After breaking practically every NCAA pitching record, this pitcher is poised to make her mark on the softball as she heads to Beijing.
By Sara Kaplow
Published: July 31, 2008
What do you get when you take a Division I university known for anything but softball and add a lefty phenomenon-in-the-making? You get the University of Tennessee Lady Vols, that is, if the star you’re talking about is
Monica Abbott who, in her four-year collegiate career, broke practically every NCAA pitching record in existence.
Now graduated, Abbott is mostly focused on her future, the future of her sport and being a role model for young girls. A good start was picking up the 2007 Sportswoman of the Year awards at the
Annual Salute to Women in Sports. Previous award winners have included Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Martina Navratilova and Mia Hamm.
And what put Abbott in with the aforementioned royalty of women’s sports? How about her 2,440 career strikeouts? Or maybe her 189 wins? Or her 724 strikeouts in 2007? Or her 206 career starts, 112 of which were shutouts, 23 of which were no-hitters and six of which were perfect games? All of those numbers – only a partial list of her accolades – are NCAA Division I records and were enough to earn her the Honda Award for Top Collegiate Softball Player in her senior season.
Throw in her selection to the 2008 U.S. Olympic team and her 6-0 record on the 2007 U.S. squad, a team best, during which she gave up no earned runs, no walks and no extra-base hits, and you have the super-star athlete who is just getting started.
When she started her college career at Tennessee as one of the most highly touted softball recruits in the nation, the softball program at the school was almost invisible. In fact, the ability to grow a program was one of the reasons she chose to be a Lady Vol in the first place.
“Our facility when we started wasn’t very nice, but now we’re opening a brand new softball facility,” she said. “And looking at how many times we were on TV over my senior year compared to my freshman year is an incredible difference. Now people around the country and around Tennessee are looking at softball and it gives them something else that’s in the Lady Vol program that they can be proud of.”
In fact, one of Abbott’s proudest college moments, aside from breaking the career strikeout record on May 6, 2007, was watching fans queue for softball tickets.
“One time,” she remembered, lighting up at the memory, “our game was at 12, and the line started at 6 a.m. People could have been scalping for softball tickets. Who would have thought that people would want to scalp for softball games?”
Not that her whole career has been filled with milestone moments and lines of people waiting to watch her play. Waking up for 6 a.m. work-outs followed by hours of classes and then an afternoon filled with softball practice and trips to the trainer’s room, not to mention homework and, if possible, a social life, makes for a long day. But, for Abbott, it was all worth it.
“I would not trade being a student-athlete for anything in the world,” she said emphatically. “It makes you such a well-rounded individual. If you can balance being an athlete and a student, that’s something you’re going to take with you the rest of your life.”
The rest of Abbott’s life is sure to include softball, starting with the 2008 Olympic Games, where her goal is clear: bring home a gold medal. With the elimination of softball and baseball from the 2012 Games in London – the first time a sport has been cut from the Games since polo in 1936 – the time is now for the sport.
The United States has dominated Olympic competition since 1996, when it was introduced as a medal sport, winning the gold in 1996, 2000 and 2004. Though concerned about her own ability to continue playing, Abbott also worries about the generations that follow.
“Where can they go when they’re done with college and still play? What kind of avenues, professional or amateur, can they do so that we can continue to have something for the younger generations?” she wondered.
Though she may not have all the answers as far as how to bring the sport back are concerned, she does have advice for those who seek to follow in her footsteps.
“Work hard, but always have fun doing what you’re doing,” she advised. “Because if it’s not fun, it’s not worth it. If you can take that one thing and make it something you can do and that you’re good at, you’re going to be very happy.”
Clearly, Abbott has found that one thing and there’s no doubt that she’s good at it. It looks like she’s going to continue to be very, very happy.