Extra Star Power: 2025 Two-Sport Athlete Barbara Jo Coppola… the Latest (& Greatest?) in a Sports-Crazed Family!

How good of an athlete is Barbara Jo Coppola, an incoming sophomore at Harrison (N.Y.) High, which is located 22 miles northeast of New York City?

If not for COVID, Barbara Jo, who also goes by the nickname “Babs,” would have been a two-sport high school varsity athlete as a 7^th grader (2019-2020) in tennis and softball.

The teenager was a starter on the varsity tennis team —a sport she’s played since she was three years old—and was slated to be the starting catcher on the varsity softball team with her sophomore sister, Kelly, as the shortstop, but the seasons were cancelled due to the pandemic.

That didn’t slow her down at all, however.

In 8th grade, Barbara Jo started at second doubles for tennis, and caught and batted leadoff in every game for the Harrison High varsity softball team.  In softball she was the team leader in runs scored, home runs, triples, steals, slugging percentage and walks and in other categories where she wasn’t the team leader, such as batting average, on-base percentage, hots, doubles and RBIs, the young athlete finished behind her sister who was an All-State shortstop as a junior last year.

And, although she wasn’t even yet of high school age, “Babs” broke the school record for steals in 2021 and earned Conference Player of the Year.

This past spring, as a 9^th grader, Barbara Jo again shined on the court and diamond as she played first doubles and second singles on the tennis team and earned All-Section honors, helping her team make it to the Section 1 Championship Finals where Harrison finished second.

For softball, she again caught every game, and batted leadoff in leading her team to the section semifinals.  In the quarterfinals, the then freshman went 3-for-3 with a grand slam off of an All-State pitcher to help the Huskies advance to the semis.

For the 2022 season, Barbara Jo led the team in batting average, hits, on-base percentage, runs, doubles, walks, slugging percentage and was second to her senior sister in most other categories.  Though only a Freshman, she earned All-League, All-Section and All-State honors.

You don’t have to look very far to see where the record setter gets her athleticism.

Her father, Jim, was a two-time All-Ivy outfielder at Columbia University where he led the league in home runs in 1991. Her mother and her grandmother on her dad’s side were both USTA tennis players as adults and the aforementioned sister, Kelly, despite batting through three major surgeries in high school which ended her volleyball and basketball careers, was still able to stick it out to end her high school career as a softball All-Stater as well.

But that’s barely scratching the surface in the family’s athletic tree:

• Barbara Jo’s brother, Anthony, who graduated in 2020, was high school varsity hockey and baseball player but missed out on both sports his senior year due to COVID.
• Her uncle (her dad’s brother) was an All-Long Island high school quarterback and pitcher who earned a four-year scholarship to Hofstra University where he started every year at third base and pitcher.
• Her aunt (her dad’s sister) was a college tennis player at Dowling College and her grandfather on her dad’s side was a three-sport athlete at Deer Park High in Long Island who played one year of college baseball at the Univ. of Rhode Island.
• Her first cousin, Kyle (2025 grad) started varsity this year as a catcher on the Deer Park High baseball team and another cousin, Kasey (2023) is a three-year starter on the St. Anthony’s High (South Huntington, N.Y.) volleyball team.
• Additionally, one of her father’s brother-in-law is a golf pro in Bedford, New York while a sister-in-law played college basketball at Farleigh Dickinson.

You can certainly imagine what topic is prominent in family get-togethers.

“It’s a lot of fun these days at Grandma and Grandpa Coppola’s house,” laughs Jim Coppola. “The tennis tournaments, whiffle ball games, badminton matches, and even poker games supply some intense competition amongst the five grandchildren, parents, grandparents, and anyone else who is daring enough to participate!”

Reflective of her parent’s athletic background, Barbara Jo continues to excel with the racquet and the bat.

As a 14U eligible travel player this summer, Babs played 16U and 18U travel ball and was acknowledged by several college coaches as being way ahead of her age. She also led her 16U Westchester Heat travel team to a 5th place finish in Maryland Nationals, catching every game due to an injury to the team’s catcher.

Here are some of her hitting highlights:

… as well as some catching highlights:

Her travel softball team is the Westchester Heat where the lefty hitter/right thrower starts behind the plate and plays third and in the outfield when not catching.  She bats second in the order, and led the team in hits, batting average, runs scored, on-base percentage and slugging percentage and OPS.  Due to an injury to the other catcher, Babs caught her team’s last 12 games including taking 1^st place at the End of Summer tournament in Quakertown PA, and then taking 5th (out of 65 teams) at the USSSA Maryland Nationals Tournament, where she hit .605 during in 14 games.

She also had a “late start” in softball compared to tennis which she began at age 3 and only picked up softball around age 10 when she started to play travel ball. Barbara Jo played on a 10U softball team when she was nine-years-old where the team won the county district tournament, but she struggled as the weakest player on the team and once struck out 10 times in a row. Typically, she only got one at-bat per game and would play two innings in right field every game.

“I was worried that she would never play again, so I took her to try out for a travel team at 10,” her father remembers of Babs’s start in fastpitch. “She made the team and had a great season at 10U, learned to love the game as a catcher, and now it is her favorite sport.”

The sophomore, who watches MLB religiously as she’s a huge Mets fan and collector of baseball cards, has progressed to the point where she’s been calling pitches since she was in 8th grade at both the club and high school levels. It’s helped that her batterymate and best friend Gabriella Triano has pitched to her for the past four season and together they’ve earned high accolades.

*****

Extra Inning Softball recently caught up with Barbara Jo to learn more about this rising star… here’s what she had to say…

Extra Inning Softball: What is it like being from such an athletic family?
Barbara Jo Coppola: Being in an athletic family really made sports a lot more fun for me. I know that no matter what I do, succeed or fail, there are always going to be people there for me that have experienced what I have and can support me through it.

Playing on the same softball team as my sister was probably the best experience I have ever had. Even though I yell at her for not charging ground balls and she yells at me for yelling at her, playing with her was not only the most fun I’ve ever had playing softball, but she shaped the player I am today!

EIS: Are you a natural lefty hitter or did you switch to that side of the plate?
BJC: Growing up, me and my sister always went to my brother’s baseball games, but the only part we really paid attention to was him hitting because it was the only thing we found exciting at the time. My brother is fully lefty, and when we watched him, we didn’t take into account what other players were doing, we just naturally assumed that the way he’s hitting is the right way.

That’s why when me and my sister started playing softball, we stepped right up into that lefty batter’s box, despite being natural righties. I love this unique little thing about my family: how all three of my siblings bat left-handed.

EIS: And you have other strong family examples in baseball too…
BJC: Yes, I am also blessed to have two family members who have gone through the recruiting process and played D1 baseball, my Dad and my Uncle. They have always been there for me and help me with my own recruiting process, and I aspire to be just like them.

EIS: You have been great in tennis as well as softball… what do you love so much specifically about each sport (besides the team/individual concept) and what is it about softball that’s made it your favorite sport?
BJC: Growing up, I was always a tennis player first and a softball player on the side. As I got older, my love for the games became equal and I couldn’t pick just one to focus on. However, when the competition in both sports started to get better and better, I found myself with more success in softball then tennis. It was very difficult, but when I was 13, I made the decision to stop off-season tennis training and focus primarily on softball and only really focus on tennis during the High School season.

I can’t really put into words why softball is my favorite sport. When I’m in the batter’s box, there’s nothing that can disrupt my state of mind. I’ll be disappointed in myself if I don’t pull through for my team offensively, but as soon as I get back out onto the field, every negative emotion washes away and I forget all about that last at-bat. Being behind home plate is the best feeling in the world, especially when my best friend Gabriella, is on the mound.

EIS: Do you think you’ll continue to play tennis?
BJC: Even though I do not play competitively USTA tennis anymore, my love for tennis will always be with me although I did think it was completely gone at one point. Last year, I was playing second singles for my high school team, and I’ll be honest, I did not do that well. I wasn’t awful, but I should have done so much better. Loss after loss made me contemplate not coming back next year and becoming a full-time softball player.

That was until my coach decided to move me to first doubles with a good friend of mine and put someone else in second singles. I soon became the happiest I had ever been while playing tennis. My partner and I had so much success and earned All-League, All-Section, and were named All-Stars. I thought I would never see myself so happy playing tennis ever again, but something about the intensity of a close match and cheering yourself and your partner on after a nice shot is a feeling that you can’t recreate. My partner is a very talented athlete and I love every minute of every match with her.

EIS: When you were 10U and had a tough stretch, including 10 strikeouts in a row, what kept you going and helped you continue when you were so good in tennis and other sports?
BJC: When I was 9, I thought I was pretty good. I was the only lefty hitter in the league and I was pretty tall, so I stood out. When I heard I made the 10U All-Star team, I was ecstatic. That was until the first game, where I got one at-bat late in the game and played the last two innings in right field. I was young, but I vividly remember telling my dad in the car, “I thought it was kind of weird that they played me so late.” I shrugged it off and thought nothing of it, but eventually this became a routine, and I realized that I was basically the one player that fills out the roster.

Game after game, my heart broke a little more each time and it was almost embarrassing to be on the team at this point. I cried in the car to my mom, saying that I’m the worst player here and that I don’t want to play anymore. But the one thing that kept me going was my crazy athletic family.

My brother was playing baseball and doing so well, my sister was succeeding every time she stepped on a field, my cousin was taking batting practice every single day and hitting home runs, and my dad had just built a cage in our backyard. Everywhere I looked, there was just softball or baseball, and I wanted to be good just like my family so when my dad took me to my first travel tryout for 10U and I had a really good season, my love for softball became overwhelming. The next All-Star little league season, I was the starting catcher and leadoff hitter. I knew then that this was the sport for me.

EIS: Half joking/half serious when we ask this… are you the best athlete in the family?
BJC: Two years ago, I would have said me in a heartbeat! But, I’m not so sure how accurate that would be now. When I was in 8th grade, my sister Kelly was a junior. We were supposed to play together the previous year, but due to COVID, the season got cancelled. Even though we are siblings, I had really never seen her play and didn’t know how good she was. I did not think she would be bad, but 13-year-old me was going around thinking that I was better than her even though she was older and I was a two-sport athlete.

Boy was I wrong! She had the best season I have ever seen a softball or baseball player have. How many players have over a .700 on-base percentage? Not to mention, she played half the season with a pulled quad. She was All-State, All-Section, All-League, and even though the League Player of the Year was awarded to me that year, she deserved it more.

The next year she continued to show off her skills and although the stats may say she didn’t have as good of a season as before, she does things that you can’t put into a stat sheet. Outsmarting runners, making unreal tags, but most importantly, being the best teammate and captain. She brought the team closer together and this made us all better, as players and as teammates. Kelly wasn’t the fastest or the strongest, she was injury prone, she wore ankle braces every game and kept a bottle of icy-hot in her bag in case her arm started hurting again.

On the outside, you wouldn’t think she’s one of the best players in the state, but she is going to go down as one of the best, maybe the best, shortstop I have ever played with, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my sister. Even in college, I don’t think I could ever find another player like Kelly. She’s to thank for all of the success I have had in the last two years. I define an athlete not by how heavy they can lift or how many sports they play, but simply being a student of the game, always being one-step ahead, and being the best teammate possible. I think I am there with softball and I am working on getting there with tennis, but Kelly is beyond that.

EIS: We hear the get-togethers at your grandparent’s house are pretty competitive! Describe some of those battles in tennis, cards, etc…
BJC: Competitiveness runs in the Coppola family blood. There is never a dull moment during our family get-togethers, whether it is a family whiffle ball game, tennis match, or playing cards. Our grandpa, who used to be a teacher, even makes tests for us every holiday and gives them to us, except the test is based on our family. The tests would contain questions like, “Who hit the most home runs in Cooperstown?” Or, “Who went fishing at 7 years old?” Whoever gets the most questions right gets a prize from Grandpa, except he gives us grandkids all money anyways!

Once the test is over, we watch a compilation of pictures and videos of our family over the year. Every few years, we have a family whiffle ball game. When we were really young, we would make my oldest brother bat righty even though he’s a natural lefty, he was just so much bigger than all of us and could hit the ball over my grandparents’ neighbor’s house. It gets so competitive that, one time, my sister broke her toe trying to slide into a base, even though we were on grass and sliding was useless. She says she slid and my brother hit her foot with the ball, but I think she just fell!  She kept playing, though, because she didn’t want to lose. That’s how competitive our family games get, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

— Brentt Eads, Extra Inning Softball