Several players from last summer’s Olympics in Beijing are in Oklahoma City this week for the World Cup of Softball and we asked some of them this question: If you could go before the IOC to make the case for softball to be included in the Olympics.
With the sport of softball in jeopardy for the 2016 Olympic Games, many newcomers like Alissa Haber must just keep playing.
Leading up to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the U.S. softball team made an appearance in the Bay Area for a pre-Olympic tune-up game. Among those in attendance was Alissa Haber.
Haber was about 10 at the time and had never even seen a college softball game before, much less a team of women preparing for the Olympics. She had been playing softball since she was 5 and idolized Michele Smith. Like Smith, Haber also was a pitcher at the time and both are lefties. Both liked to hit, too.
So Haber's parents purchased a special softball and they hoped Smith would sign it.
"I was so obsessed with the 2000 team,'' Haber said. "But I was so shy as a kid that I just stood in the corner, and I wouldn't get in the autograph line. My mom was so mad. She went up and got it signed herself.''
Smith went on to win her second Olympic gold medal in Sydney, and that same year, Haber's own Olympic dreams began to soar.
Fast forward to 2009.
Haber, who cringes at recanting that story, still has that autographed ball. And today, just as Smith did before her, Haber is out there signing autographs now.
A standout outfielder at Stanford with one year remaining before graduation, Haber is one of 10 new members of the current national team that will play in the KFC World Cup of Softball in Oklahoma City.
The event features the three nations that won Olympic medals in Beijing --- Japan (gold), United States (silver) and Australia (bronze) as well as fourth-place Canada. Team USA faces Netherlands tonight, and the gold-medal game is Monday. The top priority for Team USA is a rematch against Japan, which shocked the Americans by beating Team USA, 3-1, and winning the gold medal in Beijing. All of the games will be televised live on ESPN.
This should be the best time of Haber's life --- playing for one of the best teams in the world and finally reaching the national-team level just as Smith once did. And in many respects, it is.
"It's been everything I thought it would be and more," Haber said.
But it's also an awkward time for Haber, and many of the newcomers, to be part of the team. The reality is that her sport's future is in jeopardy. It is not on the Olympic slate for the 2012 Games in London, and a vote will take place in August to determine whether the sport will be reinstated for the Games in 2016.
Haber doesn't remember exactly where she was when the news broke that her sport was being thrown out of the Games, but she remembers exactly what emotions she experienced.
"When softball was first taken out, I did the math in my head,'' Haber said. "I had always determined when I was younger that I was going to go to the Olympics in 2012. I didn't think I'd have a chance to make it in 2016. I was blown away. The sport had been gaining so much momentum, and things had been going the right way for me. I got accepted to the junior team. As soon as I heard the news, I thought, 'Oh no, I've lost my chance.' I'm part of a lost generation.''
That didn't stop her from playing the sport; nor did she stop trying to persuade other young women from playing.
Now I'm on the national team, and it's exciting to be a part of the national team and to try to put softball back in the Olympics,'' Haber said. "It might not happen for me. I have one year left in school and who knows what will happen in the future? It almost feels like there's a second generation of trailblazers.''
The first generation, which included Smith, helped get the sport into the Olympics back in 1996 when Team USA struck gold in Atlanta.
This second generation, with many young players like Haber, has the challenge of making sure the sport's last trip to the Olympics in Beijing wasn't its final one.
As much as the Olympics are on her radar, she and the rest of the national team rookies also have the challenge of playing amongst some of their idols. Smith has long since retired, but Haber can't help but be somewhat starry eyed when she dons her Team USA uniform or finds herself sitting in the same van with Olympic gold medalist Jennie Finch at the wheel. The veterans --- all eight of them --- have been welcoming, she said, but it was still difficult to feel comfortable amidst so much talent.
"I remember was I extremely nervous at the beginning,'' said Haber, as she recalled her first tryout with the team earlier this summer at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif. "Everyone is telling you that you belong, that they believe in you. But in the back of your mind, you still feel like you're the worst player out there. All I could think was, 'Don't boot it. Don't boot it.' You're afraid that if you have a bad practice, that there is someone else waiting to take your spot.''
She didn't boot the ball in the field, but she left the field with a raging headache from all the stress.
This is a team, after all, that has a history of major success. The team reeled off gold medals in 1996, 2000 and 2004 before ending up with a silver last summer.
"The big goal is to win the gold medal every time we take the field,'' coach Jay Miller said. "That's ultimately what we're about as a program. We want to continue that and, more importantly, we want to get better individually for our players and we want to get better as a team, bottom line.''
That's something the returning players such as pitchers Jennie Finch and Cat Osterman and shortstop Natasha Watley --- all of whom were on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team that won gold in Athens --- understand. Other seasoned players on the team are Monica Abbott, Andrea Duran, Vicky Galindo, Lauren Lappin and Caitlin Lowe, who represented the United States at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and earned silver medals.
Those Olympians now are trying to pass on their experience to a group of newcomers yearning for national and international experience. In addition to Haber, the newcomers are catcher Chelsea Bramlett, pitcher Katie Burkhart, infielder Ashley Charters, outfielder Kaitlin Cochran, utility player Ashley Hansen, catcher Ashley Holcombe, infielder Jenae Leles, pitcher Stacey Nelson and outfield Brittany Rogers.
One of the biggest adjustments Charters said she had to make was sharing the field with new teammates since she had grown accustomed to playing with the same players for so long on her college squad at the University of Washington. Now she is on the same roster with players that previously, she had only seen on TV.
Charters said she tried to watch all of Team USA's games during the 2008 Olympics, even if she had to get up at the wee hours of the morning to catch those games. Still, it's one thing to watch them on TV and quite another to play alongside them.
For Haber, following in big cleats is nothing new. After all, this is a woman who decided to go to Stanford so she could play for the same team where another one of her idols, two-time Olympic medalist Jessica Mendoza, played.
"She hit a home run in one game, and you were supposed to give back the balls afterward,'' Haber said. "But I ran out to the bushes to get that ball, and I hid it.''
Haber had Mendoza sign that ball, too, and later relayed the story to her. Now the two are friendly. Even though Mendoza, who played on the gold-medal winning team in Athens in 2004 and the silver-medal team in Beijing in 2008, is no longer playing with the national team, she periodically offers Haber some tips on hitting.
"I try to model the way I hit the ball after the way she did,'' Haber said. "At least I try to. Whenever I see her, she gives me positive reinforcement and talks to me about hitting.''
Hitting isn't the only thing for which she emulates Mendoza. The former outfielder also has been at the forefront of the BackSoftball campaign, traveling to Switzerland and meeting with Olympic officials to get her sport back in the fold.
"I wish I could do half the things she does,'' Haber said. "I idolize her on and off the softball field.''
Finch has also been a source of support. Even though Haber is a college student and Finch is a veteran player, Olympic gold medalist and mother, they have found they have a lot in common.
"Before, I put her on a pedestal,'' Haber said. "Before, I didn't think we would have much to talk about, not at all. It's been awesome getting to know her. She really is a mother figure to the team.''
Haber said the team is like a "second family,'' and said the older and younger players jell pretty well. Many of the players have Facebook and Twitter accounts and are interacting with each other even when they aren't on the field together.
And this new group of trailblazers isn't about to let this sport go up in flames. In fact, these newcomers are doing everything in their power to improve upon their own talent and to keep on winning. They watch players like Finch sign autographs for the very last fan in the stadium after a game and know it's their job to keep that fan-friendly tradition alive themselves. After all, who knows if the next Alissa Haber will be sitting in those stands in the ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City this weekend?
Haber isn't sure what her future or the future of her sport holds. And she laughed when a reporter suggested maybe she will pick up another sport to keep her Olympic quest alive.
Archery, perhaps?
"No, no, no,'' Haber said with a laugh. "I wish I was that talented. I was thinking more like rhythmic gymnastics or table tennis.''
Then her tone changes to a more serious one.
"But even if I don't get a chance in 2016, maybe someone else will,'' she said.
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