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Hello, I'm Jerry Leland and this is the FastPitch TV show.
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Now in today's show, I'm bringing you an interview I conducted with USA Olympian Amanda Freed.
Amanda was a pitcher for the 2004 USA Olympic team.
Now let's go to that interview right after this short message.
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Amanda, thank you for joining me for this interview.
It was kind of hard for us to get together this morning on my part, but I do appreciate it.
Thank you very much. How's New Orleans been for you?
It was fun. We didn't get it until late last night, and we were still able to catch up with some friends and see some people.
But so far it's been chilly, but nice.
It is chilly. I wasn't expecting it. I didn't bring a coat that was good enough for this.
So tell me, how old were you when you started playing softball?
I was pretty young. I think I was four, maybe five.
I had an older sister who was not too much older than me, so I kind of tagged along when my mom was coaching.
So I started probably a little younger than a lot of girls.
Was your mom your first coach?
She was. For a long time, she was my first coach.
When did you start playing at a higher level?
Because I'm sure at four, instead of that was recreation, when did you start playing at a higher level?
At a higher level? Well, I had my first travel ball experience at about ten,
because my All-Star team was invited out to an Invitational Nationals in Tennessee.
So that was still rec ball, but I traveled out there, and then I started playing travel ball late 12 and under,
and kind of continued it on, but it was never really serious until I would say like second year 14s.
And how was your high school?
Competitive-wise. It was good. We were pretty good.
Yeah, it was a great experience. I had some awesome teammates.
A lot of them went on to play D1, but yeah, high school was very competitive.
And where'd you go to college?
I went to UCLA.
And how was that experience?
It was phenomenal. I can't say enough about...
Who was your coach there? Sue?
Yeah.
Well, that's a great everybody lives suit.
Oh my gosh, I know. I was so lucky. Yeah, she's everywhere right now.
People all get a taste of her, but to be able to be under her...
She's one of those people that is just everywhere.
So I love that she's still so involved with the game,
and I have so many fond memories and obviously life lessons that I've learned from her
from playing under her, but now she continues to be a part of my life.
And she's so much high energy.
Oh, all the time. I don't know where she gets it.
She must sleep hard at night to prepare for the day.
I go to my room, my hotel room, and right next door is Sue, my room.
Her room's right next to her line. I'm like going,
what? So we've gotten to see each other quite a bit this weekend.
So how did the Olympics come about?
It was a process. It was, I think my junior year of high school,
just through all American kind of status, I was invited to a tryout,
and I went and I didn't make it, getting involved in the program.
And then after my senior year of high school, there was another tryout,
and I made it on the second team, so they had the two teams,
and that was the year or two before the 2000 Olympics.
So traveled around, had my first USA experience,
going into my freshman year of college,
and then from there, you just continued to go to the tryouts
and make teams and ended up on the national team
when it was the Olympic year and found myself as an alternate in 2000.
I was pretty young at the time, so that was just an amazing experience
to be a part of that.
So the next four years just kind of played out.
Didn't want to be an alternate again.
So in 2004, I made sure that I got myself on the team.
What do you do nowadays? What are you involved with nowadays?
I'm still very involved with softball.
I train girls at the younger level, pitching, hitting.
I do the clinics. I do color for Pac-12 networks,
PN throughout the year for both NCAA college
and the youth levels.
They're televising a lot of the travel ball tournaments these days.
I'm a mom. I've got two little ones, so that takes up most of my time.
That's a handful, but that's the fun handful, right?
That's the best.
I'm a grandfather now with a two-year-old and a one-year-old,
so I'm like reliving that. But they can go away.
And I haven't had to change any diapers.
So that's good.
So if you had one piece of advice you wanted to give those young kids growing up
that want to be on the Olympics someday, since we're getting it back in there,
maybe we can keep it in there.
What piece of advice would you give them at that early age?
You know, I honestly just have fun playing the game.
If you don't enjoy doing it, you're not going to be any good at it.
And you don't want to be doing something that you don't enjoy.
So I always genuinely loved the game, all the way through the end of playing.
And when you enjoy it, you want to go out. You want to get better.
You want to do things on your own.
And it takes a lot of time and effort to be good at the sport.
So you have to really enjoy doing it.
Well, anything you do, I think, in life after you do it, ten years is a chore.
But if you love it when you start, then you at least are going to still like it if not love it.
But if you just, it's okay in ten years, it's going to be a super chore, right?
Oh, definitely. And yeah.
And it becomes a job.
Yeah, especially when you get to college.
I know the college scholarship is the thing that's kind of looming over all these young girls these days.
But when you get to college, it's a full-time job.
And you've got to really love what you're doing.
Yeah, I agree with you. Well, thank you for spending some time with me.
And again, I'm sorry about our error this morning.
Thanks very much.
Oops, sorry. I was reading this month's issue of the FastPitch Magazine.
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Welcome back. Now, I hope you enjoyed today's show.
Please tell your friends about the FastPitch TV show
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to keep up with all the episodes of this show.
Until next time, this is Gary Leland saying goodbye and thanks for watching.
