Brooke Parrott never thought the day would come that she would find herself nervous in the softball circle.
A four-time Times Free Press Best of Preps selection that won 71 games at Central High School and struck out over 1,000 people, pitching was what she had always done.
Yet there she stood at the beginning of the 2021 season as a new member of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga softball team – having just played two seasons at Chattanooga State – with the new feeling of never having competed against Division I competition.
“I was nervous to even go into a game,” she said earlier this week. “It affected the movement of my pitches because I was so shaky, and I was scared to throw strikes at the beginning of the year.”
It showed in her first few outings. She gave up five runs – four earned – in a loss to Western Kentucky. Walked five batters against Indiana State, then gave up six more runs against Kennesaw State. She wasn’t an overpowering pitcher as it was, but she was suddenly unable to get people out.