What happens when you go searching for the soul of sportsin a college softball team and find it unraveling from scandal instead?
![Secrets Within The Game](https://magarticles.magzter.com/articles/4370/280852/5b06f82546295/Secrets-Within-The-Game.jpeg)
A little over a year ago, I gave a speech to the Auburn Tigers softball team. I did not give it at a banquet or any kind of offcial ceremony; I delivered it from the aisle of a tour bus, at the prompting of a coach who wanted me to explain to the girls—and he never called them, nor did they ever call themselves, anything but girls—why a writer with a precarious rious hold on middle age had decided to travel with them for their three-game series with the Florida Gators. ¶ And so, on a highway somewhere between Alabama and Florida, I told 19 Division I softball players what I’m telling you now, I was traveling with the Auburn softball team because I love softball, and I love softball because I love my 15-year-old daughter, who is a softball player. I was traveling with the Auburn softball team because the year before, when I watched the Tigers play the Oklahoma Sooners for the national championship in the Women’s College World Series, I saw something I’d never seen in a lifetime of watching sports. It was the seventh and final inning of the third and final game; they were down a run with two outs. Oklahoma’s best pitcher was in the circle, and Auburn was down to a sophomore pinch-hitter named Court- ney Shea. She was overmatched and knew it, and to give herself courage, she began singing a Beyonce song. She fouled off one pitch, then another; she wound up fouling off four straight pitches, singing the whole time, and when at last she grounded out, she sobbed as she reached first base.
Denne historien er fra June 04, 2018-utgaven av ESPN The Magazine.
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Denne historien er fra June 04, 2018-utgaven av ESPN The Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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