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An opportunity to start over
United States softball pitcher Michele Smith is at her second Olympic Games. Smith, who was 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA for the gold-medal 1996 team, is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and has played softball in Japan.
September 24, 2000
We've had some tough games so far, but now, entering the medal round, we have a fresh start.
How did we get through those three losses to win two straight and still have a shot a gold medal? Well, there was the "voodoo wash," a more serious team meeting and some inspiration from the coach of the U.S. men's baseball team, Tommy Lasorda.
Let me tell you a bit about what happened.
After we lost three games in a row, we knew that we had to win two straight -- one against New Zealand and one against Italy -- to move into the medal round.
So, when we got back to our house in the Olympic Village after our third straight loss, we went into this big shower room, wearing our full uniforms and turned on the showers and started splashing and spraying water all over the place. Then, one of the players got some soap and we started washing off everything, trying to get all the bad luck washed off.
We called it our "voodoo wash" and it kept us loose.
This is not the kind of team that is going to brood and get down on ourselves. We needed to stay positive. A few of the veterans got everyone together for a team meeting at the house, as well. We talked about having to focus. We went through some of the sports psyche stuff that we had worked on before we came to the Olympics.
The keys to that are:
Getting down to playing good, basic ball. Not trying to do too much. Focusing on having good, quality at bats.
What happened to us in our losses against Japan, China and Australia is that we didn't get any key hits. Those are good teams, and if you don't score runs, you are not going to win games. We had opportunities to score, but didn't take them.
In the last inning of the China game, I almost had that line drive. But I didn't get it. It bounced off my glove and went to second. When you're not scoring runs, things like that play make a big difference, the difference between winning and losing. We had a lot of those kind of freak happenings. It was a comedy of errors.
After the first extra-inning loss to Japan, we got back to the house and talked about it with some of the guys on the baseball team. I talked to Tommy Lasorda and he told some funny stories. He told one about how when he was managing the Los Angeles Dodgers, they were playing an extra-inning game against the Expos in Montreal. It was going on and on and it was freezing out. He said he told his players that they could not wear jackets, hoping that because it was so cold that would inspire them to score a run and get the game over with.
Talking to Lasorda was a lot of laughs. His support is part of what has helped us turn this tournament around.
The teams from other countries have gotten better, and we know that to beat good teams, you have to score early.
Now, with the start of the medal round, we have an opportunity to start over. We have to win our next three games for the gold. To do that, we will have to beat the three teams that defeated us in the round robin competition.
I expect to start the game against China, the third place vs. fourth place team game. I'm going to try to hold them and hopefully the team will get some runs.
--Michele
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