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Sophmore shortstop Jodi Reeves fires up before a home game. |
The crowd traded Aggie jokes like baseball cards as 12-year-old Leianna Pe�a searched the stands, program hoisted over her head and a grin pasted to her face. Selling the $1 programs insures her free admittance to watch her favorite player, Angie Scharnhorst, at every game, and she wasn’t about to miss this one against villainized A&M. A few feet away, UT senior Lucas Strom warmed up his throwing arm. His job is hurling T-shirts to the fans for every UT strikeout, and today’s starter has made a habit of ensuring the loyal throngs depart well-outfitted. As Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” pumped over the loudspeaker and the late-day sun kissed the grass field (no artificial turf here), the 23 members of the nationally ranked University of Texas softball team gathered in a circle outside the dugout with their coaches. Half of them locked their hands together and rolled their arms back and forth in a break-dance “wave.” The others followed their lead, laughing and executing hip-hop moves that confirmed they made the right choice when they chose softball over dance class. It was a lighthearted moment that belied the intensity of the game they were about to play.
Every once in a while there is a kind of communion that takes place between a sports team and its loyal followers, and Red & Charline McCombs Field is playing host to such a communion this spring. But it’s more than the sparkling new facility or even the winning record that has fans so inspired. Despite the top-10 ranking, its Olympic gold medal-owning pitcher, its $4 million stadium – replete with a big league style scoreboard and rock anthems to welcome each player to the plate – this is a team with a kind of recreation-league love for the game, an appreciation for their fans, and an enthusiasm for one another that is evident in almost every play.
Between the chants in the dugout and the jigs in the outfield, something becomes clear that shouldn’t be as stunning as it is: This team is having fun.
Fun.
When these talented athletes turn to the stands and invite the crowd to join them, even the most jaded sports fan can’t help but be swept up in their spell. Example: the fifth inning of the A&M game. The Longhorns were at bat, with two outs and runners at the corners. Suddenly the cheer erupted from the dugout: “Texas!” The crowd stopped munching their hot dogs and shouted back: “Fight!”
“Texas!” The call from the bench grew more passionate as junior Nikki Cockrell stepped up to the plate. “Fight!” the deep voices of grown men and shrill screams of pre-teen girls answered. Cockrell, who transferred from A&M after playing in College Station her freshman year, had struck out and hit into a double play her first two at-bats. The chant grew more fervent, as if the fans knew that if they cheered hard enough they could help shake her from her slump. On cue, Cockrell ripped a double to the left field wall, driving in two runs. The team and fans exploded in euphoria as the team pulled ahead 3-0.
“Gosh, we do have fun,” Cockrell gushed later.
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UT softball coach Connie Clark coaches a batter. |
Make no mistake, its much easier to have fun when you’re winning, and this team has won often this season. Currently ranked ninth in the country, the Longhorns stand at 41-12. This team wants to win it all – but they are determined to have a blast on the road to the May 21-25 College World Series in Oklahoma City.
“Each of us believes we can be the best team in the nation,” said sophomore shortstop Jodi Reeves. “It’s not just something our coaches say to us and we all think, `Yeah, right, whatever.’ We feel it in our hearts. We know we can.”
In many ways, it’s a far cry from three years ago when UT softball was a mixed bag of expertise playing on East Austin’s Roy Velasquez, Sr. Youth Complex and only managed to eke out a single win in their first 24 games. But then again, in many respects, it is exactly the same.
“I have very fond memories of our club team,” says head coach Connie Clark. “The best thing about that team was they got excited about everything. They had one uniform and they loved it.”
Now the Longhorn softball team has both home and road jerseys (not to mention burnt-orange scrunchies courtesy of one player’s grandma). But while the talent level escalated quickly in two seasons, the heart of that first team remains intact under the leadership of Clark. It is Clark who sets the tone for the team’s “loose intensity,” allowing them the occasional game of Frisbee football in practice and keeping their proclivity for perfectionism from eating them up inside.
“If we have a weakness, it’s that we get inside our heads too much, think too much,” admits outfielder Jane Teixeira. “We don’t play well when we do that, so it’s important for us to have fun. We play better that way.”
Back before she was coach, Clark won a national championship and was named player of the year in 1986 at Cal-State Fullerton. After spending five years as an assistant at Florida State, UT hired her in June 1995 and gave her eight months to field a team. That first year, Clark lived on the phone, trying to lure players to an infant team with no home field, offering them the opportunity to be part of history. “That first year I was selling the tradition of the University of Texas, which luckily is one of the easier things to sell,” she said. The second year of UT softball – its first as a Division I team, they posted a record of 30-24, surprising for a young team still without a home field. The palace, misleadingly dubbed “Red’s Shed,” was still under construction. Clark said she brought prospective players to the construction site, showed them the artist’s rendering, and asked them to imagine playing in the country’s premier softball venue. It didn’t take too much convincing.
“They showed me a picture of the field and I was sold,” said freshman pitcher Charla Moore.
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Olympic gold medalist Christa Williams |
Fans were expecting great things after last season’s turnaround; the addition of UCLA transfer Christa Williams had them dreaming of a national championship. But there were also whispers of concern that the team might be getting a prima donna, a star who could change the team’s character. Those concerns quickly evaporated when they met the earnest 20-year-old with the aforementioned killer change-up.
“I remember over the summer, we heard we were getting this Olympic pitcher. We were excited, but we also didn’t know what to expect,” said junior Katie Penders, one of the team’s founding players. “You know, some girls with her level of experience might act like they’re better than the rest of us. But that’s not Christa. She’s such an easy person to respect. She brings a level of experience to this team that is unique and she’s such an awesome person.”
Catcher Scharnhorst said she was thrilled to find in Williams not only a great pitcher, but a kindred spirit who shares her love for the game. “We click, because we’re a lot alike. We seem to be on the same wavelength a lot of the time,” said Scharnhorst. This wavelength is crucial to the Longhorn organization, as Scharnhorst and Williams’ pitching strategy stuns batters, thrills fans, and wins games.
Interestingly enough, Williams’1996 Olympic Gold Medal team can take some credit for the enthusiasm of one of the NCAA’s fastest-growing sports. The win in Atlanta inspired many of the young girls – now fixtures in the stands – leading the cheers in their rec-league uniforms.
Kari Anderson, 11, was just one of the scores of little girls waiting for an autograph after UT’s 4-0 victory over the Aggies. The young pitcher and first-baseman bugged her parents for weeks to take her to McCombs Field to see Williams pitch. They finally relented. “She’s so much fun to watch, ’cause she never gives up,” insisted Anderson. “She’s just really good.” No need to tell the Aggies. Williams went the distance this day, allowing only four hits and striking out 11. Cockrell and freshman Trisha Tatro each had a double and two RBIs.
“[Christa’s] been a real boost to us,” says Clark. “She’s got a real desire to win and a level of experience this team is really benefiting from. She’s teaching us how to win.”
Growing up in Houston, Williams didn’t take up softball after watching a gold-medal victory. Her dad – a coach for a local team – just needed a good arm. “She was nine years old, I was her coach, and I didn’t have a pitcher,” recalls her father Ed Williams. “I said, `Christa, you do it.’ She was stuck.” But Williams quickly became one of the country’s best, leading her J. Frank Dobie High School to state titles in 1993 and ’95. She posted a career record of 89-6 with an earned-run average of 0.01 and was the most sought-after high school player in the nation. She chose legendary UCLA, and guided the Bruins to the title game last season before losing to Arizona. When UCLA found itself facing possible sanctions from the NCAA for rules violations, Williams decided to transfer back home to Texas and be a part of new history in “Red’s Shed.”
“I love it here; I love this team,” said Williams. “I just wasn’t happy at UCLA.”
While aware of her talent, Williams talks about it as if it was merely a fact about herself, like her hair color or her height. Vital statistics. Nothing special. She is intense and stone-faced on the mound, but frequently breaks the intensity with a slow, sly smile after a solid inning. She delights in setting up batters and rallying the home crowd.
“You go out there and throw the first pitch as hard as you possibly can and when it pops the catcher’s glove and the crowd goes, `Wooooo!’ Man, you’re just set.”
Williams has been making the crowd go `Wooooo!’ a lot this season. Williams is number two in the nation in strikeouts per game (11.5) and her 0.42 ERA is the second-best in the country. Earlier this season she went 64 consecutive innings without a single earned run and has recorded 12 complete-game shutouts so far. Her fastball has been clocked at 70mph and her off-speed stuff frequently inspires descriptions like “wicked” and “evil” as it creeps across the plate. All this from a pitcher who insists she hasn’t “peaked yet this season.” She says she tries to see every accomplishment as a challenge to do something more – a lesson she learned from her Olympic teammates.
The crowd stood in the stands, wildy trying to attract the attention of Lucas Strom. “Throw it here! Throw it here!” they shouted. “C’mon, you haven’t thrown any shirts over here yet!” Strom teased one group of fans with a fake throw before hurling the 11th white T-shirt of the night to another part of the stands. An11th orange “K” was hung on the fence above the dugout. Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” chided from the loudspeakers.
“Everyone on your feet and cheer for Texas!” a boisterous man hollered from the top row of the bleachers. Williams was an out away from win number 20 – an out away from breaking the UT pitching record for the most single-season victories (the previous record of 19 belonged to baseball’s Jim Gideon and Greg Swindell). Far more important was the fact that the Longhorns, after dropping three games to their rivals last season, finally were going to get revenge on the Aggies before 1,251 fans. As Williams noted the day before at practice, personal achievements take a back burner to team efforts: “I guess you could get a big head about it, but this team isn’t about individual athletics. It’s about chemistry,” – chemistry that this season has created a pretty strong bond to its fans, especially its youngest ones.
After the game, Leianna Pe�a stood on the field, slightly apart from kids swarmed around waiting for Scharnhorst to sign their programs. Pe�a looked up at the now-empty stands and back at the longhorn painted in the outfield, dreaming of the day she would take her place crouched behind home plate, waiting for heat. And she smiled.
This article appears in April 24 • 1998 and April 24 • 1998 (Cover).