College Softball: Coming back better after an ACL injury.

“They walked me off the ledge, and I found a freedom I was looking for my whole life.”

Alyssa is a former University of Arizona softball player. Currently she is a University of Oregon softball coach and on staff with Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Learn more about the freedom Alyssa found overflowhope.org.

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Transcript
My name is Alyssa and I am a coach here at the University of Oregon for the softball team and I’m on staff with FCA. I played at the University of Arizona from 2015 to 2021 and freshman year going into Arizona I had just come off of playing with the Junior USA team. I was in probably the best shape of my life and my very first team practice you know tore my left ACL. I had never been taken from my sport before. I never not had the chance to be on the field so I was kind of lost. My whole identity was just in playing softball and being a softball player so I went to a really low point and at the time I had a boyfriend who didn’t love me the right way, was abusive in every way that you can think of and let that just sink me into a big hole and I just wanted it to end.

I wanted to be over with so had those thoughts of like I could end it right now and I just wanted to be over with. I just wanted to be over with. I just wanted to be over with. I just wanted to be over with. I just wanted to be over with. And I had teammates who pulled me off that ledge and was like no we need you here we need you to be with us and to be with this team even though like I couldn’t be on the field they just gave me a sense of we need you and that was enough for that moment to pull me away from that. Sophomore year my roommate Eva introduced me to church in Tucson took me to FCA.

We would sit at our kitchen table just having little Bible studies and I was still kind of wanting to live for the world. Partying finding my worth and other things that at that time what I thought was good enough and ended up tearing my other leg right before postseason so at that point I was like okay this is where a shift needs to happen like I need something to carry me through this not like last time because that hole was not fun so that’s where I kind of really held on to Jesus a little bit more to kind of get me through that second injury and to just understand that I’m more than just a softball player and I was more than what I did on the field then it was just time to move on and to really dig into what my life looks like with Jesus.

I think my life now is just being able to live in a freedom that I had been looking for my whole life my identity was softball player being a softball player and that was it so being able to play free in my last season and being able to come here and change the lives and be a part of something that changed my life when I was in college made something special and I just want to encourage people to be able to live in that freedom like I have.

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Overflow Hope

Local stories. Real hope in the Central Lane County community. These are the stories of people in the greater Eugene and Springfield, Oregon community who have experienced Jesus Christ change their lives. Their stories prove Christianity is more than religion and that it's possible to change your life. There is hope when you are hopeless, lack purpose or motivation, struggling with anxiety and depression, or just know there has to be more than life than this. We hope these stories show you that Jesus is alive, loving and willing to meet anyone who cries out to Him.

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