Why did Grace Green stick with OU softball as playing time dwindled?

[47Straight]

Why did Grace Green stick with OU softball as playing time dwindled? Get to know Sooners' 'mom figure'
by Ryan Aber - Oklahoman


NORMAN — As he watched his daughter, Grace Green, round the bases last Saturday after her home run against Kansas, Daniel Green’s eyes were instead diverted to the area in front of OU’s dugout.

He saw her Sooners teammates jumping wildly in celebration as they gathered to welcome her at home plate.

“I know what she’s capable of. I’ve seen her do it as a freshman. I’ve seen her do it in 2021 when she was just balling the whole time,” Daniel Green said. “But I really noticed how her team reacted to it, and that made me emotional.”

As Grace Green’s on-field role has diminished over the last three seasons, her importance to the Sooners hasn’t wavered.

Entering her final regular-season series — Bedlam, which begins Friday night in Stillwater — Green is embracing the final days of her softball career while also getting excited about life after softball.

This isn’t how she expected her career to play out.

As a freshman in 2019, Green had 17 home runs and 54 RBIs in 61 starts, hitting .359 and earning Big 12 Freshman of the Year honors and was a top 10 finalist for the NFCA Freshman of the Year Award.

During the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Green started all 24 games.

Over the last three seasons, though, Green has started just 17 games as injuries have taken their toll and the program has transformed from a power into a behemoth, attracting waves of incoming transfers every year, making it more difficult for Green to find playing time.

Green is content, though.

“I’m excited for life after softball,” she said. “I’m excited to have a job and become a mom someday. That’s exciting because it is a whole new chapter of life. Sad to see this chapter end but going to make the most out of every opportunity I get, whether I’m hitting or whether I’m in the dugout.”

She wasn’t always so content.

Green had always been a starter if not a star from the time she was a young player.

Doing that at OU those first two seasons seemed to be a fulfillment of her destiny.

OU softball coach Patty Gasso started recruiting Green before the California native had even attended a high school class.

Daniel Green certainly didn’t want his daughter to play so far away from home.

“She was getting recruited by UCLA and Oregon and Cal and Washington and all those places in the Pac 12 and I’m thinking in the Pac 12, I can get to her anywhere,” Daniel Green said.

When the Sooners stepped into the picture, Shawnda Green told her husband that their daughter would love Oklahoma.

The Greens had some Oklahoma bloodlines and some of Daniel Green’s biggest professional rodeo accomplishments happened in the state as he won the Timed Event Championships at Lazy E Arena in Guthrie thrice.

When the family made their recruiting visit to Norman, Grace knew quickly.

“Dad, don’t you think I fit in best here?” she asked Daniel.

He wasn’t ready to admit it.

“I’m not gonna tell you that,” he said, turning and walking away.

A couple days later, he relented.

“I’ve got great friends in Oklahoma. I’ve got some relatives in Oklahoma. It wasn’t that,” Daniel said of his hesitation to send his daughter to Norman. “It was the distance that she was going to be away from me. But I had to get over it. This is her life and what a blessing it’s been. She found her husband there. She got to play softball at one of the best programs ever. She got to be an All-American at that place.

“She turned into a woman on me out there. So in the big picture, it’s been a good deal. It really has.”

A little more than two years ago, though, Grace was fighting her emotions as her playing time diminished.

She’d gone from a star to a bench player who would occasionally make a pinch-hitting appearance.

“It was a real pride check,” Grace said. “I didn’t realize how much I still did find my identity in softball.”

Her perspective changed after her dad called to tell her he was heading to Oklahoma to watch the Sooners’ series with Texas Tech.

“Don’t come,” Grace said. “I don’t want you to come watch me sit the bench.”

Daniel offered a different perspective.

He’d long told his daughter that his identity wasn’t tied into rodeo.

“Roping is not who I am,” Daniel would say. “It’s just what I did for a living. I’m more than just the rope in my hand and how good I did it.”

It finally started to sink in for Green when her dad pushed back.

“If you play, you play. That’s awesome,” Daniel told his daughter. “If you don’t, I’m coming to see you. I love you no matter what.”

Her perspective changed.

“That really was kind of the turning point for me,” Grace said. “He knows competition. That’s how we would connect a lot was through competition. So when I wasn’t playing, it was almost more like for him, I just felt bad. I felt embarrassed. But that conversation with him really flipped my mindset on it to know that I have an earthly father who loves me that much. My heavenly father loves me so much more than what I could do on the softball field and he has me here for a reason regardless if I play or not.

“Thankfully I have a really great earthly dad, and he kind of helped smack me on the back of the head and helped me realize like hey, snap out of it, it’s not all about that.”

Still, though, Green could’ve gone elsewhere and found more playing time.

“From a young age, I was raised to just follow through with things,” Green said. “I know with the portal, it’s a lot easier for people to transfer and things like that. But one, I just wanted to follow through with my word and stay here. Two, the people really make it and that’s the biggest thing is the people — from the players to the coaches to just honestly, Oklahoma. I love Oklahoma.”

Gasso has been one of the biggest influences.

When Shawnda came down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome during Grace’s freshman season, leaving her temporarily paralyzed, it was Gasso that encouraged Grace to go home to see her mother.

When Grace’s grandfather died two years ago, also during the season, Gasso didn’t hesitate.

“She’s just really, really good when it comes to real life things,” Grace said.

After that call with her dad, Grace embraced her role with the Sooners, making it her job to mentor young players and be the best teammate and friend she can be.

“She stuck with us,” Gasso said. “She has such a wonderful heart and great approach. She’s so approachable and wise, smart.”

The way Green has handled the past three seasons led to that outpouring of emotion and affection after the home run against Kansas.

“She’s really like a mom figure,” teammate Alyssa Brito said. “She’s someone anyone can go up to and ask for advice. She’s kind of a person that if she has something to say, everyone stops and listens. She’s a huge part of what this program stands on and that’s great character, a great teammate and also someone that’s just huge in her faith.”

It’s a role that Green has fully embraced.

She loves cooking and baking for her teammates and helping them navigate through issues she’s experienced in the past.

Green’s husband, former Sooners football player Bryan Mead, is jokingly referred to as the team boyfriend, providing a hand when he can — such as when he put Avery Hodge’s license plate on her car not long after Hodge’s arrival.

“It’s a little different,” Green said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m at a different part of my life than some of the others, especially the freshmen. But also, we’re still living the same life day in and day out, so it kind of keeps me grounded too.”

Soon, those lives will take different paths.

While Green is looking forward to life beyond the sport, she’s soaking in her final weeks as a softball player.

“I’ve been playing softball since I was 8 and don’t plan to play after,” she said. “So at this point, trying to take everything in and just make the most out of every opportunity I get but more importantly, just the relationships with every teammate, the coaches, the little girls who come and watch us.

“I’m trying to remember the reasons God put me here, whether it’s to love on my teammates, the staff or to make a little girl smile up in the stands, whatever it may be.”

[RefriedBeans]

Wonderful read. Thanks!

[OUBeliever56A]

I am simply proud of this program! The reason is stories like Grace Green.

[AllSooner]

Thanks for posting, 47. This has put a another perspective on GG, on Patty, on the entire softball program! Grace's dad is as lucky to have her as she is to have him......what a great father/daughter relationship! No doubt GG will excel at life after softball and be a model mom for others that touch her life.

I hope more stories like this are in the future. Great Read