFL training camp. When the NBA dwindles down in games from the playoffs, and MLB is not in crunch time, college softball (and baseball) gets its shot on national television stage. More respect has been given to the softball athletes with segments being posted about how it is actually more difficult to hit an incoming softball pitch versus a baseball pitch, and other stuff. It has become more than just a Hey, That School Needs That For Title 9 thing, so for UNO going division one, and having softball as probably their most successful female sport, it is a great thing for the athletic program.
Anyway, here is a little background on my wife: She grew up in Washington state, played on travel softball teams with girls that went on to play at Arizona, Alabama, UCLA, Washington, Oregon State, Louisiana Tech, and others, some even went on to team USA. She played middle infield for much of her softball career, except for one travel team where she was moved to the outfield, but there was a future Olympian at shortstop, so she was cool with it. She valued her education more than sports, so she picked Belmont, a private university, over the likes of Kentucky, Columbia, and other various schools, oh and my wife also picked Belmont over Creighton. She often claims that her first coach in college at Belmont was “a dumb ass.” My wife has A LOT of speed, and her college coach tried to make her a slapper, but my wife claimed she did not see the ball as well as a slapper. She wanted to hit away, but was not given too many opportunities to do so under that coach.
Finally that coach was let go, and Amy Tudor became her head coach. You may know Tudor as the former coach of IPFW, who had the program in really good shape but had difficulty getting over North Dakota State, and she is now the head coach of Western Kentucky who has picked up wins over Nebraska and Tennessee so far this season. She took five players from IPFW with her and now the Mastadons are 0-23 so far this season. Anyway, at first, Tudor wanted to keep my wife as a slapper, but halfway through my wife’s junior season, she started to let her hit away and still tried to utilize her as a slapper a bit, but my wife started to take off and raised her hitting average by 30 percentage points.
Tudor brought new life to my wife’s college career, she won conference player of the week awards, became an All Academic player, and was chosen as the team captain. My wife needed the new spark, you see picking the education over a big name program came at a small price. The players on her team were not strongly committed to softball, and Nashville (and the south in general) is filled with a different type of casual female that is only going to college so they can meet their future husband and become a stay at home wife. The older players would discourage my wife for “caring too much” or being “too competitive,” and make other degrading remarks, trying to get her to not try as hard, and fit in with them and not be as good. They were like The Joker trying to bring Harvey Dent down to his and Batman’s level. Something my wife was not used to with growing up with highly competitive softball players, she did not understand how someone could call themselves a division one athlete and not be competitive. Even though my wife had a softball team around her, she felt completely isolated and alone while she was at Belmont. It is not like my wife hated or was hated by every single one of her teammates, there were some girls that tried and were competitive and some that she became great friends with and still maintains close friendships with. My wife at one point was in talks to transfer to some better programs, but Tudor came in and convinced her to stay, and at the end of the day Belmont was providing a fantastic education, and my wife wanted to think big picture. My wife’s senior year was the best year that Belmont ever had in softball, from a wins standpoint. Tudor would later have my wife as a volunteer assistant for one season at Belmont, and later highly recommended that she apply to be her assistant coach at IPFW, which was incredibly difficult for my wife to pass up. Do not worry, I would have never loved IPFW as if it were my own. Tudor provided some support for my wife’s college experience, something she did not necessarily have a lot of in her first two years. My wife also now coaches high school, just as a FYI. My wife watches every single Women’s College World Series game every single year, no matter how late the games go and no matter how early she has stuff to do in the morning. She watches every moment.
How does any of this relate to Allie Mathewson and UNO softball? Okay, part of that is to provide a frame of reference that it is not like I just thought, hey what the hell I will try to take up talking about softball for shits, but that I have grown to love the sport through the passion that my wife has for softball.
So one day I am looking in the Omaha World Herald, and I read an article to my wife about how a Creighton player is transferring to UNO. Oh neat! At the time I did not know a bunch about softball, just that my wife is far superior than me at it, but I was recognizing that Creighton was a better softball program at the time as far as division one history goes, I mean, it was after just one division one season from UNO. So for UNO to get a transfer from a slightly better program, was probably a big deal given their status at the time. My wife told me that Jeanne Scarpello is a quality coach, she has the tools and knowledge to build a successful program at the division one level. Before Tudor left IPFW, my wife was certain that North Dakota State, IPFW, and UNO were going to make for a very competitive threesome in the Summit League tournament in the future.
My wife is eventually asked to teach Softball Coaching Theories at UNO, and guess who is in one of her first classes… My wife comes to respect Mathewson as a student, learns more and more about her as a player too, my wife recognizes her as a leader as well. The World Herald comes out with a few more Mathewson articles over time, but there was one that caught our eyes, why she left Creighton, mostly on how the girls at Creighton were not committed to softball, did not take it seriously, basically took all the fun out of it for her, and how she felt isolated and alone. It is possible I have that wrong, I could not find the particular article again as a reference for the specifics. I think this literally brought my wife to pain, it sounded incredibly similar to her experience at Belmont, and from the sounds of it, Mathewson got out of the situation for a much better experience at UNO, my wife could feel Mathewson’s pain, and it was difficult for my wife to get through the article as it brought back her memories, and she felt completely happy for Mathewson and believed Mathewson made the right decision. After getting to know Mathewson better from a teacher-student standpoint, my wife was happy that Mathewson could find that support from the UNO program.
My wife and I went to attend Nebraska at UNO softball in the 2014 season. It was cold and super windy, but there was over 400 people in attendance. Sure most of them are there to see Nebraska softball, but people wanted to see what Mathewson, Campbell Ditto, and Amber Lutmer and the rest of the Mavs could do against the Husker ace Tatum Edwards, but none of them had great luck against Edwards that day, I remember a lot of first pitch swings from the Mavs. The Mavs only had one hit, and the Huskers figured out Dana Elsasser as the game went on.
When watching softball with my wife, the coach in her has a lot of “what were you thinking there”, “why swing at the pitch”, “the infielder did not go after that ball correctly,” she also recognizes the great plays and says things like “way to go getting that ball”, “that is a tough pitch to lay off of, get after it next time.” When watching UNO events that have her students playing my wife turns into a defensive soccer mom, “how dare the opposing player do something bad toward (student’s name)”, and her student can usually do no wrong in her eyes. Granted, this has mostly been in Hockey where she knows less about the sport, so when she sees someone try to fight her student, she pretty much stands up and gets in a defensive stance, like if the refs do not stop the fight, she will. So with Mathewson, I was curious if my wife the coach or if my wife the teacher/soccer mom would come out.
Mathewson steps up the box, and this is instantly where things got interesting. The crowd would shout to Husker players that batted in the top of the inning against Elsasser, positive and negative things, but no one talked for Mathewson’s first at bat, it was like everyone was giving respect to a golfer trying to focus in. They all read the World Herald stories, they all have an idea what Mathewson has gone through, and they all know of her .365 batting average. My wife even quietly says “oh, she has the same batting stance as me.” Her teammates go after her and the volume starts back up, people carrying on their casual conversation and cheers, but still paying attention to the game, young softball girls there to cheer on both the Mavericks and Huskers. Mathewson’s second at bat, the young softball girls that had seemed to lose a little interest in the game because of the weather tell each other to “shut up, Allie is up to bat!” Through the transition, has there been a player in any sport where the young kids would tell each other to shut up and watch?
I am still not sure if the coach or the teacher came out in my wife when Mathewson was up to bat. When Mathewson came up to bat or would track down a ball in the outfield for an out, my wife just said nothing. I think it was just respect, the coach in her had no critique. The teacher in her had the trust and confidence that she could handle herself.
Is Mathewson the best college softball player in the state of Nebraska? Maybe, maybe not, Liz Dike of Creighton is hitting .484 over 20 games so far…holy crap. And Kiki Stokes, Alicia Armstrong, and a few more Huskers are having solid years so far. With no Tatum Edwards, and basically Creighton fans not caring about sports after basketball season (they care when the CWS starts, because you know, their season tickets they never use become useful for once), Mathewson is definitely the most talked about college softball player in the state this season. For a transitioning program to have a player like that, is kind of a big deal. Her story is unique and she is a player people that know about softball want to see. The discussion that will come up with any star Mav athlete of Would She be that Good at Creighton is off the table because we have seen what she can do as a Bluejay, and that was apparently when she was not the same player off the field.
It appears that the Creighton softball program has picked up a little this season, after losing their momentum for a few years. But something I found interesting is the RPI of Creighton and UNO since the transition. 2012: CU-135, UNO-234, then Mathewson transfers and UNO gets a good recruiting class…2013: CU-87, UNO-71, 2014: CU- 117, UNO-69. That right there should start some conversation with local softball fans. Should I have opened with that? I think the Mathewson transfer hurt Creighton in a way, it shows that Creighton is not the bigger dog of the two programs to the local girls that are looking to stay local, that the two programs are an equal playing field. Did I just make Mathewson the Mockingjay? Or the Mockingmav? Or the…okay I will shut up.
I do not want this to be a Creighton against UNO thing, yeah they will both go after some of the same recruits, but they still have to turn those recruits into great players and great women for the future. Creighton (and Nebraska, North Dakota State, and others) can be a measuring stick for the growth of the Mavericks softball program. With a great coach in Jeanne Scarpello (I have seen her refer to herself as an average coach), who has a Division 2 National Title under her belt, and players like Mathewson, the program definitely has a solid foundation to build off going into a fully fledged D-1 member.
With just 2 2/3 years so far at UNO, Mathewson has impressed us all, and already ranks in the top 25 in a number of statistical categories for the history of the Mavericks, but just because Mathewson is the most talked about player in the state of Nebraska, it does not mean the Mavericks live and die off of her. Softball is a true team sport, it takes commitment and team work from all the players on the field. The fellow members of her senior class Kat Borrow and Tonya Peterson have been great for the Mavericks throughout their careers. It seems like Campbell Ditto is one of the best clutch hitters in the Summit League. Lia Mancuso has been great, she leads the team with a .329 batting average this season. Freshmen Kelly Pattison seems to be knocking down some clutch hits, and Jaylee Hinrichs already has a couple pitcher of the week awards in her young career.
From the sounds of it as well, UNO has a great 2015 recruiting class. I know that much of the talent in softball comes from the west coast and that is where many of the bigger programs go to recruit players. Look at any SEC roster, it is generally made up of west coast girls. The top team in the Summit, North Dakota State, 11 of the 17 girls on their softball roster are from the west coast. None of that means that there is not talent in the Midwest though, the best players in the area are certainly going to hear from Nebraska, Creighton, and UNO for sure among others, but rarely do you see a Pac 12 school come to Nebraska to recruit some softball talent. It does happen though, Oregon has Karissa Hovinga who played at Papillion. So UNO definitely has a chance at the top players in the area, every single year. In a different sport like basketball or volleyball, I think it would be difficult for UNO at this point to go up against Nebraska and Creighton for a top level athlete from the area. Softball though, with the rich Division 2 History UNO had, Jeanne Scarpello, and players like Mathewson, Elsasser, Lutmer, Mancuso, Carly Nielsen who transferred from Michigan State and others, if there is a top level athlete from the area, UNO has just as much of a chance to get that player as the two bigger names. In some cases, the Mavs have a much better chance, they already have gotten some of those players.
When UNO first made the transition, I needed a minute, or a week, to process it. A friend of mine asked me, is UNO going to be any good and which of their programs will be the quickest to a conference championship/NCAA tournament bid. I immediately and uncontrollably came out with baseball for the men and softball for the women…Men’s soccer and Golf were kind of wild cards though being that they were not even implemented yet though. The softball team was the first UNO team to pick up a win over Nebraska, they have had more opportunities, and that is not exactly how a program should measure success, but still… In the fall, my wife and I were playing co-rec slow pitch and I checked Twitter before the game and informed her that Mav softball beat the Huskers twice in fall ball. My wife’s response, which I am sure is shared by many Mav fans, “it is a damn shame that team is not eligible for post season yet.”
I bring up my wife’s reactions to the stories we read in the Omaha World Herald on Mathewson’s transfer because they are somewhat similar stories, but also because I think it is easy for sports fans to immediately get ignorant when a player transfers and automatically go to “oh they could not cut it at the bigger school.” Some fans think that sports should be everything to these kids. There are several different reasons why student athletes transfer, and some players never transfer and never get out of their bad situation. Mathewson could play at the level of Creighton, which at the time, was bigger than UNO’s level. I may sound like a broken record here with things I have mentioned about the basketball team, but can you think of a better player, and even combined with her teammates, to help build the foundation for a transitioning program moving forward? I find it unfortunate that things could not work out for her at Creighton, but as a UNO alumni and sports fan I am proud that UNO could take in such a quality athlete, and who sounds to be a great quality person and athlete, and provide a good quality softball home for her.
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