Christmas Day is quickly coming to an end and in behalf of all of our staff and contributors here at FCS – including Joe, Henry, David and Fred – we wanted to wish you a wonderful day today and throughout the rest of the holidays!

What a great sport softball is to unify us all! I’m so grateful for the friendships and relationship I’ve built over the last several years in the sport and I wanted to tell you what this site and sport means to me.

***

Back in 2006, I was with Student Sports Inc. based in Torrance, Calif. when I was asked by our President, Andy Bark, to start a softball website.

“Why me?” I asked quizzically and Andy replied, “Because you have a daughter who played club ball.”

“Yes,” I answered, “but it’s about the lowest level of club ball known to man.”

In fact, Brittany was playing club softball AND club soccer at the same time and, to be honest, I enjoyed soccer games much more because softball was boring and she got a lot more touches.

We’d go out to tournaments in Riverside, Calif. or other hot, hot areas in the summer and, with a squirmy, unhappy six-year-old daughter in tow who absolutely didn’t want to be there, we’d have a miserable time as Britt would play right field and get no chances, bat twice a game because the pitching was so dominant and probably go 0-for-2 or 1-for-2 and do that two or three times a day.

Ugh, not fun.

So here I was asked to start a softball website primarily to support Nike as the Oregon-based company wanted to get into softball and distribute their Dri-Fit apparel primarily through testing at events like Student Sports had done very successfully in football (Nike Football Training Camps and Nike Combines).

My softball oriented website – StudentSportsSoftball.com — would cover high school and club softball and I had to make it authentic and not embarrass SS or Nike event though I knew next to nothing aout the sport.

Gulp. It’d be like if you were asked to start a 17^th century French Poetry website and make it authentic and legitimate. Yea, good luck with that… That’s how I felt about covering softball.

***

I called a friend at UCLA who put me in touch with then-Bruin assistant Gina “Puppy” Vicchione who was tremendously kind and helpful. She pointed me to some names you may have heard of: Gary Haning of the OC Batbusters and Mike Candrea at the Univ. of Arizona, who was also the Head Coach of the U.S. Olympic Team at the time.

With a week or two I had reached out to these great figures in softball and not only were they friendly to me, they were accommodating and were interested in what Student Sports and Nike brought to the table, which was primarily athletic testing.

We eventually did do SPARQ-Testing, the same type of metrics and testing analytics that Sue Enquist is successfully and passionately pushing to become standardized in the sport.

I remember one of the first impressive athletes we tested was a young freshman speedster from New Jersey named Lauren Gibson. Yea, the same one that is starring on the National Team today!

***

Before too long, I was surprised at home much I loved the fast-pace and athleticism of softball. I began the website and covered the sport surprised to discover it was a lot of fun talking to the great players, parents, coaches and fans.

Within a few months I was hooked and was excited to see that the softball site became the 4^th biggest in website traffic of over 50 high school sites that were hosted on the Rivals.com platform at the time.

Softball started getting serious attention and I loved how it was the perfect storm in athletics: passionate players who were skilled on the field and fantastically nice, smart and approachable off the field.

Eventually my career took me away from softball as I went back to ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn. for a few years. There, I was involved on the digital side with the high school division initially called ESPN RISE and later ESPN High School.

ESPN would close the entire high school division in 2012 just as we were getting to launch – would you believe? – the Hot 100 rankings on its recruiting platform. We were literally five days away from going public with the list when the plug was pulled. I feel this coulda/woulda been huge for the sport and was bummed we were so close.

Still, I was fortunate to come back into softball shortly after that when we resurrected the StudentSportsSoftball.com site and it grew like it did in the first go around when I was involved, from 2006 to 2008.

***

This past summer I had the opportunity to start my own softball company, Full Count Softball, with the amazing blessing and support of Andy Bark and others at Student Sports.

The reason I did this was simple: I love the sport and the people!

I’ve covered every sport offered at the high school level – well, maybe not canoeing and kayaking so much! – but because of all the friends and relationships I have acquired in softball, I decided it was the place I wanted to be professionally.

The list of great people would take too long to list so I won’t begin and risk leaving someone out but it was you made me want to run this site that will hit the five-month mark on Jan. 5.

***

Christmas is a day of remembering The One who can, or certainly should, represent love people’s lives. Even if you don’t believe or celebrate the reason for the holiday, you probably appreciate the kinder, more friendly attitude that people feel this time of year.

To me, Christmas always been more fun to give gifts than to receive them and I get the amazing opportunity to work day in and day out with those I love to talk and laugh with…. you

Let’s just say that, for me, in 2014 the greatest gift I got professionally was the opportunity to work in softball again and be a part of the amazing story of these great young people.

I get emails and calls every day thanking me for covering softball and “doing so much for them,” but I feel it’s the opposite—it’s me who is blessed to be involved with such amazingly wonderful, inspiring athletes.

Thanks to all of you for being part of this site and community. I always tell people that the secret to our coverage is simply that I reflect—or try to—what the softball market wants. YOU tell the stories, I just dress them up and publish them.

For that great gift, being part of your lives and watching your successes and development, I thank you immensely.

Now, let’s go have a fantastic 2015 and, ‘til then, enjoy the rest of our holidays!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and the Most Wonderful of Holidays to all!

— Brentt Eads, President/Executive Editor of Full Count Softball