9 Life Lessons I Learned from Playing Softball

I tried to avoid playing softball, I really did. Even as a precocious, athletic 10-year-old, my B.S. meter was strong. Why was there a special "alternative" sport to baseball for girls? And why did they make them wear shorts? You have to slide, after all. In the dirt, no less!

Nope, no thank you. I'll keep playing baseball.

But then the boys on my team started wearing cups and talking about girls, and that idealistic innocence I held onto for so long, dissolved into a self-conscious pre-teen who didn't want to be the only girl anymore.

Seven years later, I found myself sitting at a drab beige desk in my high school library, signing a scholarship to play softball for the University of Texas. So yeah, that turned out OK.

But softball gave me so much more than a college scholarship. It taught me hard lessons, knocked me down as easily as it lifted me up and gave me a life-long group of friends—really, they're more like sisters—I can turn to in times of need.

It's hard to narrow it down, but here's just a few things the great sport of softball taught me about life.

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