Inside Pitch: Stef Daniel On What Happens “When a Girl Has a Dugout”

Stef Daniel, a softball mom of four beautiful young athletes and the founder of Softball Is For Girls—one of the biggest and most successful softball sites around and a partner with Extra Inning Softball—has seen the blessings that come from being involved in a team sport like softball.

It’s not just the wins and good times, it’s all that happens when you’re part of a family, a sisterhood that creates magic and memories and so much more. As Stef so eloquently explains in her latest blog, “So many things happen when a girl has a dugout.”

Check out some of Stef’s previous blogs including “Today My Daughter Drove Herself to Practice… And Why I Hated It”, The Ecstasy & Agony of Every Pitch When My Daughter Is At Bat! and If You Give a Girl a Softball… Be Careful Of What Comes Next! which also deal with the ups and downs of being a softball parent!

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There is no doubt, no question, no argument, that young women who are involved in team sports have a greater chance for success and are given an advantage in life.

What starts out in youth as a way to get them involved, socialized, exercising, having fun and finding their niche also teaches them life-long lessons that are irreplaceable.

So many things happen when a girl has a dugout.

When she has a place she can look to with a 3-2 count and find the encouragement she needs. When she has a place she can run to whether she just stepped on home plate with the go ahead run, or whiffed at a rise ball she couldn’t lay off.

When a girl has a dugout, she learns that there are people on her side at all times.

She learns that there are people cheering for her at all times, who want more than anything to see her succeed. She learns that what she does MATTERS.

Sometimes, girls in general get a bad rap for being mean or petty. But the reality is that if you have ever spent any time in a dugout, you learn quickly that girls supporting other girls can be the most powerful influence in a young woman’s life.

When she has a dugout she learns how to work together with others.

Sometimes it’s with others that she may have never chosen as friends before the sport squished them together in a tiny space mucked with dirt and sweat.

When she has a dugout, she learns that her attitude counts, and matters to others.

She has a place where she will easily find a hug when needed, and a high five when warranted, and that she needs to give those things to others as well. The dugout shows her that rise or fall, pass or fail – she is still and always valuable. It is a forgiving place where celebration and camaraderie outweigh everything else.

When she has a dugout, she gets a place of her own secure from the outside world.

It is where she can process through her emotions with the support of others who feel the same way. A sacred place of her own where she will win and lose many battles. And she learns that the moment she walks outside of that gate to the on-deck circle, or to the field – her success is dependent on being able to put her mistakes behind her and move forward.

Just like in life.

The dugout teaches her how to be happy for the success of others. To understand that hard work and effort pay off to the highest degree when people work together. She learns that no one does it alone, and that everyone needs other people to achieve their goals.

When a girl has a dugout rallying behind her, she is able to build her self-confidence through the confidence others have in her.

She learns to understand that her smile and her frown have an affect on others and that she alone is responsible for her reactions to what is going on around her.

When you give a girl a dugout, you give her a family.

She learns how to trust others, to lean on others and most importantly how to be a friend to others as well. She learns how to be coached and led to greatness. She learns what it feels like to be supported and believed in and is taught that high expectations come with great responsibility.

The dugout teaches her humility more often than not. Inside those walls tears of joy and sadness are shed side by side, and she learns that success in life is not measured by one single moment, or game.

When you give a girl a dugout, you give her sisters.

And like sisters there will be arguments and bickering and moments of raw emotion. And yet those same sisters will have her back at any given moment and forgive easily.

And that sometimes, that is just how love works.

Perhaps the best thing a girl gets when she has a dugout is memories that will last a lifetime.

Inside jokes, and goofy banter, rally caps and team tradition that define their team culture. Memories of some of the best times in their life will be made inside that dugout, and the people she shares it with will be forever etched in her heart, long after she hangs up her cleats.