Taking Pressure Off Helping Gordon Shine

By John Frierson
Staff Writer

By the end of last season, Georgia softball's Sarah Gordon was batting .209 and really struggling at the plate. It was her first season with the Bulldogs after transferring from Louisville, where she'd been the ACC Freshman of the Year and hit .379, and the desire to play at a high level was actually hurting her performance.

"I think last year, I just put a lot of weight on myself to perform," Gordon said last week. "After coming off a really successful freshman year and coming into the SEC — that was always my dream, to play SEC ball — I put a lot of weight on my shoulders to perform, and in that mindset, you aren't really gonna do much."

She's clearly not in that mindset anymore.

Here are Gordon's numbers as a freshman at Louisville: .379 batting average, 66 hits in 174 at-bats, 41 runs scored, 49 runs batted in, 12 doubles and 12 home runs. And here are her numbers last season: .209 batting average, 18 hits in 86 at-bats, 12 runs scored, 10 RBIs, six homers and two doubles.

Heading into No. 18 Georgia's game Wednesday (6 p.m.) against USC-Upstate at Jack Turner Stadium, Gordon is second on the team with a .339 batting average, she has a team-high eight home runs, a team-high 37 RBIs, she's tied for the lead in doubles with seven, and her 26 runs scored rank think. In other words, she's back to the player she was when she earned third-team All-America honors as a freshman with the Cardinals.

What changed? Her mindset, in two ways. One she stopped trying to be a star, and just let her talents and her training come through on their own. The other thing she did was stop defining herself and judging her worth by what happens on the softball field.

"I think putting my identity in something else that's bigger than me, I think it's really helped," the junior catcher and utility player from Lexington, S.C. said. "Going out on the field, I'm just like, Okay, well, whatever happens, happens. I can't control it. I'm still gonna go to dinner with my family after the game. They're not gonna disown me if I have a bad game. So just knowing that it doesn't define me, I think, has helped me a lot on and off the field to just be the best teammate I can be."

A lot of softball and baseball players have their share of superstitions and rituals that they do before, during and after games. Because they play so many games, maybe the quirky things they come up with help pass the time in the dugout or locker room. Other than having an energy drink before every game, Gordon said the only thing she does before every game is write in her journal.

"I write down what I'm feeling and what I want to do, goal-wise, in the game," she said.

This began last season, she said, when her in-game struggles were taking a toll on her mentally.

"I would meet with our sports psychologist, and she really talked me through journaling and all that stuff," Gordon said. "I've really learned that it helps me manage my emotions and helps calm me down, even on the most stressful days. Because we're playing in the SEC, the best competition out there, sometimes you can have some of that anxiousness or nervousness pent up."

By writing down her thoughts, feelings and goals, Gordon is able to take some of that pressure off. Just seeing it on paper helps, she said. And she will even take the journal into the dugout with her during games, and refer to it if she needs to. Sometimes she will write down a quote that moves her, or a Bible verse.

"Whatever I write down, I can just revert to that and be like, Okay, hey, your identity is not in this, however tonight goes. You can't control it," she said, adding that after a particularly good game, she will go back and look at what she wrote.

Before she was a standout softball player, Gordon was turning heads in baseball. She has a twin brother, Ryan, and an older brother, Gavin, and she always played whatever they were playing. And for a while when she was young, that was baseball.

"I was always in the yard playing with them — Wiffle ball or baseball or whatever it was," she said. "It was us and the neighborhood kids out there playing all the time."

Even after she'd switched to softball, Gordon occasionally filled in as the catch on Ryan's baseball team. "It was just whatever competition I could get into," she said. Gordon credits her time playing baseball with helping push her to be the best player and athlete she could be.

"It pushed me to show what I could do," she said. "It was just a little competition for me, and I found it really fun to play with the boys since I always did that with my brothers."

She also liked holding her own with them, just as she did with her brothers. Gordon remains super competitive to this day and wants to excel at everything she puts her energies into. But an off day or a bad week isn't going to drag her down. The same goes for her teammates.

"I think just knowing that our identity is not in this sport, so no matter if it goes good or bad, knowing that that doesn't define who we are," she said, "I think that's something we've really leaned into as a team this year."

Assistant Sports Communications Director 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.

Players Mentioned

Sarah Gordon

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