Interview of Once An Athlete Founder Emily Watson
This is me pitching against the University of Oklahoma.
Usually, I am the one that does the interviews. This time, Once An Athlete Public Relations Manager Haley Meinen interviewed me. We talked about my hobbies, my experiences playing softball, and what brought me to start Once An Athlete.
Below you can read a write up summary but of course listening to it is better. You can hear it HERE.
Q: What hobbies do you do?
A: Lately I have been paddleboarding. I enjoy hiking, camping and being in nature.
Q: How do you feel like sports brought you to those hobbies?
A: Softball is an outdoor sport so I’ve always appreciated good weather and being outside. I grew up in Northern California and I went on camping trips and boating a lot too.
Q: Experience playing sports?
This is when my high school softball team retired my jersey number.
A: I started playing softball at Tulsa in the 2015 season. Fun fact - my first start was against the Oregon Ducks. Junior year I started games a lot more often. We had a really good season. We made it to the championship game in regionals at Oklahoma and same thing senior year. Our success was a great team effort and wouldn’t have been possible without my teammates
Q: How did growing up in California affect your sport?
A: I started playing competitive when I was in 10U in Chico, California. I moved to Oklahoma when I was 13. That move made me more of a competitive player being 15 minutes away from the softball Hall of fame. Being in the softball hub of America brought great coaching and made me love the game more. My chances to get recruited was increased because of all of that.
Q: Had you not done softball, would you have done a different degree?
A: I got my degree in Business Management. I am grateful because it got me to where I am now and it is great knowledge to have. Without sports, I probably would have done mechanical engineering. I went into college with my major undeclared and then went into mechanical engineering which brought me behind. The late start made it unorganized and it was confusing so I had to switch with softball taking up so much time and declaring too late. My personality and goals aligned with business management and it worked out with my ability with working with people. It was not an easy degree but it was easier than doing mechanical engineering with softball.
Shelby, me and Shannon our senior year.
Q: How do you feel like your personality has shaped through softball?
A: Communication and working in a team. College softball has helped me learn how to build connections with people. These connections has brought me and Haley together to do Once An Athlete.
Q: Have you had any injuries or setbacks what did you face and how did you overcome that?
This is when we won our conference tournament my senior year.
A: I never had any huge injury which I’m super grateful for. I give that credit to drinking lots of water, being sure to warm up correctly and train correctly, etc. I did have a couple of minor things that made a little bit of a difference. I do have scoliosis from a mixture of a car accident and pitching. I have tendonitis in both of my elbows and wrists. My freshman year I went to the training room a lot and kept working on it and it kept getting worse. Eventually I stopped throwing overhand because of it and my overhand throw became pretty terrible. It wasn’t a full on injury but it physically affected me. I eventually realized all my wrist wanted was to be iced and to take ibuprofen and apparently that worked.
Q: What are your favorite moments of softball:
A: We were playing against Cal and I threw a drop ball against a really quick hitter. She hit a high chop, I fielded it and tossed it to my third baseman and she threw her out. We’ve joked about one day doing that play but never practiced it and it just happened. It was amazing, shout out to Maggie Withee.
Q: How was your experience playing pro and how did that relate to college and how was it going out of that?
A: Going straight into pro after playing a whole season for college was a long year for me. My elbows and pain from tendonitis was hurting bad.
This is at the University of Oregon in the equipment building.
Q: At Oregon you were the graduate manager, how did that help you with coming to terms outside of being an athlete?
A: If I wanted to play professional softball, I’d have to get a job that would hire me to work 9 months out of the year and then allow me to play softball during the season. I wanted to set myself up to have a career. It was like a gradual transition from playing competitively to getting into my career. I had the year from 2018 after season to going to school at Oregon in the fall so I was working but it was different because it was preparing to go back to being involved with softball. I was still involved with softball. Covid changed so much for me. There wasn’t anything I could do in sports that summer of 2020 so that’s when I looked into something else to do. I started interviewing athletes who were no longer involved with their sports directly and working a regular job. I started to think about getting job experience in anything so I started volunteering, focusing on projects in school, and building connections. I wanted to choose somewhere to live that has opportunities and San Diego is what I settled on. I love it and I’ve been building my resume by doing a regular administrative job which I wasn’t able to do as an athlete before. We talked about it in the research review you can read about it here.
Q: What is your goal and driving force behind creating Once An Athlete?
My senior year photo.
A: I wanted to be involved with sports and find a way to provide support for athletes and parents of athletes to find a smooth transition out of doing their sport into finding a career. Check out more on the Our Vision page and hear what I had to say in the podcast to learn more!
If you have any more questions for me or Haley, please leave comments below or contact me. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call the Suicide Hotline. It’s toll free and available 24/7 at 800-273-8255.
Once An Athlete’s mission is to provide resources and support for current and former athletes. Please support our mission by making a donation.
Are you or someone you know currently struggling with what happens in life after sports? Or did you already go through that transition to life after retiring competitive sports and wish you had more resources and support? Have you ever wondered, “what do athletes do after they are done playing sports? What’s next after sports?” Do you feel like you dedicated so much to your sport and you don’t know what to do now that you’re done competing? You’re not alone. Check out the site and join us in the journey. Once an athlete, always an athlete.
More blog posts with softball players: