April 11, 2001
| Ramona Shelburne |  | Year: Senior
Position: OF
Height: 5-2
Hometown: West Hills, CA
High School: El Camino Real
Major: American Studies |
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Setting expectations and goals for yourself in life as well as in sports is always a tricky, but completely necessary task. Set them too low and you may be content to sit back and relax when you achieve them instead of pushing yourself to exceed your expectations. Aim too high and you can put too much pressure on yourself and never be able to just play up to your capabilities. The key is to constantly re-evaluate and reset your goals in light of your performance. Hold yourself to them, but use them as a motivating tool, not as an end-all evaluation of yourself.
When I decided to come to Stanford four Aprils ago, I never bother to ask Coach Rittman where the team was ranked in the national polls. I already knew the answer - they weren't. We were "building a program," Coach said. Getting better every year to the point where we would soon be competitive in the Pac-10 (two years earlier the team had gone 1-24 in conference). I believed him when he said it because I knew he was a good coach and that we had some good players. Still, to be totally honest, I really didn't know what to expect when I got here in the fall.
Maybe we could get ranked? Maybe we could score a few upsets in conference that year?
Then practice started and when I looked around at my teammates, I found it hard to believe that there could be 25 teams in the country who were better than us. We were just the only ones who knew it during the fall of that first year. Come season, we'd show people, we'd earn respect.
Still, the first time I ever saw our team enter the national poll at #17 that year was totally unbelievable. That whole year was. Every time we'd beat or sweep some conference team for the first time in program history, or move up higher in the rankings was like the greatest thing in the world. Top 15, then Top 10, then a #1 seed at Regionals. We'd completely exceeded all our expectations but by the time we were leaving for Regionals at Oklahoma State, we'd come to expect that we'd go to the World Series. Like it was our destiny.
And that was exactly the time we forgot that we had to earn everything that came to us. It had been our recipe for success all year and we forgot it just when we needed it the most. After losing the first game of the tournament, we bounced back and made it to the championship game of the Regional before we finally lost.
That's as close as we've gotten to the World Series since. Our expectations have been high and so far, they've weighed us down and kept us from just playing our kind of softball when it really counts. In my heart, I know we were good enough to go each of the last two years and that's why it hurt so much when we didn't. Our goals weren't too lofty, we just fell short of them.
The thing that remains to be seen about this year is how our team is going to handle the pressure that goes along with being a Top 5 team. Every time you step on the field you have to earn that respect. You can choose to see it as pressure or as a motivator. Because really, you want to play to your capabilities every time you step on the field.
Being ranked lower than you think you should be allows you to have a letdown without immediate consequences. I say immediate consequences because that kind of letdown always catches up with you down the line. Whether it be in your Regional seeding or when it comes time to play against a #6 seed at Regionals who you should beat as the accumulation of letdown games sits in the back of your mind.
Last night against Fresno State, we lost a game that we should have won. Not because we weren't trying hard, but because we just didn't make it happen, or get the key hit. Games like that happen against good teams like Fresno State. You know that you aren't going to be perfect on the year but you still have to learn from every loss, every game for that matter.
My take on it is that this isn't the kind of loss you beat yourself up about and lose confidence over. Sure we were expecting to win that game but that shouldn't put extra pressure on us now, it should motivate us the next game. The best answer to a game like that is to come out and kick butt the next time you step on the field.
And wouldn't you know who we play next - our old friends from Cal.*
