They came to Gainesville the most touted recruits in Florida softball history but after what could only be described as a freshman year from hell, Stacey Nelson and Kim Waleszonia went home to California pondering the question just how important is softball to me? Three years later, they stood on the field at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium one last time, knowing deep down in their hearts that the decisions they made back in the summer of 2006 helped to lift the Florida softball program up by its bootstraps.
A hard, cold rain began to fall Wednesday afternoon, an almost appropriate ending to a bittersweet celebration of a dream that ended two games too soon. The Gators were there as the NCAA runner-up, not exactly what they had in mind a week ago when they journeyed out to Oklahoma City for the Women’s College World Series. When the skies opened up, turning a drizzle into a full-fledged storm, the welcome home the Gators were sharing with about 200 hard core fans came to an end. Everybody scattered for shelter.
Huddling in the third base dugout with 18 teammates that are closer than any sisters could ever hope to be, reality began to set in for Nelson and Waleszonia. Their Florida softball careers were really over. The real world was beckoning.
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Kim Waleszonia holds the all-time Florida record for base hits. She made All-America in 2007 and 2008 and she would have made it a third straight year this season except for a knee injury that wiped out a senior season that was off to a great start. She came back for the post season but she didn’t have the speed that put the fear of God in opponents anymore. Bunts and infield choppers that she would have beaten out by a full step just a couple of months earlier became routine outs.
Still, there was no what might have been in her voice as she relived her own personal journey.
“What a journey this has been,” Waleszonia said. “It’s been four long years yet it’s four years that went by way too fast.”
The last three years perhaps went by all too quickly. Her freshman year couldn’t get over fast enough but it seemed to linger forever. She hit a respectable .309 in that 2006 season, but that wasn’t nearly good enough.
Not in her mind at least.
“I had a terrible freshman year,” she said. “I was embarrassed. I had a chip on my shoulder, feeling I had a lot more to offer this team.”
So she went home to California, played summer ball on a travel team and spent a lot of time contemplating her future as a Florida Gator. She loved Gainesville. Loved the Gators. Loved her coach.
What she didn’t love was the way she played as a freshman.
“When I got home I started thinking about what my biggest transition had been and that was failing so much,” she said. “That was tough. Knowing I had failed so much as a freshman made me refocus and I worked, worked, worked every day. I drove myself. I was going to be better. I was never going to let myself be where I was my freshman year ever again. I felt like a big disappointment to myself.”
Back in Gainesville for her sophomore year, there was something different about her. She played with purpose. She was the Energizer Bunny for the Gators on the field as the most dangerous leadoff batter in college softball and in the dugout with her non-stop positive chatter.
Waleszonia was determined to play softball up to her own lofty standards and she succeeded.
“My sophomore year, I left everything I had on the field every single game,” she said. “I wasn’t ashamed of my season. In my heart, I knew that I gave everything I could possibly give and that I had made a real contribution to my team.”
That 2007 season ended with a Super Regional loss to Texas A&M that served as the motivation for a 2008 run to a third-place finish at the Women’s College World Series. The goal for 2009 was to win the WCWS but the Gators lost to Washington in two games in the championship bracket.
A dream came to an end Tuesday night, but Wednesday, Kim Waleszonia looked back on her four years with pride, knowing that the Florida Gators have a future that she helped to shape.
“My sophomore year … that’s when we all came together as a team,” she said. “That’s when we knew we could be something special.”
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Stacey Nelson’s freshman year was a bundle of problems. A long way from home for the first time, there was so much she had to learn about softball. About relationships. About life in general. Going home to California after a disappointing 14-12 season, she knew things had to change and change quickly.
“At that time I hadn’t found my place in the program,” Nelson said. “I had to learn a lot about responsibility, about growing up, about handling pressure … about everything.”
Complicating matters was being so far from California. Her friends were in California. Her lifestyle was made for California. Gainesville and the University of Florida were the sources of a constant clash.
“Being a naïve high school kid and coming to a place where I didn’t know anybody, I had to take a look at who I was and I decided I could be a better person,” she said. “I’m the one that needed to change.”
Like Waleszonia, self-reflection turned into self-determination. Nelson played summer ball on a travel team but more important, got a personal trainer and got whipped into the best physical condition of her life.
When fall softball practice began, Florida coach Tim Walton immediately saw the difference in his sophomore pitcher. He described her as “slow” when she was a freshman but the summer in California transformed her into a leader by word and personal example. She was fit and determined. He had himself a leader.
“She did such a great job coming back in such great shape and setting the tone,” Walton said.
When the season began in the spring, Walton knew after two games he had the dominating pitcher he needed to turn the Florida softball program into a powerhouse. In back-to-back games, Nelson dominated a pair of Pac-10 teams, sort of a wakeup call to the rest of the country that Florida softball was indeed on the map.
“Her first start of the season was against Oregon and she struck out a career-high 10 and gave up three hits and she was next to unhittable,” Walton said. “Then the next day she beat Arizona, which was the defending national champion and number one. I was thinking we have a pretty good team here.”
Nelson finished 35-14 as a sophomore, 47-5 as a junior and she just completed a 41-5 senior season, finishing her career with 137 wins, sixth best in NCAA softball history. Her Florida legacy will be the pitcher that put the program on the map.
She knows it couldn’t have happened if she hadn’t taken the time to find out just how important softball was in that summer back in California after her freshman year.
“My freshman year I grew up,” Nelson said. “The last three years our program grew up. It’s gone boom and gone off the charts.”
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Waleszonia is heading back to California with a degree in criminal justice that has given her numerous options but she hasn’t decided which path to take. For years her dream was to be a police officer but that’s changed.
“I don’t want to get shot,” she said.
Her softball options will be limited. There is no pro softball circuit in the United States. There are opportunities overseas but the focus now is to move on to a career where she can use her Florida degree.
“There is life after softball,” she said. “The real world awaits.”
Life after softball will have to wait for Nelson. She will spend the summer working out with the USA national softball team. In the fall she will be back in Gainesville where she hopes her two-time Academic All-America credentials help to get her into the University of Florida law school.
She’ll have time on her hands that she’s never had before in the fall so she intends to use it wisely, helping to cheer the Florida football team on to a second straight national championship.
“I am a Gator for life,” she said. “I will be the most intense Gator fan ever. Believe it!”
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After the rain subsided, Nelson and Waleszonia took a few moments to talk standing by teammate Ali Gardiner’s car in the parking lot. There will always be a bond between them, just as there will always be a bond between all these teammates that took Florida softball to a whole new level in their careers.
Nelson and Waleszonia were the trendsetters, the two that led the way in a remarkable run that hopefully is just the beginning for Florida softball. Californians by birth they are Gators by choice.
One day they will be looked upon as the cornerstones that helped build a great college softball program.