Softball is a team game, but coming up to bat with the game on the line may be the loneliest feeling in sports. It’s also just the way Sheila Cornell Douty likes it. As the U.S. women’s team pursues a fourth straight world title, she knows it could come down to one swing of her bat – and she’s ready.
“I live for those moments!” Sheila, 36, told KidNews. (We nabbed her before she and her teammates boarded a jet for Japan and the ’98 world championships.) “Those are the situa-tions you want to be in!”
Sheila has felt that way since she was 10 and her mom took her to a local park in Woodland Hills, Calif., to join a team and make friends.
“I was always a good hitter,” she said, “a better hitter than fielder. I was the tallest in my class and because I hadn’t grown into my body yet, a big klutz. I could hit though, so the coach said, `OK, you’re our first baseman.’ “
By 10th grade, Sheila was swinging the bat so well her coach wanted her to play “travel ball,” where she would compete against the best girls in California.
“I thought, I don’t want to do that!” she remembered. “The pitching is too fast! Teams all had pitchers who could hit spots and make the ball move. All I could think was, `How in the heck am I going to hit it?’ “
For help, she looked to the big leagues. “My high school coach was a huge baseball fan and very into hitting. He would talk about Charlie Lau, a hitting coach, so I got his video and his book and practiced all his pointers.”
In the same way travel-ball pitching forced Sheila to learn to groove her swing, the elite pitchers she faced later, as a member of UCLA’s team, taught her to keep a cool head. “It was scary,” she admitted.
“The first time I faced (living legend) Michelle Granger, I thought, `I’ve got to swing when she’s in her windup if I hope to hit it!’ “
Now Sheila says the trick to hitting world-class pitchers is to be mentally tough. “It’s being able to swing at a pitch, miss it and come back as confident as you were before. I say to myself: `See the ball; drive the ball.’ It keeps me focused.”
OLYMPIC HIT
Did you know Sheila was a member of the gold-medal -winning team at the ’96 Atlanta Games?
She hit .393 and led the team with 11 hits and 9 RBI.
SPECTATOR SPORT
Would you like to follow Sheila and the women’s team? You can find results, updates and live play-by-play reporting at www.softball.org. Click on the Women’s Festival icon.
WEIGHTY TIP
To hit like a star, take it from Sheila: Keep your weight on your back leg as you stride into a pitch to swing. “Power comes from your legs and trunk. If you let your weight come forward, all you have to swing with is your arms.”
