How was your experience with the school sports world?
The conception of Sport with respect to Italy is certainly different; the sports world is at the center of school life and teachers want to participate in matches and cheer on their school team. Also from a sporting point of view I have lived two different experiences; in my first school in Washington state I participated in the fall season playing slowpitch softball and I can say that the sporting environment was not very competitive.
In the second school in Texas instead, sport was the center of school life and above all the country was very interested in school sport, they loved softball in particular and I can say that I saw the difference compared to my previous school because anyone wanted to be part of a sports team at school compulsorily had to participate in a school hour dedicated to athletics which was just called Athletics and in which every day for an hour there was running, weights, speed, endurance, agility an athletic training that I have never done in Italy he is never seen doing anywhere, much less in school
Let’s move on to softball. Tell your experience. Were you satisfied?
I am very satisfied with both experiences I had with softball even if in fact the first season, the autumn one, I played slow pitch, a sport that we do not have in Italy at a youth level and although my team was not as I expected it to be. I am satisfied because I was able to play all the games, even if I was blocked towards the end of the championship due to the covid. In this first team I didn’t really establish a relationship with my teammates, I felt them very different from me and not completely interested in knowing me or wanting to establish a relationship.
In Texas, on the other hand, I participated in the fastpitch season and I am very satisfied because I was able to have the kind of experience I was looking for and for which I went to the United States; with my teammates a good relationship was created almost immediately, most likely because we were together for more than three hours every day because we did this hour of athletic preparation before training and then from 2 to 3 hours of training , we could never know how long it lasted, and therefore we lived for most of the time together and this I think contributed to establishing a relationship but certainly also their desire to know me and my desire to know something more about them and their tradition has contributed a lot.
