Shoreline Community College Softball, the “Spirit” of SCC

Photo by Wilson Tsoi

From the SCC Athletics Department  GO DOLPHINS!!!!

On November 8th, 2011, the Shoreline Community College Volleyball Team was playing at Bellevue College, the SCC Lady Dolphins needed a win to claim the NWAACC Northern Region Championship over the Bulldogs and in what you would think would be a hostile crowd at BC and make the game even a bigger challenge…..but not so fast, the Shoreline Community College Softball Team was in attendance, mostly wearing their “Neon” green practice shirts and taking over the middle of the bleachers in the BC Gym. This was no normal crowd for a home game at Bellevue College.

The SCC volleyball team fell behind early, dropping the first game but the Lady Dolphin Softball Team starting making some noise, the SCC Volleyball Team rallied behind the “Home” crowd at BC and won the match 3-1 and to claim the regional title.

Coach Swehla
Photo by Wilson Tsoi

Flash forward to the SCC Homecoming Basketball Games on Wednesday, February 8th, another sea of “Neon” green can be seen in the in the middle of SCC bleachers. The Lady Dolphin Softball Team are there in force again, helping the women’s basketball team take North Seattle CC into overtime before losing the game and shaking the SCC Gym with a roar as the SCC Men’s Basketball Team routs the Storm in convincing fashion.

Flashback again, and the SCC Softball Team is on a bus heading to Olympia, WA with many other SCC students; the group is heading to the state’s capital to protest the budget cuts to higher education in the State of Washington. And flash forward once more; the SCC Softball Team is helping collect food for the SCC’s Martin Luther King food drive. They are at an off-campus supermarket, on the holiday, working for a good cause on their own time.

Syrina Bailey
Photo by Wilson Tsoi

SCC Softball Coach, Lance Swehla says: “I think that all of the athletic community at SCC should support each other and the college. Student-athletes put in a lot of time and energy into their academic and athletic success, so I think that the athletes enjoy seeing the other teams at their games, supporting them” and Coach Swehla talks about the trip to Olympia: “I think taking the team to Olympia was important because the cuts in higher education is a real issue and we are attempting to be a part of the process that will provide a solution for a quality education for local students to Shoreline.

Sophomore Syrina Bailly, who plays outfield for the Dolphins, thinks: “We all love supporting the teams, because we know it picks them up and keeps that fire going”.

Chelsea Lindroth, second baseball on the team, thinks it’s all about “Unity”. “The feeling of unity that comes with everyone working towards a common goal is something our school needs more of, such as when the softball team and other students came together and went to protest the projected budget cuts for next year to higher education. There were a lot of students on that bus, international and domestic, athlete and non-athlete; all were united for the common cause”.

Sophie Overlock-Pauley
Photo by Wilson Tsoi

Athletic Director Doug Palmer wishes more of his teams were like softball, “Softball is a model program for us, they do well on the field, they do well in the classroom, they raise lots of funds for themselves and they support all of the teams at games. If we could get all of our teams and coaches to buy into this kind of support, then no team would ever play just in front of parents and friends”. But he thinks, when the coaches are all part-time, it is hard for the buy-in sometimes. 

“It is difficult at this level at times for coaches to get players at other team’s games as our coaches work other jobs, our student-athletes work jobs and maintain lives outside of the college, as this is not NCAA I, where you have full-time coaches and students who are on full-scholarships. At community college, most coaches work a full-time job elsewhere and then coach on the side; our student-athletes have some partial scholarship money, but not much and most of them work a job, and go to school and try to have some sort of social life as well. But all of the sports here appreciate our softball team and try to model their programs after softball in certain ways, almost all of our teams model their fund-raising efforts after the softball program, I just hope they begin to model their support of other teams and the college as a whole too”.

Chelsea Lindroth
Photo by Wilson Tsoi

Sophie Overlock-Pauley may have put it best, when she said: “Not only does this team work hard during practice and games, we work hard to cheer and support other teams, even if we lose our voices from cheering so loud, it gives me great sense of pride that we have people coming up to us after games and saying how the really appreciated what we’re doing”.

So if you see a crowd of “Neon” green women heading toward your gym, you may need to get out of the way, as the Shoreline CC Softball Team may have arrived and the Spirit of Shoreline Community College as arrived with them and usually that means, the opponent is going to lose that night to SCC and “Neon” green is taking over your gym or field.