42

This is probably the most inspirational and amazing sports story of all time, and if you don't know what im talking about, shame on you. The first African American man to play in Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson, wore the number 42, the only number to be retired by all of the MLB teams. He played on the Brooklyn Dodgers, starting in 1947 and ending his career 9 years later. 

In 1947, the United States was still dealing with racism. Everything was segregated, and Jackie was a very lucky man to get the opportunity that he did. We have Branch Rickey to blame for that. He wanted to bring African American players up into the MLB. Now as you can imagine, this didn't make too many people happy. It even took a while for Jackies teammates to warm up to him. Rickey had to trade 2 players to a different team because they refused to play with Jackie. 

Jackie faced teams that were looking to injur him. Pitchers purposely threw balls at his head, runners cleared him, and coaches belittled him. He had to really worry about this in the south. Clouds booed him, umpires called unfair calls for him, and even got kicked off of the field by a cop in the middle of a game. This never stopped Jackie. Jackie was incredibly fast, and whenever he got on base, he would dance around on the bases and get in the pitchers head. In his career, he had 197 stolen bases. That is incredible! He even stole home a few times. How do you even do that? He was amazing. Now at first, these coaches and fans were getting in his head, and it was affecting how he hit. Finally, He got in the groove, and it seemed like he was always on base. He had a career total of 137 home runs. 

Another problem Jackie faced was that the hotels his team was staying at wouldn't let him stay there. Eventually, none of his team could stay in the hotels. A lot of his teammates were very upset at him. 

There is a movie based off of Jackies story called 42, and it is just about the greatest thing you will ever watch. I get goosebumps everytime I watch it and it never gets old. Sports stories like his are the best to hear about. It makes you appreciate a lot more and it makes you work harder. I suggest that every single person on the planet watches the movie, 42, I promise you it will benefit you in some way. 

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The Magnificent Seven

How many people know what I'm talking about right now? Probably no one but you all should. The Magnificent 7 are the 7 female gymnasts that won the gold in Olympic Women's gymnastics for the first time in United States history in 1996. The girls who made up the team were Amy Chow, Amanda Borden, Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Jaycie Phelps, and Kerri Strug.  They were the best shot at an Olympic team gold, but had to battle Russia and Romania, the two-time world champions. Just a little background info, for each team, you were aloud to have up to 7 gymnasts, but only 6 could compete per apparatus, and only 5 scores counted to your team score. The gymnasts routines were judged based on a 10 point scale, by 6 judges, all from different countries.

The women started the competition off behind Russia by only 1 tenth of a point. This didn't stop the young Americans. The first event the U.S. was on was the uneven bars, the strongest event they had. The Russians were on vault, Romanians on balance beam, and Ukraine on floor excersise. The Americans had Jaycie Phelps, Kerri Strug, Dominique Moceanu, Amy Chow, Shannon Miller, and Dominique Dawes competing for the first event. What happened next? Every single gymnast nailed their routines, earning a collective score of 48.736, which is tremendous. This is the reason the Americans pushed ahead of the Russians. 

Next event, Balance Beam. Competing for this event was Amanda Borden, Jaycie Phelps, Kerri Strug, Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, and Dominique Moceanu. They earned a collective score of 47.551, pulling even further ahead of Russia. 

Next up, floor excersise. The same 6 gymnasts competed for this apparatus. Shannon Miller had the only error of the gymnasts, but every other teammate nailed their routines. They earned a collective score of 48.761. Russia was inching it's way back up to the Americans.

Last but not least, the vault. This is where the nail biting begins. Phelps, Chow, Miller, Dawes, Moceanu, and Strug were the vaulters for the U.S. The first 4 gymnasts nailed their vaults, and it was up to Moceanu to seal the deal. All she needed was a 9.430 to secure the gold medal. First vault, she under rotates as lands on her butt. Second vault, she under rotates again and does the same thing, only earning a score of 9.2. This meant that Kerri Strug needed to deliver. First vault, she does the same exact thing as Moceanu, excepts seriously sprains her ankle. Pushing through to the second vault, she nails it, sticks the landing, and then had to be carried off the mat because of her ankle. The United States did it. They won the 1996 Women's Olympic Championship, with a full point lead over Russia! 

This is probably some of the best gymnastics I have ever seen in my life. Nothing compares to the moment when Kerri stuck her second vault, one footed. It is amazing what these young women could do, and it is a very inspirational story. 

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Softball vs. Baseball

Well I bet you already know what my point of view on this is going to be, considering I am a girl and I play softball, but I understand that both sports have harder aspects to them. Do I think that softball is a harder sport that baseball, yes it has been scientifically proven, but that's not what this post is about. I am going to be comparing certain things like ball size, baselines, etc.
I guarantee you most people think that softball and baseball are practically the same thing, but to be honest, there is only a few aspects that are the same. For example, a softball is bigger and yellow, and a baseball is little and white. This actually factors into a lot of different things like distance from the pitchers mound to the home plate, distances between bases, and the length of the whole field. With a smaller ball, the ball is going to be thrown a lot faster. This means that a baseball pitchers mound is a lot farther away from home plate than softball. For baseball it is 60.5 feet, and for softball it is 43 feet. Yes that is quite a difference, but if you think about it, a pitch going 70 MPH from 43 feet away is the equivalent to 98 MPH from 60.5 feet (those are scary fast!). Also, since the ball is smaller in baseball, the ball will get hit harder. The baseline for baseball is 90 feet, and softball is 60 feet (making softball much faster paced but that's beside the point). I think baseball is harder in the aspect of covering ground. The outfield is ridiculously huge and I give props to the outfielders in baseball. The downside in having such a huge field is that the game is a lot slower. You have to be really quick when fielding a ground ball in the infield because even a moderately fast girl is going to beat out the throw. In baseball, the infielders could take a lunch break and still throw the batter out. 

Another huge difference to these games is that in baseball, a pitch is thrown over hand, and in softball, it is thrown underhand. There are advantages to throwing underhand, like making the ball rise( hardest pitch to hit of ever let me tell you!). Baseball pitchers can't throw a rise ball. 

As far as rules go, they are exactly the same. So you could definitely argue that baseball is harder than softball or vice versa, but they are built off of the same idea. Plus we all know softball is harder so there is not argument needed here! 

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Crossfit: is the feeling of death worth it?

Crossfit is probably one of the most rigorous things I have ever participated in, but holy cow it makes you 10 times stronger than you were before. It may feel like you are dying during the workout, but it is totally worth it in the end. 

This year, I am doing crossfit with a few girls from the track and field team. We joined a 3 month program that is on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday for an hour(and no we don't go to those crazy crossfit competitions for insanely buff people). For the first 2 weeks, we learned form on our lifting during the first half hour of class. These lifts include power/full hang cleans, power/full hang snatch, clean and jerk, front squat, box squat, sumo squat, and probably 20 more lifts. When we hit the 3rd week, we went to the regular workout. The workout would consist of one primary lift that you would do a certain amount of reps on. For example, we would do 3 clean and jerks every other minute on the minute for 10 minutes. That would mean doing 3 clean and jerks in 1 minute, and then a 1 minute break period. After that, we would go to the WOD(that means workout of the day which I just figured out like yesterday) which are always very VERY difficult. They are circuits of different workouts that you either have a time limit to do a certain number, or you do as many rounds as possibly in a certain time cap. For example, tomorrow we are doing a 5 rounds of 400 meter runs and 15 overhead squats in a time cap of 18 minutes. This is one of the easier workouts. The hardest workout I've had to do so far was 50 box jumps, 50 jumping pull ups, 50 kettle bell swings, 50 walking lunge steps, 50 knees to elbows, 50 push press, 50 back extensions, 50 wall balls, 50 burpees, and 50 double unders in a time cap of 30 minutes. I'm pretty sure I died after that workout. 

I know that crossfit is working for me because my hang clean max has improved 15 pounds and my squat max has improved 10 pounds. It may be very extremely terribly hard, but it is very worth it if you stick it out. 

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Recruiting: such a frustrating thing

One of the most frustrating things going on in my life right now is recruiting. There are so many rules to keep track of and it's hard to know what to do! Hopefully I can help you out a little from this post.

Now recruiting might be different for other sports, but for softball, a D1 and D2 coach can't contact you until after the July of your junior year. But how do people verbally commit to schools when they are freshman and sophomores? They start the recruiting process very early on and they know that they need to get in contact with the recruiting coordinator. Another thing you must do is get a NCAA Clearinghouse. I think this goes for all sports. A D1/D2 college coach can't talk to you until you have that done!  It's a little different at a D3 school, they can contact you the August after your sophomore year, so it is not as complicated. 

One thing that has helped me is getting the help of a recruiting website. I use a website called CaptainU. You make a profile with all of your stats and accomplishments for any college coach to see. It also provides you with a list of things that will help you get started on the recruiting process. You add the colleges you potentially want to go to, and CaptainU keeps track of everything you are doing to get recruited by the school. It prompts you to send emails(which almost every single college coaches email is there) and even tells you when they open the email and if they reply. Don't get discouraged if they don't reply, because they legally may not be able to talk to you yet. In order to get a coaches attention, you have to be overly obnoxious! Send them email after email about what you are working on, if there are any camps you can attend, why your interested in going to their school, and even how your grades are. It's important to a college coach that you get good grades. If a coach sends you information about a camp, go to it! It's very important that you show yourself off the the coaches as much as possible! After the camp, don't be shy and go talk to the head coach. If you introduce yourself to them personally(and confidently) they will remember you! 

Once a college coach has decided they are interested in you, they get you set up with the recruiting coordinator. This is the point that I am at, so I am not quite sure what comes next. I do know that the college coach is going to come watch you play at anything and everything they can come to, so be on your best behavior!

A few tips for when a college coach is watching you:

1. Be a good teammate. Encourage them and pick them up when you are down. 

2. Don't get upset at yourself. If you make a mistake, you can't let it affect you. If a college coach sees that it affects you, they will almost always walk away.

3. It may not seem important, but make sure you have a quality warmup. You never know when a college coach is watching. If they see you being lazy in a warmup, they will not come watch you play in a real game. 

4. Be respectful to your coaches, teammates, and even your parents. A college coach will walk away if you act rudely towards anyone. 

5. BE A TEAM PLAYER! This is probably the most important. If you are all about yourself and it shows, there is no chance you are going to get recruited. It is more important to a coach that you're a good teammate rather than a good player. You can always teach someone how do play a sport, but you can't teach them to be a team player.

I hope this post is helpful to you guys. I know it would have helped me! Good luck to you all who are in the recruiting progress and see you soon!

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