Hey everyone!
My name is Johanna Grauer and I am currently a freshman pitcher at UCLA . I’m from Pleasanton, California and my softball career started at age 5 in the Pleasanton Girls Softball League. My first year of softball after T-ball, I was thrown behind the plate at catcher because I had the strongest arm on the team. However, the entire time I just wanted to pitch because I loved how no matter what the outcome of the play was, the pitcher always got the ball at the end. No matter how many times I begged my coach to pitch in the game, he never let me and told me to stick to catching. That summer, I tried out for the league’s travel ball team “Phantom” as a catcher and didn’t make it. I was absolutely heart-broken but my parents told me that this was a great opportunity for me to learn how to pitch since I wouldn’t have to catch all summer.
I started taking pitching lessons that summer with my first pitching coach Lindsey Barnes and asked how I could get better and all I remember is her telling me what sets her better students apart is how much they practiced. That summer I literally pitched every single day. My family went on vacation to Hawaii and every morning I forced my dad to catch me. Practicing pitching every day became my routine and a year later when the try-outs rolled around again, it completely paid off and I made the travel ball team. I ended up playing for the Pleasanton Phantom for four years and some of my very best friends to this very day played with me on that team.
When I was little I always enjoyed softball, but it wasn't until I was cut from that team that I developed the passion that I still hold for the game. It sounds silly but I full-heartedly believe that not making that team spurred my competitiveness and my passion for the game that has carried me throughout my career. I always felt the need to prove myself and that drove me to get better each and every day. Softball is a sport built around failure, and if you allow your failure to consume you then you are going to have a very hard time in this sport. However, if you take your mistakes and learn from them and use them to motivate you and push you, great things will happen as a result.
Aside from personal moments, one of the biggest things to ever motivate me in softball was simply watching the NCAA Women’s College World Series. Every year I would just watch in complete awe of these girls and could only dream to some day be able to play on that stage. I always had my biggest dreams to play college softball and for Team USA in the back of my mind, but motivated myself with smaller goals that were attainable at the time. Now as a freshman at UCLA I still have moments walking around campus that I can’t believe I am actually in college playing softball for the school of my dreams.
-Johanna Grauer #15