2008 Woodie Awards
USA softball team in final Olympic swing
By: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Issue date: 3/11/08 Section: Sports
ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. - When the black charter bus with its tinted windows finally turned into the parking lot, the young girls wearing replica jerseys with "Finch," "Fernandez" and "Osterman" on their backs screamed with delight and scrambled for a closer look.
Their moms and dads did the same, only much quieter.
You'd think Hannah Montana was on board.
Nope, just some softball players. But not ordinary ones. The best on the planet.
And as the U.S. women's national team stepped off the bus and the players began gathering their equipment bags more than two hours before an exhibition game against Central Florida, they were cheered like rock stars.
"Everywhere we go, everyone loves us," shortstop Natasha Watley said. "It's not like when we get to the Olympics and everyone hates us."
Six months before packing up bats and gloves to depart for China, the three-time defending gold medalists are zigzagging the country on a 62-game tour covering more than 37,000 miles to prepare for the Beijing Games and spread the gospel of softball.
And, for some, to say goodbye.
Just shy of its fourth Olympic appearance, softball, which was introduced along with women's soccer at the 1996 Atlanta Games, will be taking its final swing for a while.
Three years ago, the International Olympic Committee voted softball and baseball off the program for London's 2012 Games, a stunning decision that blindsided the American team, which was coming off its record-smashing run through the 2004 tournament in Athens. The IOC will vote in October 2009 whether to bring softball back.
"It was devastating," said Lisa Fernandez, a three-time gold medalist widely considered the game's greatest player. "I'm not even sure that's a strong enough word to describe how I felt. You think you're golden, you feel like you're at the top of the game, and all of a sudden it all gets taken away with no warning and really with no explanation."
Softball has enjoyed unprecedented growth at all levels in the past decade and could be reinstated for the 2016 Games, although that's not guaranteed. What annoys many players on the roster is that IOC members, who voted 52-52 with one abstention in 2005, seemed to pair softball with baseball, whose steroid problem is threatening to unravel the national pastime.
Their moms and dads did the same, only much quieter.
You'd think Hannah Montana was on board.
Nope, just some softball players. But not ordinary ones. The best on the planet.
And as the U.S. women's national team stepped off the bus and the players began gathering their equipment bags more than two hours before an exhibition game against Central Florida, they were cheered like rock stars.
"Everywhere we go, everyone loves us," shortstop Natasha Watley said. "It's not like when we get to the Olympics and everyone hates us."
Six months before packing up bats and gloves to depart for China, the three-time defending gold medalists are zigzagging the country on a 62-game tour covering more than 37,000 miles to prepare for the Beijing Games and spread the gospel of softball.
And, for some, to say goodbye.
Just shy of its fourth Olympic appearance, softball, which was introduced along with women's soccer at the 1996 Atlanta Games, will be taking its final swing for a while.
Three years ago, the International Olympic Committee voted softball and baseball off the program for London's 2012 Games, a stunning decision that blindsided the American team, which was coming off its record-smashing run through the 2004 tournament in Athens. The IOC will vote in October 2009 whether to bring softball back.
"It was devastating," said Lisa Fernandez, a three-time gold medalist widely considered the game's greatest player. "I'm not even sure that's a strong enough word to describe how I felt. You think you're golden, you feel like you're at the top of the game, and all of a sudden it all gets taken away with no warning and really with no explanation."
Softball has enjoyed unprecedented growth at all levels in the past decade and could be reinstated for the 2016 Games, although that's not guaranteed. What annoys many players on the roster is that IOC members, who voted 52-52 with one abstention in 2005, seemed to pair softball with baseball, whose steroid problem is threatening to unravel the national pastime.
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