I often like to ask players to describe themselves—or how they think others, like family and friends would do so—in one word. Why? Simply, it makes people look at how they see themselves, be it quiet, funny, smart, silly, competitive, passionate, etc.

For Hannah Rogers, the Florida Gator four-time All-American, the word that readily comes to mind for her is easy: “Champion.”

Not only did the pitcher end her college career with an NCAA National Championship, she also won a Florida Class 4A state title in 2008 as a freshman and that same year was part of the ASA 18U Gold national title won by her Gold Coast Hurricanes club team.

And, if that wasn’t enough, in 2005 she even pitched a team to the Little League World Series title!

Hannah will go down as one of the top pitchers ever in the college game, finishing tied for 12^th in all-time wins with 127 (to go against only 31 losses). And only four pitchers ahead of her on that victory list have won national titles and they’re all legends of the game: Alicia Hollowell (Arizona), Danielle Lawrie (Washington), Keilani Ricketts (Oklahoma) and Keira Goerl (UCLA).

It all began for the Florida native in Lake Wales, Fla. where she was born and raised. She started t-ball at age five and played every year, although she didn’t start pitching until around age 10. She even dabbled in volleyball in high school and admitted, “I was pretty good, but just did it for fun.”

I spoke with Hannah today about those early days of her playing career and to see what she did after her big championship win in early June, what she’s doing now and what the future holds… here’s what she had to say:

***

FullCountSoftball.com: It’s been three months since you capped your college career with a National Championship; what did the rest of the summer bring you and what are you doing now?
Hannah Rogers: After we won, I came home and spent some time there before I went out to California in July for the ESPYs because I was nominated for an award there (Best Female College Athlete). I then went back home and hung out there for a while. I’m now in Fort Lauderdale doing an internship in Event Management, which is my major. I working with a company that does showcases for athletes who are being recruited and I’ll graduate in December.

FCS.com: Looking ahead, what are your plans?
HR: I want to stay in event management. It’ll be whatever job offers are open for me after I’m done in December.

FCS.com: You had an amazing college career, but when you look back on it what will be the first memory that comes to mind? And what about the thing you’re most proud of?
HR: I think just being with the girls on the team and looking back at how hard everyone worked. We started out just wanting to see how far we could go and develop through the year. Every year Coach (Tim Walton) has an initial meeting and asks us to set a team goal. We set ours this year to win the national championship and it was cool because we all felt we could do it. Honestly, I felt in my career that every year we didn’t make it was a disappointment because of how hard we worked. I felt we deserved to be on the College World Series stage.

FCS.com: In the Championship Series, you beat Alabama in the first game yet when the lineups were announced for what would be the clinching win, you weren’t listed as the starter… what was going through your mind?
HR: Coach had told me that I wasn’t going to be starting, and I knew I had pitched every game, so I was fine with it. It was a chance to give the other pitchers a chance to play and it wasn’t new; Coach had done this in the past every time we played a team the second time in a row. I was OK with it, all three pitchers—me, Lauren (Haeger) and Delaney (Gourley) – are different in how we throw, so it was a great idea.

FCS.com: Let’s go back in time a bit: you won a high school state championship as a freshman in 2008 and an ASA National Championship that same year… what do you remember about those teams and who you were as a player?
HR: I remember how the players on both teams were hard workers but we still had a lot of fun; everyone got along and we had great players. I was young and I was pretty confident with what I was doing then. I had a good drop ball although I still had things to work on like my spin. I was pretty good at hitting spots high and low, although I was not as experienced. On the Hurricanes that year, my future teammate Stephanie Brombacher was the No. 1 pitcher when we won the championship.

FCS.com: When did you realize that you had the abilities to play at the college level? Was there an “aha” moment where you recognized that you were pretty good?
HR: I don’t think it was until I was asked to pitch for the Gold Coast Hurricanes, one of the top Gold teams in Florida that plays the top teams nationally, that I realized I could play at that level. The competition was really good on those teams—the players were better than me and I had to get mentally stronger to play as well as them. Along with Stephanie (Brombacher), we had Taylor Schwarz and Kirsti Merritt, who played at Florida with me, Rachele Fico who went to LSU and Leslie Jury who plays at Alabama.

FCS.com: Tell us about your recruiting situation as you got older, were you heavily recruited?
HR: Kind of. I wanted to go to Florida really bad, it was my No. 1 school, but I wasn’t recruited by all the big schools. My junior year I committed to Florida State but when Florida showed interest in me as a senior I de-committed and went on to sign with Florida. I had visited North Carolina and Central Florida unofficially, but it’s way different than it is now with girls committing in eighth grade!

FCS.com: What counsel would you give young players coming up today, both from a recruiting perspective and overall as a player in the game?
HR: The key thing is to work hard in the classroom. Staying on your grades will help you be more productive on the field; it helped me that way too. Also, it’s important to get on the right travel-ball team so you can work hard and put yourself in a position to be seen and recruited by a high level team.

FCS.com: What’s the best advice you were ever given?
HR: I think the advice that helped me the most had to do more with the mental side, being mentally prepared. I know a lot of young players struggle with confidence, and the advice that was important for me had to do with being confident and strong and not giving up. It’s the reason I don’t show a lot of emotion when I pitch; I want to appear confident and not show the other team anything even when I’m not throwing my best.

FCS.com: So as successful as you’ve been, you’ve had to keep your emotions in check?
HR: Yes, almost every season. There comes a point, especially early on, when you start getting hit or lose a game or two, maybe back-to-back loses, and you have to work hard to get it back. I work hard in the bullpen. I’ll work on 100 different things if I have to, but I know that in the end I will get back to normal. It can’t stay like that forever! I think what helps me is I stay positive. I can get over a bad game pretty easily. I know a lot of players will hold on or bring the problems to the next game and my advice to pitchers is to go to the bullpen and work hard to get to where you know you should be.