Rich signs to play softball at Cisco Junior College

Addy Rich’s face lights up and her voice gets animated when she talks about softball.

The personable Groesbeck High School senior will have a lot more opportunities to talk about the sport she loves. Rich signed a letter of intent in the Groesbeck High gym Wednesday, Dec. 9, to play softball at Cisco Junior College. She will be a pitcher and also was recruited as a right-handed power hitter.

“I’m beyond excited. This has been my dream since probably freshmen year,” Rich said after signing.

Rich had other offers to play in college, including from McPherson College in Kansas, a school in Massachusetts that contacted her, and Alvin Junior College. But it was the downhome feeling at Cisco that won her over. She also knows two players on the team who she played with on a select team in the past. And she had talked to the coach, Joel Prickett, on numerous occasions at tournaments in which she has played.

“It just felt like home for me,” she said of the atmosphere at Cisco. “I talked to my coach multiple times at camps, at different tournaments, back and forth. He got to know me and I got to know him, and I got to see him coach. His coaching style really drew me in. And the college is really small. i could walk from one side to the other side in less than five minutes. It’s a small town and it just feels homey.”

Addy visited the campus visit at the beginning of the school year.

“I got to practice with the girls on the field,” she said. “I actually knew two of them that I had played with back in select. So, i already had some teammates I played with before.

“I got to go through the dorm, so we got to sit there and talk to them and talk about the team and what they do on a daily basis, some of their classes.”

Addy plays softball year round. In addition to playing during the high school spring season, she plays on select teams throughout the year. And on weekends when she doesn’t have a game scheduled, she looks on a Facebook group page where players can find teams to pick up with for a weekend or teams can find players to fill out their rosters for weekend tournaments.

Addy attended school in Robinson from the fourth grade until her sophomore year. She moved to Groesbeck at the beginning of her junior year.

She began playing softball at the suggestion of her stepdad, Lee Walker.

“My step-dad, Lee, when I was 10 years old, said, ‘why don’t you try this?’” she said. “I was like, ‘really, you’re going to make me, the slow kid, play?’ I said, ‘okay, fine, I’ll give it a shot, whatever.’”

That shot turned into a lifelong love of the game.

“After I played on that first Little League team, I was like, ‘this is it, I want to play again.’ And after that it was, okay, I want to play again. I want to play again. It was just like a never-ending cycle. And then I just fell in love with it. I couldn’t imagine my life without it. I love it so much,” Addy said.

Though she loved softball, Addy said she wasn’t exactly a star when she started.

“I wasn’t very good,” she said. “I played first and third. I played second a little bit, got a little bit of catching. I was awful. I was one of those little kids that picks flowers in the outfield.”

All the other girls on the team were older and better players. That spurred Addy to want to improve her skills.

“I wanted to be that good,” she said. “So, I started practicing every day and I started getting better and better. I had a drive and passion to get better. Even in working out and athletics, I want to be better because I know there’s something more to reach for.”

Playing also gave her a feeling of unbound energy. And she is always thinking during a game.

“For me, it’s adrenaline, because I have so much passion about it,” Addy said. “When I’m pitching, it’s like, ‘okay, what’s going to work here, a rise ball, a drop ball, what am I going to throw? Where do I have to be in the count?’ And hitting, I just love that too. When I get in the (batter’s) box, it’s like, ‘okay, I’ve got a runner on here and here, where do I need to hit this ball? Do I go to right field, left field?’”

Another aspect of softball she likes is being with her teammates.

“I’m a very social person. I love talking to my teammates, being on the team and playing. I just love the game so much. It’s my passion,” Addy said.

It wasn’t until her sophomore year at Robinson that Addy began to see playing in college as a possibility. She was receiving positive feedback from college coaches and recruiters for her play with a select team.

“I started playing on a select team where that’s all they did was college recruiting,” she said. “You played and you went to these tournaments called showcases. College coaches stood around and watched. And if they liked you, they picked up your profile sheet that had all your information and they started talking to you. That’s when I realized, ‘hey, i can really do this if I just work a little harder.’ By the end of the season, I had a bunch of coaches coming up to me saying, ‘we want you here.’”

Asked the key to her development over the years, Addy replied, “Practice, practice, practice. From the time i was about 14 until now, I practice constantly.”

At home, she has a net in which to practice her hitting and a mound from which to practice here pitching. Sometimes, she said, her neighbors can hear her honing her craft.

“My neighbors hear me in the yard all the time,” she said. “If I’m not in the yard, I’m in the shop. If it’s wet outside, we can go into the shop and just hit into the net. If I miss the net, it hits the back of the shop and makes a big, old noise. So, they hear it.”

Even though she’ll be starting her post-high school softball career at a junior college, Addy hopes to transfer to a four-year school after playing at Cisco.

“I looked at Division II, Division III, JUCO,” she said. “It was never my intention starting out to go Division I, like Baylor or Texas A&M. I just never wanted to be in that big of a school. Frankly, with my skill level, I wouldn’t make it. I wouldn’t pitch. They could probably take me as a hitter, but I wouldn’t pitch. I just was realistic about my goals.”

Addy plans to major in pre-physical therapy at Cisco Junior College. Her high school courses include studying to become a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), which she will attain before graduation.

Addy is the daughter of Jilly and Lee Walker.