06/22/2025
My love. My girls. My family. ❤️🥎🖤
The ending of an era.
While we don’t know what the future holds, I have made the difficult decision to take some time to catch my breath and focus on my family. This job was one of my most prized opportunities but the sacrifice my kids and my husband have had to make for it to succeed have been hard.
Coaching is my calling, I may not be the best one you’ll ever have, but I promise you I will adapt and learn with you. Teaching and training kids with so many personalities has taught me more than I have probably ever taught them. It has been thousands of hours of voluntary and often undervalued time spent sharing my love of the game with these girls. I have heard praise from onlookers and I’ve heard disgusting comments from the bleachers, but never once has it affected my goal here. It’s creating a healthy environment for kids to join a family and understand that they will always be more than a score or an umpires judgement call, or what someone else perceives them to be.
I couldn’t have done this without the coaches and volunteers who invested so much of their time along side me. I couldn’t have done this without the support from every one of the parents that trusted me to develop their kids fundamentally and emotionally. To be their role model and mentor.
My ultimate goal here was not to chase championships. It was the process. The progress. The battle is so much more fun to me than a victory. If you played for me you know I don’t expect anything but what I know is your best. You can lose a game and make errors without getting punished. But you will absolutely not go down without a fight and will not show defeat if you do.
I don’t remember any of the scores. That really was a shock to some people. I do remember watching your child fail over and over again completely discouraged, until they finally understood this is a game of adjustments. I redirected them to make an adjustment and showed them a way to move the ball faster. Or hit the ball harder. Kids are visual these days. They need more than a coach to yell “keep your eye on the ball.” I built a trust with them and stood beside them until they were successful. When they finally made that play or got that hit, it was like I was living my softball career through them all over again. They have made me so proud. So dang proud. They have surprised me. They have defeated me. I have wiped tears and established a no cry policy, but sometimes I wanted to just cry with them. It’s always been more than a game to me. It’s the character, the handling adversity, the body language, the having your teammates back before they even know they need it, and the mental toughness that I tirelessly drilled into their tiny bodies.
I know they will continue to do all things they set their mind to because they showed up and I watched it unfold for the past 2 years. I had to give them some lessons of tough love but they walked off that field knowing I will always have their back. I’ve repaired more broken hearts than I’d care to admit from toxic coaching and brought back a love they thought they lost. I tried to give them an environment to take reads on their own even if they get out. I’ll tell you the better way to do it next time.
I hope you all know what impact you have had on me and grown my love for this game. It is time for me to give my kids the training they need instead of the exhausted version of me. My husband is tired of carrying me in the house when I can’t walk from the garage,wiping my tears of defeat, and watching me stay up until 3 a.m before a tournament planning.
This is a family and always will be a family. If you trusted me with your child, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you let your child pick up to help us out. Thank you. The mentors and the relationships I’ve made on this journey will always hold a big piece of my heart.
I will still utilize my talents and share my love of this game, but I will get to leave the park and not have to lose sleep over all the behind the scenes work that goes into this.
So to all my girls that I have stepped on my field, in my jersey, on my team the last 2 years… I love you and will always be your biggest fan.
Remember hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. You may get beat but you better never get out hustled.
Until we meet again… ❤️🥎🖤
•Coach Jessica
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