My name is Jennifer Sieminski and I am a pitcher for the Neumann University Softball Team. One player who represented excellence the past week is Nick Foles. Foles stated “Failure is a part of life. That’s a part of building character and growing. Without failure, who would you be? I wouldn’t be up here if I hadn’t fallen thousands of times, made mistakes. We all are human, we all have weaknesses.”

The Neumann University Women’s Softball team defines excellence by striving to always play our best game each time we step on the field. Excellence at Neumann is defined as performing to the best of our ability, practice cooperation, rather than competition, in the quest for excellence, and foster academic achievement through a strong teaching-learning community. We show qualities of each of those descriptions.

Softball is a game of failure but when there is a team behind you to pick you up after you make an error, strikeout, or miss your location on a pitch that’s what excellence is. Softball is also a mental game. That requires being patient, you cannot force something to happen, just like everything else. When we are off the field we have a lot nursing, athletic training, and education majors that all help each other study. That is excellence. Our team does not let one another fail on the field and in the classroom.

Making a play on the ball is always a challenge. When a ball is hit towards any position it can be difficult to read.  Depending on your glove positioning, it can change the game in an instant. You can’t rush things in life just like you can’t rush catching the ball first and making a play rather than causing an error.  This can bring out excellence in one person and in the team.  Ending with Foles’ ending statement, “That’s really just been the message: simple. If something’s going on in your life and you’re struggling, embrace it, because you’re growing.”