Naybelin Mejia is a natural ballplayer. She has a silky smooth swing as she cracks practice hits off a metal bat inside a batting cage at the Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury.
“I’ve been playing softball my whole life,” she said. “I don’t know, it’s like if I don’t play softball for some [time] I don’t feel life.”
Mejia is a shortstop and pitcher for Roxbury Community College's inaugural softball team, a program that coaches and players alike say could become a gateway to new opportunities for girls and young women in Boston.
There's only a few players at practice and the workout is loose and relaxed as players go through some basic fielding drills and take some swings inside the cage. But even a light practice is a far cry from last spring, when softball wasn’t even a sport at RCC.
That all changed when two volleyball players began poking athletic director Ablert Hayle with one big request for a new sport for RCC.
“You know, they would come up to me after every game [and were] like, ‘Coach, we need a softball team.’ The whole volleyball season,” Hayle said.
And while the RCC Tigers and their young softball program have a lot to learn, Hayle and others believe investing in the game could pay off big in the long run.
Women's sports rising
Mejia was one of the volleyball players whose relentless urging led Hayle to start the softball program at RCC. She also helped recruit players. As one of the most experienced players on the fledgling team, she's regularly giving teammates tips on everything from the proper motion of a bat swing to how to field a pop up.
The efforts from Mejia and her sister, Nadia Urbaez, to push and recruit athletes for a softball team coincided with Hayle’s goals to create more opportunities for RCC athletes, particularly in women’s sports. Since he became athletic director three years ago, RCC has added volleyball and softball. And he plans to launch a women's soccer team, he said.
Hayle said he’s observed a growth of softball in recent years around Boston. Unfortunately, at the same time, there was no junior college program in the city where young talent could grow.
“Now, I go outside, I see so many young ladies with their bats, their bags and it’s becoming a big sport around here. And there’s not an outlet or a place for them to go if it’s not a four-year school,” he said. “And often, a lot of them are not ready for a four-year school.”
That gave him a vision of what long-term success for a softball program at a place like RCC could look like.
“Once we establish this and get the right coach, the right support, we could really take off,” he said. “Just because of the interest and the amount of softball going on in the area, we could be that main landing spot.”
Since there are no other community colleges in Boston that offer softball, the team has to travel far for games. The closest schools on their schedule this season are in Maine and Rhode Island.
But Hayle believes that investing in softball at RCC might push other local schools to pick up the game, too.
“I believe we have so much talent in this area, right? And I believe if more community colleges get more teams, then we could have five to six teams here,” he said. “And make our softball as big as our basketball, as big as our volleyball and soccer. Get it to the same level as those sports.”
Growing pains
Several factors have led to growing pains for RCC softball this year. Some players have little experience with the game. Sometimes only a few players can make practice as the rest of the team is working or in class.
The final double header of the year, which was supposed to take place Tuesday, ended up being canceled. The Tigers finished the season without a win.
Still, for players like Zanya Johnson, who plays basketball at RCC, softball this season was a welcome challenge. Even though Johnson hadn’t played since middle school, she's been tasked with helping fill in for one of the most important — and difficult — positions in the game: catcher.
She’s gotten used to the heavy padding and she learned how to see through cage of a face mask on the helmet. But Johnson admits it took some time to adjust to having a hard, yellow sphere rocketed at her from just a few dozen feet away.
“When I first did it, I was scared because the ball’s coming straight towards you. So you don’t know if it’s gonna hit you anywhere or if you’re gonna catch it,” Johnson said. “But then once I started practicing, I was like, ‘OK, I got this. I’m not scared no more. I can take the ball, I can take the hits and everything.’”
"When I first did it, I was scared because the ball’s coming straight towards you. So you don’t know if it’s gonna hit you anywhere or if you’re gonna catch it. But then once I started practicing, I was like, ‘OK, I got this.'"Zanya Johnson, catcher
For a team that's been on an extreme learning curve this year, the hope is that the foundation they're laying will make it easier for future teams. Hayle said players are excited about what next year could look like after the team has had a chance to properly recruit.
For Naybelin Mejia, the goal is to play at a four-year institution. She doesn’t have any dream destinations yet, but she is confident that getting her game on tape will help.
For now, the focus is on trying to help the team improve. And while it’s still a young program, Mejia is encouraged by the potential of her new softball program here at Roxbury Community College.
“We’re giving the opportunity to play, to learn something new,” she said. “At some point, sports, talking in my own opinion, sports saved my life at some point. So maybe that can help other people, too.”
