Waking up for an 8:30 a.m. class is not easy. Two to three days a week you have to wake up earlier than you want to, maybe eat breakfast and then go learn something for at least an hour: the horrors. That may sound difficult, but imagine if you were a triple major, playing a sport, on the Presidential Student Advisory Council and more. How about helping set up the Fox Commons, representing the softball team as part of the SAAC council, scheduling practices and lifts for the team whilst the coaching staff positions remain vacant and more. Is it even possible to do all of that? Yes, yes it is.
Mattie Haller is a senior at Lawrence currently triple majoring in biology, biochemistry and Spanish while also doing everything stated above. And more. Haller is a member of the softball team and has essentially undertaken the role of the head coach while Lawrence is looking to find permanent replacements for the entire coaching staff who left over the summer break. On top of finding times for the team to lift and practice, Haller and other seniors on the team have had to go even further beyond their responsibilities as student-athletes.
“[The seniors] have been kind of the ones making a lot of the suggestions and hopefully decisions […] like trying to schedule our lift times and open field times and getting our gear ordered,” Haller said. “We were lucky enough to get our new helmets and new backpacks this year, so that has been great, but yeah, it’s been a lot of trying to figure out how to do that, especially ‘cause I haven’t really had to look into it that much in the past, but to stay on track, it’s something that we had to do, and we stepped up to do it.”
Haller and the other seniors have done an excellent job thus far at preparing the team for the upcoming season and have also sat in on meetings with two candidates for the head coaching position. It’s one thing to keep a team motivated and striving for improvement in the offseason when a coach is present, but a whole other thing without a coach. However, that has not really been an issue for the Lawrence softball team.
“It can definitely get hard at times, especially for right now,” Haller said. “We’re made up primarily of first-years and we have three returners [studying] abroad, so it’s a little hard in that aspect where the returners are kind of outmatched by the first-years, but I think it also allows us to put in place good practice habits, and it’s very intrinsic. If you want to be there, you want to get better, you will.”
What the members of the softball team have been able to accomplish is impressive considering their circumstances, and other members of the Lawrence community have also stepped up to help ensure the continued success of the team.
“[Lawrence Baseball’s] head coach has been coming over and helping us, whether it’s just tossing balls for us or hitting ground balls or pop ups at us, and without [him] doing that we would be struggling way more,” Haller said.
While Haller has been an integral contributor to the softball team and the athletics department through her role as a SAAC board member, she has also benefitted the Lawerence community with her role in setting up Fox Commons.
“I assisted in picking out decorations, room items, whether it was the chairs that are going to be used or just the general layout,” Haller said. “It’s been years in the making.”
So, the next time you think about skipping your early morning class or practice and sleeping in instead, just remember these two words: and more.