University of Georgia Athletics
A Quick Chat With ... Maeve McGuire
March 31, 2016 | Softball
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
Georgia softball catcher Maeve McGuire certainly seems to be enjoying herself this season. And for good reason.
The junior, from Downers Grove, Ill., near Chicago, is having a career year at the plate, batting .422, with six home runs and 27 RBIs, for the ninth-ranked Bulldogs. Winners of five straight games, Georgia hosts a three-game series against No. 8 LSU starting Friday at Jack Turner Stadium.
During a quick chat Thursday, McGuire talked about her season, reading a lot of crime-related books like "Helter Skelter" and much, much more.
Here's some of what she had to say:
Frierson: What can you tell me about the chatter that's going on in the dugout during a game? Is everyone actually talking about the game or are there sometimes odd and funny conversations happening?
McGuire: Usually it's just us trying to figure out cheers. We don't want to copy any other team so we'll listen to what [the other team is doing] and then be like, we can do this or that. So we're usually talking about what cheers we're going to do.
Frierson: I think that would be fun, coming up with things, and I bet road trips are really good for that.
McGuire: We will Google stuff sometimes when we run out, but it's usually not that big of a help.
Frierson: What I think would be clever is if you started doing them in different languages. They could be inventive cheers and you're learning another language.
McGuire: A bunch of actually do take sign language and we will sign stuff to each other.
Frierson: You've got six home runs already, two more than you've ever hit in a season. You're also batting .422, way up from .333 a year ago. What are you doing that's elevating your game and how satisfying is it to see this kind of increased production?
McGuire: We've just been working really hard this season on letting the ball get deep and I think it's helped us. And we do a lot of drills where we wear goggles and they've just been really into vision, and we did some Ping-Pong stuff — it's just a lot of stuff having to do with vision. It's all really helped me this year, helped me to really see the ball.
Frierson: The goggles force you to focus on only what you need to focus on?
McGuire: They're kind of like horse blinders, so you're kind of just focusing on the pitcher. You lose all of your peripheral, so at first you're like, oh man, I don't know what to do, but once you relax and focus it's not as hard and you can get a lot out of it.
Frierson: What do you do to get away from sports? In the quiet moments of your day, which may be few and far between, how do you spend your time?
McGuire: I do read a lot. My roommates always make fun of me, but I'm a criminal justice major and one of my teachers assigns us a lot of books on crime. I'm always reading those, or I'm watching Netflix and watching crime shows like "Criminal Minds," "White Collar" or anything to do with crime.
Frierson: Are there any book recommendations that you have?
McGuire: Actually, we're reading "The Coroner" right now and it's like some sociologists' analysis of the drugs in Detroit. It's like a story [per chapter] and then they analyze it, the two sociologists, at the end. And the book for the last test we had, it was called "Code of the Suburb," and it was about high schoolers in Gwinnett [County] and Lawrenceville that were drug dealers.
I'm also trying to get through "Helter Skelter" right now [about the Manson family murders around Los Angeles in 1969] and that's like my fun reading. It's like 700 pages; it's really good but it's taking me forever to get through it.
Frierson: Do you remember the moment when you realized this is something you do quite well and that it could lead to something, like playing for Georgia?
McGuire: I think it was when I was like 14; we played around Chicago, and we would travel to maybe Missouri or Wisconsin, and when we finally went to nationals and were playing against teams from like California, and we hung with them, I was like maybe I could do this when I'm older.
And then I tried out for the Southern Force, and they travel everywhere, and when I made it I was like, I can actually do something with this.
Frierson: The home runs you've hit, is there one that stands out? And can you describe what it feels like to really connect and send one over the wall?
McGuire: I don't know if I can pick out a favorite one, I just get excited when I hit one. When you hit one it doesn't really even feel like it hits your bat; it's like the ball's just jumping off it. It feels effortless, and they you're like, wow, dang, that went really far.
Frierson: What's something you've learned or discovered in the past year — be it a life lesson or a movie, author or whatever — that you're really glad is now a part of your life?
McGuire: You may have heard a bunch of the girls on the team talk about this but there's this girl on Instagram, Bella Picard, and I was, like, hardcore creeping on her 30 weeks back, and watching all these videos. [Picard played for St. Joseph's and suffered a major neck injury last April while sliding into second base.]
They said she wouldn't walk for three years and she's walking now and she's just super inspiring. Our sport is dangerous and it really opened my eyes to it, but she's sent us all these bracelets [one of which McGuire wore as she talked about it] and written us a letter saying, like, to live in the moment and that you never know when it can be taken away.
That's been the big thing about this year for me.
Frierson: What's the most creative thing you do, or what's something creative you'd like to be able to do?
McGuire: Well, I am pretty decent at tie-dying.
Frierson: I was not expecting that answer.
McGuire: Over the summer, me and my little sister, we tie-dye all the time. When some of my teammates come up to Chicago we'll have a tie-dye party. They'll be like, wow, this turned out well, and I'll be like, I know how to tie-dye.
But I wish I could sew. That's one thing I can't do and I'd like to know how. I knitted a scarf once but I forgot how to do it.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
