Forever Pirates -- Sarah Hamre
Our first of two Forever Pirate features this week is courtesy of former Coast first baseman Sarah Hamre, who attended OCC from 2017-18 before moving on to Denison University. As a Pirate, Hamre batted .301 with 28 hits, four home runs and 18 RBI during the 2018 season.
If you would have told me when I arrived at Orange Coast College that I would leave having traveled to Mexico on a bus with two dozen people I didn't know to swim with baby grey whales, I would have never believed you.
I mean truthfully even if you would have told me that I was going to come out of retirement to continue playing softball, I probably would have laughed in your face.
As a sophomore transfer, I had come from a toxic environment that made my previous collegiate life a miserable one. I was failing out of a major that was selected for me and playing for a team that was anything but. I had lost the joy in learning and in softball and the kicker was, no one cared, not even me. I was merely a cog in a machine at this university and I found myself lost in all aspects of life. I was burnt out. So burnt out that when I blew my ACL, all I could think was Oh, thank God.
Little did I know, there would be so much more good to come from destroying my knee than just losing my scholarship.
When I arrived at OCC, I had absolutely no intention of playing softball again because I simply didn't care. I didn't love it anymore and I didn't think it was worth the pain of rehabbing my knee. It took a mere 10 minutes with Coach Jodie (and my father LITERALLY tricking me into trying out) to change my mind.
Coach gave me the opportunity to recover mentally and physically in a way that made me stronger … not only as an athlete but as a student and a person. She prioritized my physical therapy, my mental health and my academics over everything else.
Jodie's constant encouragement, demand for excellence and elevated expectations allowed me to move outside of my comfort zone in every aspect of my life. I took classes that I never would have considered (hence the whale reference), I made plays I never would have had the confidence to make, and most importantly, I developed long- time friendships that I never could have found anywhere else.
At the end of my short year at OCC, I managed to get myself recruited to Denison University where I finished my collegiate athletic career as a two-year captain on the softball team. I also managed to publish and present my own psychological research at the national Psi Chi Convention and earned my bachelor's degree in psychology with a concentration in industrial and organizational studies.
OCC truly changed the course of my collegiate career for the best.
