By Liz Bramlett
When you hear someone use the word family you probably think of someone you share your last name with or who you sit with at holiday dinners. But for Delta High School softball, it has a different meaning.
It’s the teammates who pick you up after an error or the ones who cheer so loudly for you, that you don’t even have a chance to hear those who don’t. It means fighting for the person next to you even though all odds are stacked against you.
Family isn’t just a word, it’s the key to success.
Forget About Me, I Love You.
The first letter in each word above is what FAMILY stands for.
Varsity softball has struggled recently, going 1-23 during the 2022-2023 spring season and 3-21 in the 2023-2024 season.
But head coach Caitlyn Grim has hope to turn this around.
Grim, science teacher at Delta Middle School, just became head coach last year.
“I saw this as an opportunity to make this program, my program,” she said.
When Grim got hired, she was not handed a team who was undefeated or the best in the state. But that hasn’t stopped her from putting in full effort.
From an early age Grim fell in love with the sport of softball. After playing high school ball at Yorktown, she continued playing in college at Taylor University.
Just because Grim is no longer a player, she still uses those mechanics and life skills she was taught from past coaches to help other girls succeed.
Grim has started to work with girls from ages ranging from kindergarten to sixth grade, doing camps and teaching them the basic mechanics of how and what to do.
She also is preparing the seventh and eighth graders for high school softball by allowing them to come to open gyms (optional practices), which gives them a chance to watch and learn from the older girls.
Not only is she incorporating new physical training like more conditioning or weight lifting, but Grim is also trying to focus more on the mental aspect this year.
“I’m trying to focus on what we can do fundamentally to be where we need to be when emotions get high,” Grim said.
The coach said she believes if the players can learn how to control their heart rate and learn how to stay calm while focusing on the little details, they can and will succeed.
To try to replicate high pressure situations during practices, Grim sets up real game scenarios and live at bats. This is allowing the team to work together and rely on just each other and their trust to make the right plays.
Grim said this strategy helps the girls to work together instead of working against each other as well as building their confidence and certainty in each other.
In this rebuilding process, Grim is not alone. Assistant coach Jillian Evans, math teacher at the high school, has been her helping hand.
Evans, a former Delta softball player, has been assistant coach for two years now.
But she has been around the Delta softball community for longer. She has been able to see the team’s differences throughout the years.
“In the most recent years success has been going off wins and loses,” Evans said, “but it’s been nice to see the progress that has been made game to game.”
Even though practices and games have not yet started, Evans said that she can already see the girls’ attitudes and mindsets improving toward the game.
As these continue to improve, Evans says she has much hope for the future of this program.
“It’s all about buying into what you’re trying to sell,” Evans said.
Meaning what they’re trying to “sell” is becoming a better team, and they have to “buy into” that by working hard, focusing on the little things, being a family, and believing that they have that potential to be a good team.
Not only does the team need coaches to push them to their best potential and teach them the mechanics, but they also need a teammate they can relate to and look up to as a role model.
Junior Haley Loser has played varsity all three years of her high school career and has played softball since she was just a toddler.
“I feel like us older girls will have to try to step up to be a role model and speak out more,” Loser said.
One strategy she is trying to improve on is leadership.
With only four upperclassmen total on the roster, Loser said this year is definitely going to be a little different and unique. Over half of the total softball girls are freshmen.
Although this may be challenging Loser said this will give the softball program a brand new beginning.
Not only is Loser focusing on leadership but she is also focusing on being a team player.
Instead of thinking about only herself and what she wants, she thinks about what the team needs at the moment and what she can do to help everyone else.
¨(At the start of last season) girls hated coming to practice because they thought it was gonna be like (2023), but this is where the girls have really dug into the culture of FAMILY and have become each other’s best friends,” Grim said.
