Written by “Dude, You’re On ESPN!”
That’s what Dom Valdespino told his girlfriend, Hope Trautwein, after she completed the impossible last weekend, a perfect perfect game. That’s right, two perfects. Twenty-one batters came up, and twenty-one batters struck out. No one put a ball in play. Nobody had done this before in the history of NCAA Division I softball.
Trautwein plays for the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Last Sunday, while the rest of the sports world was watching The Masters, The Mean Green played a double-header on the road against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Only about 75 people witnessed this historic event. It was not on TV.
I heard about it on Wednesday during Vlad Duthier’s “What to Watch” segment on CBS This Morning. I had just finished writing an article on the dangers of perfectionism, so it caught my attention. I’m glad it did. It’s an extraordinary story. Hope has garnered a lot of attention. She’s been on ESPN and NPR and written about in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She has lots of new followers on Twitter and Instagram. America loves being perfect, and we love double-perfect even more.
I watched an interview of Hope by WFAA in Dallas that I enjoyed. Hope is very impressive, and not because she pulled off something no one has done before. She genuinely loves playing softball. It is her passion. She takes her role of a pitcher seriously, as she is in control of the game. She wants to stay involved with softball as long as it will take her, but you can tell she will be successful in whatever career she chooses to pursue by her demeanor. She is on the Dean’s List and plans to earn an MBA next May. She has one year of eligibility remaining.
North Texas plays in Conference USA, know as “C-USA”. They currently are in third place in the Western division that includes Louisiana Tech, Alabama-Birmingham, Texas-San Antonio, Texas-El Paso, and Southern Mississippi. Getting this level of attention is a big deal. Ironically, Trautwein’s feat only earned her “Co-Pitcher of the Week” honors, as Miami University’s Courtney Viestera had both a no-hitter and a perfect game in the same weekend series against Akron.
Playing small-time collegiate athletics is a real grind. You spend hours training and more in practice. It is a long bus ride from Denton to Birmingham. Add on top of that the other demands of a college student, classes, papers, and exams. This year it is even worse with COVID-19 protocols. A friend of mine has a daughter playing college soccer. When they drive to see her play, they are not allowed to visit with her. She has no interaction with anyone at her school other than her teammates.
Dom and Hope, referred to collectively as “Dope” by their friends, have been together for five and a half years. Dom played football at Mary Hardin-Baylor until he injured his shoulder. Dom was in Texas while Hope was playing in Arkansas. The game was not on TV, so he was shocked when he saw it reported on ESPN. Hope didn’t have much time to celebrate. They were playing a double-header, and she had to get ready for the second game.
I enjoyed this story for several reasons. The accomplishment of striking out all twenty-one hitters was terrific, and the scoresheet was cool. However, the bigger picture it represented for providing attention to women’s sports and softball seems more significant than the feat itself. And seeing such an impressive ambassador of the sport use the moment to send a positive message to inspire others rather than focus on her accomplishment was priceless.