Softball notes
May 12, 2008 @ 11:47 a.m. by Joannaby joanna
I won’t be doing softball notes for tomorrow, what with regionals starting this week and the craziness of the week ahead. But I did have some miscellaneous notes that I’d love to post here.
It turns out that Bishop Carroll softball coach Jennifer Unrein, in her fifth season, is quitting after the year. Although she did leave the door open for a return.
The main reason is it’s tough balancing a full-time job (she’s the chemistry supervisor and assistant quality manager at arrow laboratory) and has two children, 5 and 1.
“Last year I thought about it being the last, but I got pregnant and didn’t want to end on a pregnancy,” Unrein said. “It’s one of those things that if we don’t find any quality, I’ll stay. We didn’t have a C team coach this year, so if they don’t have one next year, I’ll be the C team coach. I don’t want to hand my girls over to just anybody.”
The other note I had planned was on Northwest pitcher Jessica Odell, who I had always known as Jojo. But this year coach Merri Copeland told me she wanted to go by Jessica. So I asked her why.
“I felt like, I like my real name and Jojo has been with me since second grade. I felt it was a little kid’s name.”
Does anyone call you Jessica? “My parents and some of my real close friends do.” To everyone else, she’s still Jojo.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Joanna,
First let me thank you for promoting Softball throughout the Wichita Metro area. There are many families whose life revolves around this sport and we appreciate any good publicity you bring to this great youth activity. As a parent, former coach, water boy, and all around fan I want to say we have the some of the best players in the nation in this area. These young ladies are not only great athletics but they also excel in academics, community service and leaders in school.
Jessica Odell or JoJo for instance teaches pitching to young girls just starting, assists in coaching 10-12 years old in two softball organizations, honor student, national and Spanish Honors Societies, big Sister a young girl mat risk, assists in Northwest Freshman orientation, student court and all around good kid. She is striving for a Softball scholarship but also has goals of teaching or coaching and even possible going into law.
Jessie is just one example of many student athletics in our area that we should be proud of…win or lose I am proud of my daughter Jessica as I know of several parents and relative of softball players in our area are proud as well…
Good luck to all our softball players!
May 13th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Anybody going to give Goddard sports some love in the “Three questions, three whatever”. They are just the number one seed in baseball, number one seed in softball, number two seed in soccer, and one of the favorites in track. And the golf team qualified for state. Not a big deal or anything.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Go Other Teams!, the three questions that run on Tuesday aren’t based on who is doing well, although I find it interesting that you only bring it up after Maize softball is featured. Rather it’s a way just to get some kids, regardless of records, into the paper for a little fun.
Here’s some of the teams that were in that this spring — East track, West soccer, Derby baseball, Valley Center golf, Collegiate tennis, Maize softball, Northwest swimming. It’s a pretty good mix and it’s not a knock on Goddard. If it were a knock on teams that aren’t included, well, there are a lot of teams that haven’t been.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
The eagle covered Goddard alot when the issue of racism came up but now we can barely get any love. That is okay because the Times Sentinel does a great job with high school sports. NW swimming has to be higher up than any of our teams that won league this spring; softball, baseball, girls track.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:57 am
ok after reading several posts i have come to a conclusion
Goddard folk are not satisfied with the eagle, yet they love their local newspaper (which is probably the front and back of one sheet of paper)
I propose a merger. Just to satisfy/silence the lion faithful.
Eagle: please print a very small copy of snippets and the highlights from Goddard, America. Put THE WICHITA EAGLE at the top of it and lets all move on with our lives.
Satisfied lions?
May 16th, 2008 at 10:22 am
thatguy — you are my new favorite poster. This is easily the funniest thing I’ve seen. You made me laugh out loud this morning and then I read it to my boss, who laughed out loud. Congratulations! You are the winner (of what I’m not sure, but I just wanted to say it.)