8 — Friday, March 30, 2018
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Like grandmother, Allan hopes to achieve Olympic dream

In 
observance 
of 
Women’s 

History Month, The Daily launches 
a series aimed at telling the stories of 
female athletes, coaches and teams at 
the University from the perspective 
of the female sports writers on staff. 
Daily sports writer Aria Gerson 
continues the series with this story.

Lou Allan still gets chills 

thinking about it.

She stood on the podium — gold 

medal around her neck — watching 
as the flag went up and listening as 
the Star-Spangled Banner played.

Young girls sat in the stands 

wearing USA T-shirts, starstruck, 
already wishing that they could 
stand up there one day. And among 
the audience was one person 
who had been there, who knew 
the indescribable feeling, whose 
footsteps Allan had followed: her 
grandma, Sheila Cornell-Douty.

Even now, it’s a moment Allan 

will never forget.

***
Growing up in the 1970s, Cornell-

Douty didn’t have a lot of female 
role models to look up to. Most 
women athletes didn’t get much 
attention back then, and her sport 
— softball — got even less. Instead, 
she idolized Los Angeles Dodgers 
first baseman Steve Garvey.

Watching the Olympics was a 

family affair. Her mom had played 
several sports growing up, and 
her grandma had been involved 
with the Girls’ Athletic Club. 
From the time Cornell-Douty 
was in elementary school, the 
three would gather and watch the 
Olympics together. Cornell-Douty 
was enthralled, and she knew she 
wanted to compete there someday. 
But at that time, the idea of 
competing in the Olympics was just 
as unrealistic as that of donning 
Dodger blue and patrolling first 
base. Softball, after all, wasn’t an 
Olympic sport, and softball was 
what she loved.

But then that all changed. The 

International Olympic Committee 
announced that softball would 

become an Olympic sport, effective 
in 1996. Cornell-Douty would be 36 
then, at the twilight of her career. 
She knew this was her shot, and she 
knew she had to go for it.

She quit her job as a physical 

therapist 
and 
developed 
her 

own training regimen. She went 
to 
camps, 
tournaments 
and 

showcases. She was constantly 
under 
a 
microscope. 
Despite 

competing against much younger 
athletes, she made the team. It had 
all been worth it.

“(The Olympics were) something 

unlike anything else,” Cornell-
Douty said. “ … We opened against 
Puerto Rico and I remember we 
were lined up on the sidelines and 
they were announcing the teams 
and I was getting tears in my eyes 
since I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this 
is really it. This is for real. I’m 
really in the Olympics. We’re really 
playing.’ ”

And the most surreal moment 

of all was standing on the podium, 
gold medal around her neck, 
as Team USA was honored for 
winning the first-ever Olympic 
softball tournament.

***
Allan started t-ball at age five. 

It was only natural, given the 
pedigree of her grandma — who 
went on to win another gold medal 
in 2000 and was inducted into the 
National Softball Hall of Fame and 
the International Softball Hall 
of Fame. Though many families 
pushed their kids into the sports 
they had played, Cornell-Douty 
didn’t want her granddaughter 
to be pressured by the weight of a 
legacy. The first thing on Cornell-
Douty’s agenda was just to let Allan 
play.

“I felt it was extremely important 

from a very young age, number 
one was that she came to me and 
wanted to practice and work out 
and do all of that stuff,” Cornell-
Douty said. “ … This is t-ball, she’s 
out there to just go play and enjoy 
the game and have fun and learn 
some stuff, but you know, she’s five 
years old.”

When Cornell-Douty attended 

Allan’s first game, she walked in 
late to find her granddaughter 
already on base. But not for long.

“She comes running off the base 

and she came running to us like, ‘Hi 
grandma! Thanks for coming to my 
game!’ ” Cornell-Douty said. “And 
then she ran back.”

That’s 
when 
Cornell-Douty 

knew she was doing something 
right.

When Allan was around 10, she 

decided she wanted to follow in 
her grandma’s footsteps and play 
softball at a high level. She had 
seen Cornell-Douty’s medals and 
began to dream of earning some 
of her own. So Cornell-Douty and 
her husband built a batting cage 
and fielding area, and the former 
softball star began training the 
future one.

Like her grandma, Allan became 

one of the top players in the country. 
Like her grandma, she played first 
base and earned a scholarship to a 
top program — UCLA for Cornell-
Douty and Michigan for Allan. Like 
her grandma, she had her sights set 
on one thing: the Olympics.

But Allan’s Olympic dreams 

weren’t 
always 
a 
foregone 

conclusion. In 2006, the IOC voted 
to leave softball off the schedule 
for the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. 
Cornell-Douty, along with other 
former Olympic softball players, 
wrote letters and lobbied endlessly 
to reinstate the sport they loved. 
And in 2016, the decision was 
official: for 2020, Olympic softball 

was back on.

Still, though, the future of 

Olympic softball is uncertain. The 
IOC hasn’t made a decision yet on 
the 2024 Olympics, and it’s possible 
that 2020 could be Allan’s only shot.

“I was super excited that it 

got put in,” Allan said. “ … 2020 is 
obviously the (next) one so that is 
my goal to get to it in the first part. 
(But) there’s so many different 
people that are older than me that 
have so much more experience 
that are coming back, I don’t know 
necessarily if I’m gonna make the 
team or not.”

Whatever 
happens, 
Allan 

already has a taste of the Team USA 
experience. In 2017 — the summer 
before she began her freshman year 
at Michigan — she was chosen for 
the USA Junior National Team. The 
United States went 9-0 to take the 
gold medal at the Junior Women’s 
Softball World Championship in 
Clearwater, Fla.

There are plenty of parallels 

between Allan’s experience and her 
grandmother’s. After all, both had 
the defining experience of standing 
on a podium, wearing gold medals 
as their flag was raised.

“You can’t beat that,” Allan said. 

“I mean, you see your flag and you 
see everything going on around 
you and all these people and all 
these little girls that are like, ‘Oh 
my gosh, USA!’ and hearing the 
USA chant and all that stuff is so 
incredible that you can’t describe it. 
… You’re representing something so 
much bigger than yourself and that 
is incredible.”

But their shared understanding 

goes beyond just the thrill of a 
championship. In a sport where 
professional leagues don’t get much 
attention, college and national 
team players are the famous ones 
that every young girl aspires to be.

“There’s always that intensity 

and it’s just a good thing for little 
girls to watch and look up to,” Allan 
said. “The more women’s sports we 
have in the Olympics is great for 
these little girls to look up to and 
show that they have something to 
look forward to.”

Cornell-Douty 
remembers 

touring in the months leading up 
to the Olympics, traveling to big 
cities and towns so small they 
were barely on the map. There, the 
team would attend games, and at 
each one, a steady stream of fans 
came out, waiting for autographs. 
Sometimes, they were there until 
one or two in the morning.

Allan, too, visits with fans 

waiting outside the locker room. 
She loves the feeling of knowing 
that they admire her. It gives her 
something to play for.

Cornell-Douty takes her job as 

a role model seriously because she 
grew up at a time when women 
in sports existed mostly in the 
shadows. She wants the next 
generation of athletes — Allan’s 
generation — to grow up knowing 
that their possibilities are endless.

Allan does it with a different 

perspective: she remembers being 
one of those girls, idolizing her 
grandma and former Michigan 
second baseman Sierra Romero. 
Now that she’s reached some of the 
highest heights imaginable for a 
player her age, she wants to give a 
similar experience to others.

“If I can sit out there and see all 

these different girls waiting for me, 
then I’m doing something right,” 
Allan said. “I’m giving them hope 
that they have something to look 
forward to and that’s all I want in 
the world is to make a difference.”

But for Allan, softball isn’t an 

endpoint. She has bigger plans for 
the future. She wants to go to law 
school, have a career in public 
policy and become an advocate. 
Maybe it’s not all that different 
from softball, anyway. After all, 
she and her grandma are proof that 
for women, the sky is the limit. She 
knows the transformative power of 
a role model. And she knows what 
it’s like to be part of something 
bigger than herself.

“Softball’s … taught me (the 

skills),” Allan said. “But once I 
leave the sport, there’s something 
more beyond, there’s a next 
chapter in my life that I have to 
open up.”

MATT VAILLIENCOURT/Daily

Freshman Lou Allan has dreams of playing in the Olympics, like her grandmother did.

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Writer

Newfound confidence sparks Wolverines to win streak

On March 14, the Michigan 

baseball team lost to the NAIA’s 
Lawrence Tech. Or, as coach Eric 
Bakich describes it, they didn’t 
just lose, they were “totally 
outplayed.” The loss dropped the 
Wolverines to 4-11, two losses 
and 38 wins short of their 2017 
totals.

Fourteen days later, the loss 

total remains mired at 11 — 
and zero in Big Ten play — as 
Michigan is riding a nine-game 
win streak.

“At 4-10, everything is an 

area for improvement,” Bakich 
said after the previous loss, to 
Lipscomb in Nashville.

At the time, this may have been 

interpreted as the Wolverines 
needing to improve offensively, 
defensively and on the mound. 
The biggest change, though, did 
not come from any of those areas.

Instead, 
after 
the 
loss 

to 
Lawrence 
Tech, 
Bakich 

pinpointed a different problem.

“We got to utilize these 

cameras and see everything,” 
Bakich said, motioning to the 
various 
cameras 
postioned 

around Ray Fisher Stadium. 
“We got to see the dugout, see 

the behind home plate view, see 
everything.”

It was that ability to see its 

dugout that reversed Michigan’s 
fortunes. Bakich realized the 
team’s demeanor was not one of 
a winning program. So he held 
a two-part film session: half to 
show his players their dejected 
body language in the dugout, the 
other half a compilation of the 
program’s storied legacy.

“That loss to Lawrence Tech 

kind of opened everyone’s eyes,” 
said freshman outfielder Jordan 
Nwogu. “In practice (the day 
after the game), we noticed that 
we were down as a team and 
were not getting behind each 
other. Friday (against Bowling 
Green), we turned that right 
around and everyone had each 
other’s backs.”

Added Bakich: “It wasn’t until 

we played Lawrence Tech … that 
the lightbulb really went off.”

The 
obvious 
blessing 
in 

disguise for the Wolverines came 
in that loss to the Blue Devils. A 
similar victory in defeat, though, 
came in their loss to San Diego 
State two weeks earlier. Bakich 
was 
ejected 
with 
Michigan 

holding a lead in a marquee 
win opportunity, one it would 
ultimately lose by one run.

“I had to watch the game 

from 
outside 
the 
stadium,” 

Bakich said. “And I could see 
(the dugout) from outside the 
bubble.”

It was then that he first 

realized his team had an energy 
problem.

“Something was missing early 

on,” Bakich said. “And it wasn’t 
just that we were playing good 
opponents. It just didn’t feel 
right, it didn’t sound right, there 
wasn’t a whole lot of energy.”

The key for the Wolverines 

turned out to be a simple one: 
having fun playing baseball.

“It’s okay to have childlike 

enthusiasm 
and 
energy 
out 

here,” Bakich said. “This is 
supposed to be a playground. We 
use that phrase a lot that this is 
a playground, but we weren’t 
playing like we were having a 
whole lot of fun. It looked more 
like a chore.”

Bakich’s claims are evident on 

the field. Against Lipscomb and 
Lawrence Tech, many Michigan 
players sat on the bench in the 
bottom of the dugout while their 
foes across the field filled the 
stadium with the unmistakable 
chirps of a baseball dugout.

Now, the roles are reversed. 

Every Wolverines run — and 

there are a lot of them — is met 
with the entire team spilling out 
of the dugout. Players climb over 
each other for perches on the top 
step to cheer on their pitchers on 
the rare occasions that they find 
themselves in a jam.

“It’s really easy to get down,” 

said freshman first baseman 
Jesse 
Franklin. 
“But 
when 

you look in the 
dugout and you 
see 
everyone’s 

smiling faces and 
everyone joking 
around, it gives 
you confidence.”

While 
most 

of 
Michigan’s 

wins 
in 
this 

streak have been 
blowouts, 
they 

have twice found 
themselves 
in 

6-0 holes.

“6-0 down, (our attitude was), 

‘who cares?’ ” Nwogu said. “We 
need to get these runs and help 

our pitchers out. It was just a 
light flicker that went off (after 
Lawrence Tech).”

Much of the credit for the 

turnaround will rightfully be 
attributed to Bakich, but it is 
his players — from freshmen to 
seniors — who have blossomed 
into vocal leaders after losing 
11 players to the draft in the 

offseason.

“(The 

upperclassmen) 
have done a great 
job of showing 
leadership,” 
Bakich 
said, 

“and taking the 
younger 
guys 

under 
their 

wings.”

Added Nwogu: 

“In the dugout, 
right before (an) 

at-bat (against Bowling Green, 
freshman 
right-hander 
Jeff 

Criswell) told me, ‘Just swing as 
hard as you can and you’ll hit it 

out.’ ”

Two minutes later, a baseball 

was nestled in a grass lot beyond 
the left field fence, and Nwogu 
was being mobbed by teammates 
at home plate.

That leadership extends to 

the team’s role players. The first 
name both Bakich and Franklin 
named when asked about their 
clubhouse leaders was redshirt 
sophomore 
left-hander 
Ben 

Keizer — who has pitched all of 
four innings this season.

“It may not always be one 

guy who’s giving the speech,” 
Bakich said, “but a lot of guys 
who are just speaking up more 
consistently, and that’s helped 
everybody.

“They were sick of losing. At 

some point, enough is enough. 
And at 4-11, that was enough.”

Just two weeks later, the 

Wolverines find themselves in 
an enviable position. One quick 
glance at the dugout would tell 
you that.

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

The Michigan baseball team has now won nine games in a row after a 4-11 start to the season.

THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Writer

“They were sick 

of losing. At some 

point, enough is 

enough.”