What a crazy few weeks it has been!  The end of May came one of my favorite times of year: college softball post season. I commentated the regionals (ASU), super regionals (Stanford) and the grand event of the Women’s College World Series for ESPN. The WCWS this year was one of the most exciting I have ever seen, with offensive records being broken left and right. There were so many homeruns being hit, including FOUR grand slams (two of which were game-winners) it was no wonder why we also had a record-breaking 1.8 MILLION people tuned into ESPN Tuesday night for the championship. We have come a long way and I love hearing from so many new fans that never watched the sport before and have fallen in love with seeing these women play so well, and with so much passion.

This week has also been event-filled because I was able to meet up with academy award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon (fellow Stanford student) at UCLA for some softball tips for her upcoming movie where she plays a professional softball player who gets cut from the national team. She has never played the sport before, but has been training for a few months now trying to look as authentic as possible. I was so impressed with how hard she was working to do everything right, and how much she respects the world of female athletics. I have no doubt she will represent us well and this movie, which debuts December 2010, will be not only be huge for our sport, but for all female athletes. Her next goal is to come out for one of our Women’s Sports Foundation events — I think we can make that happen

After training with Reese, I headed to Louisville, Kentucky to put on a softball clinic with Olympic teammate Taria Flowers. We had over 100 girls attend and had so much fun working drills and also teaching important “life skills” to girls ranging from age 7-23. I also spent some time in the area speaking to a local basketball team and meeting with one of my sponsors, Louisville Slugger — talking about the future support of softball in years to come.

This morning I had breakfast with Olympic gymnast and Dancing with Stars winner, Shawn Johnson. What a whirlwind she has been on, and an exciting one too! She said she had no idea she would be able to do so many great things and meet so many people at only 17 years old. She is definitely living life to the fullest and most importantly, looking for ways to give back. One of her first questions to me was “How do I become President of the Women’s Sports Foundation?”. Gotta love it!!!

Now I am on my way to Lausanne, Switzerland to present on behalf of softball (along with Michele Smith and other international softball athletes) at the International Olympic Committee headquarters to get the sport back into the Olympic games for 2016. From these presentations, the IOC will be choosing 2 of the following 7 sports:
Softball
Rugby
Baseball
Golf
Squash
Roller Sports
Karate

So please keep your fingers crossed the IOC will make the right decision! For more information, please visit www.backsoftball.com.

After I return from Switzerland, just three more events in St. Louis, Cape Cod and Boston and then I am home to “nest” for the baby’s arrival in August!!! What a summer

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Hello everyone! There has been so much exciting news since I last wrote!! First of all, I am regularly updating all that I am up to on twitter.com/jessmendoza if you want to follow me and my crazy life! As for what is new, I have started my Presidency with the Women’s Sports Foundation (www.womenssportsfoundation.org) and it has already been very exciting. In February, I met with senators and congressmen to talk about more ways we can get support and information for even more girls and women in sport. It was very successful, as many of those on “the hill” agree that we need to get more young girls opportunities to play sports. Good stuff! I was also able to do a Spin-a-Thon in Venice, CA on March 29 to raise money for the Women’s Sports Foundation. Laila Ali (famous boxer and daughter of Muhammad Ali) was there with me and we rode those bikes as hard as we could, raising money for a good cause!! Laila has just recently had a baby, so I was able to pick her brain about training and being pregnant — how she was able to balance everything and still be ready to get back out there after having her baby. I wanted to know all this because my husband Adam and I are PREGNANT! Yes, six months already and we are SO EXCITED! Baby is due August 13 and I have no doubt this will be the biggest adventure of our lives. But don’t any of you worry, I can not wait to get back out there with USA Softball and the PFX Tour for the 2010 season!

I am also very excited watching college softball this year, so many good teams! Check my calendar to see which games I will be covering for both Fox Sports and ESPN from now until June. There is so much to learn from watching these amazing women, who are also great STUDENT-athletes as well.
Thanks for checking in and don’t forget to follow my daily “tweets” on twitter.com/jessmendoza!
Talk to you all soon!!
Love it, Dream it, Live it!!
Jessica Mendoza #2

To celebrate Jessica Mendoza’s amazing achievements in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Nike has created a one of a kind training shoe inspired by her success.  The truly unique shoe features a piece of fabric from Jessica’s authentic Olympic uniform stitched onto the shoe’s tongue.  Girls everywhere can log-on here: http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikewomen/en_US/sister_one and enter to win their own sized pair of these inspirational shoes by pledging to train as hard as Jessica.  A panel of judges will review each pledge and the most inspirational will win these beautiful shoes and have them presented to her in person by Jessica.

Check out Jessica Mendoza’s video clip from Frozen Ropes Training Center (below).  To order the DVD and watch the clip, check out this link: http://www.frozenropes.com/home/store/dvds–books.aspx?d=876

We are now in Italy working with players and coaches from almost all of Europe. There is so much to share and talk about. So far Coach Candrea and I have covered topics such as stance and mechanics of hitting, communication between players and coaches, dynamic warm up and training, practice planning, baserunning and fly ball drop steps. Coach video taped players and even most of the coaches and has had classroom meetings going over their swings. There have been a lot of good questions and we feel we have covered so much in the 8 hours a day we have been on the field or in the classroom.

Our nights have been spent eating some of the best food in the world. And Coach Candrea, being Italian, is in heaven with his pepperoni pizzas every night! Last night they took us to a feast of five courses of food including pastas, mussels, clams, calamari, lobster and a ridiculous amount of dessert! All the Olympic training we did has completely gone away in the few days we have been here! But when in Rome …
We have worked with players and coaches from Belgium, Israel, Argentina, Bolivia, Ukraine, Spain, Italy, UK, Croatia, France, Holland, Ireland and many more. So inspiring to know there are that many people playing this sport. And in just the week or so we have spent here, there has been so much information shared and absorbed. No matter how difficult it can be to communicate off the field with language barriers, it is a beautiful thing to be able to communicate on the field with the game of softball.

All of us enjoyed our time spent in both the UK and Italy and look forward to spreading this great game and growing the international family of softball that much more.
Ciao from myself, Mike Candrea, Ronnie Isham and thank you to ASA, USOC, Baseball Softball UK and FIBS Italia for making this happen!!

Coach Candrea and I have just spent the last three days doing clinics throughout the London, England area and it has been an experience of a lifetime. Our first day started off speaking to coaches from all over the world … from Argentina, Bolivia, the Netherlands, Spain, Venezuela, Israel, Belgium, France, and of course the UK. Anyone who thinks softball is not an international sport should have been in this room! We then spent the next three days, from about 9 am to 9 pm every day, talking/presenting to coaches and doing clinics for players ranging from ages 12-30. The attitudes and enthusiasm these young women brought out to the field each day was remarkable and it was so fun to get a glimpse of the softball atmosphere here in England. We shared a lot of laughs because they thought Coach Candrea and my “accents” were really funny and there are a lot of American English words that got sort of “lost in translation” when heard as British English. To be honest, we spent so much time and shared so much with these amazing players and coaches that when it came time to say goodbye, it felt like it had been months we had known and worked with them. It was inspiring for Coach Candrea, Ronnie Isham (Director of national teams) and myself to truly see how vast the softball community is, and how much passion for the growth of this game exists globally. Bob Fromer, Hayley Scott and Mike Jennings were the main people from Baseball Softball UK that not only made this possible, but made it an experience none of us will ever forget.

It will be hard to top the friends and impressions the last few days have made on us in England, but we are now off to Italy to work with many more and I am sure to have a lot more fun stories to share! Cheers from the UK!!