Jennifer Harrigan

Past Entries

Entry 1

February 23, 2004

It's a great week for some softball, Eagles!

On Tuesday (fingers crossed for good weather!) we get to play our in-town contender, Agnes Scott, and then we face three teams who will travel quite a distance to Emory. On Thursday, we'll play Louisiana College, an opponent that has not yet been faced in the history of our program.

Coach Siquieros told us in practice that their coach approached her last May at the World Series while she was at the condiment bar in Fuddruckers to ask about scheduling these games with us. Wow--what an honor for our program, but what a challenge we have on our hands!

Over the weekend, we will match up with familiar and tough competition. Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is the rival we are up against on Saturday and Ferrum College (Ferrum, VA) travels to "EAGLE TERRITORY" for our double header on Sunday.

In a week like this one with so many great games, I can really appreciate how much support we get as players. Our professors make an effort to encourage us as students and athletes. Dr. Ron Johnson, a legendary chemistry professor, can be expected at our home games with his cute little dog and other professors from a variety of areas come in their Emory Softball t-shirts to watch their students with growing appreciation for the sport.

Even off the field, our professors are there for us. For example, my lab professor, Dr. R-K (a huge professional baseball fan, incidentally) let me schedule all of my labs around my practice schedule--even though he did joke that I owed him a home run for each of the seven labs!

Our coaching staff understands our academic load, too. On our softball calendar this past weekend was marked "STUDY for MIDTERMS" and we had no Saturday practice. All of us were thankful for the opportunity to catch up with our studying and to have some time to socialize or relax. Balancing our rigorous courses (and maintaining a 3.47 team GPA) with our intense practice and competition is not always easy, but I couldn't ask for a more caring environment in which to do it.

Most of us will have family here this weekend to support us, too. Some of our parents are even coming as early as Thursday to catch all six games. Our greatest fans come from about 11 states around the U.S.

Our only hometown Georgian is Ali Bouknight and she keeps asking Coach to recruit in state so that the Chicago natives won't outnumber the Georgia girls. We are all thankful, even if she is the only one, that Ali's mom is close enough to us to make her famous goodie bags and bring us the delicious sandwiches, drinks and snacks for between games. All of the parents help out and really pull together to make our experience the best it can be.

Jennifer Harrigan is a junior from Indian Harbour Beach, Fla. She would love to answer e-mail questions from Emory recruits and fans.