by Shannon S. Harwell

Created on: August 28, 2009

Since I home schooled my children, playing sports was one of the few opportunities they got to interact with other children their ages. I loved sports of almost every kind, so I was open to any sport they wanted to try. My now-grown and married daughter began playing softball when she was six years old. Over the next couple of years, it became clear to her that she wasn't quite like most of the other girls out there. To me, she was a rosey-cheeked, blue eyed, beautiful little girl who hadn't lost her baby fat yet. To herself, she was either too chubby, too slow, or too clumsy. Some girls taunted her while others shunned her. I noticed that she wasn't alone. It seemed every team had at least a couple of girls who didn't quite fit the mold.

When she reached ten years of age, I decided to resurrect my coaching career and began coaching her softball teams so every girl could have a fighting chance. As I looked around at other coaches, it appeared most of us had something in common: we were the parents of the little girls who didn't quite fit the mold. Because of this, we were also the coaches who understood so well how an outcast child felt. In order to help my girl fit in, I found her strengths and helped her hone them. She had an incredibly strong arm, so she learned to play third base, catcher, and became a pretty solid pitcher. Because of her realization of her strengths, she became more confident as her teammates cheered for her rather than jeered at her.

Through the years, these same girls who were once laughed at became girls who found their niches and worked hard to perfect them. Off the field, they were the less-than-popular ones. On the field, they were part of something bigger than appearances-they were strong links in the chain that comprised their teams. Even through the tough years of puberty, these girls all found they had something to offer and it was because of this that they felt bigger, better, and larger than life when they did something good on the field. Playing sports put them in an "in" crowd, no matter what they looked like or where they came from. Being an accepted part of a team gave them a sense of pride and this pride propelled their confidence to allow them to achieve more than they thought they could!

Toward the end of my daughter's softball years, we had a team that was comprised of roughly half "popular" girls and half "not-so-popular" girls. However, when we stepped on the field, we were as one and they knew they were all equals

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