by Malcolm Butler
Louisiana Tech softball is on a business trip this week.
Sure. Plenty of people will look at a opening weekend tournament in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, as a vacation, but that’s not the mindset of highly-competitive collegiate student athletes.
Five games in five days against teams who all advanced to last year’s NCAA Regionals is not to be taken lightly, and the Bulldog coaching staff is reminding these players of just that … you are here to compete at a high level and represent your University on the field.
However, Thursday morning, the Tech travel party loaded up in two sprinter vans and traveled across town to SPAC Institute, a local elementary school for grades K through six. And for 90 minutes, the Tech players represented not only their school and softball program, but their country as well
In a pre-scheduled community service type of event, the Bulldogs found a way to overcome a pretty severe language barrier with a playground full of first and second graders, handing out Tech t-shirts, sun glasses, rally towels, squishy balls and koozies.
It was a wonderful thing to see. A team full of English-speaking college softball players forming an instant bond with approximately 60 Spanish-speaking kids. Forget neither group could speak fluently in their counterparts native tongue — a couple of Tech players are actually pretty good with the Spanish language — it didn’t matter.
The bond was undeniable.
“The commonality of sport always has the propensity to bring people together,” said Tech head coach Josh Taylor. “I definitely think that is what we saw today.
“Sport has the tendency to allow people from different countries to communicate. We were fortunate that we have a few players that can speak Spanish as well. It was fun to watch the interaction. The love for sports, in this case softball, is a universal communicator.”
Once “introductions” were complete and items were handed out, Tech players demonstrated different skill sets of the game of softball. Very small fundamental-types of things that their newest fans gravitated towards instantly.
“The language barrier was a little hard at first,” said junior Allie Floyd. “When we first got to the school, we tried to introduce ourselves and talk to them to see what their names were. It was definitely a challenge.
“But being able to show them examples of what we do, whether that be fielding a ground ball or catching a pop fly or throwing the ball … just their excitement during each little phase as super cool. Just the interactions with them made my heart full.”
Most of the 90 minutes was filled with small groups broken up around the turfed playground, doing plenty of different things. Tech sophomore Kaylee Grealy “played” goalie while a dozen or so boys kicked a soccer ball around with smiles on their faces.
Other groups played tag or chase or just sat around and communicated in ways that exceeded the English and Spanish languages.
The Puerta Vallarta Challenge started in 2015 and is hosted the first two weekends of the college softball season every year. This marks the second time Louisiana Tech has participated in the event as this year’s Bulldogs join the 2018 team that ventured across the boarder for the games.
Win or lose on the playing field over the next few days, the Louisiana Tech players will most likely remember their victory with complete strangers at an elementary school more than they will remember the outcomes on the field.
“It was awesome to see their reactions to the little things that we take for granted every day,” said Floyd. “They think it is such a big thing. It was so heart-warming and eye-opening to see how much we have and how things we take for granted are just such a big deal to them.”
Business trip or not, the Tech players won over a bunch of kids hearts and Louisiana Tech gained some new fans.
