Unified Sports Softball is a collaboration between the Notre Dame School of Dallas and Jesuit Dallas to practice and play softball.
The Unified Sports experience/season consists of five practices and one simulation game; these practices were every Saturday from 11 am to 12:30 pm. The season begins August 20th and goes through September 24th.
Seven Jesuit baseball sophomores, Josh Gallegos, Sean Cullen, Fulton Lawrence, E’mar Fleming II, Brayden Montes, Jonathan Brito, and Dillon Brandt (Assistant Coach) all helped out. The head coach and manager of the Unified Sports softball program is the Jesuit baseball freshman coach Mike Grimes, who provided all the equipment and ran the practices.
As Coach Grimes says, “we try to teach the Notre Dame kids the fundamentals of throwing, catching, and hitting a softball. Like the ABCs of softball. And, we try to encourage the kids to build relationships.”
The practices generally occurred every Saturday from 11 A.M. to 1 P.M. on the St. Rita recess field right by Jesuit. Each weekly practice includes warming up, throwing, hitting off the tee, batting practice, and base running. The coaches aim to give the kids a chance to learn something new, get outside, and have fun. Some do in fact have a natural talent for softball and express interest, looking forward to each practice.
The goal of each practice is to prepare our conjoined team for an inter-squad tournament later in September. The kids are quickly progressing in skill and teamwork. For example, this last weekend, they showed some real improvement in throwing and catching consistency, and they were hitting the ball very far. We also tried base running practice; although they didn’t understand the fundamentals of base running, there was a lot of hustle and effort. The Notre Dame kids genuinely enjoy their time playing softball and are becoming more skilled.
As we close in on the final day, the kids who choose to come back are getting more enthusiastic. They hit the ball with more launch angle, throw harder, and recently learned to hit the baseball instead of a softball, even when moving. Another thing to note is how the Notre Dame kids have started to understand and appreciate baseball when watching. For example, we moved to the freshman practice field before our final game day, and a freshman game was going on. The kids were quite intrigued and cheered on the freshmen, which would not have happened the first day.
They came to play on our last day of the Softball season. All 5 “starters” showed enthusiasm and even brought some of their own equipment. Our practice started with all five arriving on time and eager to get started, so we warmed up. After some throwing and catching, they quickly moved on to hitting off the tee. There was a significant improvement in the consistency and power of their hits, some so good that they decided to base run before us moving to it. When soft-toss began, they rose to the occasion. Their baserunning practice paid off with hit after hit because they scored left and right. Overall, this experience for everyone was incredible.
Reflecting on the experience, one of our most active members, Fulton Lawrence said that his most valuable/important part about the Unified Sports experience was:
“Seeing the kids’ joy when we played baseball together, seeing them have fun and express true happiness when playing.”
