Chooch Carroll On The Clock… Big-Time

It couldn’t be right, there must’ve been something wrong with the radar gun everyone surmised.

It was at a South Carolina softball camp this fall and the bat exit speed measurement said “85 mph” so the players running the drill had the young batter hit again.

Again, as the ball exploded off the bat, the recorder measured 85 mph so a third swing was ordered. That one cracked another mark more jaw-dropping than the first one: “90 mph.”

That was a record for the Gamecocks testing, but the most surprising part was it wasn’t a current South Carolina player, but a future one: Leslie “Chooch” Carroll, one of the top prospects in the 2020 graduating class (yes, she’s only a sophomore in high school) who plays at Cambridge High in Milton, Georgia.

(For the record, “Chooch,” which is what everyone calls her, came from an Italian relative who proclaimed, “She’s a Chooch,” meaning “goofy, silly or funny.”)

Chooch has been doing things bigger and better than any in her class for a long time, starting with her notably big feet—her mother, Adele, calls them “skis.” With her father being 6-foot-5, Chooch was already wearing women’s size 14 ½ by age 13 and since no one stocks cleats that big, she had to have a template of her foot sent off to Ringor.

“Since they don’t stock that in a women’s size,” her mother explains, “one had to be custom made. Our team now wears Mizuno so she can order a Men’s 12 to 12 ½!”

And then there are the prestigious home runs. In her first competitive game at age 13, Chooch hit a blast of 225 feet when playing for the Atlanta Vipers that drew the attention of college coaches everywhere.

Big in stature and accomplishment, Chooch began playing up at the 16U level the year before starting her freshman season and continued to impress, clubbing 10 home runs with 62 RBI and hitting .750 at ASA Nationals while fielding at a strong .980 clip at first base.

As a freshman for the Lady Bears—the only freshman on the team—Chooch was permitted by Head Coach Anna McDaniel to call her own pitches and never lost a game she called even after battling a concussion. That season she batted .506 with seven homers, 26 RBI and a .990 fielding percentage.

Best of all, her team won the state title and Chooch was recognized as a 1st Team All-State honoree and 1st Team All-Region.

Last summer, she moved up to Dickey Vallery’s 18U team and though her batting average dipped to around .300, Chooch still smacked 13 home runs with 34 RBI and continued her strong fielding mark with a .979 percentage.

Says her mother, Adele: “We are ever so grateful to Coach Dickey for the opportunity for her to play up and to be challenged by her peers. Though it wasn’t her best year statistically, it was her best year for growth. She learned so much about being a leader, a great teammate, about how to handle pressure, become more coachable and so much more.”

She capped this past summer by earning her second straight USSSA Select 30 All-American honors following a standout club season. But there was more business to deal with.

Originally, a commit to Auburn in December of 2015, the uncertainty in the Tigers program led to a change in her college decision last September and another SEC program who had long been in the hunt ultimately won out.

“We are so incredibly blessed that Coach Bev Smith honored her original offer to Chooch to become a Gamecock. I honestly don’t know who was more excited, Chooch or Coach Bev! She repeatedly told her how Chooch had made her day.”

Chooch got to attend Gamecock home games versus Kentucky and Florida and further bond with current and future players she’ll line up with.

“The football game was amazing, watching the sea of black and garnet all waving their towels in unison was monumental!” she says.

With the college decision finalized, Chooch knew her training was only just beginning.

She began working out with catching instructor Juan Sierra at The Hot Corner in Alpharetta, and part of their routine has been for him to set up the pitching machine at 86-90 mph for her to receive, frame and work on tag plays at home.

“The eye hand coordination drills that he has her do are with three different colored balls,” the catcher’s mother explains. “He tells her that she must catch the yellow one with her ‘R’ hand, the orange with her ‘L’ hand and the white with both hands…all of this is done while he’s asking her questions about her favorite foods, restaurants, movies, MLB teams, NFL teams, etc. It’s designed to help her focus on where the ball is coming in at and helps her to track it better under pressure.”

Chooch’s dream has always been to play on the US Women’s Olympic Softball team.

Her love for softball began at a young age: she’s been playing ball since she was four-years-old when she started out playing T-ball and baseball with a bunch of boys back in her hometown of Mooresville, North Carolina.

“Right before we left and moved further south to Georgia,” recalls her mother, “Chooch wanted to give Softball a try and was instantly hooked.”

The athlete’s mother took her to her first college camp at the age of 10.

“She had stars in her eyes watching these women on the field playing the sport that they loved as much as what she did. It was all that Chooch talked about for weeks on end. She told us, ‘I want to play in college, Mumma.’”

“She’d watch games on TV and watch the catchers and how they interacted with their pitchers, how batters would stand in the box, the way the infield would field the balls. It was like a haze would come over her and she’d be lost in the game.”

“She would start clocking catchers on their throws to second base to see what she would have to beat. I started to work on finding her the best instructors that I could.”

Always looking for a way to gain a competitive edge, she saw a blog by another top prospect, 2019 pitcher Sydney Supple from Wisconsin, who detailed how she woke up at 4:45 am each morning to train for the Team USA Tryouts earlier this month.

“It drove home to Chooch that she would have to step up her game,” her mother laughs. “Waking up at 5:30 am was no longer her goal, she said: ‘I will one up her (Sydney) and wake up every training day at 4:44 am to train so that one day, when I’m standing on the platform next to her with one of our Gold Medals, I can say that I woke up every day one minute before Syd!”

And Chooch is giving back to the sport she loves so well also. She trains three young catchers with workouts as early as 6:45 am.

Says Adele, “Chooch has a passion for teaching these girls what she’s been taught by some of the best instructors. The girls are learning, you can see it in their performance on the field. Chooch feels blessed to be helping to instill a great work ethic and the confidence into other players who admire her.”

“She’s excited, because the future of softball is looking brighter than ever.”