Nicole Mendes just completed her first year of college. It was successful. In addition to earning excellent grades, she helped her team, the Oklahoma Sooners, win a National Championship. In the championship series against #1 ranked Florida, she hit two home runs in the two games, had an outfield assist, and pitched a scoreless inning of relief. The rest of the year, all she did was earn Big-12 Freshman of the Year, All-Conference, and Big-12 All-Tournament First-Team honors. Goodness. In this interview, I sought to understand how all that could happen for someone who less than three months ago was batting under the Mendoza line and struggling to get playing time.
Coach Traub: After you committed to Oklahoma, what did you dream of and how did you try to prepare yourself?
Mendes: I dreamed of coming in and winning a national championship. This is literally a dream come true. To prepare, I figured that the players here had a head start. They’d been here and been through the program. They knew what Coach was like and had a handle on school. I wanted to be as prepared as possible. Fitness-wise, I made sure I was ready. I worked with a personal trainer a lot. I did a lot of hitting and pitching on my own and tried to prepare as best I could. Academically, I knew that it was going to be tough juggling softball and school so I needed to have a good handle on it and create good habits and time management skills.
Coach Traub: Many girls want to do well, but very few are able to execute at the level you did this year. How did your coaches at home in Houston and your OU coaches help guide your training before you arrived?
Mendes: Coach Gasso recruits people who are motivated to be better, so that handles that. My travel coaches taught me different perspectives and helped me learn how to play the game, how to get ready. My pitching coach was Amanda Scarborough. She gave me so much insight about what you need to be thinking to perform at that elite level. When she started doing more ESPN stuff, I took lessons from my travel ball coach, Tammie Davis as well as another coach at Galveston College. They were both really instrumental in creating the pitcher that I am today.
Coach Traub: Many athletes, when they move from one coach to another or when they get to college, might struggle to coordinate what they already know and are good at with the new information they are getting. It sounds like you’ve been able to assimilate information and find a way to be comfortable and continue to improve. Is that accurate and if so, how did you do it?
Mendes: I would say it’s definitely a learning process. No matter how much I prepared, there was still some learning curves. It was a hard adjustment and I had to grow as a person and I had to learn more about myself. I had to trust in my abilities and become more confident before I was able to play as well as I did in the spring. I didn’t even start for the team much until early March for those reasons. Something that helped me make that transition was letting go of the fear and the doubt and insecurities of if I’m not good enough. I want to be relaxed, not pressing. Once I let go of all that, it really helped me.
Coach Traub: How did you do it?
Mendes: With the help of a lot of teammates. Our team captain, Kelsey Arnold, was really helpful in that area. She told me that we’re a team and we’re sisters on and off the field. These relationships don’t go away after college. The team gives us a safe area in that we can trust each other. I needed to learn how to trust my teammates.
Coach Traub: Was there a dark day when your doubts were strongest?
Mendes: The beginning of spring was pretty brutal for me. I was struggling. I wasn’t consistent. I would do great, then plummet. It was a roller coaster ride. It wasn’t a specific moment, but I wasn’t comfortable and I wasn’t in my element and playing like I should be.
Coach Traub: As you were letting go of your fears and fighting for playing time, can you share some of your self-talk that helped you perform well.
Mendes: I went with the approach of “I got recruited here for a reason. If my coach and team didn’t have confidence in me, I wouldn’t be here.” I had to trust that my stuff, my talent, my athleticism, my knowledge of the game was enough. I had to set aside some time to really think about who I was and what I wanted to accomplish. I set some goals. Honestly, I had to get right with God a little bit. I had to make sure that this wasn’t for my own benefit, not for my selfish wants and needs. The glory would go to Him because He is the one who gave me the talent in the first place.
Coach Traub: Let’s go to the post-season now. You all were defending National Champions, but in your first regional game, you lost to a significant underdog. Can you talk about that game and your team’s response?
Mendes: I think we were looking too far ahead of ourselves. I will give credit. That pitcher was very good. She had a will to win and that team was blue collar. They came out like they had nothing to lose. They shook us out of our laziness, making sure that we stayed in the moment. We looked at each other after the game and we promised each other that we were not going to go home in this Regional. No way. We were going to fight and that’s what we did.
Coach Traub: Did that come from the players or the coaching staff?
Mendes: It was more of a team decision and we all came to that conclusion and we all agreed. Something needed to change. We had to step up our game and stay focused. We were all on the same page and ready to go.
Coach Traub: I’m going to jump to the World Series. There were times, because you were facing very good pitching, that you did not look very good in your at-bat. Would you agree with that?
Mendes: [laughing] Yes.
Coach Traub: How were you able to struggle, but then come back and do something to really help your team?
Mendes: It was just going up there with the same mindset that I had all season. I had to make sure that the moment wasn’t getting too big; I tried to go after what I thought was my pitch. Sometimes I would chase a little bit and I’d let the moment get ahead of me, but resetting after each at-bat was really important. Whatever happened that last at-bat, whether it was a strikeout or a home run, it didn’t matter because this was a new at-bat.