This week’s guest is 1993 winner and softball player Lisa Fernandez who credits the support and opportunity that her Cuban father and Puerto Rican mother gave her in sport from an early age.  Her father encouraging her to develop her physical strength and her mother guiding her to be an independent and strong woman.  Both attributes might be perceived as head of their time culturally both in terms of heritage and gender. Lisa talks about being a coach during a pandemic where they are counting on their team to independently stay fit and be ready to compete in the spring of 2021. She laments that with few role models on television at the time she had no reference of what was possible. Then a coach showed her a new game - fast pitch softball, and the rest is history. Lisa compares the three Olympic Games she competed in which have become benchmarks for women in the sport. The first time softball was included in the Olympic Games was 1996 in Atlanta but previous players deserve recognition despite being denied Olympic glory. Lisa’s second time was an ugly win in 2000 in Sydney where USA’s biggest rival, Australia, was their host. In 2004 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) changed the game in an attempt to curtail the USA domination in doing so presented a huge challenge, which was to lure Lisa out of retirement. Lisa shares what it takes to be an elite athlete, but above all credits everyone who puts themselves in a position to test themselves - be it on world stage or a local team. Now a wife and mother of two sons this Title IX baby has come along way and given so much to the world of sports, all the while staying at UCLA for her 23rd year, now as a coach.
Host: Chris Voelz, CWSA Executive Director
Podcast length: 32 mins.
A co-production with the CWSA.
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