Tiare Sugui, a senior here at McKinley High School, has been playing softball for four years. She was given the choice by her parents to choose two sports to play and one of her choices was softball.

Softball is a competitive sport. It takes time to catch up with all the skills and it takes a lot of practice to play the sport.

“Softball is a mental and competitive sport and it’s not an independent sport. It takes dedication and you have to be mentally strong to play softball,” Sugui said.

It takes academics, ability and attitude to play softball. Softball is not a sport for everyone. It takes commitment to be a part of the team.

“I wouldn’t say softball is my passion but I like it a lot. My passion is basketball. It was hard at first but having other players that never played before helped me boost my self-esteem,” Sugui said.

Summer Nagareda, a staff here at McKinley, has been coaching varsity and JV softball for 5 years. She is known as Coach Summer to her softball athletes.

“It’s a highly skilled sport because there is strategy to it,” Nagareda said.

Sugui’s passion is basketball but she still held on to softball.

“I like softball a lot because I like my teammates and the environment. It feels fun because I make my coaches nuts and my teammates are fun to be around. I do not love it but I like it because I do not have much passion for it as much as I have for basketball” Sugui said.

A coach’s job is to motivate and push the athletes to do the best that they can. Nagareda has been a coach to many of the athletes here at McKinley.

“She’s a very intimidating and competitive coach but she’s the type of coach that will push you to your limits if it motivates you to do better” Sugui said.

Sugui’s skills toward softball has made her the way she is now. She may also play basketball but she also enjoys softball.

“Ari came out as an athletic student, she caught on fast in this sport. The one thing I knew as a coach is that basketball is her passion but it came down to Ari’s decision if she was going to give softball and all her teammates 100% or not,” Nagareda said.

“You cannot make your teammates love it as much as you can,” Nagareda said.