Women’s Softball was cut from the 2012 London Olympics. The International Softball Federation is campaigning to get the sport reinstated into the games; the IOC says, “The key factors in determining a sports suitability for the Olympic program include youth appeal, universality, popularity, good governance, respect for athletes and respect for the Olympic values.”

What were the reasons for the games removal and how can it be returned. Professor of law Holly Vietzke is the host of this episode of the Massachusetts School of Law’s Educational Forum.

The Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public in television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit mslaw.edu.

The following is a rough transcript of the above video, courtesy of YouTube captions.

welcome to the educational forum brought to you
by the massachusetts school of law and
the american college of history and legal
studies
i’m holly vietzke a professor at the
massachusetts school of law
every sports fan remembers the nineteen
ninety nine women’s world cup when the us beat china
on the now famous penalty kick by
brandy chastain
in ten years that followed girls high
school soccer saw in increase in
participation of forty percent
in that same decade however
participation in girls high school softball
increased by only fourteen percent
despite the u_s_ olympic team winning its
third gold medal
most recently the olympics dropped softball
from its roster of events
this decision by the international
olympic committee will be in force for
the two thousand twelve and two thousand
sixteen olympics the
visibility and popularity of the sport
could be in jeopardy
with me to discuss the future of women’s
softball are a former olympic athlete
softball coaches an umpire and players
michele smith a a two-time olympic gold
medalist and espn commentator offers
her theory on why softball was cut from
the olympics i think it’s probably a
combination of um a lot of different
things i think that… i_o_c_
was looking for the
opportunity to get other sports into the
olympics ie golf and rugby
two sports that are
popular around the world
especially rugby
i don’t know
that when you start to look at the
mandates of the IOC that those
two sports really fulfill
those mandates softball does in my
opinion quite a bit more so i think that
that the IOC really came down to t_v_ and
contracts and money
and um… if you look at sports in
general
and the IOC _ talks about the mandate to
really market two young kids and trying
to get more kids involved in sport and
movement
softball would be one of those sport’s there
aren’t as many kids playing
uh… golf as there are playing
especially young girls playing golf as
there are young girls playing softball
around the world on or rugby for that
matter in some areas rugby
obviously very popular around the world
still a lot of the countries where
rugby is popular for religious reasons
or cultural reasons a lot of girls
aren’t playing the men are but the girls
are not so
there’s a lot of different theories as
you mentioned as to why softball
has got lumped in and pulled out with
baseball i think that baseball there
were a lot of issues there was the
doping issue
um… there was that fact that the guys
the best guys in the game because
they’re under contract with major league
baseball they weren’t able to have time off
to play in the olympics so there’s a lot
of different things and i think what
baseball’s done really good job of kind
of getting themselves into the position
to be able to fit into the those
olympic ideals which is what the IOC had
wanted and i’m hoping there’s a
possibility that that both the sports at
some point in the future will get back in
but yeah i think i do think that it
comes down to a lot of different things
the u_s_ dominance as part of it but
you know i do think if you look at
women’s basketball i mean the women’s
team u_s_a_ has dominated in
basketball but there’s no we haven’t
really talked about basket ball being
pulled out so i think that it’s a
combination of a lot of different things
and and unfortunate
you know vote in two thousand and
five in singapore at that IOC
session that ended up pulling softball out
along with baseball
now one of the short-term effects of
this decision is that the u_s_ olympic
committee cut its funding for u_s_ a
softball
causing now many of the
country’s best players
to leave the team
and go play elsewhere
what are some of the long term effects this decision could
have
well i think the big thing for softball
in the u_s_ is that
softballs gonna stay strong we have a very
good college program we have a very good
uh…
grassroots programs in
little league in ASA in U triple S A
theirs a lot of different organizations
that are really helping
fulfill the need of those
grassroots organizations a lot of these
kids then wanna get college scholarships
you have title nine that’s helping
support women’s sports in general
uh… especially in the college system
so i think in the u_s_ we’re gonna stay
strong unfortunately for the u_s_
national team yes when the funding is
cut from the u_s_o_c_
that is gonna affect
the national team so that basically
what happens with the sport
is that once the women are out of
college then aren’t as many
opportunities for them to play my
biggest worry for the sport though
is worldwide a lot of the other
countries got their only funding
through their olympic programs
and with that funding now gone
uh… it could really hurt the sport
worldwide and the growth that
was one of the questions i was gonna ask
you is how is this being received
worldwide
you started back in softball which we’ll talk
about in a minute are the other
countries outraged as well yeah definitely
there’s a lot of uh… countries
that this really profoundly
uh… effected in the negative way which
is um… unfortunate japan is always going to
be strong because it has a very good
industrial league
um… australia is a very sports minded
country
canada i think is going to continue to
work hard being our neighbor but where
i worry are those smaller
european countries that were just
starting to get some momentum and some
traction
um… we’re trying to grow the
sport down in africa
uh… the sport is played around the
world i just think
people were not aware of
how much the sport had been growing
around the world that obviously
in asian countries
it’s been strong
but it’s uh… yet
it’s been tough and will continue to be
tough for those this country’s around
but for the u_s_ i think that hopefully
we’ll be able to continue to keep the
the sport strong at the
grassroots level
uh… as well as around the world in
some of the countries that have already
been strong but again their needs to be
parity it doesn’t make a great lead if you
only had five of six strong teams and
the rest of the world isn’t as strong
in the u_s_ at the grassroots level do
you worry at all that this is going to
hurt the little girls who when
their deciding what to play are they going to play
soccer where at least they’ll see that on
t_v_ you know every three to four years
with the world cup and the olympics
over softball or yeah
that is a concern because a lot of young
kids they have their olympic dream
for me that was the hardest part of
softball being taken out of the olympics
it wasn’t the fifteen american
athletes that weren’t going to have the
opportunity because they’ll probably have
an opportunity represent the US at a world
championship or pan am games or some other event
so they were gonna realize their dream
of wearing the u_s_a_ jersey
it’s for the other ninety-nine point
nine nine percent of the population that
play softball that their olympic dream
has now gone so you’re right do they then
transfer that dream
and say well I want to play soccer i want to play
basketball or volleyball because those
are olympic sports of field lackey
uh… yeah that’s absolutely a concern i
think the biggest thing that we still
need in order for the sport to continue
to grow
is for it to strong at the college
level because a lot of those kids want
scholarships and
and most of the kids that do play softball are very
passionate about the sport
if they truly have a love of the game
that hopefully their going to stay in it
now title nine as you mention has been great for
softball eighty nine percent of all
colleges and universities now field a
softball team
do you think that will change is it going
to undo any of the good title nine has
done
uh… i don’t see that you either
just because it is such a popular sport
in college uh…
i mean there are going to be bumps
absolutely but i i truly hope that the
powers to be the people that are making
the decisions realize that the sport is
actually a really good sport for women
we’ve got a lot of great stadiums
there’s been a lot of infrastructure
built for the sport
it to me just wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense
to pull those programs out now
and i think the other thing too is
that the one of the things i love about
softball
is that were all inclusive it doesn’t
matter you can be short you can beat all
uh… you can be
you big you can be small
you can be fast you can be slow
there’s a position for a everybody in
our sport
that’s what i love about it a lot of
times with some of the other sports it’s
it’s a little bit more
challenging unless you have that perfect
body type so for softball because of
that i just think that it encompasses
has such a broad range of
it includes so many young girls that i
think that it would be a shame that
uh…
people started to
to try to limit the ability of the sport
or limit the visibility of the sport
plus unlike golf its affordable you just need
a glove and cleats to play
exactly
you know when you start looking at
budgets at the at the youth at the
grassroots level
you know all the way up through colleges
is absolutely golfing there’s a lot
of other fees that get involved with
uh…
the use of the grounds or the
courses and stuff but uh… it is a
great sport and i know once
it gets in your blood it’s hard to
get it out
you spearheaded back softball which was
an effort to bring softball back into the
olympic games after the first after
it got voted out in singapore
it failed it fell a few short one
vote short maybe of getting back into
the two thousand sixteen games can you talk
a little about your efforts what you
did how successful you were
well don porter the president of the
international softball federation uh…
who is basically the head of our
sport at the international level put
together
the back softball campaign and i was
in charge of of the athletes committee
of that campaign so i did a lot of
lobbying for about two years trying to
really go around and
and talk to the IOC members and
educate them on the sport and how well
the sport did when you look at all
twenty-eight sports
that were in the olympic games and you
started to pick through about the
tv
watchability all the tickets sales all
that type of stuff softball was smack in
the middle we were not at the bottom of
the list so the fact that we kinda got
pulled out
made a lot of other sports kind of go
wow if softball could get pulled out and
they’re middle of the pack to strong
our sport could be in jeopardy as well so
we spent a lot of time lobbying and yet
whatever your you know trying to promote
sport you don’t wanna put other sports
down
uh… just to make yourself look better
i mean basically we were trying to say
to them
softballs a great sport you don’t need
to pull any of us out if you want two
other sports if you want golf and rugby
just include them add them go from
twenty-eight sports to thirty sports
but i think that
the IOC he had been trying to limit
um… the size and scope of the olympic
games try to make it a little bit
smaller and uh… i don’t know that if
i don’t know that pulling sports out is
the right answer maybe it’s limiting
credentials for media and different
things like that if you want to really
bring the games down there’s a lot of
different ways to do it the other thing
that we tried to educate and i tried to
to educate the IOC members to is that
when you start pulling a sport out you
limit opportunities for women even
though he is the IOC is now saying
oh we’re gonna have
more women now participating well ok so
fine you’re going to include more
basketball teams and more soccer teams but
your your
basically
allowing more women in the games but
less opportunities because there’s less
sports now there’s less sport
opportunities for women
and for me you know that that was one of
the things that i was saying which was
which was really tough
and um…
you know you can only do so much when it
comes to trying to educate people once
they have their mind made up or they’ve
basically been
uh… told a story from the start
that
sport shouldn’t be included for this
reason that reason or whatever it’s hard
to sway their thinking and we did as
much as we could i think that the ISF
will continue to lobby to the IOC
to try to get the sport back in but
it’s a long process do you have plans for how to
to get it back do you have a next step
well
i think the uh…
in the future we need to think
outside the box we’re gonna have to
really step up and do some things that
are out of the ordinary because what
was ordinary didn’t work i mean the
IOC pulled us out so we have to figure out
something that’s going to help
improve our sport continue to grow it
worldwide i think that
uh… as much as we try to say we’re not
women’s baseball which we are not we are a
different sport
i think at some point it’s going to be
hard if baseball tries to lobby to get
back into the games and
softball tries to lobby as two different
sports at some point
you have to wonder if we go back in as
one sport men’s baseball women’s
softball
is there a chance to go in as one sport
instead of two separate sports especially
when they are trying to limit the size and
scope of the olympics so
i think that we have to think outside
the box we have to continue talk to the
IOC
uh… don porter who is the presiden of the ifs
is gonna need to continue to
get people in touch with the IOC in
touch with the lobbying in in
building those relationships it’s about
building relationships with those IOC
members
to educate them that that this is a
great sport and figure out what’s going
to work for everybody it’s gotta be a
win-win relationship otherwise it’s
gonna fail at some point
the winter olympics don’t seem to face
this maybe i just don’t hear about it
you know they add snowboarding
all those snowboarding events and they don’t take out
traditional events
summer doesn’t do that huh no well i
think for summer it all comes down to
the again the size and scope with
the winter sports its all about ice and snow
and anything that’s on ice and snow
they’re always looking for more opportunities
and their actually almost trying to grow
the size
of the olympics i mean basketball’s
a perfect example its a winter sport but
it’s played on a hard-court indoors so it
gets lumped into the summer games it
would be kind of cool if you could take
some of the indoor sports that are
winter sports that you traditional would
find played in the winter season
volleyball basketball if those were
played in the winter olympics it
make’s you wonder what would
happen i don’t i don’t know that anyone
is really thinking about that
and it would leave then more outdoor
sports um… for
for the summer games but
uh… you know i think again if the
olympics wants to continue to grow if we
want to keep
the youth of the world engaged
we have to basically be inclined
with what the youth of the world are
doing
uh… it’s it’s more of those extreme
games it is fast pitch softball again i
think that if you look at
at rugby and golf are the youth of the
world playing those two sports
probably not there’s more kids playing
baseball and softball so
i think even the IOC needs to
really consider
what are we who are we marketing to
twenty years from now thirty
years from now that the youth of the
world are going to be
the folks that are buying the
tickets to go watch the olympic games so
we have to be really careful that we
don’t alienate this
generation that’s coming up
and start putting and putting sports in
that maybe they they aren’t as
interested in or that they can’t really
relate to
you know just again as an athlete
thinking outside the box what are
we gonna do in order to to continue to
grow sport because i think that as we’ve
seen sport around the world
were in danger of having a lot of kids
be sedentary i mean we’re not the
the united states is not the only
culture that is struggling with trying
to keep kids moving
now as I a mentioned earlier a lot of the
olympic players team u_s_a_ have left
because of the lack of funding and now
they’re joining the national pro
fast pitch league which is fledgling at
best now
at its height I think it had eight teams I think
now it has four
why do you think a league like that
hasn’t survived or even
hasn’t thrived
or even worse is
struggling to survive well i think it’s
a combination of reasons i think
a lot of the players in the past
have been with the u_s_ team as you
mentioned
they’re not as much uh…
going to be playing with teen u_s_a_ this
year a lot of them have chosen to play in the
NPF
uh… i think it’s a combination
you know die hard softball players and
kids and coaches
are so fanatical about their sport that
a lot of times they’re playing while the
pro-teams are playing as well
so they’re not
able to get to the stands are not able
to get out and support the games and we
need people in the stands in order to
raise revenue to help support the sport
we need more sponsorship dollars
the team does excuse me the sport does
great on t_v_ we rate very well the
college level
the pro games the international games
that are on t_v_
so when we’re on tv we do a really good job
of attracting
uh… an audience but getting that
audience to then transfer into the stadium
and to seeing the games in person is kind of
where
the sport has had some some troubles i
think the other thing to are the
locations of the venues i think haven’t
been the easiest to get to
a lot of times we rely on using college
stadiums as well which create some other
issues because you have different
laws and
different bylaws of what can be done in
the stadiums as far as
beverages and different things like that
that are generate that generate
revenue
for the programs i think the other thing
too is that
you know when softball season is in
full
full gear a lot of people in the winter
months have been locked in
locked inside and so when it comes to having
nice weather the last thing they might
want to do is sit
and just sit and watch a game so
we’re competing with that that nice
weather theres only so much
outdoor activity time that people have
so that kind of pulls them away to
go to the beach or go camping or whatever
it is that
they might have interest in so i think
there’s all these combinations of little
things that unfortunately added up to
that uh… the pro-league struggling uh…
and then went when i talked about the
locations
i think regionally if we could get an
area or a pocket that would be very invested
in the sport it would be easier for
those teams to travel versus having a
team
in chicago
one in florida one in the northeast
because then you end up spending all the
budgets on the teams traveling instead
of
paying the players and you know
basically doing other things that could
make a difference to keep women in the
game
you don’t worry that that would create
a regional
yeah it would in some
areas but i think that is like major
league baseball if you can have uh…
if you have different divisions in
different areas where they play each
other
uh… you know that they would
and just think that it creates
more interest in that region
and so maybe you would have the
southeast
have a division you’d have a amid
western division a northeastern
division and then you can have
inter-league play between those regions of
divisions but
i think for
keeping the budgets where they need to
be sitting there not just buying
airline tickets you know every other
weekend
to travel the teams and you know most of
the teams are big you’re looking at
maybe twenty five thirty
tickets it can the expenses can add up
pretty quickly
so this might be almost
counter-intuitive but maybe because the
olympic players are now playing in this
league because they can’t play for
u_s_a_ might that be a good thing for
the league increasing visibility yeah i
think that that’s kind of the idea of a
lot of the athletes when they came
together and they
said okay where are we’re gonna play this
year are we gonna play for team u_s_a_
or are we going to play in the pro league i think they
felt like this was their
best last shot of trying to make
something happen for the NPF and they
were going to
come together
as a group and really try to promote the
league and try to grow the league but
you’re right atone point their were
eight teams in the league and
now their down to four its hard to it a league
you know a league with four teams but
uh… if the women can
do a good job of marketing themselves being
vested in their communities and get the
communities to then be vested in the
teams
uh… hopefully they can go from
four teams to six teams to eight teams and
who knows maybe up to sixteen teams and
just really start to grow the sport cuz
thee’s a lot of great athletes who play the
game
and if they had a place to go after
college in would be really good
so ESPN has been great about
televising
women’s sports the women’s college
world series uh… march madness
college basketball tournament
it’s seems though to me a viewer that
during basketball season you have big
monday for the women’s games you have
almost every game of the march
madness tournament
but i know ESPN televises some regular season
softball games but it just doesn’t seem
to get the same
visibility
or maybe it’s not as widely watched is
women’s college basketball doing
something differently then softball
i do think that um… the s_e_c_
contract has been a big thing for ESPN
and there’s a lot more regular season
games on the ACC
is gonna start getting some other games
on this well the pac ten could get their
games on it it would really be great
i think the biggest thing is that in the
winter months uh… with basketball
it’s
i think women’s basketball just you know
has a great following it’s a great sport
and um…
it’s easier maybe for e_s_p_n_ just to
see that carry over between the men’s
game in the women’s game i think that
now that college softballs been on in
the regular season the last two years
yes ESPN has really seen
um… the way the viewers have
gravitated from those regular season
games to the post season they air
uh… every game of super regionals and
every game of the women’s college world
series and a couple of regionals
i think that will continue to grow
because as i mentioned the sport rates very
well on t_v_
uh… and so you know once you once you
start to figure out hey the sport’s
rating really well
uh… i think that then there’s the opportunity
to do more regular season games and
i think ESPN is becoming more
vested in the sport and again i think once
it’s that win win relationship
the sport does well for ESPN
ESPN will do well for the sport
uh… and they’ve grown a lot of it
they’ve really help make the women’s
college world series what it is and i
think that
those of us in the sport need to be very
thankful for what they have done i think
we can continue to do more absolutely i
think we could do a game of the week
definitely i think they are are things
and and there’s ways is a lot of
women in
ESPN management that are thinking out
of the box and hey what can we do to
help grow the sport
and um… i think that it just takes a
little bit of time to get that traction
but if you go back and look over the
last two to three years the sport
has absolutely grown on t_v_ in and
hopefully unit three years from now
we’re gonna be double where were at now
i think one of the problems that
softball faces is that the
super regionals are on memorial day
weekend
and like you said you’re fighting with people for
barbecues and getting outside yet
i mean it’s good the invention of
tivo’s been good thing
for women’s sports but
yeah it is I mean your competing for
so much time the
folks that love the sport that are
traditionalists and just
they’re gonna watch it they’re gonna find a
way to to get those teams we have to try
to increase that viewership and have to
make new people fans of the sport
and that’s where i think again e_s_p_n_ is
kinda been thinking outside the box they
brought in john kruk too
help out with some of the broadcast
trying to pull in the baseball viewer
and uh…
and which has been good he’s a great
guy he loves the sport he wants to be
involved
and uh… um…
you know i think that there’s other
little ways you can
can get some cross promotions going on
but uh… as a spring sport we do have
to compete
with a lot of other things and could be
being locked up all winter long it’s
finally spring time people don’t want to
sit in the front of the t_v_
which basketball benefits from it’s
wintertime you’re not going outside anyway
exactly so basketball has that
in their favor
but there’s no reason why the sport
can’t try to do things a little bit
differently
and uh… grow the viewership
and continue to uh…
create that momentum to move in a
positive direction
so finally michelle my last question
what can the viewer e at home whose a softball
fan and wants to get softball back in the
olympics what can he or she do
well i think the big thing is is to
stay vested and to stay
informed with the international softball
federation find out what the sport the
the people at the international
uh… level and that leadership what
they’re doing become involved in their
programs don’t be afraid to write the
IOC they have a website write in
saying hey you know we
we miss softball it was a great sport
a great opportunity for women to
be involved in the olympic games please
reconsider i think that you have to make
your voice be heard you can’t just hope and wish
you have to actually do you have to be
productive on stuff and
uh… i think we just have to be um…
vigilant as a sport to continue
to lobby to IOC members to
continue to grow the sport think outside
the box a little bit uh… and do
do the right thing to help uh…
pass down
the sport to to newer generations and
continued to grow the sport
I need this sport to play
my brother’s
big into baseball big into sports
and i just want to follow his footsteps
being on the softball team gives me a sense of
unity and friendship and
um… playing the game is just a lot of
fun I
have fun playing
I get to exercise its good I like the team
aspect and like you’re individually
striving to do well and the play is like all on you but
your still competing as a unit
even though you have to make your own individual plays
and bat on your own it all combines together
joseph alfonse is the commissioner of the
massachusetts chapter of the amateur softball
associate the governing body
of the sport
we asked him how this sport is doing
locally and what we can do here to
increase its popularity
massachusetts is very fortunate in terms
of the entire east coast i’m
very proud to say we have almost five
thousand teams in massachusetts
all that register ASA now they
they do register with some of the other
associations so that they can compete
with other championships and tournaments
but we have an adult program
that you can play co-ed you can play
men’s you can play women’s uh…
women’s s
fastpitch is still
alive it’s not as big as we’d even
remotely hope
mens fastpitch slow pitch
they’re still around but the biggest one
is coed now so when you’re talking adults its
one side of the organization that i
actually have a small staff not a small staff but a
staff that works
the adults
the kids though is is still blossoming
and were very very fortunate with that
that the kids really take softball
seriously
uh… as a high school teacher i mean i
know a lot of my kids were disappointed
when they lost it that they knew they might
never make it to the olympics but at the
same time it was such a great thing to watch
and for the kids to see the game played
on that level with all these different
countries competing and everything
nobody was mad when japan one
you know in beijing it was really
was a great game
a great situation
so you know the kids are still working
towards it their still working towards you
know improving their high
schools are still working towards
getting hopefully a scholarship to college some
get recruited by college that you
know this might be that extra thing that
gets them in admissions wise that they
have the ability
still to play the game
what do you think will be the effects if any
of the IOC cutting softball from the
olympics
in terms of the effects that’s a
pretty specific question I know for a
large majority of americans that play
in europeans as well but there’s a
huge disparity in terms of numbers
it was absolutely demoralizing for a
perhaps a hundred thousand
softball athletes collegiately you no
division one two and three that you know
they had a goal to come and play at
a higher level once they were done with college or
even while they were in college i mean
who wouldn’t want to be the olympic
champion of the sport
so wyen the IOC cut it
there was a lot of controversy involved
in that in terms of some of the reasons
they cut it and everything so you had a
big campaign that was called back
softball
theres you can still go online and see
some of the back softball things
the europeans had that the ISF
which is the international softball
federation
they’re still actively pursuing trying
to get us back in the olympics
so to answer your question in specific the
ramifications are huge in terms of
personal levels
to each and every player each and each and every
coach
because everybody always works towards
that goal when you competitive to
always play the ultimate game
now i know that you’ve been very
involved even to this point in trying to
get softball back into the olympics
right from the grassroots all the way up
to the international level can you tell us a
little bit about it
your efforts well the one
thing about being in the ASa and its
ASA USA softball if you go
on the national site locally we’re a
franchise were just called the ASA which
is the amateur softball association
the one thing i did as an umpire
you know you always want to be
competing in higher levels of play so my
goal was
never mind a national championship I
really wanted to be an olympic
umpire
i’m still working towards that in hopes
that that can happen
so as being an umpire and then becoming the
commissioner we decided or i decided to
join the international
committee the foreign relations
committee
which was a godsend in terms of the fact
that it helped introduce me to allot of
the europeans specifically
that i’ve had the
opportunity to meet over the last couple
of years
for example last year i went out to
amsterdam to
watch
the european
local championships which was a little
bit different than you think for
national championship
watch the european local championships i
got to meet uh… seventeen too
twenty different european federations as
they call themselves and we
got to introduce ourselves to
them
uh… this past winter in february they
invited me back out to brussels for the
european softball congress which is
basically uh…
ASA meeting
in the fact that they discuss rules
they discuss tournaments
and they discuss how to make the program
bigger and better
and at that time were very fortunate after our
initial meetings that we’re now working with
europe
so that we can go help provide them
equipment we can help provide them umpire
training
um… in turn they’re sending umpires
over here to work with us
they just sent uh… small contingent of
folks that
went to
our umpire in chief school
we have clinics every two years
so we helped train them well not train them
i apologize but help make them better trainers
so that they can go back to europe and
do that as well
so we’re trying to create a sister city
relationship and i’m pretty much in the
forefront of that
if someone from
one european comp country wanted to work
with massachusetts we’d partner up you
know some our communities like uh…
for example the yugoslavia committee
wants to work with
chicago because they’re they have an
ethnic population that live in there so
we’re trying to create that type of
relationship so that perhaps we can
broaden
uh…
Softball worldwide just in terms of people
understanding and creating more of a
uh… a base for people to become more
involved with in the sport and what can
people do to increase the visibility and
the popularity of export
that questioning
is unique in itself to increase the visibility
i have to give credit to the the ASA
as a whole that we have really gone out
of our way to work with the ESPN
uh… to work with the NCAA
one of the most rapidly
popular sports now on ESPN I
use that term in terms of the benefits
what i’m saying
the college world series is starting to
dominate the market in june
when people come to to watch ESPN they see
eight ten different games they see the
regionals they see the uh… super
regionals
and people really get involved with it’s
never going to reach well lets rephrase that i hope
it reaches the same level as you know
the NCAA
basketball tournament
but we are getting uh… quite a bit of
people that come down to see it now
we’re doing a lot of live webcast
even on the division three tournaments
that are drawing a lot of hits
i was fortunate enough when I was in europe I
got to be the uh… play-by-play and
color commentator all in one
to do the european championships at the
same time and that was beamed uh…
internet wise to almost seventy
different countries
so luckily media and technology are assisting us
in all of this people can see
the game they can see that it’s not
kind of like a baseball game
sometimes it’s just dominated by a
pitcher pitcher catcher
softball
is every pitch there’s a play
as an umpire i would not do any other
sport because on every play you have to
be on your toes
because they’ll be upon they’ll be a force
they’ll be sacrificed where baseball is
you know throw three four pictures maybe
get a hit maybe you get an infield
every pitch there’s some type of movement
going on with the plays
so that’s the type of things that people
see when they see it they see a very active
sport
which keeps people really really involved
and watching the game
you mentioned that it’s gonna take a
long
time or it’s a long way to go to get softball
back in the olympics what’s it going
to take
is going to take
a large
effort worldwide i’m trying to choose my
words carefully
and when i say a large effort worldwide
people kept saying for years and
years your since ninety two when got into
the olympics that america’s winning
america’s winning we have the world
cup america is warning
everybody doesn’t like to see the same
person
win a game is kinda like plaguing tic tac toe
when you had stalemate stalemates stalemate
u_s_a_ kept winning u_s_a_ kept winning
u_s_a_ kept winning
people didn’t see a lot of the world
championships because to tie in with your
last question it really hadn’t been
televised too much
they didn’t see japan winning they didn’t see
australia coming up and winning some of
the regional
tournaments and seeing some of the european or the
asian tournaments and stuff like that
so as the game gains popularity which it
still is
but again
gains more of a fan base
because it is televised
i think people need to see it more often
and see that it’s not dominated by one
again nobody was upset that japan won
other than the american team and god bless
them in terms of the fact that you
always want to win
but it became really obvious that this
game as now popular enough that other
teens and other countries are taking
it seriously
and their producing a great product
can you tell me how you initially got
involved in softball
i started playing softball right after
high school
all uh… baseball was still kind of
prevalent we played a little bit of that
but in the late eighties ot actually hte
early eighties softball was really the
sport to be playing
i grew up in everett and in everett it we had
uh… uh…
almost a hundred teams playing on
makeshift fields and everything in all
the different leagues
and became very involved we joined a
company played with them and we
just kept playing and playing a playing
and not too long after that i joined the
military and i was in the army and even
on the army softball was very prevalent
so i continued to play in the army
uh…
while stationed at different posts
and eventually i graduated to
become an umpire
you know i enjoyed playing softball but
you know there was a lot of controversy and there was
no umpires to be had so i decided to
become an umpire and i joined the ASA
back in nineteen eighty seven so almost
twenty four years ago
and how did you get to be commissioner
of the ASA
a long process i was still in the military even
when I joined the ASA back in nineteen
ninety-seven so i finished uh…
twenty three years of service
was umpiring back in massachusetts again
and uh… they needed people that would
be
proactive in terms of assigning other
umpires
so that’s called the commissioner so i
was very fortunate i get selected to be
a commissioner
and then as the time went on i became an
umpire in chief i became commissioner for
the junior olympics which is the youth
programs
worked for that in the previous commissioner
ray mckown had passed away
and i applied to the national office to
take his position
with the way softball and the economy and
everything else has turned they have now
decided to merge both boston and the
state
so last year they had uh…
a downsizing if you will
and we downsize the state and i applied
once again for that and i was selected
by a hiring committee so now i’m the commissioner of
the entire state of massachusetts
and i like um the bonding that
my team has like become you know like the unit that
we’ve become i just feel like when i play that
I an excel because it’s just something I’m good at
i feel like when i play that like i know
i’m going to do well so the confidence
it gives me and I love playing softball
well i started off with table and then I played baseball
as a young kid and then i think
fifth grade is when i started playing actual softball
i like the mental aspect of softball its very strategic
and i like the team aspect
i feel like the teams are very close
the teams are very very close my favorite sport
is softball
now lets hear boston university softball coach shawn rychcik
talk about how the game of softball has changed popularity
in the past decade
i think its is blown up in probably the
the last uh…
eight years maybe
uh… really
the northeast i think has been the last to
kind of get that
big blowup were there’s lots of players
playing around the leagues in stuff in
high school and then on the college in
i think some of the travel teams here in
the northeast have picked up
i think up here massachusetts still a little
slow uh… you know that but like
philadelphia uh… new jersey that
area
pennsylvania
i bet it’s almost doubled in the last
maybe seven eight years i know
recruiting wise its change just the volume
and
the quality of players over that time has
really changed
what effects if any will the IOC
decision
cutting softball from the olympics have
uh… i i think i think part of the
explosion was the uh…
part that was in the olympics ninety-six
these girls of ten years old saw a chance to be
in the olympics and when they got to be
eighteen
ten years later early
two thousands
i think that’s when you saw it really
start to blow up out here it was already
big out west and south and stuff
so i’m hoping it doesn’t i’m hoping its
grabbed on enough at least in the
woman’s game uh… it can hold itself
uh… there’s enough international
competition
i think the one thing that can help to
it and always helps is the fact that
every year there’s three four uh… new
schools division one schools adding or
there’s division two schools bouncing up
so there’s a lot scholarship
opportunities and you know that’s
hundreds of thousands of dollars going
for one player possibly over a four-year
career
so i think there’s going to be continued
interest to a certain degree whether it
will
continue to grow at the rate that it has
i don’t know i think the olympics was a
driving force to see on t_v_ um… to
have a dream for some of these young girls i
think that parts gone
uh… so it’ll be interesting to
go we’re kind of in that transition year now that
has been declared its not in
and how is it going to fare over the next
five ten years we’ll find out i think
in the college ranks first and then on
from there will it
have any effects on your recruiting
uh… it could you know i saw it
blow up it helped me a little bit here in
the northeast and we’ve started to add a few
more northeast kids to our roster
and uh…
we’ll see over the next five
ten years whether we suddenly find a
decline in there isn’t the quality players
that we once had but like i said i’m hoping
it’s grabbed on enough and and it’s
gonna
maybe not grow at the rate it was but at least
maintain where it was
now are any of your recent alumni still
involved in softball
uh… up until i think a year ago
robin king was still involved
she was coaching a travel ball team out
here in massachusetts
uh…
other than that i think there’s a few that are at
the high school level
um… but not into it as you know much
as you’d hope
there were some great
players here too that
you know we do a little bit but
i don’t know if it’s just that there’s
no money financially elsewhere after the
game
and especially coming out of boston university theres
tons of uh…
financial opportunities with your career
and i think that for some girls is
out weigheing the desire to continue
and play and be a part of things
why do you think it’s women
basketball players have
w n_b_a_ they can play overseas and
softball doesn’t have the post college
opportunity it’s disappointing too because
at twenty two years old you’re kind of
in the prime your career you’ve learned
you’ve matured
you’ve got good coaching for four years
a lot of the girls and that you really
your time thats why you see your seniors be
your best players
there just getting into their prime and its very
unfortunate and uh…
i don’t know if its
financial opportunities or at this point
just opportunities there is a little bit
in europe here and there
i think part of its in preparation for
the olympics and international stuff
which
maybe even lost on a whole different
market
um… you know there’s only a pro-league
here with four teams all in the united
states so i think that makes it awful
hard and the pay you know like i said
if you’re gonna get ten thousand for the
summer
it’s nice but you can go and spend you
know your your your uh… degree can get
you a lot farther and get you a lot more
especially in in these
economic times
what is softballs biggest strength in other
words why might it continue to succeed despite
the olympic
rejection i think it’s got a tv
appeal it’s uh… short burst of energy
two hours sometimes less than two hours
of
some high-skill and you get maybe
golf you don’t see a guy plays a round of
golf and you don’t see that
great play but in softball your
guaranteed to see it
throughout the game just the speed of
the game and how people got to react
i think from a tv standpoint you
know it’s done in two hours baseball
games can drag three-four hours and i
think you can
hold an audience during that time and
hopefully you know grab an
association and more more seems to be
going on it’s a
uh… i know in the nca their getting more
televised and i know
there’s an emphasis on speedy game to
keep it under that two hour
time block so
i think that’s part of the appeal
they’ve realized that if we can sell a
short product
um… of high uh… quality like that
we’ll keep we’ll keep interest
what will it take to increase that popularity
just television networks
showing more games yeah i think so
and i think uh…
you know maybe somewhere down the road
if there was some type of pro-leage
something to continue it where
you know people can watch a college
basketball player play in college and they
can watch him in the pros well i think if
you could get an association where hey i saw this
girl play in college
and now i’m watching her play in the pro league you
know we had some of that with the
olympics were we saw some girls carry on
their college careers and then advance
represent the countries
in different countries to and
people might remember that that the
diehards but i think that would help uh…
you know maintain that interest and and
just i think developing in the game with
technologies
that are available from streaming
uh… just
where people can be involved and more
associated with their
uh… college programs or just softball in
general
and finally what do you think it would
take to get softball back into the
olympics
uh… i’d
i’ve been a part of u_s_a_
softball retired now so i i i and know
that one of the big stumbling blocks even for
the man at the time was the european
voting bloc and uh… the u_s_ uh…
dominated woman softball for a
time and then uh… japan china
australia the island’s they’ve been strong but
there’s never been a strong program from
out of europe and i don’t know if this
they felt it wasn’t
a sport they didn’t want to support because
that
block of the
world wasn’t going to be able to compete you
know in a political way they voted out
because they weren’t gonna
do very well and they unfortunately
hold a huge voting
part of the IOC vote and i think thats hurt
and that was always
something that with the men’s we’ve we
fell into and i think it caught up to
the women in part of the success here
united states and we have an outstanding
feeder program with the college system
and i don’t know anybody else has that
so they just saw it as such a disadvantage and
we’ll exercise a little bit of our
political power and end up chopping
chopping baseball the same way there’s isn’t
lot of european
players you know so
it kinda hurt both baseball and
softball so i think
some of what the USOC and the
ASA and parts are doing the
governing bodies of softball are trying
to do camps clinics promote softball in
europe in different
parts donate equipment have
different representatives from the u_s_ go and
teach
and teaching it correctly and have u_s_
players go over their and play
uh… and try to build the game
from that standpoint and hopefully it it
takes hold and it becomes uh…
olympic sport again
it’s really disappointing that
the olympics cut softball as a sport
as a young softball player
you sort of lookup to olympic
players
and maybe aspire to be them one day and
so that they cut it maybe means that
it’s not taken seriously
so
kinda disappointing
uh… i think it’s sad cuz and was still a competitive
sport in the olympics and it does kind of like hurt
younger softball players in the US
they don’t really have as many role models
to look at
i feel like there’s so many more men’s
teams than
women’s teams and cutting a womans sport
i’m a
big fan of
of equal opportunity
we’ll be right back with more from
softball coaches and players
at the new american college of history and
legal studies in salem new hampshire
you can finish your bachelors degree affordably and
get on the fast track to law school
we teach american history
and you’ll receive a rigorous education at a very
low cost the small day and evening classes allow you to
interact closely with the distinguished
faculty at the american college of history and
legal studies professes don’t lecture
through
the discussion method of teaching
you’ll be engaged in the issues raised in class
you’ll learn to be
a critical thinkers a better writer and
a polished public speaker and you’ll be
able to compete with anybody in today’s
competitive market place you can also
get on the fast track to law school
qualified students gain early admission
into the Massachusetts School of Law
the new american college of history and legal studies
offers and junior and
senior years of undergraduate education to
finish your bachelors degree
with the opportunity to start your law degree
early call or visit today
massachusetts school of law
legal education that is practical accessible
affordable and enjoyable
offering flexible day or evening classes full or
part-time studies where candidates are assessed
not on the LSAT
for their academic and other
accomplishments
providing more professional skills
training than any other law school
in new england massachusetts school of law
visit us at MSLAW.edu
training students to become successful
lawyers and advocates not just legal scholars
harvard university coach jenny allard
is the sports longest tenured coach
and one of the most successful
this spring she earned her
fourth berth in the NCA tournament
jenny is in her seventeenth season as head coach
and talks about the changes in the game
since her playing days at the university of
michigan
its gotten much quicker i think the game its been
sped up a lot it think there’s more offense in
the game
when i played we played with a white
ball with a cork middle and you
know purely aluminum bats now we have
you know
an increase in the core of the ball we
also have more high performing bats
so it’s become much quicker i think a
good hitter when i played
hit around three thirty a year for a batting
average now you’re a great hitter if you hit
over four hundred so the offense is
really gone uh… strong and you know i
think the speed has been phenomenal in our
game jus the quickness of the athletes
the stolen bases a lot more just
quickness in the game
it’s a game of speed and explosiveness
have you noticed an increase in the number of
girls who grow up playing softball
absolutely absolutely when i was playing
there are a few you know elite level
travel teams in southern california now
it’s just grown exponentially there’s
more girls interested i think the uh…
you know having the support in the
olympic completely helped that
and the growth of the sport in general
more
youth programs offering the sport
younger getting kids involved
i think competing with basketball
competing with volleyball competing with
soccer
exposing kids to the sport younger their
they’re getting hooked and enjoying it
were you disappointed to see the olympics
cut softball yes yes that was a huge
blow you know it
it took away dreams for a lot of young
women and that was sad to see and i
think it
definitely hurt the sport in the sense of
we felt like we were gaining a lot of
momentum
and it just kind of it has been a time
to stop and evaluate and figure out what we
need to do to keep
moving the sport forward
on a worldwide stage
because i think in the united states it’s a
strong sport and it’s got a lot of
viewership i mean i cant tell you how
many people ask me or say to me hey the
college world series was so exciting and
these are people who normally you know
don’t watch softball that much or go you
know to softball but they see on t_v_ in its
exciting television sport what effect if any
will it have on new recruiting efforts none
really i think that you know from
for where i’m am coaching at Harvard
i think the students
you know come and this is the pinnacle of
their career the pinnacle of their career playing at
college i have a few kids who are interested in
playing overseas after they graduate in
doing a few things like that but i think
in general a lot of female athletes really
see colleges the pinnacle of their
career some extend beyond with the
olympics national team international
competition but that may extend them you
know three to five years out verses you
know end it right at college but
what kind of opportunities exists overseas
well there’s leagues in japan
in the netherlands bonds
switzerland theres always there’s a lot of
european leagues we always get emails
about pitchers they want a
picture for you know for the european
national championships and things like
that so there’s a lot of
opportunities over there i think to play
beyond college
um… and a few players who you know take
advantage of that for a couple years
after post-graduation
and some now we have the pro league
although we’ve had some momentum and
its died down and some momentum it’s
it’s an option for some athletes post
college
do opportunities exist even for
american players on those foreign teams
yes usually they are allowed to have one or two
american players they are limited to one or
two
what can people do to increase the
visibility and popularity of softball
i think really watch it on t_v_ go to the
programs go to the college games and
it’s great
now i was watching a game um… this
past weekend that i actually taped and i
was seeing oklahoma play missouri
in a conference match up and they had
eighteen hundred fans there so i think
going to the games and watching the
games on television just giving that
enough and supported building up our
base and finally coach what will it take to get
softball back in the olympics
that’s a great question i think it’s
definitely gonna take a lot of
grassroots effort that we’re doing in in
building up clinics and exposure in
other countries and getting
more of a national stage with the
sport continue to create national interests and i and i
think really keeping you know the women
progressing at a strong level with
national teams having uh…
different european nationals canadian
national best canada cop all of that
stuff that builds international draw
i think is huge for our sport and i think
people just the athletes need to
be committed to continuing to play and
it’s going to come back
it’s gonna come back it’s a great sport
i hope so
jennie finch obviously great inspiration
great figurehead for our sport
i also
had to operator to go to a camp
with garland cooper from the northwestern
team a few years ago so that kind of
started off my
love of softball i watched her play in the college
world series and i was really
and i was really fascinated by her talent
and i met her at a camp a few years later
and that was a really cool experience to get to meet one of
my idols from childhood carry leto martin is the assistant coach
for the harvard team and a former professional
softball player
she played for the new england riptide
which played its games in lowell for five seasons before
folding for financial reasons
you went to a high-profile school like
northwestern and you played in the regionals can you
talk to me about what that experience was like
sure my four years at northwestern
were the best four years of my life
great program great character and the
coaches there really great
they ran a really great program
they taught me a lot about softball
about life in general and it was really
great to advance to the regionals and make it far in
post-season and then to be able to
play after that was an amazing
experience for me and you played in the
professionals fast pitch league here in new england
when we had a team what was that
like
it was great definitely
a great experience just to
continue playing and
live my dream i mean you grow up
thinking like i want to play on the olympic
team i want to go pro and now there is a
pro league so young girls can keep
saying that and
um… it was great we had a lot a lot
of fans kids that would come and kind of
look up to us and and uh… i really
really enjoyed it why did it fold
you know i think it’s really tough
financially to keep a
pro-team going
and so it takes a lot of money and takes
a lot of
people in the front office and i think
it just got difficult their
hoping to bring it back so i hope it works
out for them do you think they can i think they can
yeah i think you know it’s a lot of
it is strategy marketing and kind of
starring at the grassroots level and but
then after that you do kind of need to get
some money to back it so i think
they’re looking for some big
sponsors to help them out
is that how the w n_b_a_ makes it their backed by
the n_b_a_ yeah and they get big sponsors
and
it would be great to set someone like coke or marriot
or someone big like that
and were you disappointed to see the olympics
cut softball
i was very disappointed i think every
softball fan in america’ was disappointed
it was i think it was surprising to a
lot of people just because it’s so
popular but yeah it was sad do you think
that will have any effect on the
the fast pitch league
actually to be honest i think
the effect that that has on the n_p_f_ is
actually a positive one just because a
lot of big names that were in
olympic softball jessica mendoza
cat osterman monica abbott caitlyn
lowe a bunch of them they are now deciding to not play
for the national team and they are going
to play in the n_p_f_ so i actually think that
is a positive side for professional
softball and i think they kinda got together as
a group and decided okay what’s the best
thing that we can do for this sport and
they decided let’s try to make this
pro league bigger and better and
grow it for the people beneath us
softball in the olympics is that it
prevents the girls having a future
in the sport
it’s gonna downgrade
the level of play at the college
its going to then turn around and down play the
level of support for programs
at the high school
eventually
it’s going to do away
with the program altogether
the girls have nothing for the future
there is a no professional league for them to go
to the olympics was
the end goal
for a lot of these girls
i feel like its not good because
people can learn lessons
from watching it on tv and i watch
it on tv sometimes
watch them play so i can learn new things
i have watched the college world series a lot in the
past and the olympic softball
you can really learn a lot from watching
older players and
especially with the olympics and college softball
those are our idols those are the women we hope to be
and just playing the game we love
so its great to watch them
though it began as an offshoot of baseball
softball is not just the female
equivalent of men’s baseball
the bases are sixty feet apart instead of ninety
making bunting stealing and slapping an
integral part of the game
in college in the olympics the pitcher
stands just forty three feet away so a
typical sixty five mile per hour fast
ball is the baseball equipment of ninety
five miles per hour with a shortened
reaction time
these factors and others make softball a
highly strategic team to coach which
many people find more enjoyable
to watch then baseball
what do you like best about coaching
i’m a teacher
so i love the skills i love them
love to teach them how to learn
uh… especially at the varsity
level
the complexity of the game is so crazy
compared to the lower level
so um… when we work on those
complexities it’s its really cool
to see the um
the fruition of that
the decision to cuts softball from the olympics will
have any effect on the
girls playing now oh i definitely
do i think it’s a trickle effect i
think
you know
i was at my nephews baseball game
the other day he’s six and they had a girl on the team
and my fathers an umpire and he said
she’s playing the wrong sport because there are
opportunities for her
now
as a softball player
but this takes one away now you know after
college and
my daughter and i had a conversation
about
you know she said well why do you want
to go to college to play softball i said because
a you love it and b
you can work you’re learning about
teamwork you’re learning about socializing
you’re learning about competition
and when you play a sport and you compete
you’re learning to be a stronger person
to deal with in professional life
do you get any girls who go on to play
college
again division three small
uh… i don’t have many
i wish I had more
so um…
not too much field hockey definitely
uh… softball
lacrosse kills me
lacrosse and softball same season
i have watched the college world series a lot in the
past and the olympic softball
you can really learn a lot from watching
older players and
especially with the olympics and college softbal
those are our idols those are the women we hope to be
and just playing the game we love so its great to watch them
were you disappointed that the olympics cut the
sport
definitely i mean there’s so many sports in the olympics and i
feel like softball would be a great thing to keep there
something that a lot of young girls are interested in
a lot of young girls watch
it
and i really think it would be a shame
to let it go
um i really like defense just having the challenge
of working together with the outfield
make the play and support the rest of the team
each sports different like field hockey is
more like a fast paced continuous game
and basketball is like a quick burst game
and softball is more of a slow mental game
but i like all of the team components of each sport
its fast paced
and its not like all the other sports like
you get to use your hands
and you know its just fun
in nineteen ninety-six softball debuted in the
olympics to standing room
only crowds
each year the women’s college world
series breaks attendance record
today there are a hundred and twenty eight
countries in the international softball
federation
the fan base is passionate but can
this passion revive sport that much of the world
rejects
i think its a shame
i don’t really understand why they’re doing it
um…
when you introduce a sport
to the olympics um…
it must be dramatic to take it away
especially when its been there for so many years
its an extremely competitive sport
beautiful sport
and you know i’m not part of the olympic
committee but i think its a mistake
i think it’s important to have softball in
the olympics because
if i want to do softball later like
past college and stuff there’s nothing much that’s
out there for me to do there are
so many sports in the olympics and i feel like softball would
be a great thing to keep there
its something thing that a lot of young people are interested in
a lot of young girls watch it
and i really think it would be a shame
to let it go
we’d like to thank our guests for their valuable
input in today’s show
if you’d like to see softball get back into the olympics
go to www back softball dot
com
check out the international olympic
committee’s website
qat olympic dot org slash IOC
thank you and join us again next time