Name: Maddie Jelic

Sport: Softball

School: Huron

When did you start playing? Why?

I started off playing ball when I was in kindergarten but then I took a few gap years and started playing in the the sixth grade. I went to Scarlett Middle School and they had a bunch of sports all the time and you could just pick and you didn’t have to be good at it or know how to play and you could do whatever you wanted and experiment. I was like ‘I guess I’ll join the softball team’ and I liked it so I kept joining it again every year after that.

Why did you continue? What do you like about it?

Well, honestly it was more because of the team aspect. I mean a lot of sports are very cut throat and I mean softball is very competitive but a lot of sports the girls end up fighting each other a lot during the season because they are competing with each other as well as the other teams. They want each other’s places on the team to be the best. In Softball, you need everyone to be able to play. You need a pitcher and a catcher, and you can’t do everything by yourself so everyone appreciate each other so it’s a really good team vibe which I liked and I liked feeling part of a family so I kept doing it with the same girls

What is your weekly commitment?

It’s a lot more during the season, during the year there is not much, it’s just during the softball season. Our coach [Ed arbor] is actually the best coach that I’ve met in my whole life. He is always available to practice with you, he will cancel whatever he is doing. One time I called him at like 10 at night on a Saturday because I was felt like practicing and I called him up and he was like okay meet me at the huron field and he met me there at 10:30 and I hit a bunch of balls and we practiced together.

When do you have games?

Sometimes we have a tournament or something like that on a the weekend but for the most part it’s just twice during the school week after school and stuff. Softball is one of the only sports at Huron where you don’t get transportation at all. Every single game he [Arbor] rents a very big van so that he can drive all of us because the school doesn’t give us a bus even out of district.

What is your most memorable moment?

This one game last year [spring 2017] was not necessarily a good game for the team. We were playing pioneer, we only got one run the whole game and I was the one that hit it and it was pretty lit. It was the first hit I had of the season! It went really far and I felt super duper happy and everyone was like “hey we got one!” even though we ended up losing.

What makes practice fun?

My other favorite moment is we have this little thing where do during practice, after we hit and all the balls are in the field we can see who can pick up more and who can pick up more and at the same time without dropping them. People shove them all in their pants and in their shirts!