WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (March 19, 2008) – When two-time Olympic gold medalist Michele Smith is asked why she chooses to teach softball to Little Leaguers and their coaches, her answer is as simple as it is honest, “If you volunteer to give your time, you can make a difference in a child’s life.”
Ms. Smith and Team USA won softball gold at the Atlanta and Sydney Summer Olympic games (1996 and 2000), but those accomplishments are just a couple of the highlights from an inspiring sports career that begin at five years old.
“For me, my passion for softball was set when I was young,” Ms. Smith said. “I played other sports, but when I look back on my childhood, I remember how much fun I had playing softball. I want to share that feeling and help young players learn to love the sport.”
For five years, through the support of Musco Lighting, Ms. Smith has conducted a series of softball clinics for Little League coaches, managers, and league officials. This year, five clinics were held at various locations throughout the United States.
Teaching proper softball techniques and mechanics are fundamentals that Ms. Smith continues to profess in her clinics, and refine during her professional season in Japan. A 15-year veteran, eight-time league most valuable player and league champion, playing for the Japan Pro League’s Toyota Shokki, Ms. Smith is a standout pitcher, but also has played first base, right field and been her team’s designated hitter.
“I’ve seen a big surge in softball since the early 1990s,” Ms. Smith, a graduate of Oklahoma State University, said. “Most people in the United States know we have a great college softball system and Olympic teams, but there aren’t many options for players after college.”
Ms. Smith encourages mothers of players, and women in general, to become involved in softball regardless of their knowledge or the level of play. As the education and training has improved more men have entered the sport as coaches and managers, and Ms. Smith feels that participation by women will produce similar coaching and mentoring opportunities.
Recently, the sport was dealt a setback by the same organization that had brought such prominence to USA softball only a decade ago. In 2005, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to eliminate baseball and softball as Olympic sports following this summer’s Olympics in Beijing, China.
Baseball and softball will not be contested at the 2012 games in London, and the sports will need to re-apply for admission to the 2016 games. They are the first sports cut from the Olympics since polo in 1936.
“I am proud to say that the training and coaching of amateur softball players is getting better, but for the IOC to pull both baseball and softball out of the Olympics after this year doesn’t bode well for either sport,” Ms. Smith, who played in the first Olympic Softball game on July 21, 1996, said. “Softball often gets lumped in with baseball, but it is a distinctly separate game. Major League Baseball will survive without the Olympics, but for softball, the Olympics are our Major League-level stage.”
Reflecting on the success of the Little League Softball clinics, along with the general growth in the number of children playing in the softball program, Ms. Smith is encouraged by the direction and development of young softball players, but she also is leery of the “burnout factor.”
In all of her clinics, Ms. Smith stresses the importance of practice, preparation and fundamentals, while still tempering her talks with the reminder that moderation and balance are not to be taken for granted.
“I encourage players to become great in many sports, but it is important to remember they are only children,” Ms. Smith, also a standout scholastic basketball and field hockey player, said. “Nowadays, by the time a player is 14 years old, she has been going non-stop for half her life, and she needs a break.
“I have seen a lot of parents who push too much and too hard,” she said. “Those are the ones who are never satisfied with a performance and always want more. Softball players peek in their late 20s or early 30s, so to expect to a player to be great at 12, 13 or 14 shows that too often parents forget they these are just kids.”
The months of December through March are the off-season for the Japan Pro League. Despite returning to her home in Treasure Island, Fla., the Plainfield, N.J., native continues to think softball and cross-train, while enjoying other diversions like boating, fishing and cycling.
Ms. Smith, now 40, is leaning toward 2008 being her last in professional softball, yet she still sees her future revolving around training and educating future generations of softball players, coaches and managers.
“I have thought about coaching in college, but working under NCAA rules would limit my ability to do my own thing with clinics and camps,” she said. “I like working with kids independently.”
Teaching the game of softball often means overcoming the comparison to baseball. It has been Ms. Smith’s experience, that people are becoming more educated about the nuances between the sports, but unfortunately too many still considered the two to be alike.
Trying to making softball more fan-friendly for the purpose of making it marketable to corporate America also has compromised the sport in her eyes.
“Purists don’t mind 1-0 or 2-1 games,” Ms. Smith said. “Scoring more runs may sell more tickets, but I don’t know if it is helping the sport. The game, at its root, is predicated on pitching and defense, and it becomes compromised when too much focus is on offense.”
There have been several attempts at selling professional softball to the American sporting public, but to date, no pro league has a network or nationwide cable television contract. The National Pro Fastpitch League (NPFL) is the most prominent league in the U.S. and several years ago, Ms. Smith did play in the Women’s Professional Softball League which is now the NPFL.
“Today’s softball fans are in the families of the players,” Ms. Smith said. “For me, the pride and passion I feel for my sport and my country have come from representing the United States.
“I think it’s important to remember how fortunate we are to have opportunities to play,” Ms. Smith said. “Playing for my country helped teach me about national pride and feeds my passion for the United States. Even simpler than that is the sense of pride that comes with putting on the uniform, whether it says ‘USA,” the name of your high school or your Little League team.”
Little League Baseball and Softball is the world’s largest organized youth sports program, with nearly 2.7 million players and one million adult volunteers in every U.S. state and scores of other countries. In the United States, more than 350,000 children, ages 5-to-18, play Little League Softball.
