To every thing there is a season and a time and a purpose under heaven. So go the words of “Turn, Turn, Turn” which The Byrds turned into a number one hit in the 1960s and they were so appropriate Sunday when Stacey Nelson, who would have made a fine hippie in those days, got her Senior Day farewell at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium. In the span of two hours we saw a season — make that four seasons — worth of emotions, everything from a pre-game flood of tears to 6-2/3 innings of competitive fire with a hint of revenge thrown in for good measure to the laughter and appreciation for all things Gator in a post game which saw her doing hand stands on the number 42 that had been stenciled onto the outfield grass.
Stacey Nelson is the best college softball player in the nation, a dominating pitcher with a wicked screwball and a will to win that turns her from California cool to land shark mean the moment she crosses the white lines onto the playing field. She was California cool, as laid back as laid back could be until they started the Senior Day ceremony before Sunday’s game with Longwood and she saw her mom, Carolyn, who had flown in from California for the weekend.
“I tried to be a pillar but I think I failed miserably,” said Carolyn, a self-described card carrying, banner toting Gator for life now that she’s spent the last four years of her life crisscrossing the country to watch Stacey pitch the Florida Gators to prominence. “The two of us looked at each other … “
And the tears started flowing. Who cried the most is debatable.
“I think I did,” said her proud mom.
Like the other seniors, Stacey got flowers from teammates, the kind of hugs you remember for a lifetime because they’re those every second I hold onto you I brand this moment forever in my brain kind of hugs. She got her framed jersey in the center of the diamond where she got another one of those last a lifetime hugs from mom and she got a hug from Tim Walton, the coach that alleviated all her fears four years ago after Karen Johns, the coach that had recruited her to Florida, was fired.
“We flew in from California for a visit and I was worried about her being so far away but in an hour, I knew by the look in her face that the decision had been made,” Carolyn said. “I knew this was the greatest place for her to be.”
Recruited to Florida by Karen Johns, Stacey wanted a place that had a college town feel to it. She wanted academics that were first rate and a softball team that is embraced by the community. She wanted other sports to be important, too. She wanted a good football team, a good basketball team — “We kind of struck gold there, didn’t we?” Carolyn asked — a place where everybody loves their sports teams.
Then Karen Johns was fired and briefly, things were in limbo. Then she met Tim Walton, Florida’s newly named softball coach. Walton met Stacey and her mom in New Jersey, where they were visiting, and there was an instant connection.
“It was instant … and it was like, of course, this is the place … the same place it’s always been,” Carolyn said. “We knew from talking to Coach Walton that everything was going to be okay … and it has turned out okay, hasn’t it?”
Walton is a coach who dreams big dreams then paints them into a do-able landscape that players can envision for themselves. Stacey Nelson was a believer from the moment Walton started laying out his plan for Florida softball.
What Walton sold that first day must seem like paint by numbers now because what this dream has turned into is an astonishing portrait that only lacks a national championship to become a true masterpiece.
“I wouldn’t be able to fathom how good this team is back then,” Stacey said. “Our goal was always to win but we just didn’t realize we’d be winning so much three and four years in.”
The Gators do win a lot. They are 52-3 this season and they were 70-5 last year when they turned in a third place finish at the College World Series in Oklahoma City. They have become a frighteningly dominant team along the way — 11 straight shutout wins prior to Sunday’s 3-1 win in the final regular season game with Longwood.
They are softball’s perfect storm, what happens when great pitching, hitting at every position in the batting order and slick fielding meet up with depth, chemistry and coaching. They have it all.
“We’re good,” Walton said. “We’re really good and if you see the way we practice, then you’ll know why we’re really good. There is nothing about this team that surprises me anymore.”
They were good enough Sunday that they survived a Senior Day that left Nelson a bit drained but a drained Stacey Nelson is still better than anything the Longwood Lancers have faced this year. Adrenalin kicked in and that salvaged the first and second innings. In the third, the shutout inning streak ended at 75 but Nelson got another shot of adrenalin when Longwood pitcher Britanney Wells hit Kelsey Bruder squarely on the elbow with a pitch. Wells had hit Bruder on that same elbow Saturday so the Florida dugout was a bit riled. When Wells hit Bruder for a third time in two days in the fourth, that got a reaction from Bruder and got the entire Florida bench chattering away.
Bruder exacted her measure of revenge in the sixth when she launched her 14th home run of the season over the right field wall. Not one to showboat, Bruder allowed herself to get caught up in the moment. As she circled the bases, she stared down Wells and more than once said “Gotcha!” just to let the Longwood pitcher know that bad things happen if you mess around with the Gators.
Nelson put her own personal stamp on the situation when Wells led off the top of the seventh. On the first pitch of the inning, Nelson let loose with a screwball that caught Wells on the kneecap.
“Screwball kind of got away from me,” Nelson said, offering an explanation that she had been trying to work the ball on the inside corner all day. “I kind of let one slip there … accidentally.”
Maybe it was one that just got away but it drove home a message and made you understand why the hugs were even longer and stronger a couple of batters later when Walton pulled his seniors off the field with one out to go so they could get a standing ovation. Stacey hugged everybody in sight but the longest and strongest hug was saved for Stephanie Brombacher, the pitcher that has had to live in her shadow the last two years. Next year this will be Stephanie Brombacher’s team to command from the pitching circle but on this day, she was happy to share a Senior moment with the leader of this fun bunch that is the Florida softball team.
This time there were no tears, just lots of laughter and the sense of pride that comes with being part of a team that seems to be on a collison course with national championship destiny.
Twenty minutes later, while Walton was answering media questions, Stacey was on the outfield just beyond second base where 42 had been stenciled in the grass in big white numbers to honor her on Senior Day. She posed while her mom took one picture after another. There were sweet poses. Funny poses. Sexy poses. Athletic poses and in one final happy-go-lucky gesture, she did a few hand stands.
On this day, four seasons worth of emotions spilled out during a two-hour span, a reminder that the queen of California cool stops and smells every rose along whatever path that life leads her. There is indeed a time and a purpose for everything unto heaven and at some time in the next month, Stacey Nelson will find out if that time and purpose includes a national championship. No matter the outcome on that day when her Florida softball career comes to an end you can figure that she will squeeze every drop of life out of it and that means a time for laughter, a time to compete, a time to hug everybody in sight and of course, a time for tears.
She wouldn’t have it any other way.