Hearts and Souls

Softball is not just a sport. On the contrary, it is far from it. It is a wavelength for young women to strive for excellence, and excellence that cannot be obtained in a classroom or on a PlayStation 2. It is an outlet for leadership, teamwork, sportsmanship, and skill. I do not play softball. I used to when I was younger, but sports were never my "thing". My cousins, however, are as dedicated to sports as I am to writing. While my one cousin's baseball is important, since softball is the talk of the town I'll skip him and go straight to his sister: the closest thing I have to a sister. My cousin (we'll call her "Kait" because if she reads this she'll kill me for using her real name) is eight months younger than me. We've been like sisters despite the fact that we look nothing alike, despite the fact that our interests aren't even similar, and despite the fact that I went to public school and she went to Catholic school. Kait is the most dedicated person I know. She plays softball all year round. Winter, spring, summer, and fall, she's practicing or playing or both. When softball was taken out of the Olympics, she might not have openly reacted, but I could tell that she was hurt. Her one chance at taking the torch of Olympic fame from Jennie Finch would never happen. And that, I know, hurt. Kait was the only freshman on our high school's varsity team. She plays on an 18U team at the age of 15. She has been a great softball player since she was eight years old, and I can't even begin to express how proud I am of that. Like Kait, thousands of young girls across America look to players like Finch, and Jessica Mendoza, and all of Team USA for inspiration and a goal to reach. The goal, however, was stolen from them with the vote for sports in 2012. Young girls, and young women, all over the nation have been practicing for years to reach the perfection that is Team USA. Instead, their sport will be reduced to college games on upper channels, a sport all but devoid of professional status. The Olympics, like softball, was an outlet for the talents of young women everywhere. But the Olympic dream is over, and now all young women like Kait have to look forward to is the bleak hope that the IOC will see the truth behind their mistake and reinstate Olympic softball.